n6 THE ADVENTURES OF A NATURE GUIDE 



Finally it slid out on a level flat and after a wild 

 coast of three miles came to a sudden standstill. 



In stopping, the bottom appeared to put on 

 brakes and drag heavily, the top to pitch forward, 

 and the upbursting bottom to mingle with it. 

 When it stopped it was a dark dump of convulsed 

 snow that covered an area about three blocks long, 

 one wide, and perhaps fifty feet deep. The wreck- 

 age was a gray, concrete-like mass of snow, earth, 

 gravel, and stones. 



One summer, a few years later, I saw the rem- 

 nant of this snowslide. Most of the snow and 

 ice had melted. Viewed from the top of the ridge 

 across which it had rushed the remaining wreckage 

 appeared like the ruins of a huge building in a little 

 grassy plain. Conies and marmots had taken 

 possession of the crumbling earth and stones. 



Commonly a snowslide follows a gulch and does 

 not race so wildly. The slide to be feared is the 

 one that takes a new route, running amuck and 

 smashing obstacles. The big slide described was 

 an unusual one of this type. Such a slide may be 

 the result of a snowdrift in a new place, may be 

 caused by the wind blowing from an unusual quar- 

 ter, or may be started by a land or rock slide or the 

 undermining of an old snow pile. 



As soon as the slide stopped I started along the 

 wreck-strewn way over which it had run. It had 

 travelled a crooked course and opened a ragged 

 channel through the snow. Its widest track was 



