The Greeley tribune., 1911-12-28
ENos MILLS TELLS OF AN
EXCITING EXpEEIENCE,


morning for the top of the san
Juan range OF tho Rockies in search
oil little inside information on the
subject of mountain slides. He got
there all right and was safely half
way down again when there sudden
iy appeared on the upper sleeps a
terrific outb rst as from an sy-
ploSlon. He knew then, he saws in
me spell OF the Rockies" (Hough-
ton, Mtitlin Coz. that general
slide had started. 1t was like the
end of the world-that laundering.
terrible, ear splitting, crashing
sound that was about him-and
NILS was much of the Impression
that his own end was near. Never
theless, he tells us:
Il whirled to escape, pointed my
skees down the slope-and went.
In less than half minute a tre-
mendous snow avalanche, one hun
dred or perhaps two hundred feet
deep and five or six hundred feet
long, Numbered over the spot where
| had stood.
There was no chance to dodge,
no time to climb out of the way
The only hope of escape lay in out
running the magnificent monster
1t came crashing and laundering af-
ter me as swift as a gale and more
all-sweeping and destructive than an
earthquake tidal wave.
Il made a desperate start. Eric
tion almost ceases to be factor
with skees on snowy steep, and in
less than hundred yards | was go
ing like the wind For the first
quarter of mile to the upper end
of the gulch was smooth coasting,
and down this | shot, with the ava
lanche, comet-tailed with snow-dust,
in close pursuit. A race for life
was on.
The gulch down which l must go
began with rocky gorge and con-
tinued downward. an enormous u
shaped depression between high
mountain ridges. Here and there
it expanded and then contracted,
and it was broken with granite
crags and ribs. 1t was piled and
bristled with ten thousand fire-killed
trees. To coast through all these
snow clad distractions at break
neck speed would be taking the
maximum number of life and death
chances in the minimum amount OF
time The worst of it all was that
l had never been through the place.
And bad enough, too, was the fact
that the ridge thrust in from the
left and completely hid the begin
ming of the gulch.
"As I shot across the lower point
the ridge. about to plunge blindl!
into the gorge. I thought of the pos
sibility of becoming entangled in
the hedge-like thickets of dwarfed
gnarled, timberlinc trees. l also
realized that l might dash agains
cliff or plunge into q deep canyon
or course, might strike an opel
way, but certain 1t was, l could no
stop, nor see the beginning OF th'
gorge, nor tell what / should strik'
when I shot over the ridge.
"It was a second of most intens'
concern as l cleared the ridge blind
ly to go into what lay below and be
yond. 1t was like leaping into th'
dark and with the leap turning OIL
the all revealing light. AS l CLEARED
the ridge there was just time to pull
myself together for a forty-odd-foo
leap across one arm of the horseshoe
shaped end of the gorge. In all m
wild mountainside coasts on skees
never have l sped SO swiftly as whel
I made this mad flight. AS l sho
through the air, had glimps'
down into the pointed. snow-ladeI
tops of few fir trees that wer'
firmly rooted among the rocks in tn
bottom of the gorge. Luckily,
cleared the gorge and and
landed in a good place; but 80 mar
rowly did l miss the corner OF
cliff that my shadow collided with 1t
There was no time to bid fare
we'll to fears when the slide start
ed, nor to entertain them while run
ming away from it. Instinct put MI
to flight; the situation set my wit
working at their best. and, once
started, 1 could neither stop mol
look back; and so thick and fas
did distractions and dangers aris'
before me that only dimly and IN
cidentally did 1 think of the oneom
ing danger behind.
II came down on the further side
of the gorge, to glance forward Ak'