Coming down the White Pass—Winter.
It is true that an unfortunate fall at one time almost deprived me of my animal, but the service of tackle soon put him to rights and to his feet, and but few blood marks were left on the rocks to tell of the struggle. The most disagreeable incident of the journey was a dense and shifting fog, which so blocked out the landscape of early evening as to necessitate "feeling" the brokenness of a glaciated country in order to ascertain wherein lay the trail. But beyond this there was a perpetual delight in the landscape—in the narrow rocky defile, the bursting torrent, the open meadows, with their carpet of green and variegated with fireweed, gentian, rose, and forget-me-not, which more than compensated for the little vexations that allied themselves with the journey.
It is not often that the selection of a route of travel is determined by the odorous or malodorous qualities which appertain thereto. Such a case was, however, presented here. It was not the depth of mud alone which was to deter one from essaying the White Pass route; sturdy pioneers who had toiled long and hard in opening up one or more new regions, laid emphasis upon the stench of decaying horse-flesh as a factor of first consideration in the choice of route. So far as stench and decaying horse-flesh were concerned, they were in strong evidence. The Desert of Sahara, with its lines of skeletons, can boast of no such exhibition of carcasses. Long before Bennett was reached I had taken count of more than a thousand unfortunates whose bodies now made part of the trail; frequently we were obliged to pass directly over these ghastly figures of hide, and sometimes, indeed, broke into them. Men whose veracity need not be questioned assured me that what I saw was in no way the full picture of the "life" of the trail; the carcasses of that time were less than one third of the full number which in April and May gave grim character to the route to the new Eldorado. Equally spread out, this number would mean one dead animal for every sixty feet of distance! The poor beasts succumbed not so much to the hardships of the trail as to the inhuman treatment, or lack of care and assistance, which they received on the part of their owners. Once out of the line of the mad rush, perhaps unable to extricate themselves from the holding meshes of soft snow and of quagmires, they were allowed to remain where they were, a food offering to the army of carrion eaters which were hovering about, only too certain of the meal which was being prepared for them. Oftentimes pack saddles, and sometimes even the packs, were allowed to remain with the struggling or sunken animal—such was the mad race which the greed of gold inspired.
Cutting Grade for the Pacific and Arctic Railway—Tunnel Mountain, White Pass Route.
On October 9th I was again at Bennett, this time returning from my journey into the interior, and full of experience of what steam navigation on the upper six hundred miles of Yukon waters might mean. There was now a change in the sentiment regarding the quality of the two passes. The Pacific and Arctic Railway, the pioneer of Alaska steam railways, was operating twelve miles of track, and had thus materially reduced the "hardships" of the Skaguay trail; the Chilkoot, on the other hand, was represented to be in the worst of mood, and prepared to put the passing traveler into the same condition. It was more than late in the season, but the winter's blasts had been stayed off by a full month, and there were still no signs of their coming. A little ice had begun to form along the river's margin and over sheltered pools, and an occasional cool night made demands for moderately warm clothing proper; but, on the whole, the temperature was mild and balmy, and to its influence responded a vegetation which in its full glory might easily have called to mind the region of the Juniata.
Although strongly warned against taking the Chilkoot Pass so late in the season, many of the outgoers, whose recollections of events in the early part of the year were still vividly fresh, and who could not be persuaded that the period of a few months had so effaced the conditions of the past as to permit a steam railway to enter for twelve miles into the region, chose it in preference to the White Pass. My own mind had been cast in the same direction; not, however, from a point of judicious preference, but merely because I was anxious to see for myself that which had become historic in the movement of 1898, and of instituting a direct comparison of the physical features and general characteristics of the two routes. With no serious hindrance, the journey from Bennett out was that of a full day only, and there was no particular reason to suspect that there would be delay. Snow had fallen on the summit and whitened all the higher points, but seemingly it hung in only a measurably thin crust, and with not enough to necessitate breaking a trail.
A crude steam ferry across Lake Lindeman cuts off about six miles from the first part of the trail, after which a rapidly rising path, sufficiently distinct to permit it to be easily followed, winds over the rocks and among rock débris to Long Lake, situated at an elevation of some twenty-six hundred feet, where night shelter is found in a fairly comfortable tent. Up to this point we had encountered but little snow, and the condition of the trail was such as to allow of rapid travel. A wise caution detained us here for the night, and the incoming of a solitary traveler warned us that a blizzard had struck the summit of the pass, and buried it beneath a heavy mantle of snow. Had we been a day earlier we might have crossed dry shod, a very exceptional condition at this time of the year, but now the possibilities of a struggle gravely presented themselves. A light frost of the night had fairly congealed the soil, but the lake did not carry enough surface ice to interfere with the progress of a scow, and we reached the farther end without difficulty. The two-mile portage to Crater Lake was largely a snow traverse, but an easy one; at this time, however, it began to snow heavily, and the immediate prospect was anything but cheerful. A low fog hung over the waters, but not so low or so dense as to prevent us from occasionally catching glimpses of the rocks which projected with disagreeable frequency from an assumed bottomless pit or "crater." The ascent from Crater Lake to the summit, somewhat less than three hundred and fifty feet, was made in about half an hour, and then began the steep and sudden plunge which marks the southern declivity of this famous mountain pass. Some little caution was here required to keep a foothold, and a too sudden break might have led to an exhilarating, even if not anxiously sought after, glissade; but in truth, to any one only moderately practiced in mountaineering, even this steep face, which descends for a thousand feet or more from a summit elevation of thirty-four hundred feet, presents little difficulty and hardly more danger. What there is of a trail zigzags in wild and rapid courses over an almost illimitable mass of rock débris, at times within sheltered or confined hollows, but more generally on the open face of the declivity. This it is more particularly that carries to many a certain amount of fear in the making of the passage, but, with proper caution and the right kind of boots, nothing of danger need be apprehended.
Unfortunately for the enjoyment of the scenery of the pass, I could see but a modest part of it. Although snow was no longer falling, and the atmosphere had settled down to a condition of almost passive inactivity—much to the surprise, if not disappointment, of a few who had prophesied a stiff and biting wind the moment we passed the divide—heavy cloud banks hovered about the summits, and only at intervals did they afford glimpses of the majestic mountain peaks by which we were surrounded. Enough, however, could be seen to justify for the pass the claims of most imposing scenery, and its superiority in this respect over the White Pass. The temperature at the time of our crossing was a few degrees below freezing, perhaps 25° or 27° F., but our rapid walk brought on profuse perspiration, and it would have been a pleasure, if a sense of proper caution had permitted, to divest ourselves of mackinaws and travel in summer fashion. We made Sheep Camp, with its surroundings of beautiful woodland, shortly after noon, and Cañon City, which, as the terminus of a good coach road to Dyea, virtually marks the end or beginning of the Chilkoot trail, at two o'clock.