Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1902 — RIDING ON AN AVALANCHE. [ARTICLE]

RIDING ON AN AVALANCHE.

Down a Steep Canyon Wltfcowt a Braise or a Sear.

Few mountaineers go far enough into the avalanche regions to see much of them, and fewer still know the thrilling exhilaration of riding on them, says John Muir in The Atlantic. In all my wild mountaineering I have enjoyed only one avalanche ride, and the start was so sudden and the end cam* mod I though but little of the dnagsr that goes wt* i this sort of travel, though one thlr? fast at such times.

One ealm, bright morning in Yosemite, after a hearty storm had given three or four feet of fresh snow to the mountains, being eager to see as many avalanches as possible and gain wide views of the peaks and forests arrayed In their new robes before the sunshine had time to change or rearrange them, I set out early to climb by a side canyon to the top of a commanding ridge a little over 3,000 feet above the valley. But I was not to get top views of any sort that day, but instead of these something quite different, for deep trampling near the canyon head where the snow was strained started an avalanche, ffntHwasswishedback down to the foot of the canyon as if by enchantment. The plodding, wallow-

ing ascent of about a mile had taken all day, the undoing descent perhaps about a minute.

When the snow suddenly gave way, I Instinctively threw myself on my back and spread my arms to try to keep from sinking. Fortunately, though the grade of the canyon was steep, it was not interrupted by step levels or precipices big enough to cause outbounding or free plunging. On no part of the rush was I buried. I was only moderately imbedded on the surface or a little below it and covered with a hissing back streaming veil, and as the whole mass beneath or about me joined in the flight I felt no friction, though to«S2tl here and there and lurched from jfxle to side, and whan the torrent wedged and came to rsat I found myself on the top of the crumpled pile, without a single bruise or scar.

Hawthorne says that steam has spir-

itualized travel, notwithstanding the smoke, friction, smells and clatter of boat and rail riding. This flight in a milky way of snow flowers was the most spiritual of all my travels, and after many years the mere thought of It Is still an exhilaration.