The document describes a man who went snowshoeing on a steep, snow-covered mountain slope near the Continental Divide. Looking down the slope from where he stood, he saw that the land was completely covered in deep snow for over 100 miles to the west. Struck by the steep slope, he imagined how fun it would be to sled down it with other boys. He sat down on his snowshoes and began coasting down the slope at exceedingly fast speeds, reaching nearly 1000 feet in half a mile. Near the bottom, he was launched several feet in the air over a smooth, icy patch before crashing into deep snow at the end.
The document describes a man who went snowshoeing on a steep, snow-covered mountain slope near the Continental Divide. Looking down the slope from where he stood, he saw that the land was completely covered in deep snow for over 100 miles to the west. Struck by the steep slope, he imagined how fun it would be to sled down it with other boys. He sat down on his snowshoes and began coasting down the slope at exceedingly fast speeds, reaching nearly 1000 feet in half a mile. Near the bottom, he was launched several feet in the air over a smooth, icy patch before crashing into deep snow at the end.
The document describes a man who went snowshoeing on a steep, snow-covered mountain slope near the Continental Divide. Looking down the slope from where he stood, he saw that the land was completely covered in deep snow for over 100 miles to the west. Struck by the steep slope, he imagined how fun it would be to sled down it with other boys. He sat down on his snowshoes and began coasting down the slope at exceedingly fast speeds, reaching nearly 1000 feet in half a mile. Near the bottom, he was launched several feet in the air over a smooth, icy patch before crashing into deep snow at the end.
But looking down the slope to the west everything was
white. From afew hundred feet below where I was standing and westward for one hundred miles, snow lay deep over everything; forests, mountains, and valleys were all in white. It frequently happens that while one mountainous region is very wintry, another locality on the opposite side of the same mountains may be having mild weather. These conditions are often found along opposite sides of the Continental Divide; occasionally there is a storm on the eastern side and not on the western, and sometimes it is cold on the western side while there is warm sunshine on the eastern. I stood looking westward at this steep, snowy slope down the very roof of the world. What a place to coast! I at once wished for a dozen other boys to try it with me. This would be the place for speed—steep places with long plunges—great rushes through the air. Hills and special toboggan slides would be gentle and tame compared with this steep, wild mountain-side. Wading out into the snow, I sat down on my snow-shoes, and away we went, coasting toward Pacific sea-level. Of course I exceeded the speed limit. The smooth slope dropped nearly a_ thousand feet in a half mile. ‘Toward the bottom I struck the smooth- est place of all. Here was a spring that had overflowed before the snow fell and coated the slope with almost smooth ice. Over this icy slope I went like a rocket. Near the bottom it flattened out abruptly, and I was shot several feet into the air over a rainbow pathway—like a football kicked for a goal. At the highest point I looked down into the tops of timber-line trees. After twenty or thirty feet through the air I came back to earth and swept forward and downward at a hair-raising pace. One of the dwarfed little trees that barely stuck up through the snow caught into my snow-shoe and hung on. The shoe was torn off and left hanging on the tree-top, while I tumbled head over heels into four feet of snow. But this was the greatest coast I had ever had. I looked