Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1898 — MANX,JURIED ALIVE. [ARTICLE]

MANX,JURIED ALIVE.

DEATH t lES AN AVALANCHE IN & ILKOOT PASS. Gold-Seekent Are Swept Down by the Score-Full Extent of the Disaster Not Known—One Hnndred Argonauts May Have Perished. Trail Strewn with Dead. Lost Sunday afternoon a disastrous Bnowslide overwhelmed Cbilkoot Pass .while it was crowded with miners. It is thought that there are no less than 100 victims, representing nearly every State in the Union. Thirty-one bodies had been recovered when the news was sent. The accident occurred in* the afternoon, after a heavy chinook wind had softened the snow and ice. The point of the disaster was about midway between Stonehouse and the Soak's. A brief account of the accident was brought to Seattle by the steamer Alki. The story was telephoned from Dyea to Skaguay just before the steamer sailed. It is known that several women were among the victims. Fully 100 people were overtaken by the slide and were either buried in the snow or scattered along the borders of the avalanche in a more or less injured condition. The point at which the accident occurred is some five miles above Sheep Camp. The nearest telephone station is four miles distant. The telephone wires at Dyea were carried away by the slide. A blinding snowstorm was raging all day upon the summit, and as a consequence many of those in the vicinity were making no attempt to travel. There had been a preliminary snowslide at 2 o'clock in the morning and people on the trail were digging out their goods when the second and disastrous slide occurred. Thousands of people were encamped in the vicinity of the accident at the time and were soon upon the scene rendering such assistance as possible. Thousands of Tons of Snow. All day Saturday and Sunday a southerly storm, with rain, wind and snow, prevailed in the vicinity, and it is believed the softening of the snow on the mountain side by those; agencies was the cause of the avalanche. The quantity of snow and ice, that came down in the slide is estimated at thousands of tons. It swept directly across the trail, which, notwithstanding the fact that the weather was unsuitable for travel, was thronged with wayfarers. The last vestige of the trail in the Vicinity was wiped out of existence, and where it led is now a mountain of snow and ice, under which are many dead bodies that cannot be recovered for many days to come. At Stonehouse the'valley narrows to a width of about 150 yards, walled in by sheer and slight wooded cliffs reaching from the east Of the trail to almost a vertical glacier which is variously estimated from 18,000 to 20,000 feet from base to crown. Within the shadow of this majestic cliff stood a little c-olony of tents, many of whose occupants were awakened only by the grip of death to fight for life against a rain erf ice and rock that in a few minutes had buried the little white village under thirty feet of avalanche debris. Not a few were mercifully spared a waking death, being crushed as they slept, with no forewarning of the disaster that was to overwhelm them. Witnesses say that it seemed as though the entire face of the great white wall had been suddenly by some unseen hand hurled down with frightful velocity on its inissiou of destruction, the roar of the slide being plainly heard several miles away. Men and women who were overwhelmed htay have realized what happened, but they had- no possible opportunity to escape. The high waves of snow had buffeted and tossed, coffined and graved them in au instant, l>efore they could cry their agony. And only a great silence and a vast mound of snow marked where humanity and hope reigned but a moment before. Rescue parties were immediately organized and at least 2,000 men were soon at work. The bodies were found in all sorts of attitudes, and almost every face bore the expression of intense terror photographed upon it by slow death. Those whose lives had been crushed out at once were easily distinguished by their facial placidity and the undisturbed condition of the snow entombing them. The slides were caused by a rise in the atmospheric temperature, occasioned by the warm wind that had been blowing from the south for several days. Although snow-laden, this breeze is balmy enough to thaw the icy waters of the mountains.