cted from my diary:

"Rose at 4:30 A.M. and started for summit with load. Trail all
filled in with snow, and had dreadful time shovelling it out. Load
upsets number of times. Got to summit at three o'clock. Ox almost
played out. Snowing and blowing fearfully on summit. Ox tired;
tries to lie down every few yards. Bitterly cold and have hard time
trying to keep hands and feet from freezing. Keep on going to make
Balsam City. Arrived there about ten o'clock at night. Clothing
frozen stiff. Snow from seven to one hundred feet deep. No wood
within a quarter mile and then only soft balsam. Had to go for
wood. Almost impossible to start fire. Was near midnight when I had
fire going well and supper cooked. Eighteen hours on the trail
without a square meal. The way of the Klondike is hard, hard."

And yet I believe, compared with others, we were getting along finely.
Every day, as the difficulties of the trail increased, I saw more and
more instances of suffering and privation, and to many the name of the
White Pass was the death-knell of hope. I could see their faces blanch
as they gazed upward at that white immensity; I could see them tighten
their pack-straps, clench their teeth and begin the ascent; could see
them straining every muscle as they climbed, the grim lines harden round
their mouths, their eyes full of hopeless misery and despair; I could
see them panting at every step, ghastly with fatigue, lurching and
stumbling on under their heavy packs. These were the weaker ones, who,
sooner or later, gave up the struggle.

Then there were the strong, ruthless ones, who had left humanity at
home, who flogged their staggering skin-and-bone pack animals till they
dropped, then, with a curse, left them to die.

Far, far above us the monster mountains nuzzled among the clouds till
cloud and mountain were hard to tell apart. These were giant heights
heaved up to the stars, where blizzards were cradled and the storm-winds
born, stupendous horrific familiars of the tempest and the thunder. I
was conscious of their absolute sublimity. It was like height piled on
height as one would pile up sacks of flour. As Jim remarked: "Say,
wouldn't it give you crick in the neck just gazin' at them there
mountains?"

How ant-like seemed the black army crawling up the icy pass, clinging to
its slippery face in the blinding buffet of snow and rain! Men dropped
from its ranks uncared