SNOWSLIDES 187 



faced me and above this a precipitous walled 

 peak stood up in the sky far above the timber- 

 line. 



In rushing forward to see it I narrowly missed 

 running in front of a monstrous breaker of a 

 slide that was rushing up the slope. Rocks, 

 dirty snow, and broken trees were tumbling in 

 its front. Several broken trees stuck forward 

 from its front at a dangerous angle: two of 

 these dropped into the snow in front and were 

 explosively torn out and crushed beneath the 

 rushing mass. 



This slide was a ponderous and chaotic affair. 

 It had started on the peak opposite and about 

 two thousand feet higher than where it nearly 

 caught me. Down more than a mile of steep 

 slope it had smashed its way, bringing trash, 

 snow, and hundreds of trees with it. It must 

 have been moving at high speed when it reached 

 the bottom, and it was not in low gear when it 

 passed me. And I was a quarter of a mile above 

 the bottom. 



On it rushed still full of mountain momen- 

 tum. Less than two hundred feet up the slope 

 it rushed over the top of a ridge, rammed a gi- 

 gantic snow cornice, filled the air with flying 

 snow masses, and disappeared over the top in a 

 whirling cloud of snowy white. By the time I 

 reached the top it was tearing down the slope 



