Salto del Soldado

Postcard showing a crack in a rocky cliff. Charles C. Myers describes that the crack is actually a chasm said to be 3,000 feet deep and 60 feet wide.

Comments and Context

In Charles C. Myers’s own words, “When in the high altitudes of any mountain range there are certain peculiar conditions, perhaps in the atmosphere, which makes your sight deceive you and you may be greatly deceived in distances. You may see some peak or mountain that seems to be only a short distance aways and you may think that you could walk the distance in a short time as it seems only two or three miles away while in reality it may be 12 or 15 miles away. I remember one summer while enroute from Chicago to San Francisco I stopped over a few days in a small city not far from Denver and where we had an excellent view of Pikes Peak only a few days before and he said that the air was so clear up there that you could see an ordinary fly half mile away. There was a small village on the side of a mountain and apparently not far away from the hotel where we were staying and there was also a railway running in that direction. Now early one morning there came a man from Kansas city and thought he could walk to this village on the mountain side before breakfast, so he started out. He was advised to take lunch along but he was sure that he would reach the village in time for a late breakfast. He came back that night on the railway and said that after walking till sundown he was no closer than when he started, so he felt somewhat discouraged and returned very tired and hungry. He was then instructed that the village he saw was Boulder, a city of over 20,000 population and 65 miles away. Now it is surprising how you can run and jump and climb in these high altitudes and feel no fatigue and on account of the very light air you can throw a stone or you can jump much farther than you think. One day a party of a dozen of us went out from Santiago to do some mountain climbing and sight seeing. Presently we came upon a small crevice between two peaks, it was a small opening in the mountain side and one of the boys was sure he could jump across it and land safely on the other side. Although being advised not to do so he insisted and made the leap and to our surprise he cleared the opening in the rocks and even missed the peak on the other side, disappearing behind it and falling into a small lake several hundred feet below where he received an icy bath. Now this picture show one of these crevices in the mountain side but a long distance away. This crevice was said to be by actual measurement 60 ft wide and 1000 ft deep.

Collection

Charles C. Myers Collection

Creation Date

Unknown

Creator(s)

Unknown; Myers, Charles C. (Charles Cleveland), 1879-1942

Language

English

Period

Unknown

Page Count

2

Production Method

Mixed

Record Type

Multi-image

Resource Type

Postcard

Citation