Post 05816
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Snow-slides may be said to have habits. Like water, they are governed by gravity. Both in gulches and on mountain-sides, they start most readily on steep and comparatively smooth slopes. If a snow-drift is upon a thirty-degree incline, it may almost be pushed into sliding with a feather. A slope more steeply inclined than thirty degrees does not offer a snow-drift any visible means of support. Unless this slope be broken or rough, a snow-drift may slide off at any moment.
In the course of a winter, as many as half a dozen slides may start from the same place and each shoot down through the same gorge or over the same slope as its predecessor. Only so much snow can cling to a slope; therefore the number of slides during each winter is determined by the quantity of snow and the character of the slope. As soon as snow is piled beyond the holding-limit, away starts the slide. A slide may have slipped from this spot only a few days before, and here another may slip away a few days later; or a year may elapse before another runs. Thus local topography and local weather conditions determine local slide habits,–when a slide will start and the course over which it will run.
The prospector was snoring before the first far-off thunder was heard. Things were moving. Seashore storm sounds could be heard in the background of heavy rumbling. This thunder swelled louder until there was a heavy rumble everywhere. Then came an earthquake jar, closely followed by a violently explosive crash. A slide was upon us! A few seconds later tons of snow fell about us, crushing the trees and wrecking the cabin. Though we escaped without a scratch, a heavy spruce pole, a harpoon flung by the slide, struck the cabin at an angle, piercing the roof and one of the walls.