OBSTRUCTIONS FROM SNOW IN MOUNTAIN PASSES. 
81 
neutralizing its injurious effects, a material change of climate, providing a greatly increased 
amount of aqueous vapor, would be requisite to bring any considerable extent of this arid territory 
under cultivation. It is not too much, therefore, to say, that, unless this interior country possesses 
undiscovered mineral wealth of great value, it can contribute but the merest trifle towards the 
maintenance of a railroad through it, after it shall have been constructed. But for the support 
of small posts and stations, at suitable intervals for protecting and operating a railroad, there are 
sufficient lands on this line capable of cultivation at points already indicated. 
The positive evidence existing with regard to the depth of snow which annually falls upon this 
line, is very limited. The number of small parties, however, which annually cross the Plains 
during the winter months, transacting business, and carrying the mails to and from New Mexico 
and Utah, would seem to leave no doubt as to the practicability of crossing them successfully in 
winter by railroad. Our guide in the Sangre de Cristo Pass crossed it in February, 1853, a win¬ 
ter of great severity, and more than usual fall of snow. He represents it to have been, at that 
time, ten feet deep in the small ravines of the pass, while the ridges were nearly bare; and that 
he was occupied seven or eight days in making the crossing, which, in summer, is easily made in 
two. Mounted troops, in pursuit of Indians, have occasionally crossed this pass in midwinter 
and early spring; but this is a hazardous undertaking. During the winter of 1852-’53, the snow 
at Fort Massachusetts, which is situated in a sheltered valley under the Sierra Blanca, about 
seventeen miles from the summit of this pass, is represented, by the army officers stationed there, 
to have been very dry, and about two feet deep. The vegetation and timber in the passes upon 
this line, offer no discoverable snow marks in summer, indicating its winter depth. But from the 
information which I have gained from trappers and other persons, more or less familiar in winter 
with the country west from Fort Massachusetts, I have little doubt that the depths of snow in the 
valleys, generally, may be safely estimated not to exceed that of the Plains, as the mountains are 
approached from the east. And its depth in the Sangre de Cristo Pass, from its altitude and sim¬ 
ilar position, may undoubtedly be taken as a very near approximation to that of the other passes 
of the Sierra Blanca range, of the Coochetopa and Wahsatch passes, and of the entire canon 
section of Grand river above the Uncompahgra, and it must to the same extent be regarded as 
formidable in these localities as in that pass. There is danger, however, of over-estimating the 
obstructions arising from snow in mountain passes, where its fall over the general surface of the 
country is not sufficiently great to offer a general obstruction to the operation of railroads. It is 
well known that in snowy countries, where roads are worked over rolling prairies, or among 
ordinary hills, small cuts are greatly more liable to obstruction from snow-drifts than deep cuts, 
(artificial passes,) the snow accumulating in, and filling up the former, while in the latter the 
drifts are deposited just below the crests of the excavations, or the cuts are kept clear of snow by 
the currents of wind which sweep through them. It is usual, therefore, to erect snow fences 
eight or ten feet high, a few feet without the crests of small cuts in such localities, to secure the 
tracks from snow. In mountain passes, therefore, if the same causes operate upon a large as well 
as upon a small scale, where the crests of the gorges are hundreds, and frequently thousands of 
feet above the passes through which powerful storms and currents of wind sweep, there would 
seem to be little danger of obstructions arising from drifts of snow only; and did not the passes them¬ 
selves contain numerous small ravines in which drifts accumulate, it is perhaps doubtful whether 
they would not be even less obstructed by snow than the more open valleys. The statements of 
all the persons with whom T have conversed, who have had experience in the mountains of our 
great interior territories, under widely different localities and latitudes, confirm, or rather have 
suggested to me, this view of the action of the winds upon snows in mountain passes. They 
represent the main difficulty which they have encountered in passing them,, to have been in cross¬ 
ing the small side or lateral ravines which expend high up the sides of the passes, and cannot be 
turned by their heads, and are obstructed below by other causes. The ridges and deep ravines 
extending into passes, are usually but slightly obstructed, depending, however, in this respect, 
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