the scouting trip, construction was begun on what was to be the first of three Great Northern lines through the Salish. Completed in 1892, the Haskell Pass line left the modern alignment of the route at Columbia Falls, Montana, a few miles east of Whitefish. The line travelled almost due south to Kalispell, where a branch split off the route that ran to Somers, Montana on the shore of Flathead Lake. The line travelled west from Kalispell to Marion, then alongside Little Bitteroot Lake, looping up on a high trestle over Herrig Creek, and passing through a tunnel at the summit of Haskell Pass, emerging high on the mountains above Pleasant Valley. The line descended to the valley floor, then turned north along Island Creek, and west down Wolf Creek, to the Fisher River. The line followed the Fisher River north to the Kootenai River Valley, where it returned to the 1902–1970 alignment at Jennings. The Haskell Pass line was used only for ten years before the Kootenai River alignment opened. Shifting to the Kootenai River alignment was controversial because the new alignment was longer than the old route, although the new route had less steep grades. Much of the Haskell Pass route was abandoned in 1902. The leg from Columbia Falls to Marion remained in use as a branch line until 1948, when it was truncated to Kalispell. When Flathead Tunnel was constructed in 1970, part of the Haskell Pass alignment along the Fisher River was recycled, namely the leg from Jennings to Tamarack siding (originally Sterling). On Haskell Pass, much of the right-of-way has been grown over, but small remnants of infrastructure and the original tunnel through the pass itself are still intact. Winter operations Keeping the Northern Transcon open during the winter is a significant challenge, whether from snow in the Midwest and mountains, or rain in the Pacific Northwest. Heavy rains have the potential to cause mudslides along Puget Sound between Seattle and Everett and in the Nisqually, Washington area between Tacoma and Olympia. For example, in early January 2006, there were four slides between Seattle and Everett. In late January 2006 and again in early February 2006, mudslides occurred both between Seattle and Everett and around Nisqually. Heavy snow in the Rockies around Marias Pass have the potential to cause avalanches that can block the tracks. Following the clearing of a slide or an avalanche,