254 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



learn that some of these colossal avalanches occur 

 only once in about a century, or even at still 

 wider intervals. 



Few mountaineers go far enough, during the 

 snowy months, to see many avalanches, and 

 fewer still know the thrilling exhilaration of rid- 

 ing on them. In all my wild mountaineering I 

 have enjoyed only one avalanche ride ; and the 

 start was so sudden, and the end came so soon, 

 I thought but little of the danger that goes with 

 this sort of travel, though one thinks fast at such 

 times. One calm, 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 canon to the top of a command- 

 ing ridge a little over three thousand feet above 

 the valley. On account of the looseness of the 

 snow that blocked the canon I knew the climb 

 would be trying, and estimated it might require 

 three or four hours. But it proved far more 

 difficult than I had foreseen. Most of the way I 

 sank waist-deep, in some places almost out of 

 sight ; and after spending the day to within half 

 an hour of sundown in this loose, baffling snow 

 work, I was still several hundred feet below the 

 summit. Then my hopes were reduced to get- 



