The Wild Goose Trail: How $25,000 Chased a Mountain Pass That Wasn't There

Four counties of Washington — Whatcom, Okanogan, Skagit and Stevens — are deeply interested in the success of the project for the construction first of a pack trail, and then of a wagon road, across the Cascade Mountains from tide water on the Sound to the rolling bunch-grass plains of the Okanogan and Upper Columbia valleys on the east. The interest manifested by the people of these counties seems rather out of proportion to the benefits of such a road, if carried to completion.

Senate bill No. 206, carrying a state appropriation of $20,000, was approved by Gov. McGraw March 16, and on the 17th he appointed John Cryderman and T. P. Hannegan, of this county, and Fred H. Oliver, of Stevens county, as a commission to have charge of the work. The law required that Whatcom county appropriate $5,000, and Okanogan and Stevens counties each $1,000, to aid the work. The commissioners of this county declined to make the appropriation until the existence of some pass on the route was satisfactorily determined. Accordingly, in April, the county sent out a party of three, in charge of Banning Austin, an expert mountaineer, who was regarded as a very competent and reliable man.

On the 7th of May Austin reported that on April 30 the party had discovered a pass from the north fork of the Nooksack to the headwaters of Beaver creek, which leads into the Skagit, and declared the route 'practicable for a wagon road or a railroad.' He placed the summit at 4,580 feet above sea level, and said the pass 'was really pointed out to us by the flight of birds, which generally follow the low ground.'

This report varies from the truth in several particulars. In the first place, it is neither practicable for a railroad nor a wagon road from this side. The stream Austin reported to be Beaver creek, emptying into the Skagit, is in fact Baker river, which runs nearly parallel with the Skagit and empties into it seven or eight miles above Hamilton. It is forty-eight miles from Bellingham bay to the mouth of the Baker river via the south fork of the Nooksack and Lyman, with only one divide less than 1,000 feet high intervening, while via the Austin pass the distance is seventy-seven miles and over a mountain nearly a mile high.

The state commission's own report is equally blunt: 'The very best that can be done on the line indicated by the law is to cross Hannegan pass at an elevation of 5,400 feet, with four miles through continuous snow at the present time... Several glaciers cling to the line and mountains 9,000 feet high are all around. It is doubtful if the snow ever leaves these so-called passes, and any farther expenditures would be a waste of money.'

The data upon which this report was based was furnished by C. W. Root, a competent mountain engineer of many years' experience, who, with William Garrett of the Austin party, crossed the mountains four times this summer between the Hannegan pass and the Upper Skagit. Austin simply sat upon the mountain crests and let his imagination play with facts, assuming to be true what the laborious examinations of Mr. Root have proven to be false.