On this his first mail run, he purposely chose the nearest clear day to a full moon. Having left the American river behind, he decided to press on. He would travel up the western range until he could see the distant eastern range and the valley which separated the two. The Norwegian travelled more than forty miles, and well into the night, before he stopped. He chose to make camp by the side of a small, slanting, dead fir. He cut the lower limbs off of another fir, dug a hole in the snow, and lined it with enough branches to create a soft bed. He chopped kindling and built a fire underneath the dead tree. The improvised bed was on the opposite side to the slant of the small tree, and he lay with his feet towards the fire. He put the mail bag under his head, pulled his big hat over his eyes, and went to sleep.
He awoke maybe five hours later. The burning tree had collapsed, as he had expected, but it had fallen harmlessly into the snow. It was cold, it was dark, and the fire had largely burnt out but some of the charcoal still glowed. He placed some of his home made biscuits carefully in among the glowing embers. Melted enough snow to make a three-quarter cup of warm coffee and ate the toasted biscuits, before continuing on.
He planned to stop again in the middle of day, when the softened snow made his progress slower. His aim was to reach the top of the eastern range by the end of his second day. Having gotten to the top of the western range, the next ten to fifteen miles would be mostly downhill, and he hoped he would be in the Lake Valley area before the sun came up.
He looked down from the ridge. Going downhill would be faster but certainly a lot more dangerous. He took it cautiously through the trees. When he came to a clearing, the snow looked like a motionless sea. Everything looked blue in the light of the full moon; it was a beautiful sight, but he was not going to stop to admire it. Having struggled uphill for most of the previous day, he was now looking forward to making some rapid progress. The Norwegian swung his pole into the horizontal position and skated down the initial slope. Gravity took over and he went into the tuck position. As he picked up considerable speed, the snow covered rocks, and the snow laden trees, blurred as he flew by them.
Four days later, Jack Glenville had just finished digging his way to the trail outside his cabin. He knew nothing of the Norwegian who was delivering the mail over the Sierras. Jack had built his cabin on the Johnson’s Cut-Off, halfway between the pass and Placerville. At this time of year, his cabin had snow up to its roofline. During bad storms he would have to wait until the sky cleared before he could venture outside and dig himself out.
Having dug his way from his cabin’s front door, Jack was standing on the trail, when he heard a muffled cry. Slowly, he turned and looked uphill, but he could not quite make out what was in his line of vision. Suddenly, there was a louder shout, and it was coming from a gray shape that was growing ever larger by the second. Glenville realized what it was only just in time to dive out of the way. He hurriedly scrambled back to his feet to see the disappearing shape grow ever smaller as it went further down the trail. It had been a man going faster than a train, faster than any horse could run!
Five days after he had left on his outbound journey. Thompson was on his way back. The man at the local US Mail office had only spared an occasional thought for the good-looking Norwegian. Everyone in Placerville had gone about their normal business. A driver of horse-drawn buggy headed into Placerville from the east, recognized the tall blond figure hiking along the American river. The driver stopped and offered the young man a ride. Thompson thanked him but turned the offer down. The driver drove on and when he came into the center of Placerville, the driver spoke to some of the town’s people gathered in the winter sunshine.
“He’s back! The Norwegian is back! I just passed him twenty minutes ago! He’ll be here in another half an hour or so!” The news ran around the town, and the man at the US Mail was told by one of the traders that the Norwegian had been sighted. The locals started to run to the eastern edge of town. It was something like another fifteen minutes before they saw the young Norwegian hero walking with his long-boards tied to his back. He smiled at all the townsfolk as he passed them by. As on the outbound journey, he had covered the last eight miles on foot. The US Mail man was delightfully surprised as Thompson handed him the mail from Genoa.
Thompson had averaged thirty-five miles a day, up and down two mountain ranges, back and forth through unfamiliar territory, with no map, travelling mostly by night! It was acclaimed as a super human effort that was beyond the feat of even the fittest individual.
He had lost contact with his two friends. He saw them fifteen minutes earlier but lost them in the wind-driven snow. The storm had slowly abated, but it was still snowing and huge clouds still obscured the light of the moon.
He strained his eyes to see, but he feared the slope in front of him was a little too severe to risk a straight run. So he started diagonally down the steep incline, keeping his uphill knee bent. He held the pole at an angle, so while the pole’s top half was in front of him the lower half trailed in the snow behind his feet. It took great effort to keep his balance, and it was increasingly difficult to keep the long-boards in contact with the snow. He was trying to be cautious but his speed increased. Every time he dragged the pole harder, the less downward pressure he had on the long-boards. His top half was being slowed by the pole but the long-boards wanted to shoot ahead. To keep upright he had to keep his weight centered, which meant he could not use the pole to slow his progress.
He thought of purposely running into a tree with the pole held horizontally in both hands across his chest, so that it would bear the brunt of the impact. He could not see any tree clearly, and at the speed he was going it was going to be difficult to get it right. The speed became frighteningly fast and he could feel he was losing control. His left long-board became airborne, and as he tried to level himself out by bringing his left board down, his right board slipped underneath him and he fell.
The change of direction was immediate; he was now plummeting vertically down the slope. His back was toward the snow and his lower body was caught at right angles to it. As he kept the pole in both hands above his head, he did his best to keep the long-boards downhill of his body. The boards bounced and scraped along the icy surface, sending showers of snow and ice to his face. He worked the pole along his hands, turned his upper torso in line with his lower body, and, with as much force as he could muster, dug the shorter end of the pole into the snow to slow his progress. It worked well enough and gave him time to see that the slope ahead was about to fall away. He was sliding toward a precipice. With one last herculean effort, he dug the pole harder into the snow and stopped his slide.
The pole was now jammed, stuck horizontally in the ice and snow on the side of a sixty degree hill. He was hanging onto the pole, suspended a few feet above where the hill disappeared over an edge into a ravine. His choices were few; any sudden movement might break the pole and send him crashing down into the darkness below. In the ravine there were sure to be rocks, and any fall would cause certain injury. He could try kicking his long-boards off and lift himself up to where he could wrap his legs around the pole and maybe pull himself to safety. But then he would be without his long-boards and facing a lengthy and treacherous hike out of the mountains. Every second he delayed, his strength would ebb away, and falling would be his only alternative.
The ravine was so deep, that he could barely see beyond the tops of the trees. The trees were probably more than a hundred feet tall, which meant the ravine was probably more than two hundred feet deep. He knew he had to recover quickly before he lost his strength. He tried to swing himself up. There was an audible crack and for a moment he was not sure what had happened. He felt a sudden rush of cold air, as if a freak wind had blown him off the mountain. Everything started to turn. The pole was gone from his hands. Nothing was holding him now, he was in free-fall, and it was exhilarating for a few seconds, until he felt his body hitting a branch of a big pine. The branched slapped him like a baseball bat, but the
fall continued and he was slapped and slapped again by subsequent branches. From one branch to another and then another until one of the branches flipped him over, so the next branch hit him powerfully in the face. He was barely conscious by the time his body slammed into the snow at the bottom.
He lay there, slipping in and out of consciousness. He knew he was badly hurt, but there was little blood, only a trickle from his nose. He was lying face up, but one of his legs was bent awkwardly behind his back. He was not sure how long his lucid periods were, but he must have been laying there for some time. Far off he heard a muffled humming sound. A fresh snow had blanketed him from head to foot. As he shook the snow from his face and recovered his senses, pain flooded his body. Despite the pain, the humming noise was more distinct. It was his mobile phone. He tried to pull his pack up and over his head, but a vicious pain shot through the length of his left arm. Using his right hand only, he awkwardly got the pack off his back and fumbled inside for his phone. It was one of his two friends. “Michael, where are you?”
Michael had difficulty talking but he mumbled enough sense to make his friend understand.
He had lost consciousness again. A sustained drone of helicopter blades brought him back to a semi-conscious state. The noise was followed by a bright light. Through his discomfort he was vaguely aware of a helmeted man laying him in a metal stretcher, and then being hoisted out of the ravine.
The next day, in hospital, Michael watched the evening news. The lady on the TV reported, “Three friends have gained a new admiration for their hero Snowshoe Thompson. The young men had to abandon their re-enactment of Thompson’s historical long-board run across the Sierras, after one of the men became seriously injured in a fall. The young man was medevac’d to Sacramento’s Sutter General Hospital with severe facial bruising, a dislocated shoulder, several cracked ribs, and a broken leg.”
The lady reporter turned to a colleague on the news desk and continued, “If it had not been for a mobile phone and a helicopter rescue, this might have ended very differently!”
“Yes indeed,” her colleague replied, “Fortunately his friends were able to alert Air and Mountain Rescue. Just imagine what would have happened if he had attempted this foolhardy venture alone?”
The lady smiled at her colleague, “You mean like Snowshoe Thompson used to do?”
Snowshoe Thompson, courtesy of Nevada Historical Society.
The young Mark Twain
Hank Monk in his winter outfit,
courtesy of Nevada Historical Society
Captain Dick Barter at Emerald Bay
Courtesy California State Library
Not known if this is pre 1870, but proof the Captain was a gifted craftsman. Author maintains with such skills Dick Barter was unlikely to have just used oars on his weekly shopping excursions.
Tahoe City’s Custom House (Campbell’s) building on the pier 1870 (according to hand-written note) the site of Jim Stewart death two years later. Believed to be the Steamer Tod Goodwin on the far side of the pier and the Steamer Emerald on the near side. Courtesy of the Nevada State Museum.
On the bridge of the SS Tahoe, Capt Ernest John Pomin far left, courtesy of Tahoe City Gate Keeper’s Museum.
The locomotive on the narrow gauge of the Lake Tahoe Railroad which hauled timber up to Spooner Summit from Glenbrook, during the last quarter of nineteenth century. Courtesy Nevada State Museum.
Clark Gable, Glenbrook beach, taking time off from waiting tables. Courtesy Tahoe Historical Society.
Friday’s Station Pony Bob Haslam’s home station. Courtesy Tahoe Historical Society.
Friday’s Station today
Carson, Tahoe, Lumber & Fluming Company. The lumberyard was a mile long and half a mile wide, located south of Carson City with a spur of the Virginia Truckee Railroad running through the middle, V-Flumes are on either side. Courtesy of the Nevada State Museum.
One of the many medal ceremonies at the Squaw Valley Olympics (Ski Jump in the background) courtesy of the Gate Keeper’s Museum, Tahoe City.
Backgrounds, Postscripts, Ironies and
Controversies.
Some sources of information are often at variance with other sources. It is not a case of considering the source, and it’s not always true that the most accurate information is the one most often repeated! Still, there are other accounts out there that are at odds with one another, and I may well be at odds with something else you have read. Did the Indian Truckee die in April or in October 1860? Was Snowshoe Thompson really at the first battle of Pyramid Lake? Did Dick Barter go to South Shore or Tahoe City for his shopping? And was Bill Stewart the last man to shake Lincoln’s hand?
I have been as controversial as most, but I try in the following backgrounds and postscripts to be as accurate as possible.
1) Pony Bob Haslam and the
Indian Uprising of 1860 (Solid Gold)
Haslam’s home station, Friday’s, still stands today opposite the Edgewood Golf Course on Highway 50; it is the white weatherboard building set back from the road. The property was owned by the Park family for more than a hundred years; sadly is not open to the public. Still, you will see a statue of a young Pony Express rider in full flight outside Harrah’s Casino just north of the south shore state line.
The two Indian tribes of western Nevada and eastern California are the Washoe and the Paiutes. The Indians had been helpful to the early white explorers; the Paiute Indian Chief Truckee served as guide to John C. Fremont and Kit Carson during the Pathfinders’ two explorations west in the mid-1840s. It was Fremont that commissioned Chief Truckee into the army and gave him the rank of captain. The Indians may have even tried to help the fated Donner Party in 1846, leaving Piñon pine nuts for the settlers to eat. However, suspicion that Indians were intent on poisoning them led the emigrants to ignore their kindness.
The Paiutes had seen many gold prospectors pass through their country during the Californian Gold Rush years. With the discovery of silver in the heart of Indian Territory, a delicate balance was upset. The all-important Piñon pine tree, the staple food for the Indians, was cut down in large numbers by miners, to keep their fires burning. With the situation already strained, the final straw that caused the Paiute Indian uprising in the late spring of 1860 came with the kidnapping of two Indian squaws. The kidnappers were the men of William’s Station (a stage and Pony Express station) southeast of Virginia City. The Paiutes attacked, killed the white men, rescued their women, and burned the station to the ground. At the time, Virginia City was a mixture of wooden buildings and tents. Its inhabitants put together a militia consisting of one hundred and five lightly armed men, led by Major Ormsby.
The militia trailed the Indians along the Truckee River toward their main encampment at Pyramid Lake. Four miles before the lake, the Paiutes led by Chief Numaga, were waiting in ambush. At a bend in the river, a group of warriors attacked and the militia retired to a grove of Cottonwood trees. However, many more warriors were in among the Cottonwoods. It is estimated that there were some three hundred Paiutes who took part in what became known as The Massacre of Pyramid Lake. Of the one hundred and five volunteers, seventy-six were killed, including Major Ormsby. And of the surviving twenty-nine, it was believed that no one escaped uninjured. One of the survivors was the famed Snowshoe Thompson.
For a month following the massacre, the whole region was in a state of panic. In June 1860, a second battle of Pyramid Lake was fought, this time an army of eight hundred, including two hundred regular soldiers, met the Paiutes, close to the site of the first battle. Although hailed as a victory by the white settlers, the battle was inconclusive; fatalities were far fewer than in the first battle. The Indians withdrew and the army did not pursue. Killed at the second battle was Captain Storey of the Virginia Rifles.
For a thousand years before the nineteenth century nothing much had changed in the West. Then came the first major expedition with Lewis and Clark in 1804, and before the century was out, everything had change! A
whole way of life was turned on its head. In the early years the white settlers needed the Indians’ kindness for their survival. By the end of the century the Indians needed the whites’ forbearance just to exist. The white settlers justified all they did by labeling the Indians as savages. To dismiss them in such a manner was cruel and unfair. However, to see Indians as naive and peace-loving is to go to the other extreme. Warriors were exactly that: young men who needed to show their prowess in battle. Wars between Indian tribes were numerous. The more aggressive the tribe, the more prosperous it was. When tribes warred against each other, the conquest often went to the tribe with the greater number of horses. In the war with the whites, it was greater fire power that mattered.
Sarah Winnemucca, Truckee’s grand-daughter, who received an education and was able to read and write English, was maybe thankful that her grand-father was spared the grief of war. (Ironically, it was at the Ormsby home in Genoa that Sarah learned a good deal of her English.) In her version of the events leading up to the war, the girls kidnapped by the William brothers were only children. However, there are always two sides to any argument. Many settlers thought that William’s Station was attacked without provocation. Sarah Winnemucca was to help the United States Army as a mediator in years to come. In a poignant letter she wrote in 1878, she summed up her feelings for her people:-
“My people are ignorant of worldly knowledge, but they know what love means and what truth means. They have seen their dear ones perish around them because their white brothers have given them neither love nor truth. Are not love and truth better than learning? My people have no learning. They do not know anything about the history of the world, but they can see the Spirit Father in everything. The beautiful world talks to them of their Spirit Father. They are innocent and simple, but they are brave and will not be imposed upon. They are patient, but they know black is not white.”
The Ghosts of Lake Tahoe Page 13