The Snow Gives Up Its Dead  

The Flume wrote in mid-July of 1881 the sequel to the December avalanche death of one Thomas C. McConnell during the winter on the Mosquito range.   The winter thaw in the area took nearly eight months before his body was found and the discovery of other unexpected victims. 

”One Sunday in November last McConnell came into Leadville to get some money that was due him.  Mr. Hilliard met him on the range as he was coming in and McConnell wanted to know when he, Hilliard, would be in Leadville.  On Thursday the second day of December, McConnell started out, and on the same day his brother George came into town for him and missed him in Stray Horse.   

Friday the brother started back to camp.  When he left the road he followed the tracks in the snow to the slide.  Then he turned and went to the cabin.  When he got there he was very much surprised to find that his brother had not arrived.  He then told the boy sat the cabin about the tracks he had seen in the snow.  

 Several men started back to the slide to hunt for the tracks George McConnell had seen.  As soon as they found them, Osborne, who was one of the party, identified the tracks as those of Thomas C. McConnell.  They then went below the slide on Pendery’s lake and found no tracks there.  Then they went around the slide three times but could find no tracks going out.  The truth flashed upon them that McConnell lay buried in the avalanche of snow that came thundering down the mountain side. George McConnell then sent Osborne in to tell Mr. Hilliard about the terrible mystery that enveloped the fate of their friend.  Mr. Hilliard at once organized a party to go and shovel away the s now and find the body of the ill-fate man.   

The party got ready to start but a fearful snow storm arose and raged four days so that it was impossible to cross.  As soon as it abated sufficiently, the party started over and got the miners to assist in the work.  A force of from eight to fifteen men worked four days with shovel and rods, but there was such an immense pile of snow that they did not get over half of  it in that time.  Then the storm arose again and drove them out and before they could get back again another slide came down on the first and covered up all they had done. 

The weary and disheartened miners saw that further work at the time was useless and they decided to wait till June, at which time they thought the snow would be thawed.  When the mountain of  snow began to settle, the men watched it from day to day by turns.  Last Saturday they hired eight men and a team and sent to W.B. McDonald to get some more men to assist in the work.  They commenced to work and continued till one of the men got tired and began looking around, and discovering some flies, stooped down to brush them away, and in doing so knocked the snow from the dead man’s boot.  They then got some boards and made a box to put him in, and went to work to uncover the body.   

A vacant space of about eight inches was found around him where the ice had melted, and outside of this space was six inches of solid ice all around t he body.  The body was natural though the face was covered with mould.  The body was taken out, put into the box and brought to Leadville.  Mr. Hilliard states that his papers were all found in his pockets in good shape.  Among them was a letter from the dead man’s little girl away back in Nova Scotia.  There was also found in his pocket a promissory note for $88 from Mr. Pinneo, the father of the equestrienne.  The note had been due for some time.  The body was in the snow seven months and five days.   

Mr. Hilliard states that while they were examining the slide they found a new fur hat and the sleeve of a coat in the snow and as McConnell had his hat on when found and his clothes were untorn, it is the belief that there is another body in the snow.  Mr. Hilliard also states that nearly a quarter of a mile from the top of the range, on the east side, about two hundred feet down the side of the mountain, south of the road, the snow has melted away sufficiently to expose the bodies of a white pony and two burros, with their pack saddles and ropes on just as they slid off and went down and there is thought to be the body of a man down there with them.  About two hundred feet farther lie two more in the same condition.  In a few weeks more the snow will be sufficiently melted to expose the bodies of any unfortunates who may have fallen victim to the deadly avalanche.”