To a mountaineer or traveler of ordinary resource neither the White Pass nor the Chilkoot Pass will appear other than it actually is—i. e., a mountain pass, sufficiently rough and precipitous in places, and presenting no serious obstacle to the passage of man, woman, or child. True, I did not see them at their worst, but they were both represented to be frightfully bad even at the time of my crossing. The seasonal effects, doubtless, do much to modify the character of the trails, and even local conditions must mold them to a very considerable extent. It is not difficult to conceive of miry spots along the White Pass trail, or of snow-swept areas on the Chilkoot, and there certainly must be times when both trails are in a measure or way impassable. All trails are, however, subject to modifications in character, and even the best is at times sufficiently bad. Trains of pack animals cross the White Pass both winter and summer, and, even with the great loss to their "forefathers," their testimony of steady work is a recommendation of the class of service in which they are engaged. A limited number of cattle and horses have also found their way over the summit of the Chilkoot Pass—some crossing immediately after us—but the trail is too steep on the ocean side to fit it for animal service, although I strongly suspect that were the location in Mexico instead of in Alaska, there would be a goodly number of caballeros and arrieros to smile at the proposition of presented difficulties. Indian women seem to consider it no hardship to pack a fifty-pound sack of flour and more over the summit, and there are many men who do not hesitate to take double this load, and make several journeys during the same day. It is the load that kills, and it was, doubtless, this influence, united to a cruel method, which so strongly impressed the pioneers with the notion of extreme hardship. The most level and perfect road, to one carrying for miles a pack of from sixty to eighty pounds, soon begins to loom up a steep incline.
The Final Ascent to Chilkoot Summit—Winter.
Both the northern and southern slopes of the Chilkoot Pass are largely surfaced with shattered rocks, over which, with occasional deflections across more pleasant snow banks, a fairly well-defined trail mounts on either side to the summit. In its grim landscape effects, more particularly on the inner face, where a number of rock-bound tarns—Crater Lake, Long Lake, Deep Lake—afford a certain relief to the degree of desolation which the scene carries, it reminded me much of the famous Grimsel Pass, and here as well as there the modeling of the surface through glacial action was strongly in evidence. The vastly towering Alpine peaks were, however, wanting, and the glaciers that still appeared showed that they had long since passed their better days. The actual summit is trenched by a narrow rocky gap, roughly worn through walls of granite, and by it have passed the thousands who have pressed to the interior. There is no timber growth at or near this summit, nor is there soil sufficient to give support to an arboreal vegetation. Nearest to the top line a prostrate form of scrubby hemlock (Tsuga Pattoniana) alone makes pretense to being a tree, but below it of itself grows to majestic proportions, and about "Sheep Camp," with Menzie's spruce, a birch, and cottonwood (Populus balsamifera), forms part of the beautiful woodland, which with ever-increasing freshness descends to the lower levels.
Lest I be accused of too freely seeing the beauties of the northern landscape, I venture in my defense the following graphic description of the Dyea Valley from the pen of another traveler and geologist, Prof. Israel Russell: "In the valley of the Taiya the timber line is sharply drawn along the bordering cliffs at an elevation of about twenty-five hundred feet. Above that height the mountain sides are stern and rugged; below is a dense forest of gigantic hemlocks, festooned with long streamers of moss, which grows even more luxuriantly than on the oaks of Florida. The ground beneath the trees and the fallen monarchs of the forest are densely covered with a soft, feathery carpet of mosses, lichens, and ferns of all possible tints of brown and green. The day I traversed this enchanted valley was bright and sunny in the upper regions, but the valley was filled with drifting vapors. At one minute nothing would be visible but the somber forest through which the white mist was hurrying; and the next the veil would be swept aside, revealing with startling distinctness the towering mountain spires, snowy pinnacles, and turquoise cliffs of ice towering heavenward. These views through the cloud rifts seemed glimpses of another world. Below was a sea of surging branches that filled all the valley bottom and dashed high on the bordering cliffs. Much space could be occupied with descriptions of the magnificent scenery about Lynn Canal, and of the wonderful atmospheric effects to be seen there, but the poetry of travel is foreign to these pages, and must be left for more facile pens."
The Chilkoot Trail—Power House of the Aërial Tramway.
In its present condition the Chilkoot trail has the advantage over the Skaguay in its shorter length, the distance from Dyea to the head of Lake Lindeman, the virtual head of river navigation, being about twenty-four miles; from Skaguay to Bennett, along the usual White Pass trail, the distance is fully ten or twelve miles longer, although a cut-off by way of the summit lakes reduces the traverse considerably. At intervals along both routes fairly good accommodation can now be had. One condition of the Chilkoot Pass, and that a not altogether light one, places it during certain months at a disadvantage as compared with the White Pass. I refer to the dangers from avalanches. These are of the true Alpine type, having their source in the heavy beds of snow which cling with bare support to the steeply pitching mountain walls, in places along some of the narrowest parts of the pass. The appalling catastrophe of April, 1898, which caused the loss of sixty-three lives, and followed closely upon an earlier event of like nature, had its seat in the steep, rocky ledges of the east wall between Sheep Camp and the Scales. It is claimed that the Indians along the trail clearly foresaw the impending event, and announced it in unmistakable language, but their warnings were allowed to go unheeded. They themselves did not make the traverse on that day. The minor disaster of the following December (9th), when but six lives were sacrificed, took place on the steep declivity which faces Crater Lake, not far from the service house of the Chilkoot Pass Aërial Tramway Company. Here the mountain face is very precipitous and gives but insecure lodgment to the snow. The Indians carefully watch all natural signals and urge a rapid journey. However useful these trails may have been in the past, how well or how indifferently they may have met the wants of the pioneers of 1897 and 1898, they are destined before long to be thrown into that same obscurity which they held when the Indians and a few adventurous trappers and traders alone made use of them as avenues of communication between the inner and outer worlds. The advance of the iron horse is now an assured fact, and the Pacific and Arctic Railway, whose construction is engineered by some of the most experienced mechanical talent of Great Britain and America, will minister before many months not alone to the professional interlopers in the new land, but to hosts of tourists as well. The road, which in reaching White Pass summit will have a maximum gradient of a little more than five per cent, is of narrow-gauge construction, solidly supported on dressed ties brought from the forests of Oregon. No terminal appears to have been as yet definitely determined upon, although the charter act recites Fort Selkirk on the Yukon, about one hundred and sixty miles above Dawson, as such. Operating as it now does sixteen miles or more of road, it is already an extensive freight carrier; but until its completion to Bennett or to some point close to a navigable part of the Yukon River, the Chilkoot Pass tramway, a remarkable construction which crosses over the summit and deposits at Crater Lake, must continue to handle a large part of the business intended for the interior.
Summit of the Chilkoot Pass, with Impedimenta of Prospectors, April, 1898.