Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1909-07-15

suddenly revealed ana as suddenly
closed again, the awful chasms, opened
and shut so swiftly, throw the imagi-
nation into a state of disorder that /
adds enormously to the confusing gran
deur of the spectacle. Only few
days ago, while climbing across the /
middle slopes OF the Blumlsalp. l was
fortunate enough TO see the pageant
in all its splendor. The hot spring sun
shine Joined forces wit, the snow
cooled air to produce vast chaos OF
cloudland Far below, the huge trough
of the Oschinen See was filled with
seething vapour. that lose and fell as
the winds directed It, allowing occa-
sional glimpses into the green glac-
Ter water through profound tunnels
of mist. yet as a whole, climbing grad
ually upward to where we stood.
Overhead, the SUBMITS rose clear in
a sky Of summer blue, With the single
exception of the great Doldenhorn,
where an immense cloud. forever shift
ing. and shedding whole precipices on
its way, moved off laboriously till 1t
was caught by the air-draughts from
the eastern Thai. and myseriously
spirited out of sight 4ltogether.
But. meanwhile. the sea of vapour at
our feet had risen till it spread in
single plain OF white that somehow
made one think of Shelley's plat
forms of the wind become visible.
This sea was without a break. APP
parently, too, it was motioniess; yet,
on looking closer through field-glasses,
it showed itself really alive with move.
ment; the rising and falling of waves
riffs with fringed and jagged edges
shooting in all directions, though rev.
er high enough to destroy the gen
eral effect of calm surface. There
were swift draughts and whirlwinds
astir through the entire mass. 1t was
the glasses. Of course. that betrayed
the colossal scale of the thing. Far
below us, from some steep slope hid
/ den beneath the sea Of mist, there
rose a curious long-drawn sound that
at first suggested nothing we could
rrecogniz 1t was only a few minutes
, later when the thunder followed that
3 we realized an avalanche had plunged
] into the gulf First we heard the hiss
D, ing of the sheet of sliding snow-that
9 awful kissing that more than any
f thing else strikes error to the heart
! of the climber. t rose up to as
( through the mist as he sound Of an
z explosion might rise through the depths
y of the sea. Then. as the mass fell
o from ledge to ledge and finally dropped
y over the last dizzy cliff into the Os
S chinen See, we heard the laundering
S roar that echoed below behind and
t. overhead, and later felt the icy wind
o that followed the displacement Of the
d air. Yet no signs were otherwise Wis
s ible. The surface Of the mistsea re
D. NAMED untroubled. Nothing stirred
h only the mighty sounds and the mes
J. sage of the loosed wind. And, far over
e. head, the iron battlements of rocl
D. stood serene and terrible. their foun
It dations rising out of the vast platform
= Of vapour that wrapped them abou
T. like an ocean. their SUBMITS Of shin
e ing ice inhabited by the flames Of The
s. sunshine.
y Yet, several hours later. when w
e watched the same mountains from tn
D. safety Of the comfortable Gemmi he
tel and listened to the warnings o
Herr Dettlebach. the proprietor. abou
IS spring avalanches. It all seemed some
N how unreal-the scenery all incredible
lie and phantasmal as with the colorin
8; Of a splendid dream. The clouds hai
e. risen; like fragments OF flying FIR
IN they foated far overhead now in IA
rs sunset IL became impossible to Sc
D. again that ocean Of mist What W
had seen was no scenery Of the know
Is world. II belonged. surely. 10 ID
sD scenery Of such dreams as carry III
Ie- imagination into the beyond-into II
Is. finite distances above the clouds.