Post 24664
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Dismissing this slide, I watched along the range to the north and south, and from time to time saw the white scudding plumes of other slides, which, hidden in the cañons, were merrily coasting down from the steep-sloping crest.
These slides, unless they had run down an animal, did no damage. They were composed of freshly fallen snow and in their flight had moved in old channels that had been followed and perhaps formed by hundreds of slides in years gone by. Slides of this kind–those which accompany or follow each storm and which promptly make away with new-fallen snow by carrying it down through stream-channels–may be called Storm, or Flood, slides. These usually are formed in smooth gulches or on steep slopes.
The other kinds of slides may be called the Annual and the Century. In places of rough surface or moderate slope there must be a large accumulation of snow before a slide will start. Weeks or even months may pass before storm and wind assemble sufficient snow for a slide. Places of this kind commonly furnish but one slide a year, and this one in the springtime. At last the snow-drifts reach their maximum; warmth assists starting by melting snow-cornices that have held on through the winter; these drop, and by dropping often start things going. Crags wedged off by winter ice are also released in spring; and these, in going recklessly down, often knock hesitating snow-drifts into action. A fitting name for those slides that regularly run at the close of winter would be Spring, or Annual. These are composed of the winter’s local accumulation of snow and slide rock, and carry a much heavier percentage of rock-débris than the Storm slide carries. They transport from the starting-place much of the annual crumbling and the weatherings of air and water, along with the tribute pried off by winter’s ice levers; with this material from the heights also goes the year’s channel accumulation of débris. The Annual slide does man but little damage and, like the Flood slide, it follows the gulches and the water-courses.