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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Yosemite, by John Muir
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Yosemite
+
+Author: John Muir
+
+Release Date: March 9, 2003 [eBook #7091]
+[Most recently updated: June 29, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Dan Anderson and Andrew Sly
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOSEMITE ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+The Yosemite
+
+by John Muir
+
+Affectionately dedicated
+to my friend,
+Robert Underwood Johnson,
+faithful
+lover and defender
+of our glorious forests
+and originator of
+the Yosemite National Park.
+
+Acknowledgment
+
+On the early history of Yosemite the writer is indebted to Prof. J. D. Whitney
+for quotations from his volume entitled “Yosemite Guide-Book,” and
+to Dr. Bunnell for extracts from his interesting volume entitled
+“Discovery of the Yosemite.”
+
+Contents
+
+Chapter 1.	 The Approach to the Valley
+Chapter 2.	 Winter Storms and Spring Floods
+Chapter 3.	 Snow-Storms
+Chapter 4.	 Snow Banners
+Chapter 5.	 The Trees of the Valley
+Chapter 6.	 The Forest Trees in General
+Chapter 7.	 The Big Trees
+Chapter 8.	 The Flowers
+Chapter 9.	 The Birds
+Chapter 10.	 The South Dome
+Chapter 11.	 The Ancient Yosemite Glaciers: How the Valley Was Formed
+Chapter 12.	 How Best to Spend One’s Yosemite Time
+Chapter 13.	 Early History of the Valley
+Chapter 14.	 Lamon
+Chapter 15.	 Galen Clark
+Chapter 16.	 Hetch Hetchy Valley
+Appendix A.	 Legislation About the Yosemite
+Appendix B.	 Table of Distances
+Appendix C.	 Maximum Rates for Transportation
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 1
+The Approach to the Valley
+
+
+When I set out on the long excursion that finally led to California I
+wandered afoot and alone, from Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico, with a
+plant-press on my back, holding a generally southward course, like the
+birds when they are going from summer to winter. From the west coast of
+Florida I crossed the gulf to Cuba, enjoyed the rich tropical flora
+there for a few months, intending to go thence to the north end of
+South America, make my way through the woods to the headwaters of the
+Amazon, and float down that grand river to the ocean. But I was unable
+to find a ship bound for South America—fortunately perhaps, for I had
+incredibly little money for so long a trip and had not yet fully
+recovered from a fever caught in the Florida swamps. Therefore I
+decided to visit California for a year or two to see its wonderful
+flora and the famous Yosemite Valley. All the world was before me and
+every day was a holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of
+the world’s wildernesses I first should wander.
+
+Arriving by the Panama steamer, I stopped one day in San Francisco and
+then inquired for the nearest way out of town. “But where do you want
+to go?” asked the man to whom I had applied for this important
+information. “To any place that is wild,” I said. This reply startled
+him. He seemed to fear I might be crazy and therefore the sooner I was
+out of town the better, so he directed me to the Oakland ferry.
+
+So on the first of April, 1868, I set out afoot for Yosemite. It was
+the bloom-time of the year over the lowlands and coast ranges the
+landscapes of the Santa Clara Valley were fairly drenched with
+sunshine, all the air was quivering with the songs of the meadow-larks,
+and the hills were so covered with flowers that they seemed to be
+painted. Slow indeed was my progress through these glorious gardens,
+the first of the California flora I had seen. Cattle and cultivation
+were making few scars as yet, and I wandered enchanted in long wavering
+curves, knowing by my pocket map that Yosemite Valley lay to the east
+and that I should surely find it.
+
+The Sierra From The West
+
+Looking eastward from the summit of the Pacheco Pass one shining
+morning, a landscape was displayed that after all my wanderings still
+appears as the most beautiful I have ever beheld. At my feet lay the
+Great Central Valley of California, level and flowery, like a lake of
+pure sunshine, forty or fifty miles wide, five hundred miles long, one
+rich furred garden of yellow _Compositœ_. And from the eastern boundary
+of this vast golden flower-bed rose the mighty Sierra, miles in height,
+and so gloriously colored and so radiant, it seemed not clothed with
+light, but wholly composed of it, like the wall of some celestial city.
+Along the top and extending a good way down, was a rich pearl-gray belt
+of snow; below it a belt of blue and dark purple, marking the extension
+of the forests; and stretching along the base of the range a broad belt
+of rose-purple; all these colors, from the blue sky to the yellow
+valley smoothly blending as they do in a rainbow, making a wall of
+light ineffably fine. Then it seemed to me that the Sierra should be
+called, not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And
+after ten years of wandering and wondering in the heart of it,
+rejoicing in its glorious floods of light, the white beams of the
+morning streaming through the passes, the noonday radiance on the
+crystal rocks, the flush of the alpenglow, and the irised spray of
+countless waterfalls, it still seems above all others the Range of
+Light.
+
+In general views no mark of man is visible upon it, nor any thing to
+suggest the wonderful depth and grandeur of its sculpture. None of its
+magnificent forest-crowned ridges seems to rise much above the general
+level to publish its wealth. No great valley or river is seen, or group
+of well-marked features of any kind standing out as distinct pictures.
+Even the summit peaks, marshaled in glorious array so high in the sky,
+seem comparatively regular in form. Nevertheless the whole range five
+hundred miles long is furrowed with cañons 2000 to 5000 feet deep, in
+which once flowed majestic glaciers, and in which now flow and sing the
+bright rejoicing rivers.
+
+Characteristics Of The Cañons
+
+Though of such stupendous depth, these cañons are not gloom gorges,
+savage and inaccessible. With rough passages here and there they are
+flowery pathways conducting to the snowy, icy fountains; mountain
+streets full of life and light, graded and sculptured by the ancient
+glaciers, and presenting throughout all their course a rich variety of
+novel and attractive scenery—the most attractive that has yet been
+discovered in the mountain ranges of the world. In many places,
+especially in the middle region of the western flank, the main cañons
+widen into spacious valleys or parks diversified like landscape gardens
+with meadows and groves and thickets of blooming bushes, while the
+lofty walls, infinitely varied in form are fringed with ferns,
+flowering plants, shrubs of many species and tall evergreens and oaks
+that find footholds on small benches and tables, all enlivened and made
+glorious with rejoicing stream that come chanting in chorus over the
+cliffs and through side cañons in falls of every conceivable form, to
+join the river that flow in tranquil, shining beauty down the middle of
+each one of them.
+
+The Incomparable Yosemite
+
+The most famous and accessible of these cañon valleys, and also the one
+that presents their most striking and sublime features on the grandest
+scale, is the Yosemite, situated in the basin of the Merced River at an
+elevation of 4000 feet above the level of the sea. It is about seven
+miles long, half a mile to a mile wide, and nearly a mile deep in the
+solid granite flank of the range. The walls are made up of rocks,
+mountains in size, partly separated from each other by side cañons, and
+they are so sheer in front, and so compactly and harmoniously arranged
+on a level floor, that the Valley, comprehensively seen, looks like an
+immense hall or temple lighted from above.
+
+But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in
+its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose;
+others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance
+beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to
+storms and calms alike, seemingly aware, yet heedless, of everything
+going on about them. Awful in stern, immovable majesty, how softly
+these rocks are adorned, and how fine and reassuring the company they
+keep: their feet among beautiful groves and meadows, their brows in the
+sky, a thousand flowers leaning confidingly against their feet, bathed
+in floods of water, floods of light, while the snow and waterfalls, the
+winds and avalanches and clouds shine and sing and wreathe about them
+as the years go by, and myriads of small winged creatures birds, bees,
+butterflies—give glad animation and help to make all the air into
+music. Down through the middle of the Valley flows the crystal Merced,
+River of Mercy, peacefully quiet, reflecting lilies and trees and the
+onlooking rocks; things frail and fleeting and types of endurance
+meeting here and blending in countless forms, as if into this one
+mountain mansion Nature had gathered her choicest treasures, to draw
+her lovers into close and confiding communion with her.
+
+The Approach To The Valley
+
+Sauntering up the foothills to Yosemite by any of the old trails or
+roads in use before the railway was built from the town of Merced up
+the river to the boundary of Yosemite Park, richer and wilder become
+the forests and streams. At an elevation of 6000 feet above the level
+of the sea the silver firs are 200 feet high, with branches whorled
+around the colossal shafts in regular order, and every branch
+beautifully pinnate like a fern frond. The Douglas spruce, the yellow
+and sugar pines and brown-barked Libocedrus here reach their finest
+developments of beauty and grandeur. The majestic Sequoia is here, too,
+the king of conifers, the noblest of all the noble race. These colossal
+trees are as wonderful in fineness of beauty and proportion as in
+stature—an assemblage of conifers surpassing all that have ever yet
+been discovered in the forests of the world. Here indeed is the
+tree-lover’s paradise; the woods, dry and wholesome, letting in the
+light in shimmering masses of half sunshine, half shade; the night air
+as well as the day air indescribably spicy and exhilarating; plushy
+fir-boughs for campers’ beds and cascades to sing us to sleep. On the
+highest ridges, over which these old Yosemite ways passed, the silver
+fir (_Abies magnifica_) forms the bulk of the woods, pressing forward
+in glorious array to the very brink of the Valley walls on both sides,
+and beyond the Valley to a height of from 8000 to 9000 feet above the
+level of the sea. Thus it appears that Yosemite, presenting such
+stupendous faces of bare granite, is nevertheless imbedded in
+magnificent forests, and the main species of pine, fir, spruce and
+libocedrus are also found in the Valley itself, but there are no “big
+trees” (_Sequoia gigantea_) in the Valley or about the rim of it. The
+nearest are about ten and twenty miles beyond the lower end of the
+valley on small tributaries of the Merced and Tuolumne Rivers.
+
+The First View: The Bridal Veil
+
+From the margin of these glorious forests the first general view of the
+Valley used to be gained—a revelation in landscape affairs that
+enriches one’s life forever. Entering the Valley, gazing overwhelmed
+with the multitude of grand objects about us, perhaps the first to fix
+our attention will be the Bridal Veil, a beautiful waterfall on our
+right. Its brow, where it first leaps free from the cliff, is about 900
+feet above us; and as it sways and sings in the wind, clad in gauzy,
+sun-sifted spray, half falling, half floating, it seems infinitely
+gentle and fine; but the hymns it sings tell the solemn fateful power
+hidden beneath its soft clothing.
+
+The Bridal Veil shoots free from the upper edge of the cliff by the
+velocity the stream has acquired in descending a long slope above the
+head of the fall. Looking from the top of the rock-avalanche talus on
+the west side, about one hundred feet above the foot of the fall, the
+under surface of the water arch is seen to be finely grooved and
+striated; and the sky is seen through the arch between rock and water,
+making a novel and beautiful effect.
+
+Under ordinary weather conditions the fall strikes on flat-topped
+slabs, forming a kind of ledge about two-thirds of the way down from
+the top, and as the fall sways back and forth with great variety of
+motions among these flat-topped pillars, kissing and plashing notes as
+well as thunder-like detonations are produced, like those of the
+Yosemite Fall, though on a smaller scale.
+
+The rainbows of the Veil, or rather the spray- and foam-bows, are
+superb, because the waters are dashed among angular blocks of granite
+at the foot, producing abundance of spray of the best quality for iris
+effects, and also for a luxuriant growth of grass and maiden-hair on
+the side of the talus, which lower down is planted with oak, laurel and
+willows.
+
+General Features Of The Valley
+
+On the other side of the Valley, almost immediately opposite the Bridal
+Veil, there is another fine fall, considerably wider than the Veil when
+the snow is melting fast and more than 1000 feet in height, measured
+from the brow of the cliff where it first springs out into the air to
+the head of the rocky talus on which it strikes and is broken up into
+ragged cascades. It is called the Ribbon Fall or Virgin’s Tears. During
+the spring floods it is a magnificent object, but the suffocating
+blasts of spray that fill the recess in the wall which it occupies
+prevent a near approach. In autumn, however when its feeble current
+falls in a shower, it may then pass for tears with the sentimental
+onlooker fresh from a visit to the Bridal Veil.
+
+Just beyond this glorious flood the El Capitan Rock, regarded by many
+as the most sublime feature of the Valley, is seen through the pine
+groves, standing forward beyond the general line of the wall in most
+imposing grandeur, a type of permanence. It is 3300 feet high, a plain,
+severely simple, glacier-sculptured face of granite, the end of one of
+the most compact and enduring of the mountain ridges, unrivaled in
+height and breadth and flawless strength.
+
+Across the Valley from here, next to the Bridal Veil, are the
+picturesque Cathedral Rocks, nearly 2700 feet high, making a noble
+display of fine yet massive sculpture. They are closely related to El
+Capitan, having been eroded from the same mountain ridge by the great
+Yosemite Glacier when the Valley was in process of formation.
+
+Next to the Cathedral Rocks on the south side towers the Sentinel Rock
+to a height of more than 3000 feet, a telling monument of the glacial
+period.
+
+Almost immediately opposite the Sentinel are the Three Brothers, an
+immense mountain mass with three gables fronting the Valley, one above
+another, the topmost gable nearly 4000 feet high. They were named for
+three brothers, sons of old Tenaya, the Yosemite chief, captured here
+during the Indian War, at the time of the discovery of the Valley in
+1852.
+
+Sauntering up the Valley through meadow and grove, in the company of
+these majestic rocks, which seem to follow us as we advance, gazing,
+admiring, looking for new wonders ahead where all about us is so
+wonderful, the thunder of the Yosemite Fall is heard, and when we
+arrive in front of the Sentinel Rock it is revealed in all its glory
+from base to summit, half a mile in height, and seeming to spring out
+into the Valley sunshine direct from the sky. But even this fall,
+perhaps the most wonderful of its kind in the world, cannot at first
+hold our attention, for now the wide upper portion of the Valley is
+displayed to view, with the finely modeled North Dome, the Royal Arches
+and Washington Column on our left; Glacier Point, with its massive,
+magnificent sculpture on the right; and in the middle, directly in
+front, looms Tissiack or Half Dome, the most beautiful and most sublime
+of all the wonderful Yosemite rocks, rising in serene majesty from
+flowery groves and meadows to a height of 4750 feet.
+
+The Upper Cañons
+
+Here the Valley divides into three branches, the Tenaya, Nevada, and
+Illilouette Cañons, extending back into the fountains of the High
+Sierra, with scenery every way worthy the relation they bear to
+Yosemite.
+
+In the south branch, a mile or two from the main Valley, is the
+Illilouette Fall, 600 feet high, one of the most beautiful of all the
+Yosemite choir, but to most people inaccessible as yet on account of
+its rough, steep, boulder-choked cañon. Its principal fountains of ice
+and snow lie in the beautiful and interesting mountains of the Merced
+group, while its broad open basin between its fountain mountains and
+cañon is noted for the beauty of its lakes and forests and magnificent
+moraines.
+
+Returning to the Valley, and going up the north branch of Tenaya Cañon,
+we pass between the North Dome and Half Dome, and in less than an hour
+come to Mirror Lake, the Dome Cascade and Tenaya Fall. Beyond the Fall,
+on the north side of the cañon is the sublime Ed Capitan-like rock
+called Mount Watkins; on the south the vast granite wave of Clouds’
+Rest, a mile in height; and between them the fine Tenaya Cascade with
+silvery plumes outspread on smooth glacier-polished folds of granite,
+making a vertical descent in all of about 700 feet.
+
+Just beyond the Dome Cascades, on the shoulder of Mount Watkins, there
+is an old trail once used by Indians on their way across the range to
+Mono, but in the cañon above this point there is no trail of any sort.
+Between Mount Watkins and Clouds’ Rest the cañon is accessible only to
+mountaineers, and it is so dangerous that I hesitate to advise even
+good climbers, anxious to test their nerve and skill, to attempt to
+pass through it. Beyond the Cascades no great difficulty will be
+encountered. A succession of charming lily gardens and meadows occurs
+in filled-up lake basins among the rock-waves in the bottom of the
+cañon, and everywhere the surface of the granite has a smooth-wiped
+appearance, and in many places reflects the sunbeams like glass, a
+phenomenon due to glacial action, the cañon having been the channel of
+one of the main tributaries of the ancient Yosemite Glacier.
+
+About ten miles above the Valley we come to the beautiful Tenaya Lake,
+and here the cañon terminates. A mile or two above the lake stands the
+grand Sierra Cathedral, a building of one stone, sewn from the living
+rock, with sides, roof, gable, spire and ornamental pinnacles,
+fashioned and finished symmetrically like a work of art, and set on a
+well-graded plateau about 9000 feet high, as if Nature in making so
+fine a building had also been careful that it should be finely seen.
+From every direction its peculiar form and graceful, majestic beauty of
+expression never fail to charm. Its height from its base to the ridge
+of the roof is about 2500 feet, and among the pinnacles that adorn the
+front grand views may be gained of the upper basins of the Merced and
+Tuolumne Rivers.
+
+Passing the Cathedral we descend into the delightful, spacious Tuolumne
+Valley, from which excursions may be made to Mounts Dana, Lyell,
+Ritter, Conness, and Mono Lake, and to the many curious peaks that rise
+above the meadows on the south, and to the Big Tuolumne Cañon, with its
+glorious abundance of rock and falling, gliding, tossing water. For all
+these the beautiful meadows near the Soda Springs form a delightful
+center.
+
+Natural Features Near The Valley
+
+Returning now to Yosemite and ascending the middle or Nevada branch of
+the Valley, occupied by the main Merced River, we come within a few
+miles to the Vernal and Nevada Falls, 400 and 600 feet high, pouring
+their white, rejoicing waters in the midst of the most novel and
+sublime rock scenery to be found in all the World. Tracing the river
+beyond the head of the Nevada Fall we are lead into the Little
+Yosemite, a valley like the great Yosemite in form, sculpture and
+vegetation. It is about three miles long, with walls 1500 to 2000 feet
+high, cascades coming over them, and the ever flowing through the
+meadows and groves of the level bottom in tranquil, richly-embowered
+reaches.
+
+Beyond this Little Yosemite in the main cañon, there are three other
+little yosemites, the highest situated a few miles below the base of
+Mount Lyell, at an elevation of about 7800 feet above the sea. To
+describe these, with all their wealth of Yosemite furniture, and the
+wilderness of lofty peaks above them, the home of the avalanche and
+treasury of the fountain snow, would take us far beyond the bounds of a
+single book. Nor can we here consider the formation of these mountain
+landscapes—how the crystal rock were brought to light by glaciers made
+up of crystal snow, making beauty whose influence is so mysterious on
+every one who sees it.
+
+Of the small glacier lakes so characteristic of these upper regions,
+there are no fewer than sixty-seven in the basin of the main middle
+branch, besides countless smaller pools. In the basin of the
+Illilouette there are sixteen, in the Tenaya basin and its branches
+thirteen, in the Yosemite Creek basin fourteen, and in the Pohono or
+Bridal Veil one, making a grand total of one hundred and eleven lakes
+whose waters come to sing at Yosemite. So glorious is the background of
+the great Valley, so harmonious its relations to its widespreading
+fountains.
+
+The same harmony prevails in all the other features of the adjacent
+landscapes. Climbing out of the Valley by the subordinate cañons, we
+find the ground rising from the brink of the walls: on the south side
+to the fountains of the Bridal Veil Creek, the basin of which is noted
+for the beauty of its meadows and its superb forests of silver fir; on
+the north side through the basin of the Yosemite Creek to the dividing
+ridge along the Tuolumne Cañon and the fountains of the Hoffman Range.
+
+Down The Yosemite Creek
+
+In general views the Yosemite Creek basin seems to be paved with domes
+and smooth, whaleback masses of granite in every stage of
+development—some showing only their crowns; others rising high and free
+above the girdling forests, singly or in groups. Others are developed
+only on one side, forming bold outstanding bosses usually well fringed
+with shrubs and trees, and presenting the polished surfaces given them
+by the glacier that brought them into relief. On the upper portion of
+the basin broad moraine beds have been deposited and on these fine,
+thrifty forests are growing. Lakes and meadows and small spongy bogs
+may be found hiding here and there in the woods or back in the fountain
+recesses of Mount Hoffman, while a thousand gardens are planted along
+the banks of the streams.
+
+All the wide, fan-shaped upper portion of the basin is covered with a
+network of small rills that go cheerily on their way to their grand
+fall in the Valley, now flowing on smooth pavements in sheets thin as
+glass, now diving under willows and laving their red roots, oozing
+through green, plushy bogs, plashing over small falls and dancing down
+slanting cascades, calming again, gliding through patches of smooth
+glacier meadows with sod of alpine agrostis mixed with blue and white
+violets and daisies, breaking, tossing among rough boulders and fallen
+trees, resting in calm pools, flowing together until, all united, they
+go to their fate with stately, tranquil gestures like a full-grown
+river. At the crossing of the Mono Trail, about two miles above the
+head of the Yosemite Fall, the stream is nearly forty feet wide, and
+when the snow is melting rapidly in the spring it is about four feet
+deep, with a current of two and a half miles an hour. This is about the
+volume of water that forms the Fall in May and June when there had been
+much snow the preceding winter; but it varies greatly from month to
+month. The snow rapidly vanishes from the open portion of the basin,
+which faces southward, and only a few of the tributaries reach back to
+perennial snow and ice fountains in the shadowy amphitheaters on the
+precipitous northern slopes of Mount Hoffman. The total descent made by
+the stream from its highest sources to its confluence with the Merced
+in the Valley is about 6000 feet, while the distance is only about ten
+miles, an average fall of 600 feet per mile. The last mile of its
+course lies between the sides of sunken domes and swelling folds of the
+granite that are clustered and pressed together like a mass of bossy
+cumulus clouds. Through this shining way Yosemite Creek goes to its
+fate, swaying and swirling with easy, graceful gestures and singing the
+last of its mountain songs before it reaches the dizzy edge of Yosemite
+to fall 2600 feet into another world, where climate, vegetation,
+inhabitants, all are different. Emerging from this last cañon the
+stream glides, in flat lace-like folds, down a smooth incline into a
+small pool where it seems to rest and compose itself before taking the
+grand plunge. Then calmly, as if leaving a lake, it slips over the
+polished lip of the pool down another incline and out over the brow of
+the precipice in a magnificent curve thick-sown with rainbow spray.
+
+The Yosemite Fall
+
+Long ago before I had traced this fine stream to its head back of Mount
+Hoffman, I was eager to reach the extreme verge to see how it behaved
+in flying so far through the air; but after enjoying this view and
+getting safely away I have never advised any one to follow my steps.
+The last incline down which the stream journeys so gracefully is so
+steep and smooth one must slip cautiously forward on hands and feet
+alongside the rushing water, which so near one’s head is very exciting.
+But to gain a perfect view one must go yet farther, over a curving brow
+to a slight shelf on the extreme brink. This shelf, formed by the
+flaking off of a fold of granite, is about three inches wide, just wide
+enough for a safe rest for one’s heels. To me it seemed nerve-trying to
+slip to this narrow foothold and poise on the edge of such precipice so
+close to the confusing whirl of the waters; and after casting longing
+glances over the shining brow of the fall and listening to its sublime
+psalm, I concluded not to attempt to go nearer, but, nevertheless,
+against reasonable judgment, I did. Noticing some tufts of artemisia in
+a cleft of rock, I filled my mouth with the leaves, hoping their bitter
+taste might help to keep caution keen and prevent giddiness. In spite
+of myself I reached the little ledge, got my heels well set, and worked
+sidewise twenty or thirty feet to a point close to the out-plunging
+current. Here the view is perfectly free down into the heart of the
+bright irised throng of comet-like streamers into which the whole
+ponderous volume of the fall separates, two or three hundred feet below
+the brow. So glorious a display of pure wildness, acting at close range
+while cut off from all the world beside, is terribly impressive. A less
+nerve-trying view may be obtained from a fissured portion of the edge
+of the cliff about forty yards to the eastward of the fall. Seen from
+this point towards noon, in the spring, the rainbow on its brow seems
+to be broken up and mingled with the rushing comets until all the fall
+is stained with iris colors, leaving no white water visible. This is
+the best of the safe views from above, the huge steadfast rocks, the
+flying waters, and the rainbow light forming one of the most glorious
+pictures conceivable.
+
+The Yosemite Fall is separated into an upper and a lower fall with a
+series of falls and cascades between them, but when viewed in front
+from the bottom of the Valley they all appear as one.
+
+So grandly does this magnificent fall display itself from the floor of
+the Valley, few visitors take the trouble to climb the walls to gain
+nearer views, unable to realize how vastly more impressive it is near
+by than at a distance of one or two miles.
+
+A Wonderful Ascent
+
+The views developed in a walk up the zigzags of the trail leading to
+the foot of the Upper Fall are about as varied and impressive as those
+displayed along the favorite Glacier Point Trail. One rises as if on
+wings. The groves, meadows, fern-flats and reaches of the river gain
+new interest, as if never seen before; all the views changing in a most
+striking manner as we go higher from point to point. The foreground
+also changes every few rods in the most surprising manner, although the
+earthquake talus and the level bench on the face of the wall over which
+the trail passes seem monotonous and commonplace as seen from the
+bottom of the Valley. Up we climb with glad exhilaration, through
+shaggy fringes of laurel, ceanothus, glossy-leaved manzanita and
+live-oak, from shadow to shadow across bars and patches of sunshine,
+the leafy openings making charming frames for the Valley pictures
+beheld through gem, and for the glimpses of the high peaks that appear
+in the distance. The higher we go the farther we seem to be from the
+summit of the vast granite wall. Here we pass a projecting buttress
+hose grooved and rounded surface tells a plain story of the time when
+the Valley, now filled with sunshine, was filled with ice, when the
+grand old Yosemite Glacier, flowing river-like from its distant
+fountains, swept through it, crushing, grinding, wearing its way ever
+deeper, developing and fashioning these sublime rocks. Again we cross a
+white, battered gully, the pathway of rock avalanches or snow
+avalanches. Farther on we come to a gentle stream slipping down the
+face of the Cliff in lace-like strips, and dropping from ledge to
+ledge—too small to be called a fall—trickling, dripping, oozing, a
+pathless wanderer from one of the upland meadow lying a little way back
+of the Valley rim, seeking a way century after century to the depths of
+the Valley without any appreciable channel. Every morning after a cool
+night, evaporation being checked, it gathers strength and sings like a
+bird, but as the day advances and the sun strikes its thin currents
+outspread on the heated precipices, most of its waters vanish ere the
+bottom of the Valley is reached. Many a fine, hanging-garden aloft on
+breezy inaccessible heights owes to it its freshness and fullness of
+beauty; ferneries in shady nooks, filled with Adiantum, Woodwardia,
+Woodsia, Aspidium, Pellaea, and Cheilanthes, rosetted and tufted and
+ranged in lines, daintily overlapping, thatching the stupendous cliffs
+with softest beauty, some of the delicate fronds seeming to float on
+the warm moist air, without any connection with rock or stream. Nor is
+there any lack of colored plants wherever they can find a place to
+cling to; lilies and mints, the showy cardinal mimulus, and glowing
+cushions of the golden bahia, enlivened with butterflies and bees and
+all the other small, happy humming creatures that belong to them.
+
+After the highest point on the lower division of the trail is gained it
+leads up into the deep recess occupied by the great fall, the noblest
+display of falling water to be found in the Valley, or perhaps in the
+world. When it first comes in sight it seems almost within reach of
+one’s hand, so great in the spring is its volume and velocity, yet it
+is still nearly a third of a mile away and appears to recede as we
+advance. The sculpture of the walls about it is on a scale of grandeur,
+according nobly with the fall plain and massive, though elaborately
+finished, like all the other cliffs about the Valley.
+
+In the afternoon an immense shadow is cast athwart the plateau in front
+of the fall, and over the chaparral bushes that clothe the slopes and
+benches of the walls to the eastward, creeping upward until the fall is
+wholly overcast, the contrast between the shaded and illumined sections
+being very striking in these near views.
+
+Under this shadow, during the cool centuries immediately following the
+breaking-up of the Glacial Period, dwelt a small residual glacier, one
+of the few that lingered on this sun-beaten side of the Valley after
+the main trunk glacier had vanished. It sent down a long winding
+current through the narrow cañon on the west side of the fall, and must
+have formed a striking feature of the ancient scenery of the Valley;
+the lofty fall of ice and fall of water side by side, yet separate and
+distinct.
+
+The coolness of the afternoon shadow and the abundant dewy spray make a
+fine climate for the plateau ferns and grasses, and for the beautiful
+azalea bushes that grow here in profusion and bloom in September, long
+after the warmer thickets down on the floor of the Valley have withered
+and gone to seed. Even close to the fall, and behind it at the base of
+the cliff, a few venturesome plants may be found undisturbed by the
+rock-shaking torrent.
+
+The basin at the foot of the fall into which the current directly
+pours, when it is not swayed by the wind, is about ten feet deep and
+fifteen to twenty feet in diameter. That it is not much deeper is
+surprising, when the great height and force of the fall is considered.
+But the rock where the water strikes probably suffers less erosion than
+it would were the descent less than half as great, since the current is
+outspread, and much of its force is spent ere it reaches the
+bottom—being received on the air as upon an elastic cushion, and borne
+outward and dissipated over a surface more than fifty yards wide.
+
+This surface, easily examined when the water is low, is intensely clean
+and fresh looking. It is the raw, quick flesh of the mountain wholly
+untouched by the weather. In summer droughts when the snowfall of the
+preceding winter has been light, the fall is reduced to a mere shower
+of separate drops without any obscuring spray. Then we may safely go
+back of it and view the crystal shower from beneath, each drop wavering
+and pulsing as it makes its way through the air, and flashing off jets
+of colored light of ravishing beauty. But all this is invisible from
+the bottom of the Valley, like a thousand other interesting things. One
+must labor for beauty as for bread, here as elsewhere.
+
+The Grandeur Of The Yosemite Fall
+
+During the time of the spring floods the best near view of the fall is
+obtained from Fern Ledge on the east side above the blinding spray at a
+height of about 400 feet above the base of the fall. A climb of about
+1400 feet from the Valley has to be made, and there is no trail, but to
+any one fond of climbing this will make the ascent all the more
+delightful. A narrow part of the ledge extends to the side of the fall
+and back of it, enabling us to approach it as closely as we wish. When
+the afternoon sunshine is streaming through the throng of comets, ever
+wasting, ever renewed, fineness, firmness and variety of their forms
+are beautifully revealed. At the top of the fall they seem to burst
+forth in irregular spurts from some grand, throbbing mountain heart.
+Now and then one mighty throb sends forth a mass of solid water into
+the free air far beyond the others which rushes alone to the bottom of
+the fall with long streaming tail, like combed silk, while the others,
+descending in clusters, gradually mingle and lose their identity. But
+they all rush past us with amazing velocity and display of power though
+apparently drowsy and deliberate in their movements when observed from
+a distance of a mile or two. The heads of these comet-like masses are
+composed of nearly solid water, and are dense white in color like
+pressed snow, from the friction they suffer in rushing through the air,
+the portion worn off forming the tail between the white lustrous
+threads and films of which faint, grayish pencilings appear, while the
+outer, finer sprays of water-dust, whirling in sunny eddies, are pearly
+gray throughout. At the bottom of the fall there is but little
+distinction of form visible. It is mostly a hissing, clashing,
+seething, upwhirling mass of scud and spray, through which the light
+sifts in gray and purple tones while at times when the sun strikes at
+the required angle, the whole wild and apparently lawless, stormy,
+striving mass is changed to brilliant rainbow hues, manifesting finest
+harmony. The middle portion of the fall is the most openly beautiful;
+lower, the various forms into which the waters are wrought are more
+closely and voluminously veiled, while higher, towards the head, the
+current is comparatively simple and undivided. But even at the bottom,
+in the boiling clouds of spray, there is no confusion, while the
+rainbow light makes all divine, adding glorious beauty and peace to
+glorious power. This noble fall has far the richest, as well as the
+most powerful, voice of all the falls of the Valley, its tones varying
+from the sharp hiss and rustle of the wind in the glossy leaves of the
+live-oak and the soft, sifting, hushing tones of the pines, to the
+loudest rush and roar of storm winds and thunder among the crags of the
+summit peaks. The low bass, booming, reverberating tones, heard under
+favorable circumstances five or six miles away are formed by the
+dashing and exploding of heavy masses mixed with air upon two
+projecting ledges on the face of the cliff, the one on which we are
+standing and another about 200 feet above it. The torrent of massive
+comets is continuous at time of high water, while the explosive,
+booming notes are wildly intermittent, because, unless influenced by
+the wind, most of the heavier masses shoot out from the face of the
+precipice, and pass the ledges upon which at other times they are
+exploded. Occasionally the whole fall is swayed away from the front of
+the cliff, then suddenly dashed flat against it, or vibrated from side
+to side like a pendulum, giving rise to endless variety of forms and
+sounds.
+
+The Nevada Fall
+
+The Nevada Fall is 600 feet high and is usually ranked next to the
+Yosemite in general interest among the five main falls of the Valley.
+Coming through the Little Yosemite in tranquil reaches, the river is
+first broken into rapids on a moraine boulder-bar that crosses the
+lower end of the Valley. Thence it pursues its way to the head of the
+fall in a rough, solid rock channel, dashing on side angles, heaving in
+heavy surging masses against elbow knobs, and swirling and swashing in
+pot-holes without a moment’s rest. Thus, already chafed and dashed to
+foam, overfolded and twisted, it plunges over the brink of the
+precipice as if glad to escape into the open air. But before it reaches
+the bottom it is pulverized yet finer by impinging upon a sloping
+portion of the cliff about half-way down, thus making it the whitest of
+all the falls of the Valley, and altogether one of the most wonderful
+in the world.
+
+On the north side, close to its head, a slab of granite projects over
+the brink, forming a fine point for a view, over its throng of
+streamers and wild plunging, into its intensely white bosom, and
+through the broad drifts of spray, to the river far below, gathering
+its spent waters and rushing on again down the cañon in glad exultation
+into Emerald Pool, where at length it grows calm and gets rest for what
+still lies before it. All the features of the view correspond with the
+waters in grandeur and wildness. The glacier sculptured walls of the
+cañon on either hand, with the sublime mass of the Glacier Point Ridge
+in front, form a huge triangular pit-like basin, which, filled with the
+roaring of the falling river seems as if it might be the hopper of one
+of the mills of the gods in which the mountains were being ground.
+
+The Vernal Fall
+
+The Vernal, about a mile below the Nevada, is 400 feet high, a staid,
+orderly, graceful, easy-going fall, proper and exact in every movement
+and gesture, with scarce a hint of the passionate enthusiasm of the
+Yosemite or of the impetuous Nevada, whose chafed and twisted waters
+hurrying over the cliff seem glad to escape into the open air, while
+its deep, booming, thunder-tones reverberate over the listening
+landscape. Nevertheless it is a favorite with most visitors, doubtless
+because it is more accessible than any other, more closely approached
+and better seen and heard. A good stairway ascends the cliff beside it
+and the level plateau at the head enables one to saunter safely along
+the edge of the river as it comes from Emerald Pool and to watch its
+waters, calmly bending over the brow of the precipice, in a sheet
+eighty feet wide, changing in color from green to purplish gray and
+white until dashed on a boulder talus. Thence issuing from beneath its
+fine broad spray-clouds we see the tremendously adventurous river still
+unspent, beating its way down the wildest and deepest of all its cañons
+in gray roaring rapids, dear to the ouzel, and below the confluence of
+the Illilouette, sweeping around the shoulder of the Half Dome on its
+approach to the head of the tranquil levels of the Valley.
+
+The Illilouette Fall
+
+The Illilouette in general appearance most resembles the Nevada. The
+volume of water is less than half as great, but it is about the same
+height (600 feet) and its waters receive the same kind of preliminary
+tossing in a rocky, irregular channel. Therefore it is a very white and
+fine-grained fall. When it is in full springtime bloom it is partly
+divided by rocks that roughen the lip of the precipice, but this
+division amounts only to a kind of fluting and grooving of the column,
+which has a beautiful effect. It is not nearly so grand a fall as the
+upper Yosemite, or so symmetrical as the Vernal, or so airily graceful
+and simple as the Bridal Veil, nor does it ever display so tremendous
+an outgush of snowy magnificence as the Nevada; but in the exquisite
+fineness and richness of texture of its flowing folds it surpasses them
+all.
+
+One of the finest effects of sunlight on falling water I ever saw in
+Yosemite or elsewhere I found on the brow of this beautiful fall. It
+was in the Indian summer, when the leaf colors were ripe and the great
+cliffs and domes were transfigured in the hazy golden air. I had
+scrambled up its rugged talus-dammed cañon, oftentimes stopping to take
+breath and look back to admire the wonderful views to be had there of
+the great Half Dome, and to enjoy the extreme purity of the water,
+which in the motionless pools on this stream is almost perfectly
+invisible; the colored foliage of the maples, dogwoods, _Rubus_
+tangles, etc., and the late goldenrods and asters. The voice of the
+fall was now low, and the grand spring and summer floods had waned to
+sifting, drifting gauze and thin-broidered folds of linked and arrowy
+lace-work. When I reached the foot of the fall sunbeams were glinting
+across its head, leaving all the rest of it in shadow; and on its
+illumined brow a group of yellow spangles of singular form and beauty
+were playing, flashing up and dancing in large flame-shaped masses,
+wavering at times, then steadying, rising and falling in accord with
+the shifting forms of the water. But the color of the dancing spangles
+changed not at all. Nothing in clouds or flowers, on bird-wings or the
+lips of shells, could rival it in fineness. It was the most divinely
+beautiful mass of rejoicing yellow light I ever beheld—one of Nature’s
+precious gifts that perchance may come to us but once in a lifetime.
+
+The Minor Falls
+
+There are many other comparatively small falls and cascades in the
+Valley. The most notable are the Yosemite Gorge Fall and Cascades,
+Tenaya Fall and Cascades, Royal Arch Falls, the two Sentinel Cascades
+and the falls of Cascade and Tamarack Creeks, a mile or two below the
+lower end of the Valley. These last are often visited. The others are
+seldom noticed or mentioned; although in almost any other country they
+would be visited and described as wonders.
+
+The six intermediate falls in the gorge between the head of the Lower
+and the base of the Upper Yosemite Falls, separated by a few deep pools
+and strips of rapids, and three slender, tributary cascades on the west
+side form a series more strikingly varied and combined than any other
+in the Valley, yet very few of all the Valley visitors ever see them or
+hear of them. No available standpoint commands a view of them all. The
+best general view is obtained from the mouth of the gorge near the head
+of the Lower Fall. The two lowest of the series, together with one of
+the three tributary cascades, are visible from this standpoint, but in
+reaching it the last twenty or thirty feet of the descent is rather
+dangerous in time of high water, the shelving rocks being then slippery
+on account of spray, but if one should chance to slip when the water is
+low, only a bump or two and a harmless plash would be the penalty. No
+part of the gorge, however, is safe to any but cautious climbers.
+
+Though the dark gorge hall of these rejoicing waters is never flushed
+by the purple light of morning or evening, it is warmed and cheered by
+the white light of noonday, which, falling into so much foam and and
+spray of varying degrees of fineness, makes marvelous displays of
+rainbow colors. So filled, indeed, is it with this precious light, at
+favorable times it seems to take the place of common air. Laurel bushes
+shed fragrance into it from above and live-oaks, those fearless
+mountaineers, hold fast to angular seams and lean out over it with
+their fringing sprays and bright mirror leaves.
+
+One bird, the ouzel, loves this gorge and flies through it merrily, or
+cheerily, rather, stopping to sing on foam-washed bosses where other
+birds could find no rest for their feet. I have even seen a gray
+squirrel down in the heart of it beside the wild rejoicing water.
+
+One of my favorite night walks was along the rim of this wild gorge in
+times of high water when the moon was full, to see the lunar bows in
+the spray.
+
+For about a mile above Mirror Lake the Tenaya Cañon is level, and
+richly planted with fir, Douglas spruce and libocedrus, forming a
+remarkably fine grove, at the head of which is the Tenaya Fall. Though
+seldom seen or described, this is, I think, the most picturesque of all
+the small falls. A considerable distance above it, Tenaya Creek comes
+hurrying down, white and foamy, over a flat pavement inclined at an
+angle of about eighteen degrees. In time of high water this sheet of
+rapids is nearly seventy feet wide, and is varied in a very striking
+way by three parallel furrows that extend in the direction of its flow.
+These furrows, worn by the action of the stream upon cleavage joints,
+vary in width, are slightly sinuous, and have large boulders firmly
+wedged in them here and there in narrow places, giving rise, of course,
+to a complicated series of wild dashes, doublings, and upleaping arches
+in the swift torrent. Just before it reaches the head of the fall the
+current is divided, the left division making a vertical drop of about
+eighty feet in a romantic, leafy, flowery, mossy nook, while the other
+forms a rugged cascade.
+
+The Royal Arch Fall in time of high water is a magnificent object,
+forming a broad ornamental sheet in front of the arches. The two
+Sentinel Cascades, 3000 feet high, are also grand spectacles when the
+snow is melting fast in the spring, but by the middle of summer they
+have diminished to mere streaks scarce noticeable amid their sublime
+surroundings.
+
+The Beauty Of The Rainbows
+
+The Bridal Veil and Vernal Falls are famous for their rainbows; and
+special visits to them are often made when the sun shines into the
+spray at the most favorable angle. But amid the spray and foam and
+fine-ground mist ever rising from the various falls and cataracts there
+is an affluence and variety of iris bows scarcely known to visitors who
+stay only a day or two. Both day and night, winter and summer, this
+divine light may be seen wherever water is falling dancing, singing;
+telling the heart-peace of Nature amid the wildest displays of her
+power. In the bright spring mornings the black-walled recess at the
+foot of the Lower Yosemite Fall is lavishly fine with irised spray; and
+not simply does this span the dashing foam, but the foam itself, the
+whole mass of it, beheld at a certain distance, seems to be colored,
+and drips and wavers from color to color, mingling with the foliage of
+the adjacent trees, without suggesting any relationship to the ordinary
+rainbow. This is perhaps the largest and most reservoir-like fountain
+of iris colors to be found in the Valley.
+
+Lunar rainbows or spray-bows also abound in the glorious affluence of
+dashing, rejoicing, hurrahing, enthusiastic spring floods, their colors
+as distinct as those of the sun and regularly and obviously banded,
+though less vivid. Fine specimens may be found any night at the foot of
+the Upper Yosemite Fall, glowing gloriously amid the gloomy shadows and
+thundering waters, whenever there is plenty of moonlight and spray.
+Even the secondary bow is at times distinctly visible.
+
+The best point from which to observe them is on Fern Ledge. For some
+time after moonrise, at time of high water, the arc has a span of about
+five hundred feet, and is set upright; one end planted in the boiling
+spray at the bottom, the other in the edge of the fall, creeping lower,
+of course, and becoming less upright as the moon rises higher. This
+grand arc of color, glowing in mild, shapely beauty in so weird and
+huge a chamber of night shadows, and amid the rush and roar and
+tumultuous dashing of this thunder-voiced fall, is one of the most
+impressive and most cheering of all the blessed mountain evangels.
+
+Smaller bows may be seen in the gorge on the plateau between the Upper
+and Lower Falls. Once toward midnight, after spending a few hours with
+the wild beauty of the Upper Fall, I sauntered along the edge of the
+gorge, looking in here and there, wherever the footing felt safe, to
+see what I could learn of the night aspects of the smaller falls that
+dwell there. And down in an exceedingly black, pit-like portion of the
+gorge, at the foot of the highest of the intermediate falls, into which
+the moonbeams were pouring through a narrow opening, I saw a
+well-defined spray-bow, beautifully distinct in colors, spanning the
+pit from side to side, while pure white foam-waves beneath the
+beautiful bow were constantly springing up out of the dark into the
+moonlight like dancing ghosts.
+
+An Unexpected Adventure
+
+A wild scene, but not a safe one, is made by the moon as it appears
+through the edge of the Yosemite Fall when one is behind it. Once,
+after enjoying the night-song of the waters and watching the formation
+of the colored bow as the moon came round the domes and sent her beams
+into the wild uproar, I ventured out on the narrow bench that extends
+back of the fall from Fern Ledge and began to admire the dim-veiled
+grandeur of the view. I could see the fine gauzy threads of the fall’s
+filmy border by having the light in front; and wishing to look at the
+moon through the meshes of some of the denser portions of the fall, I
+ventured to creep farther behind it while it was gently wind-swayed,
+without taking sufficient thought about the consequences of its swaying
+back to its natural position after the wind-pressure should be removed.
+The effect was enchanting: fine, savage music sounding above, beneath,
+around me; while the moon, apparently in the very midst of the rushing
+waters, seemed to be struggling to keep her place, on account of the
+ever-varying form and density of the water masses through which she was
+seen, now darkly veiled or eclipsed by a rush of thick-headed comets,
+now flashing out through openings between their tails. I was in
+fairyland between the dark wall and the wild throng of illumined
+waters, but suffered sudden disenchantment; for, like the witch-scene
+in Alloway Kirk, “in an instant all was dark.” Down came a dash of
+spent comets, thin and harmless-looking in the distance, but they felt
+desperately solid and stony when they struck my shoulders, like a
+mixture of choking spray and gravel and big hailstones. Instinctively
+dropping on my knees, I gripped an angle of the rock, curled up like a
+young fern frond with my face pressed against my breast, and in this
+attitude submitted as best I could to my thundering bath. The heavier
+masses seemed to strike like cobblestones, and there was a confused
+noise of many waters about my ears—hissing, gurgling, clashing sounds
+that were not heard as music. The situation was quickly realized. How
+fast one’s thoughts burn in such times of stress! I was weighing
+chances of escape. Would the column be swayed a few inches away from
+the wall, or would it come yet closer? The fall was in flood and not so
+lightly would its ponderous mass be swayed. My fate seemed to depend on
+a breath of the “idle wind.” It was moved gently forward, the pounding
+ceased, and I was once more visited by glimpses of the moon. But
+fearing I might be caught at a disadvantage in making too hasty a
+retreat, I moved only a few feet along the bench to where a block of
+ice lay. I wedged myself between the ice and the wall and lay face
+downwards, until the steadiness of the light gave encouragement to rise
+and get away. Somewhat nerve-shaken, drenched, and benumbed, I made out
+to build a fire, warmed myself, ran home, reached my cabin before
+daylight, got an hour or two of sleep, and awoke sound and comfortable,
+better, not worse for my hard midnight bath.
+
+Climate And Weather
+
+Owing to the westerly trend of the Valley and its vast depth there is a
+great difference between the climates of the north and south
+sides—greater than between many countries far apart; for the south wall
+is in shadow during the winter months, while the north is bathed in
+sunshine every clear day. Thus there is mild spring weather on one side
+of the Valley while winter rules the other. Far up the north-side
+cliffs many a nook may be found closely embraced by sun-beaten
+rock-bosses in which flowers bloom every month of the year. Even
+butterflies may be seen in these high winter gardens except when
+snow-storms are falling and a few days after they have ceased. Near the
+head of the lower Yosemite Fall in January I found the ant lions lying
+in wait in their warm sand-cups, rock ferns being unrolled, club mosses
+covered with fresh-growing plants, the flowers of the laurel nearly
+open, and the honeysuckle rosetted with bright young leaves; every
+plant seemed to be thinking about summer. Even on the shadow-side of
+the Valley the frost is never very sharp. The lowest temperature I ever
+observed during four winters was 7° Fahrenheit. The first twenty-four
+days of January had an average temperature at 9 A.M. of 32°, minimum
+22°; at 3 P.M. the average was 40° 30′, the minimum 32°. Along the top
+of the walls, 7000 and 8000 feet high, the temperature was, of course,
+much lower. But the difference in temperature between the north and
+south sides is due not so much to the winter sunshine as to the heat of
+the preceding summer, stored up in the rocks, which rapidly melts the
+snow in contact with them. For though summer sun-heat is stored in the
+rocks of the south side also, the amount is much less because the rays
+fall obliquely on the south wall even in summer and almost vertically
+on the north.
+
+The upper branches of the Yosemite streams are buried every winter
+beneath a heavy mantle of snow, and set free in the spring in
+magnificent floods. Then, all the fountains, full and overflowing,
+every living thing breaks forth into singing, and the glad exulting
+streams shining and falling in the warm sunny weather, shake everything
+into music making all the mountain-world a song.
+
+The great annual spring thaw usually begins in May in the forest
+region, and in June and July on the high Sierra, varying somewhat both
+in time and fullness with the weather and the depth of the snow. Toward
+the end of summer the streams are at their lowest ebb, few even of the
+strongest singing much above a whisper they slip and ripple through
+gravel and boulder-beds from pool to pool in the hollows of their
+channels, and drop in pattering showers like rain, and slip down
+precipices and fall in sheets of embroidery, fold over fold. But,
+however low their singing, it is always ineffably fine in tone, in
+harmony with the restful time of the year.
+
+The first snow of the season that comes to the help of the streams
+usually falls in September or October, sometimes even is the latter
+part of August, in the midst of yellow Indian summer when the
+goldenrods and gentians of the glacier meadows are in their prime. This
+Indian-summer snow, however, soon melts, the chilled flowers spread
+their petals to the sun, and the gardens as well as the streams are
+refreshed as if only a warm shower had fallen. The snow-storms that
+load the mountains to form the main fountain supply for the year seldom
+set in before the middle or end of November.
+
+Winter Beauty Of The Valley
+
+When the first heavy storms stopped work on the high mountains, I made
+haste down to my Yosemite den, not to “hole up” and sleep the white
+months away; I was out every day, and often all night, sleeping but
+little, studying the so-called wonders and common things ever on show,
+wading, climbing, sauntering among the blessed storms and calms,
+rejoicing in almost everything alike that I could see or hear: the
+glorious brightness of frosty mornings; the sunbeams pouring over the
+white domes and crags into the groves end waterfalls, kindling
+marvelous iris fires in the hoarfrost and spray; the great forests and
+mountains in their deep noon sleep; the good-night alpenglow; the
+stars; the solemn gazing moon, drawing the huge domes and headlands one
+by one glowing white out of the shadows hushed and breathless like an
+audience in awful enthusiasm, while the meadows at their feet sparkle
+with frost-stars like the sky; the sublime darkness of storm-nights,
+when all the lights are out; the clouds in whose depths the frail
+snow-flowers grow; the behavior and many voices of the different kinds
+of storms, trees, birds, waterfalls, and snow-avalanches in the
+ever-changing weather.
+
+Every clear, frosty morning loud sounds are heard booming and
+reverberating from side to side of the Valley at intervals of a few
+minutes, beginning soon after sunrise and continuing an hour or two
+like a thunder-storm. In my first winter in the Valley I could not make
+out the source of this noise. I thought of falling boulders,
+rock-blasting, etc. Not till I saw what looked like hoarfrost dropping
+from the side of the Fall was the problem explained. The strange
+thunder is made by the fall of sections of ice formed of spray that is
+frozen on the face of the cliff along the sides of the Upper Yosemite
+Fan—a sort of crystal plaster, a foot or two thick, racked off by the
+sunbeams, awakening all the Valley like cock-crowing, announcing the
+finest weather, shouting aloud Nature’s infinite industry and love of
+hard work in creating beauty.
+
+Exploring An Ice Cone
+
+This frozen spray gives rise to one of the most interesting winter
+features of the Valley—a cone of ice at the foot of the fall, four or
+five hundred feet high. From the Fern Ledge standpoint its crater-like
+throat is seen, down which the fall plunges with deep, gasping
+explosions of compressed air, and, after being well churned in the
+wormy interior, the water bursts forth through arched openings at its
+base, apparently scourged and weary and glad to escape, while belching
+spray, spouted up out of the throat past the descending current, is
+wafted away in irised drifts to the adjacent rocks and groves. It is
+built during the night and early hours of the morning; only in spells
+of exceptionally cold and cloudy weather is the work continued through
+the day. The greater part of the spray material falls in crystalline
+showers direct to its place, something like a small local snow-storm;
+but a considerable portion is first frozen on the face of the cliff
+along the sides of the fall and stays there until expanded and cracked
+off in irregular masses, some of them tons in weight, to be built into
+the walls of the cone; while in windy, frosty weather, when the fall is
+swayed from side to side, the cone is well drenched and the loose ice
+masses and spray-dust are all firmly welded and frozen together. Thus
+the finest of the downy wafts and curls of spray-dust, which in mild
+nights fall about as silently as dew, are held back until sunrise to
+make a store of heavy ice to reinforce the waterfall’s thunder-tones.
+
+While the cone is in process of formation, growing higher and wider in
+the frosty weather, it looks like a beautiful smooth, pure-white hill;
+but when it is wasting and breaking up in the spring its surface is
+strewn with leaves, pine branches, stones, sand, etc., that have been
+brought over the fall, making it look like a heap of avalanche
+detritus.
+
+Anxious to learn what I could about the structure of this curious hill
+I often approached it in calm weather and tried to climb it, carrying
+an ax to cut steps. Once I nearly succeeded in gaining the summit. At
+the base I was met by a current of spray and wind that made seeing and
+breathing difficult. I pushed on backward however, and soon gained the
+slope of the hill, where by creeping close to the surface most of the
+choking blast passed over me and I managed to crawl up with but little
+difficulty. Thus I made my way nearly to the summit, halting at times
+to peer up through the wild whirls of spray at the veiled grandeur of
+the fall, or to listen to the thunder beneath me; the whole hill was
+sounding as if it were a huge, bellowing drum. I hoped that by waiting
+until the fall was blown aslant I should be able to climb to the lip of
+the crater and get a view of the interior; but a suffocating blast,
+half air, half water, followed by the fall of an enormous mass of
+frozen spray from a spot high up on the wall, quickly discouraged me.
+The whole cone was jarred by the blow and some fragments of the mass
+sped past me dangerously near; so I beat a hasty retreat, chilled and
+drenched, and lay down on a sunny rock to dry.
+
+Once during a wind-storm when I saw that the fall was frequently blown
+westward, leaving the cone dry, I ran up to Fern Ledge hoping to gain a
+clear view of the interior. I set out at noon. All the way up the storm
+notes were so loud about me that the voice of the fall was almost
+drowned by them. Notwithstanding the rocks and bushes everywhere were
+drenched by the wind-driven spray, I approached the brink of the
+precipice overlooking the mouth of the ice cone, but I was almost
+suffocated by the drenching, gusty spray, and was compelled to seek
+shelter. I searched for some hiding-place in the wall from whence I
+might run out at some opportune moment when the fall with its whirling
+spray and torn shreds of comet tails and trailing, tattered skirts was
+borne westward, as I had seen it carried several times before, leaving
+the cliffs on the east side and the ice hill bare in the sunlight. I
+had not long to wait, for, as if ordered so for my special
+accommodation, the mighty downrush of comets with their whirling
+drapery swung westward and remained aslant for nearly half an hour. The
+cone was admirably lighted and deserted by the water, which fell most
+of the time on the rocky western slopes mostly outside of the cone. The
+mouth into which the fall pours was, as near as I could guess, about
+one hundred feet in diameter north and south and about two hundred feet
+east and west, which is about the shape and size of the fall at its
+best in its normal condition at this season.
+
+The crater-like opening was not a true oval, but more like a huge
+coarse mouth. I could see down the throat about one hundred feet or
+perhaps farther.
+
+The fall precipice overhangs from a height of 400 feet above the base;
+therefore the water strikes some distance from the base off the cliff,
+allowing space for the accumulation of a considerable mass of ice
+between the fall and the wall.
+
+
+
+Chapter 2
+Winter Storms and Spring Floods
+
+
+The Bridal Veil and the Upper Yosemite Falls, on account of their
+height and exposure, are greatly influenced by winds. The common summer
+winds that come up the river cañon from the plains are seldom very
+strong; but the north winds do some very wild work, worrying the falls
+and the forests, and hanging snow-banners on the comet-peaks. One wild
+winter morning I was awakened by storm-wind that was playing with the
+falls as if they were mere wisps of mist and making the great pines bow
+and sing with glorious enthusiasm. The Valley had been visited a short
+time before by a series of fine snow-storms, and the floor and the
+cliffs and all the region round about were lavishly adorned with its
+best winter jewelry, the air was full of fine snow-dust, and pine
+branches, tassels and empty cones were flying in an almost continuous
+flock.
+
+Soon after sunrise, when I was seeking a place safe from flying
+branches, I saw the Lower Yosemite Fall thrashed and pulverized from
+top to bottom into one glorious mass of rainbow dust; while a thousand
+feet above it the main Upper Fall was suspended on the face of the
+cliff in the form of an inverted bow, all silvery white and fringed
+with short wavering strips. Then, suddenly assailed by a tremendous
+blast, the whole mass of the fall was blown into thread and ribbons,
+and driven back over the brow of the cliff whence it came, as if denied
+admission to the Valley. This kind of storm-work was continued about
+ten or fifteen minutes; then another change in the play of the huge
+exulting swirls and billows and upheaving domes of the gale allowed the
+baffled fall to gather and arrange its tattered waters, and sink down
+again in its place. As the day advanced, the gale gave no sign of
+dying, excepting brief lulls, the Valley was filled with its weariless
+roar, and the cloudless sky grew garish-white from myriads of minute,
+sparkling snow-spicules. In the afternoon, while I watched the Upper
+Fall from the shelter of a big pine tree, it was suddenly arrested in
+its descent at a point about half-way down, and was neither blown
+upward nor driven aside, but simply held stationary in mid-air, as if
+gravitation below that point in the path of its descent had ceased to
+act. The ponderous flood, weighing hundreds of tons, was sustained,
+hovering, hesitating, like a bunch of thistledown, while I counted one
+hundred and ninety. All this time the ordinary amount of water was
+coming over the cliff and accumulating in the air, swedging and
+widening and forming an irregular cone about seven hundred feet high,
+tapering to the top of the wall, the whole standing still, jesting on
+the invisible arm of the North Wind. At length, as if commanded to go
+on again, scores of arrowy comets shot forth from the bottom of the
+suspended mass as if escaping from separate outlets.
+
+The brow of El Capitan was decked with long snow-streamers like hair,
+Clouds’ Rest was fairly enveloped in drifting gossamer elms, and the
+Half Dome loomed up in the garish light like a majestic, living
+creature clad in the same gauzy, wind-woven drapery, while upward
+currents meeting at times overhead made it smoke like a volcano.
+
+An Extraordinary Storm And Flood
+
+Glorious as are these rocks and waters arrayed in storm robes, or
+chanting rejoicing in every-day dress, they are still more glorious
+when rare weather conditions meet to make them sing with floods. Only
+once during all the years I have lived in the Valley have I seen it in
+full flood bloom. In 1871 the early winter weather was delightful; the
+days all sunshine, the nights all starry and calm, calling forth fine
+crops of frost-crystals on the pines and withered ferns and grasses for
+the morning sunbeams to sift through. In the afternoon of December 16,
+when I was sauntering on the meadows, I noticed a massive crimson cloud
+growing in solitary grandeur above the Cathedral Rocks, its form
+scarcely less striking than its color. It had a picturesque, bulging
+base like an old sequoia, a smooth, tapering stem, and a bossy,
+down-curling crown like a mushroom; all its parts were colored alike,
+making one mass of translucent crimson. Wondering what the meaning of
+that strange, lonely red cloud might be, I was up betimes next morning
+looking at the weather, but all seemed tranquil as yet. Towards noon
+gray clouds with a lose, curly grain like bird’s-eye maple began to
+grow, and late at night rain fell, which soon changed to snow. Next
+morning the snow on the meadows was about ten inches deep, and it was
+still falling in a fine, cordial storm. During the night of the 18th
+heavy rain fell on the snow, but as the temperature was 34 degrees, the
+snow-line was only a few hundred feet above the bottom of the Valley,
+and one had only to climb a little higher than the tops of the pines to
+get out of the rain-storm into the snow-storm. The streams, instead of
+being increased in volume by the storm, were diminished, because the
+snow sponged up part of their waters and choked the smaller
+tributaries. But about midnight the temperature suddenly rose to 42°,
+carrying the snow-line far beyond the Valley walls, and next morning
+Yosemite was rejoicing in a glorious flood. The comparatively warm rain
+falling on the snow was at first absorbed and held back, and so also
+was that portion of the snow that the rain melted, and all that was
+melted by the warm wind, until the whole mass of snow was saturated and
+became sludgy, and at length slipped and rushed simultaneously from a
+thousand slopes in wildest extravagance, heaping and swelling flood
+over flood, and plunging into the Valley in stupendous avalanches.
+
+Awakened by the roar, I looked out and at once recognized the
+extraordinary character of the storm. The rain was still pouring in
+torrent abundance and the wind at gale speed was doing all it could
+with the flood-making rain.
+
+The section of the north wall visible from my cabin was fairly streaked
+with new falls—wild roaring singers that seemed strangely out of place.
+Eager to get into the midst of the show, I snatched a piece of bread
+for breakfast and ran out. The mountain waters, suddenly liberated,
+seemed to be holding a grand jubilee. The two Sentinel Cascades rivaled
+the great falls at ordinary stages, and across the Valley by the Three
+Brothers I caught glimpses of more falls than I could readily count;
+while the whole Valley throbbed and trembled, and was filled with an
+awful, massive, solemn, sea-like roar. After gazing a while enchanted
+with the network of new falls that were adorning and transfiguring
+every rock in sight, I tried to reach the upper meadows, where the
+Valley is widest, that I might be able to see the walls on both sides,
+and thus gain general views. But the river was over its banks and the
+meadows were flooded, forming an almost continuous lake dotted with
+blue sludgy islands, while innumerable streams roared like lions across
+my path and were sweeping forward rocks and logs with tremendous energy
+over ground where tiny gilias had been growing but a short time before.
+Climbing into the talus slopes, where these savage torrents were broken
+among earthquake boulders, I managed to cross them, and force my way up
+the Valley to Hutchings’ Bridge, where I crossed the river and waded to
+the middle of the upper meadow. Here most of the new falls were in
+sight, probably the most glorious assemblage of waterfalls ever
+displayed from any one standpoint. On that portion of the south wall
+between Hutchings’ and the Sentinel there were ten falls plunging and
+booming from a height of nearly three thousand feet, the smallest of
+which might have been heard miles away. In the neighborhood of Glacier
+Point there were six; between the Three Brothers and Yosemite Fall,
+nine; between Yosemite and Royal Arch Falls, ten; from Washington
+Column to Mount Watkins, ten; on the slopes of Half Dome and Clouds’
+Rest, facing Mirror Lake and Tenaya Cañon, eight; on the shoulder of
+Half Dome, facing the Valley, three; fifty-six new falls occupying the
+upper end of the Valley, besides a countless host of silvery threads
+gleaming everywhere. In all the Valley there must have been upwards of
+a hundred. As if celebrating some great event, falls and cascades in
+Yosemite costume were coming down everywhere from fountain basins, far
+and near; and, though newcomers, they behaved and sang as if they had
+lived here always.
+
+All summer-visitors will remember the comet forms of the Yosemite Fall
+and the laces of the Bridal Veil and Nevada. In the falls of this
+winter jubilee the lace forms predominated, but there was no lack of
+thunder-toned comets. The lower portion of one of the Sentinel Cascades
+was composed of two main white torrents with the space between them
+filled in with chained and beaded gauze of intricate pattern, through
+the singing threads of which the purplish-gray rock could be dimly
+seen. The series above Glacier Point was still more complicated in
+structure, displaying every form that one could imagine water might be
+dashed and combed and woven into. Those on the north wall between
+Washington Column and the Royal Arch Fall were so nearly related they
+formed an almost continuous sheet, and these again were but slightly
+separated from those about Indian Cañon. The group about the Three
+Brothers and El Capitan, owing to the topography and cleavage of the
+cliffs back of them, was more broken and irregular. The Tissiack
+Cascades were comparatively small, yet sufficient to give that noblest
+of mountain rocks a glorious voice. In the midst of all this
+extravagant rejoicing the great Yosemite Fall was scarce heard until
+about three o’clock in the afternoon. Then I was startled by a sudden
+thundering crash as if a rock avalanche had come to the help of the
+roaring waters. This was the flood-wave of Yosemite Creek, which had
+just arrived delayed by the distance it had to travel, and by the
+choking snows of its widespread fountains. Now, with volume tenfold
+increased beyond its springtime fullness, it took its place as leader
+of the glorious choir.
+
+And the winds, too, were singing in wild accord, playing on every tree
+and rock, surging against the huge brows and domes and outstanding
+battlements, deflected hither and thither and broken into a thousand
+cascading, roaring currents in the cañons, and low bass, drumming
+swirls in the hollows. And these again, reacting on the clouds, eroded
+immense cavernous spaces in their gray depths and swept forward the
+resulting detritus in ragged trains like the moraines of glaciers.
+These cloud movements in turn published the work of the winds, giving
+them a visible body, and enabling us to trace them. As if endowed with
+independent motion, a detached cloud would rise hastily to the very top
+of the wall as if on some important errand, examining the faces of the
+cliffs, and then perhaps as suddenly descend to sweep imposingly along
+the meadows, trailing its draggled fringes through the pines, fondling
+the waving spires with infinite gentleness, or, gliding behind a grove
+or a single tree, bringing it into striking relief, as it bowed and
+waved in solemn rhythm. Sometimes, as the busy clouds drooped and
+condensed or dissolved to misty gauze, half of the Valley would be
+suddenly veiled, leaving here and there some lofty headland cut off
+from all visible connection with the walls, looming alone, dim,
+spectral, as if belonging to the sky—visitors, like the new falls, come
+to take part in the glorious festival. Thus for two days and nights in
+measureless extravagance the storm went on, and mostly without
+spectators, at least of a terrestrial kind. I saw nobody out—bird,
+bear, squirrel, or man. Tourists had vanished months before, and the
+hotel people and laborers were out of sight, careful about getting
+cold, and satisfied with views from windows. The bears, I suppose, were
+in their cañon-boulder dens, the squirrels in their knot-hole nests,
+the grouse in close fir groves, and the small singers in the Indian
+Cañon chaparral, trying to keep warm and dry. Strange to say, I did not
+see even the water-ouzels, though they must have greatly enjoyed the
+storm.
+
+This was the most sublime waterfall flood I ever saw—clouds, winds,
+rocks, waters, throbbing together as one. And then to contemplate what
+was going on simultaneously with all this in other mountain temples;
+the Big Tuolumne Cañon—how the white waters and the winds were singing
+there! And in Hetch Hetchy Valley and the great King’s River yosemite,
+and in all the other Sierra cañons and valleys from Shasta to the
+southernmost fountains of the Kern, thousands of rejoicing flood
+waterfalls chanting together in jubilee dress.
+
+
+
+Chapter 3
+Snow-Storms
+
+
+As has been already stated, the first of the great snow-storms that
+replenish the Yosemite fountains seldom sets in before the end of
+November. Then, warned by the sky, wide-awake mountaineers, together
+with the deer and most of the birds, make haste to the lowlands or
+foothills; and burrowing marmots, mountain beavers, wood-rats, and
+other small mountain people, go into winter quarters, some of them not
+again to see the light of day until the general awakening and
+resurrection of the spring in June or July. The fertile clouds,
+drooping and condensing in brooding silence, seem to be thoughtfully
+examining the forests and streams with reference to the work that lies
+before them. At length, all their plans perfected, tufted flakes and
+single starry crystals come in sight, solemnly swirling and glinting to
+their blessed appointed places; and soon the busy throng fills the sky
+and makes darkness like night. The first heavy fall is usually from
+about two to four feet in depth then with intervals of days or weeks of
+bright weather storm succeeds storm, heaping snow on snow, until thirty
+to fifty feet has fallen. But on account of its settling and
+compacting, and waste from melting and evaporation, the average depth
+actually found at any time seldom exceeds ten feet in the forest
+regions, or fifteen feet along the slopes of the summit peaks. After
+snow-storms come avalanches, varying greatly in form, size, behavior
+and in the songs they sing; some on the smooth slopes of the mountains
+are short and broad; others long and river-like in the side cañons of
+yosemites and in the main cañons, flowing in regular channels and
+booming like waterfalls, while countless smaller ones fall everywhere
+from laden trees and rocks and lofty cañon walls. Most delightful it is
+to stand in the middle of Yosemite on still clear mornings after
+snow-storms and watch the throng of avalanches as they come down,
+rejoicing, to their places, whispering, thrilling like birds, or
+booming and roaring like thunder. The noble yellow pines stand hushed
+and motionless as if under a spell until the morning sunshine begins to
+sift through their laden spires; then the dense masses on the ends of
+the leafy branches begin to shift and fall, those from the upper
+branches striking the lower ones in succession, enveloping each tree in
+a hollow conical avalanche of fairy fineness; while the relieved
+branches spring up and wave with startling effect in the general
+stillness, as if each tree was moving of its own volition. Hundreds of
+broad cloud-shaped masses may also be seen, leaping over the brows of
+the cliffs from great heights, descending at first with regular
+avalanche speed until, worn into dust by friction, they float in front
+of the precipices like irised clouds. Those which descend from the brow
+of El Capitan are particularly fine; but most of the great Yosemite
+avalanches flow in regular channels like cascades and waterfalls. When
+the snow first gives way on the upper slopes of their basins, a dull
+rushing, rumbling sound is heard which rapidly increases and seems to
+draw nearer with appalling intensity of tone. Presently the white flood
+comes bounding into sight over bosses and sheer places, leaping from
+bench to bench, spreading and narrowing and throwing off clouds of
+whirling dust like the spray of foaming cataracts. Compared with
+waterfalls and cascades, avalanches are short-lived, few of them
+lasting more than a minute or two, and the sharp, clashing sounds so
+common in falling water are mostly wanting; but in their low massy
+thundertones and purple-tinged whiteness, and in their dress, gait,
+gestures and general behavior, they are much alike.
+
+Avalanches
+
+Besides these common after-storm avalanches that are to be found not
+only in the Yosemite but in all the deep, sheer-walled cañon of the
+Range there are two other important kinds, which may be called annual
+and century avalanches, which still further enrich the scenery. The
+only place about the Valley where one may be sure to see the annual
+kind is on the north slope of Clouds’ Rest. They are composed of heavy,
+compacted snow, which has been subjected to frequent alternations of
+freezing and thawing. They are developed on cañon and mountain-sides at
+an elevation of from nine to ten thousand feet, where the slopes are
+inclined at an angle too low to shed off the dry winter snow, and which
+accumulates until the spring thaws sap their foundations and make them
+slippery; then away in grand style go the ponderous icy masses without
+any fine snow-dust. Those of Clouds’ Rest descend like thunderbolts for
+more than a mile.
+
+The great century avalanches and the kind that mow wide swaths through
+the upper forests occur on mountain-sides about ten or twelve thousand
+feet high, where under ordinary weather conditions the snow accumulated
+from winter to winter lies at rest for many years, allowing trees,
+fifty to a hundred feet high, to grow undisturbed on the slopes beneath
+them. On their way down through the woods they seldom fail to make a
+perfectly clean sweep, stripping off the soil as well as the trees,
+clearing paths two or three hundred yards wide from the timber line to
+the glacier meadows or lakes, and piling their uprooted trees, head
+downward, in rows along the sides of the gaps like lateral moraines.
+Scars and broken branches of the trees standing on the sides of the
+gaps record the depth of the overwhelming flood; and when we come to
+count the annual wood-rings on the uprooted trees we learn that some of
+these immense avalanches occur only once in a century or even at still
+wider intervals.
+
+A Ride On An Avalanche
+
+Few Yosemite visitors ever see snow avalanches and fewer still know the
+exhilaration of riding on them. In all my mountaineering I have enjoyed
+only one avalanche ride, and the start was so sudden and the end came
+so soon I had but little time to think of the danger that attends this
+sort of travel, though at such times one thinks fast. One fine Yosemite
+morning after a heavy snowfall, being eager to see as many avalanches
+as possible and wide views of the forest and summit peaks in their new
+white robes before the sunshine had time to change them, I set out
+early to climb by a side cañon to the top of a commanding ridge a
+little over three thousand feet above the Valley. On account of the
+looseness of the snow that blocked the cañon I knew the climb would
+require a long time, some three or four hours as I estimated; but it
+proved far more difficult than I had anticipated. Most of the way I
+sank waist deep, almost out of sight in some places. After spending the
+whole day to within half an hour or so of sundown, I was still several
+hundred feet below the summit. Then my hopes were reduced to getting up
+in time to see the sunset. But I was not to get summit views of any
+sort that day, for deep trampling near the cañon head, where the snow
+was strained, started an avalanche, and I was swished down to the foot
+of the cañon as if by enchantment. The wallowing ascent had taken
+nearly all day, the descent only about a minute. When the avalanche
+started I threw myself on my back and spread my arms to try to keep
+from sinking. Fortunately, though the grade of the cañon is very steep,
+it is not interrupted by precipices large enough to cause outbounding
+or free plunging. On no part of the rush was I buried. I was only
+moderately imbedded on the surface or at times a little below it, and
+covered with a veil of back-streaming dust particles; and as the whole
+mass beneath and about me joined in the flight there was no friction,
+though I was tossed here and there and lurched from side to side. When
+the avalanche swedged and came to rest I found myself on top of the
+crumpled pile without bruise or scar. This was a fine experience.
+Hawthorne says somewhere that steam has spiritualized travel; though
+unspiritual smells, smoke, etc., still attend steam travel. This flight
+in what might be called a milky way of snow-stars was the most
+spiritual and exhilarating of all the modes of motion I have ever
+experienced. Elijah’s flight in a chariot of fire could hardly have
+been more gloriously exciting.
+
+The Streams In Other Seasons
+
+In the spring, after all the avalanches are down and the snow is
+melting fast, then all the Yosemite streams, from their fountains to
+their falls, sing their grandest songs. Countless rills make haste to
+the rivers, running and singing soon after sunrise, louder and louder
+with increasing volume until sundown; then they gradually fail through
+the frosty hours of the night. In this way the volume of the upper
+branches of the river is nearly doubled during the day, rising and
+falling as regularly as the tides of the sea. Then the Merced overflows
+its banks, flooding the meadows, sometimes almost from wall to wall in
+some places, beginning to rise towards sundown just when the streams on
+the fountains are beginning to diminish, the difference in time of the
+daily rise and fall being caused by the distance the upper flood
+streams have to travel before reaching the Valley. In the warmest
+weather they seem fairly to shout for joy and clash their upleaping
+waters together like clapping of hands; racing down the cañons with
+white manes flying in glorious exuberance of strength, compelling huge,
+sleeping boulders to wake up and join in their dance and song, to swell
+their exulting chorus.
+
+In early summer, after the flood season, the Yosemite streams are in
+their prime, running crystal clear, deep and full but not overflowing
+their banks—about as deep through the night as the day, the difference
+in volume so marked in spring being now too slight to be noticed.
+Nearly all the weather is cloudless and everything is at its
+brightest—lake, river, garden and forest with all their life. Most of
+the plants are in full flower. The blessed ouzels have built their
+mossy huts and are now singing their best songs with the streams.
+
+In tranquil, mellow autumn, when the year’s work is about done and the
+fruits are ripe, birds and seeds out of their nests, and all the
+landscape is glowing like a benevolent countenance, then the streams
+are at their lowest ebb, with scarce a memory left of their wild spring
+floods. The small tributaries that do not reach back to the lasting
+snow fountains of the summit peaks shrink to whispering, tinkling
+currents. After the snow is gone from the basins, excepting occasional
+thundershowers, they are now fed only by small springs whose waters are
+mostly evaporated in passing over miles of warm pavements, and in
+feeling their way slowly from pool to pool through the midst of
+boulders and sand. Even the main rivers are so low they may easily be
+forded, and their grand falls and cascades, now gentle and
+approachable, have waned to sheets of embroidery.
+
+
+
+Chapter 4
+Snow Banners
+
+
+But it is on the mountain tops, when they are laden with loose, dry
+snow and swept by a gale from the north, that the most magnificent
+storm scenery is displayed. The peaks along the axis of the Range are
+then decorated with resplendent banners, some of them more than a mile
+long, shining, streaming, waving with solemn exuberant enthusiasm as if
+celebrating some surpassingly glorious event.
+
+The snow of which these banners are made falls on the high Sierra in
+most extravagant abundance, sometimes to a depth of fifteen or twenty
+feet, coming from the fertile clouds not in large angled flakes such as
+one oftentimes sees in Yosemite, seldom even in complete crystals, for
+many of the starry blossoms fall before they are ripe, while most of
+those that attain perfect development as six-petaled flowers are more
+or less broken by glinting and chafing against one another on the way
+down to their work. This dry frosty snow is prepared for the grand
+banner-waving celebrations by the action of the wind. Instead of at
+once finding rest like that which falls into the tranquil depths of the
+forest, it is shoved and rolled and beaten against boulders and
+out-jutting rocks, swirled in pits and hollows like sand in river
+pot-holes, and ground into sparkling dust. And when storm winds find
+this snow-dust in a loose condition on the slopes above the timber-line
+they toss it back into the sky and sweep it onward from peak to peak in
+the form of smooth regular banners, or in cloudy drifts, according to
+the velocity and direction of the wind, and the conformation of the
+slopes over which it is driven. While thus flying through the air a
+small portion escapes from the mountains to the sky as vapor; but far
+the greater part is at length locked fast in bossy overcurling cornices
+along the ridges, or in stratified sheets in the glacier cirques, some
+of it to replenish the small residual glaciers and remain silent and
+rigid for centuries before it is finally melted and sent singing down
+home to the sea.
+
+But, though snow-dust and storm-winds abound on the mountains, regular
+shapely banners are, for causes we shall presently see, seldom
+produced. During the five winters that I spent in Yosemite I made many
+excursions to high points above the walls in all kinds of weather to
+see what was going on outside; from all my lofty outlooks I saw only
+one banner-storm that seemed in every way perfect. This was in the
+winter of 1873, when the snow-laden peaks were swept by a powerful
+norther. I was awakened early in the morning by a wild storm-wind and
+of course I had to make haste to the middle of the Valley to enjoy it.
+Rugged torrents and avalanches from the main wind-flood overhead were
+roaring down the side cañons and over the cliffs, arousing the rocks
+and the trees and the streams alike into glorious hurrahing enthusiasm,
+shaking the whole Valley into one huge song. Yet inconceivable as it
+must seem even to those who love all Nature’s wildness, the storm was
+telling its story on the mountains in still grander characters.
+
+A Wonderful Winter Scene
+
+I had long been anxious to study some points in the structure of the
+ice-hill at the foot of the Upper Yosemite Fall, but, as I have already
+explained, blinding spray had hitherto prevented me from getting
+sufficiently near it. This morning the entire body of the Fall was
+oftentimes torn into gauzy strips and blown horizontally along the face
+of the cliff, leaving the ice-hill dry; and while making my way to the
+top of Fern Ledge to seize so favorable an opportunity to look down its
+throat, the peaks of the Merced group came in sight over the shoulder
+of the South Dome, each waving a white glowing banner against the dark
+blue sky, as regular in form and firm and fine in texture as if it were
+made of silk. So rare and splendid a picture, of course, smothered
+everything else and I at once began to scramble and wallow up the
+snow-choked Indian Cañon to a ridge about 8000 feet high, commanding a
+general view of the main summits along the axis of the Range, feeling
+assured I should find them bannered still more gloriously; nor was I in
+the least disappointed. I reached the top of the ridge in four or five
+hours, and through an opening in the woods the most imposing wind-storm
+effect I ever beheld came full in sight; unnumbered mountains rising
+sharply into the cloudless sky, their bases solid white their sides
+plashed with snow, like ocean rocks with foam, and on every summit a
+magnificent silvery banner, from two thousand to six thousand feet in
+length, slender at the point of attachment, and widening gradually
+until about a thousand or fifteen hundred feet in breadth, and as
+shapely and as substantial looking in texture as the banners of the
+finest silk, all streaming and waving free and clear in the sun-glow
+with nothing to blur the sublime picture they made.
+
+Fancy yourself standing beside me on this Yosemite Ridge. There is a
+strange garish glitter in the air and the gale drives wildly overhead,
+but you feel nothing of its violence, for you are looking out through a
+sheltered opening in the woods, as through a window. In the immediate
+foreground there is a forest of silver fir their foliage warm
+yellow-green, and the snow beneath them strewn with their plumes,
+plucked off by the storm; and beyond broad, ridgy, cañon-furrowed,
+dome-dotted middle ground, darkened here and there with belts of pines,
+you behold the lofty snow laden mountains in glorious array, waving
+their banners with jubilant enthusiasm as if shouting aloud for joy.
+They are twenty miles away, but you would not wish them nearer, for
+every feature is distinct and the whole wonderful show is seen in its
+right proportions, like a painting on the sky.
+
+And now after this general view, mark how sharply the ribs and
+buttresses and summits of the mountains are defined, excepting the
+portions veiled by the banners; how gracefully and nobly the banners
+are waving in accord with the throbbing of the wind flood; how trimly
+each is attached to the very summit of its peak like a streamer at a
+mast-head; how bright and glowing white they are, and how finely their
+fading fringes are penciled on the sky! See how solid white and opaque
+they are at the point of attachment and how filmy and translucent
+toward the end, so that the parts of the peaks past which they are
+streaming look dim as if seen through a veil of ground glass. And see
+how some of the longest of the banners on the highest peaks are
+streaming perfectly free from peak to peak across intervening notches
+or passes, while others overlap and partly hide one another.
+
+As to their formation, we find that the main causes of the wondrous
+beauty and perfection of those we are looking at are the favorable
+direction and force of the wind, the abundance of snow-dust, and the
+form of the north sides of the peaks. In general, the north sides are
+concave in both their horizontal and vertical sections, having been
+sculptured into this shape by the residual glaciers that lingered in
+the protecting northern shadows, while the sun-beaten south sides,
+having never been subjected to this kind of glaciation, are convex or
+irregular. It is essential, therefore, not only that the wind should
+move with great velocity and steadiness to supply a sufficiently
+copious and continuous stream of snow-dust, but that it should come
+from the north. No perfect banner is ever hung on the Sierra peaks by
+the south wind. Had the gale today blown from the south, leaving the
+other conditions unchanged, only swirling, interfering, cloudy drifts
+would have been produced; for the snow, instead of being spouted
+straight up and over the tops of the peaks in condensed currents to be
+drawn out as streamers, would have been driven over the convex southern
+slopes from peak to peak like white pearly fog.
+
+It appears, therefore, that shadows in great part determine not only
+the forms of lofty ice mountains, but also those of the snow banners
+that the wild winds hang upon them.
+
+Earthquake Storms
+
+The avalanche taluses, leaning against the walls at intervals of a mile
+or two, are among the most striking and interesting of the secondary
+features of the Valley. They are from about three to five hundred feet
+high, made up of huge, angular, well-preserved, unshifting boulders,
+and instead of being slowly weathered from the cliffs like ordinary
+taluses, they were all formed suddenly and simultaneously by a great
+earthquake that occurred at least three centuries ago. And though thus
+hurled into existence in a few seconds or minutes, they are the least
+changeable of all the Sierra soil-beds. Excepting those which were
+launched directly into the channels of swift rivers, scarcely one of
+their wedged and interlacing boulders has moved since the day of their
+creation; and though mostly made up of huge blocks of granite, many of
+them from ten to fifty feet cube, weighing thousands of tons with only
+a few small chips, trees and shrubs make out to live and thrive on them
+and even delicate herbaceous plants—draperia, collomia, zauschneria,
+etc., soothing and coloring their wild rugged slopes with gardens and
+groves.
+
+I was long in doubt on some points concerning the origin of those
+taluses. Plainly enough they were derived from the cliffs above them,
+because they are of the size of scars on the wall, the rough angular
+surface of which contrasts with the rounded, glaciated, unfractured
+parts. It was plain, too, that instead of being made up of material
+slowly and gradually weathered from the cliffs like ordinary taluses,
+almost every one of them had been formed suddenly in a single
+avalanche, and had not been increased in size during the last three or
+four centuries, for trees three or four hundred years old are growing
+on them, some standing at the top close to the wall without a bruise or
+broken branch, showing that scarcely a single boulder had ever fallen
+among them. Furthermore, all these taluses throughout the Range seemed
+by the trees and lichens growing on them to be of the same age. All the
+phenomena thus pointed straight to a grand ancient earthquake. But for
+years I left the question open, and went on from cañon to cañon,
+observing again and again; measuring the heights of taluses throughout
+the Range on both flanks, and the variations in the angles of their
+surface slopes; studying the way their boulders had been assorted and
+related and brought to rest, and their correspondence in size with the
+cleavage joints of the cliffs from whence they were derived, cautious
+about making up my mind. But at last all doubt as to their formation
+vanished.
+
+At half-past two o’clock of a moonlit morning in March, I was awakened
+by a tremendous earthquake, and though I had never before enjoyed a
+storm of this sort, the strange thrilling motion could not be mistaken,
+and I ran out of my cabin, both glad and frightened, shouting, “A noble
+earthquake! A noble earthquake!” feeling sure I was going to learn
+something. The shocks were so violent and varied, and succeeded one
+another so closely, that I had to balance myself carefully in walking
+as if on the deck of a ship among waves, and it seemed impossible that
+the high cliffs of the Valley could escape being shattered. In
+particular, I feared that the sheer-fronted Sentinel Rock, towering
+above my cabin, would be shaken down, and I took shelter back of a
+large yellow pine, hoping that it might protect me from at least the
+smaller outbounding boulders. For a minute or two the shocks became
+more and more violent—flashing horizontal thrusts mixed with a few
+twists and battering, explosive, upheaving jolts,—as if Nature were
+wrecking her Yosemite temple, and getting ready to build a still better
+one.
+
+I was now convinced before a single boulder had fallen that earthquakes
+were the talus-makers and positive proof soon came. It was a calm
+moonlight night, and no sound was heard for the first minute or so,
+save low, muffled, underground, bubbling rumblings, and the whispering
+and rustling of the agitated trees, as if Nature were holding her
+breath. Then, suddenly, out of the strange silence and strange motion
+there came a tremendous roar. The Eagle Rock on the south wall, about a
+half a mile up the Valley, gave way and I saw it falling in thousands
+of the great boulders I had so long been studying, pouring to the
+Valley floor in a free curve luminous from friction, making a terribly
+sublime spectacle—an arc of glowing, passionate fire, fifteen hundred
+feet span, as true in form and as serene in beauty as a rainbow in the
+midst of the stupendous, roaring rock-storm. The sound was so
+tremendously deep and broad and earnest, the whole earth like a living
+creature seemed to have at last found a voice and to be calling to her
+sister planets. In trying to tell something of the size of this awful
+sound it seems to me that if all the thunder of all the storms I had
+ever heard were condensed into one roar it would not equal this
+rock-roar at the birth of a mountain talus. Think, then, of the roar
+that arose to heaven at the simultaneous birth of all the thousands of
+ancient cañon-taluses throughout the length and breadth of the Range!
+
+The first severe shocks were soon over, and eager to examine the
+new-born talus I ran up the Valley in the moonlight and climbed upon it
+before the huge blocks, after their fiery flight, had come to complete
+rest. They were slowly settling into their places, chafing, grating
+against one another, groaning, and whispering; but no motion was
+visible except in a stream of small fragments pattering down the face
+of the cliff. A cloud of dust particles, lighted by the moon, floated
+out across the whole breadth of the Valley, forming a ceiling that
+lasted until after sunrise, and the air was filled with the odor of
+crushed Douglas spruces from a grove that had been mowed down and
+mashed like weeds.
+
+After the ground began to calm I ran across the meadow to the river to
+see in what direction it was flowing and was glad to find that _down_
+the Valley was still down. Its waters were muddy from portions of its
+banks having given way, but it was flowing around its curves and over
+its ripples and shallows with ordinary tones and gestures. The mud
+would soon be cleared away and the raw slips on the banks would be the
+only visible record of the shaking it suffered.
+
+The Upper Yosemite Fall, glowing white in the moonlight, seemed to know
+nothing of the earthquake, manifesting no change in form or voice, as
+far as I could see or hear.
+
+After a second startling shock, about half-past three o’clock, the
+ground continued to tremble gently, and smooth, hollow rumbling sounds,
+not always distinguishable from the rounded, bumping, explosive tones
+of the falls, came from deep in the mountains in a northern direction.
+
+The few Indians fled from their huts to the middle of the Valley,
+fearing that angry spirits were trying to kill them; and, as I
+afterward learned, most of the Yosemite tribe, who were spending the
+winter at their village on Bull Creek forty miles away, were so
+terrified that they ran into the river and washed themselves,—getting
+themselves clean enough to say their prayers, I suppose, or to die. I
+asked Dick, one of the Indians with whom I was acquainted, “What made
+the ground shake and jump so much?” He only shook his head and said,
+“No good. No good,” and looked appealingly to me to give him hope that
+his life was to be spared.
+
+In the morning I found the few white settlers assembled in front of the
+old Hutchings Hotel comparing notes and meditating flight to the
+lowlands, seemingly as sorely frightened as the Indians. Shortly after
+sunrise a low, blunt, muffled rumbling, like distant thunder, was
+followed by another series of shocks, which, though not nearly so
+severe as the first, made the cliffs and domes tremble like jelly, and
+the big pines and oaks thrill and swish and wave their branches with
+startling effect. Then the talkers were suddenly hushed, and the
+solemnity on their faces was sublime. One in particular of these winter
+neighbors, a somewhat speculative thinker with whom I had often
+conversed, was a firm believer in the cataclysmic origin of the Valley;
+and I now jokingly remarked that his wild tumble-down-and-engulfment
+hypothesis might soon be proved, since these underground rumblings and
+shakings might be the forerunners of another Yosemite-making cataclysm,
+which would perhaps double the depth of the Valley by swallowing the
+floor, leaving the ends of the roads and trails dangling three or four
+thousand feet in the air. Just then came the third series of shocks,
+and it was fine to see how awfully silent and solemn he became. His
+belief in the existence of a mysterious abyss, into which the suspended
+floor of the Valley and all the domes and battlements of the walls
+might at any moment go roaring down, mightily troubled him. To diminish
+his fears and laugh him into something like reasonable faith, I said,
+“Come, cheer up; smile a little and clap your hands, now that kind
+Mother Earth is trotting us on her knee to amuse us and make us good.”
+But the well-meant joke seemed irreverent and utterly failed, as if
+only prayerful terror could rightly belong to the wild beauty-making
+business. Even after all the heavier shocks were over I could do
+nothing to reassure him, on the contrary, he handed me the keys of his
+little store to keep, saying that with a companion of like mind he was
+going to the lowlands to stay until the fate of poor, trembling
+Yosemite was settled. In vain I rallied them on their fears, calling
+attention to the strength of the granite walls of our Valley home, the
+very best and solidest masonry in the world, and less likely to
+collapse and sink than the sedimentary lowlands to which they were
+looking for safety; and saying that in any case they sometime would
+have to die, and so grand a burial was not to be slighted. But they
+were too seriously panic-stricken to get comfort from anything I could
+say.
+
+During the third severe shock the trees were so violently shaken that
+the birds flew out with frightened cries. In particular, I noticed two
+robins flying in terror from a leafless oak, the branches of which
+swished and quivered as if struck by a heavy battering-ram. Exceedingly
+interesting were the flashing and quivering of the elastic needles of
+the pines in the sunlight and the waving up and down of the branches
+while the trunks stood rigid. There was no swaying, waving or swirling
+as in wind-storms, but quick, quivering jerks, and at times the heavy
+tasseled branches moved as if they had all been pressed down against
+the trunk and suddenly let go, to spring up and vibrate until they came
+to rest again. Only the owls seemed to be undisturbed. Before the
+rumbling echoes had died away a hollow-voiced owl began to hoot in
+philosophical tranquillity from near the edge of the new talus as if
+nothing extraordinary had occurred, although, perhaps, he was curious
+to know what all the noise was about. His “hoot-too-hoot-too-whoo”
+might have meant, “what’s a’ the steer, kimmer?”
+
+It was long before the Valley found perfect rest. The rocks trembled
+more or less every day for over two months, and I kept a bucket of
+water on my table to learn what I could of the movements. The blunt
+thunder in the depths of the mountains was usually followed by sudden
+jarring, horizontal thrusts from the northward, often succeeded by
+twisting, upjolting movements. More than a month after the first great
+shock, when I was standing on a fallen tree up the Valley near Lamon’s
+winter cabin, I heard a distinct bubbling thunder from the direction of
+Tenaya Cañon Carlo, a large intelligent St. Bernard dog standing beside
+me seemed greatly astonished, and looked intently in that direction
+with mouth open and uttered a low _Wouf!_ as if saying, “What’s that?”
+He must have known that it was not thunder, though like it. The air was
+perfectly still, not the faintest breath of wind perceptible, and a
+fine, mellow, sunny hush pervaded everything, in the midst of which
+came that subterranean thunder. Then, while we gazed and listened, came
+the corresponding shocks, distinct as if some mighty hand had shaken
+the ground. After the sharp horizontal jars died away, they were
+followed by a gentle rocking and undulating of the ground so distinct
+that Carlo looked at the log on which he was standing to see who was
+shaking it. It was the season of flooded meadows and the pools about
+me, calm as sheets of glass, were suddenly thrown into low ruffling
+waves.
+
+Judging by its effects, this Yosemite, or Inyo earthquake, as it is
+sometimes called, was gentle as compared with the one that gave rise to
+the grand talus system of the Range and did so much for the cañon
+scenery. Nature, usually so deliberate in her operations, then created,
+as we have seen, a new set of features, simply by giving the mountains
+a shake—changing not only the high peaks and cliffs, but the streams.
+As soon as these rock avalanches fell the streams began to sing new
+songs; for in many places thousands of boulders were hurled into their
+channels, roughening and half-damming them, compelling the waters to
+surge and roar in rapids where before they glided smoothly. Some of the
+streams were completely dammed; driftwood, leaves, etc., gradually
+filling the interstices between the boulders, thus giving rise to lakes
+and level reaches; and these again, after being gradually filled in,
+were changed to meadows, through which the streams are now silently
+meandering; while at the same time some of the taluses took the places
+of old meadows and groves. Thus rough places were made smooth, and
+smooth places rough. But, on the whole, by what at first sight seemed
+pure confounded confusion and ruin, the landscapes were enriched; for
+gradually every talus was covered with groves and gardens, and made a
+finely proportioned and ornamental base for the cliffs. In this work of
+beauty, every boulder is prepared and measured and put in its place
+more thoughtfully than are the stones of temples. If for a moment you
+are inclined to regard these taluses as mere draggled, chaotic dumps,
+climb to the top of one of them, and run down without any haggling,
+puttering hesitation, boldly jumping from boulder to boulder with even
+speed. You will then find your feet playing a tune, and quickly
+discover the music and poetry of these magnificent rock piles—a fine
+lesson; and all Nature’s wildness tells the same story—the shocks and
+outbursts of earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers, roaring, thundering waves
+and floods, the silent uprush of sap in plants, storms of every
+sort—each and all are the orderly beauty-making love-beats of Nature’s
+heart.
+
+
+
+Chapter 5
+The Trees of the Valley
+
+
+The most influential of the Valley trees is the yellow pine (_Pinus
+ponderosa_). It attains its noblest dimensions on beds of water-washed,
+coarsely-stratified moraine material, between the talus slopes and
+meadows, dry on the surface, well-watered below and where not too
+closely assembled in groves the branches reach nearly to the ground,
+forming grand spires 200 to 220 feet in height. The largest that I have
+measured is standing alone almost opposite the Sentinel Rock, or a
+little to the westward of it. It is a little over eight feet in
+diameter and about 220 feet high. Climbing these grand trees,
+especially when they are waving and singing in worship in wind-storms,
+is a glorious experience. Ascending from the lowest branch to the
+topmost is like stepping up stairs through a blaze of white light,
+every needle thrilling and shining as if with religious ecstasy.
+
+Unfortunately there are but few sugar pines in the Valley, though in
+the King’s yosemite they are in glorious abundance. The incense cedar
+(_Libocedrus decurrens_) with cinnamon-colored bark and yellow-green
+foliage is one of the most interesting of the Yosemite trees. Some of
+them are 150 feet high, from six to ten feet in diameter, and they are
+never out of sight as you saunter among the yellow pines. Their bright
+brown shafts and towers of flat, frondlike branches make a striking
+feature of the landscapes throughout all the seasons. In midwinter,
+when most of the other trees are asleep, this cedar puts forth its
+flowers in millions,—the pistillate pale green and inconspicuous, but
+the staminate bright yellow, tingeing all the branches and making the
+trees as they stand in the snow look like gigantic goldenrods. The
+branches, outspread in flat plumes and, beautifully fronded, sweep
+gracefully downward and outward, except those near the top, which
+aspire; the lowest, especially in youth and middle age, droop to the
+ground, overlapping one another, shedding off rain and snow like
+shingles, and making fine tents for birds and campers. This tree
+frequently lives more than a thousand years and is well worthy its
+place beside the great pines and the Douglas spruce.
+
+The two largest specimens I know of the Douglas spruce, about eight
+feet in diameter, are growing at the foot of the Liberty Cap near the
+Nevada Fall, and on the terminal moraine of the small residual glacier
+that lingered in the shady Illilouette Cañon.
+
+After the conifers, the most important of the Yosemite trees are the
+oaks, two species; the California live-oak (_Quercus agrifolia_), with
+black trunks, reaching a thickness of from four to nearly seven feet,
+wide spreading branches and bright deeply-scalloped leaves. It occupies
+the greater part of the broad sandy flats of the upper end of the
+Valley, and is the species that yields the acorns so highly prized by
+the Indians and woodpeckers.
+
+The other species is the mountain live-oak, or goldcup oak (_Quercus
+chrysolepis_), a sturdy mountaineer of a tree, growing mostly on the
+earthquake taluses and benches of the sunny north wall of the Valley.
+In tough, unwedgeable, knotty strength, it is the oak of oaks, a
+magnificent tree.
+
+The largest and most picturesque specimen in the Valley is near the
+foot of the Tenaya Fall, a romantic spot seldom seen on account of the
+rough trouble of getting to it. It is planted on three huge boulders
+and yet manages to draw sufficient moisture and food from this craggy
+soil to maintain itself in good health. It is twenty feet in
+circumference, measured above a large branch between three and four
+feet in diameter that has been broken off. The main knotty trunk seems
+to be made up of craggy granite boulders like those on which it stands,
+being about the same color as the mossy, lichened boulders and about as
+rough. Two moss-lined caves near the ground open back into the trunk,
+one on the north side, the other on the west, forming picturesque,
+romantic seats. The largest of the main branches is eighteen feet and
+nine inches in circumference, and some of the long pendulous branchlets
+droop over the stream at the foot of the fall where it is gray with
+spray. The leaves are glossy yellow-green, ever in motion from the wind
+from the fall. It is a fine place to dream in, with falls, cascades,
+cool rocks lined with hypnum three inches thick; shaded with maple,
+dogwood, alder, willow; grand clumps of lady-ferns where no hand may
+touch them; light filtering through translucent leaves; oaks fifty feet
+high; lilies eight feet high in a filled lake basin near by, and the
+finest libocedrus groves and tallest ferns and goldenrods.
+
+In the main river cañon below the Vernal Fall and on the shady south
+side of the Valley there are a few groves of the silver fir (_Abies
+concolor_), and superb forests of the magnificent species round the rim
+of the Valley.
+
+On the tops of the domes is found the sturdy, storm-enduring red cedar
+(_Juniperus occidentalis_). It never makes anything like a forest here,
+but stands out separate and independent in the wind, clinging by slight
+joints to the rock, with scarce a handful of soil in sight of it,
+seeming to depend chiefly on snow and air for nourishment, and yet it
+has maintained tough health on this diet for two thousand years or
+more. The largest hereabouts are from five to six feet in diameter and
+fifty feet in height.
+
+The principal river-side trees are poplar, alder, willow, broad-leaved
+maple, and Nuttall’s flowering dogwood. The poplar (_Populus
+trichocarpa_), often called balm-of-Gilead from the gum on its buds, is
+a tall tree, towering above its companions and gracefully embowering
+the banks of the river. Its abundant foliage turns bright yellow in the
+fall, and the Indian-summer sunshine sifts through it in delightful
+tones over the slow-gliding waters when they are at their lowest ebb.
+
+Some of the involucres of the flowering dogwood measure six to eight
+inches in diameter, and the whole tree when in flower looks as if
+covered with snow. In the spring when the streams are in flood it is
+the whitest of trees. In Indian summer the leaves become bright
+crimson, making a still grander show than the flowers.
+
+The broad-leaved maple and mountain maple are found mostly in the cool
+cañons at the head of the Valley, spreading their branches in beautiful
+arches over the foaming streams.
+
+Scattered here and there are a few other trees, mostly small—the
+mountain mahogany, cherry, chestnut-oak, and laurel. The California
+nutmeg (_Torreya californica_), a handsome evergreen belonging to the
+yew family, forms small groves near the cascades a mile or two below
+the foot of the Valley.
+
+
+
+Chapter 6
+The Forest Trees in General
+
+
+For the use of the ever-increasing number of Yosemite visitors who make
+extensive excursions into the mountains beyond the Valley, a sketch of
+the forest trees in general will probably be found useful. The
+different species are arranged in zones and sections, which brings the
+forest as a whole within the comprehension of every observer. These
+species are always found as controlled by the climates of different
+elevations, by soil and by the comparative strength of each species in
+taking and holding possession of the ground; and so appreciable are
+these relations the traveler need never be at a loss in determining
+within a few hundred feet his elevation above sea level by the trees
+alone; for, notwithstanding some of the species range upward for
+several thousand feet and all pass one another more or less, yet even
+those species possessing the greatest vertical range are available in
+measuring the elevation; inasmuch as they take on new forms
+corresponding with variations in altitude. Entering the lower fringe of
+the forest composed of Douglas oaks and Sabine pines, the trees grow so
+far apart that not one-twentieth of the surface of the ground is in
+shade at noon. After advancing fifteen or twenty miles towards Yosemite
+and making an ascent of from two to three thousand feet you reach the
+lower margin of the main pine belt, composed of great sugar pine,
+yellow pine, incense cedar and sequoia. Next you come to the
+magnificent silver-fir belt and lastly to the upper pine belt, which
+sweep up to the feet of the summit peaks in a dwarfed fringe, to a
+height of from ten to twelve thousand feet. That this general order of
+distribution depends on climate as affected by height above the sea, is
+seen at once, but there are other harmonies that become manifest only
+after observation and study. One of the most interesting of these is
+the arrangement of the forest in long curving bands, braided together
+into lace-like patterns in some places and out-spread in charming
+variety. The key to these striking arrangements is the system of
+ancient glaciers; where they flowed the trees followed, tracing their
+courses along the sides of cañons, over ridges, and high plateaus. The
+cedar of Lebanon, said Sir Joseph Hooker, occurs upon one of the
+moraines of an ancient glacier. All the forests of the Sierra are
+growing upon moraines, but moraines vanish like the glaciers that make
+them. Every storm that falls upon them wastes them, carrying away their
+decaying, disintegrating material into new formations, until they are
+no longer recognizable without tracing their transitional forms down
+the Range from those still in process of formation in some places
+through those that are more and more ancient and more obscured by
+vegetation and all kinds of post-glacial weathering. It appears,
+therefore, that the Sierra forests indicate the extent and positions of
+ancient moraines as well as they do belts of climate.
+
+One will have no difficulty in knowing the Nut Pine (_Pinus
+Sabiniana_), for it is the first conifer met in ascending the Range
+from the west, springing up here and there among Douglas oaks and
+thickets of ceanothus and manzanita; its extreme upper limit being
+about 4000 feet above the sea, its lower about from 500 to 800 feet. It
+is remarkable for its loose, airy, wide-branching habit and thin gray
+foliage. Full-grown specimens are from forty to fifty feet in height
+and from two to three feet in diameter. The trunk usually divides into
+three or four main branches about fifteen or twenty feet from the
+ground that, after bearing away from one another, shoot straight up and
+form separate summits. Their slender, grayish needles are from eight to
+twelve inches long, and inclined to droop, contrasting with the rigid,
+dark-colored trunk and branches. No other tree of my acquaintance so
+substantial in its body has foliage so thin and pervious to the light.
+The cones are from five to eight inches long and about as large in
+thickness; rich chocolate-brown in color and protected by strong,
+down-curving nooks which terminate the scales. Nevertheless the little
+Douglas Squirrel can open them. Indians climb the trees like bears and
+beat off the cones or recklessly cut off the more fruitful branches
+with hatchets, while the squaws gather and roast them until the scales
+open sufficiently to allow the hard-shell seeds to be beaten out. The
+curious little _Pinus attenuata_ is found at an elevation of from 1500
+to 3000 feet, growing in close groves and belts. It is exceedingly
+slender and graceful, although trees that chance to stand alone send
+out very long, curved branches, making a striking contrast to the
+ordinary grove form. The foliage is of the same peculiar gray-green
+color as that of the nut pine, and is worn about as loosely, so that
+the body of the tree is scarcely obscured by it. At the age of seven or
+eight years it begins to bear cones in whorls on the main axis, and as
+they never fall off, the trunk is soon picturesquely dotted with them.
+Branches also soon become fruitful. The average size of the tree is
+about thirty or forty feet in height and twelve to fourteen inches in
+diameter. The cones are about four inches long and covered with a sort
+of varnish and gum, rendering them impervious to moisture.
+
+No observer can fail to notice the admirable adaptation of this curious
+pine to the fire-swept regions where alone it is found. After a running
+fire has scorched and killed it the cones open and the ground beneath
+it is then sown broadcast with all the seeds ripened during its whole
+life. Then up spring a crowd of bright, hopeful seedlings, giving
+beauty for ashes in lavish abundance.
+
+The Sugar Pine, King Of Pine Trees
+
+Of all the world’s eighty or ninety species of pine trees, the Sugar
+Pine (_Pinus Lambertiana_) is king, surpassing all others, not merely
+in size but in lordly beauty and majesty. In the Yosemite region it
+grows at an elevation of from 3000 to 7000 feet above the sea and
+attains most perfect development at a height of about 5000 feet. The
+largest specimens are commonly about 220 feet high and from six to
+eight feet in diameter four feet from the ground, though some grand old
+patriarch may be met here and there that has enjoyed six or eight
+centuries of storms and attained a thickness of ten or even twelve
+feet, still sweet and fresh in every fiber. The trunk is a remarkably
+smooth, round, delicately-tapered shaft, straight and regular as if
+turned in a lathe, mostly without limbs, purplish brown in color and
+usually enlivened with tufts of a yellow lichen. Toward the head of
+this magnificent column long branches sweep gracefully outward and
+downward, sometimes forming a palm-like crown, but far more impressive
+than any palm crown I ever beheld. The needles are about three inches
+long in fascicles of five, and arranged in rather close tassels at the
+ends of slender branchlets that clothe the long outsweeping limbs. How
+well they sing in the wind, and how strikingly harmonious an effect is
+made by the long cylindrical cones, depending loosely from the ends of
+the long branches! The cones are about fifteen to eighteen inches long,
+and three in diameter; green, shaded with dark purple on their sunward
+sides. They are ripe in September and October of the second year from
+the flower. Then the flat, thin scales open and the seeds take wing,
+but the empty cones become still more beautiful and effective as
+decorations, for their diameter is nearly doubled by the spreading of
+the scales, and their color changes to yellowish brown while they
+remain, swinging on the tree all the following winter and summer, and
+continue effectively beautiful even on the ground many years after they
+fall. The wood is deliciously fragrant, fine in grain and texture and
+creamy yellow, as if formed of condensed sunbeams. The sugar from which
+the common name is derived is, I think, the best of sweets. It exudes
+from the heart-wood where wounds have been made by forest fires or the
+ax, and forms irregular, crisp, candy-like kernels of considerable
+size, something like clusters of resin beads. When fresh it is white,
+but because most of the wounds on which it is found have been made by
+fire the sap is stained and the hardened sugar becomes brown. Indians
+are fond of it, but on account of its laxative properties only small
+quantities may be eaten. No tree lover will ever forget his first
+meeting with the sugar pine. In most pine trees there is the sameness
+of expression which to most people is apt to become monotonous, for the
+typical spiral form of conifers, however beautiful, affords little
+scope for appreciable individual character. The sugar pine is as free
+from conventionalities as the most picturesque oaks. No two are alike,
+and though they toss out their immense arms in what might seem
+extravagant gestures they never lose their expression of serene
+majesty. They are the priests of pines and seem ever to be addressing
+the surrounding forest. The yellow pine is found growing with them on
+warm hillsides, and the silver fir on cool northern slopes but, noble
+as these are, the sugar pine is easily king, and spreads his arms above
+them in blessing while they rock and wave in sign of recognition. The
+main branches are sometimes forty feet long, yet persistently simple,
+seldom dividing at all, excepting near the end; but anything like a
+bare cable appearance is prevented by the small, tasseled branchlets
+that extend all around them; and when these superb limbs sweep out
+symmetrically on all sides, a crown sixty or seventy feet wide is
+formed, which, gracefully poised on the summit of the noble shaft, is a
+glorious object. Commonly, however, there is a preponderance of limbs
+toward the east, away from the direction of the prevailing winds.
+
+Although so unconventional when full-grown, the sugar pine is a
+remarkably proper tree in youth—a strict follower of coniferous
+fashions—slim, erect, with leafy branches kept exactly in place, each
+tapering in outline and terminating in a spiry point. The successive
+forms between the cautious neatness of youth and the bold freedom of
+maturity offer a delightful study. At the age of fifty or sixty years,
+the shy, fashionable form begins to be broken up. Specialized branches
+push out and bend with the great cones, giving individual character,
+that becomes more marked from year to year. Its most constant companion
+is the yellow pine. The Douglas spruce, libocedrus, sequoia, and the
+silver fir are also more or less associated with it; but on many
+deep-soiled mountain-sides, at an elevation of about 5000 feet above
+the sea, it forms the bulk of the forest, filling every swell and
+hollow and down-plunging ravine. The majestic crowns, approaching each
+other in bold curves, make a glorious canopy through which the tempered
+sunbeams pour, silvering the needles, and gilding the massive boles and
+the flowery, park-like ground into a scene of enchantment. On the most
+sunny slopes the white-flowered, fragrant chamaebatia is spread like a
+carpet, brightened during early summer with the crimson sarcodes, the
+wild rose, and innumerable violets and gilias. Not even in the shadiest
+nooks will you find any rank, untidy weeds or unwholesome darkness. In
+the north sides of ridges the boles are more slender, and the ground is
+mostly occupied by an underbrush of hazel, ceanothus, and flowering
+dogwood, but not so densely as to prevent the traveler from sauntering
+where he will; while the crowning branches are never impenetrable to
+the rays of the sun, and never so interblended as to lose their
+individuality.
+
+The Yellow Or Silver Pine
+
+The Silver Pine (_Pinus ponderosa_), or Yellow Pine, as it is commonly
+called, ranks second among the pines of the Sierra as a lumber tree,
+and almost rivals the sugar pine in stature and nobleness of port.
+Because of its superior powers of enduring variations of climate and
+soil, it has a more extensive range than any other conifer growing on
+the Sierra. On the western slope it is first met at an elevation of
+about 2000 feet, and extends nearly to the upper limit of the
+timber-line. Thence, crossing the range by the lowest passes, it
+descends to the eastern base, and pushes out for a considerable
+distance into the hot, volcanic plains, growing bravely upon
+well-watered moraines, gravelly lake basins, climbing old volcanoes and
+dropping ripe cones among ashes and cinders.
+
+The average size of full-grown trees on the western slope where it is
+associated with the sugar pine, is a little less than 200 feet in
+height and from five to six feet in diameter, though specimens
+considerably larger may easily be found. Where there is plenty of free
+sunshine and other conditions are favorable, it presents a striking
+contrast in form to the sugar pine, being a symmetrical spire, formed
+of a straight round trunk, clad with innumerable branches that are
+divided over and over again. Unlike the Yosemite form about one-half of
+the trunk is commonly branchless, but where it grows at all close
+three-fourths or more is naked, presenting then a more slender and
+elegant shaft than any other tree in the woods. The bark is mostly
+arranged in massive plates, some of them measuring four or five feet in
+length by eighteen inches in width, with a thickness of three or four
+inches, forming a quite marked and distinguishing feature. The needles
+are of a fine, warm, yellow-green color, six to eight inches long, firm
+and elastic, and crowded in handsome, radiant tassels on the upturning
+ends of the branches. The cones are about three or four inches long,
+and two and a half wide, growing in close, sessile clusters among the
+leaves.
+
+The species attains its noblest form in filled-up lake basins,
+especially in those of the older yosemites, and as we have seen, so
+prominent a part does it form of their groves that it may well be
+called the Yosemite Pine.
+
+The Jeffrey variety attains its finest development in the northern
+portion of the Range, in the wide basins of the McCloud and Pitt
+Rivers, where it forms magnificent forests scarcely invaded by any
+other tree. It differs from the ordinary form in size, being only about
+half as tall, in its redder and more closely-furrowed bark
+grayish-green foliage, less divided branches, and much larger cones;
+but intermediate forms come in which make a clear separation
+impossible, although some botanists regard it as a distinct species. It
+is this variety of ponderosa that climbs storm-swept ridges alone, and
+wanders out among the volcanoes of the Great Basin. Whether exposed to
+extremes of heat or cold, it is dwarfed like many other trees, and
+becomes all knots and angles, wholly unlike the majestic forms we have
+been sketching. Old specimens, bearing cones about as big as
+pineapples, may sometimes be found clinging to rifted rocks at an
+elevation of 7000 or 8000 feet, whose highest branches scarce reach
+above one’s shoulders.
+
+I have often feasted on the beauty of these noble trees when they were
+towering in all their winter grandeur, laden with snow—one mass of
+bloom; in summer, too, when the brown, staminate clusters hang thick
+among the shimmering needles, and the big purple burrs are ripening in
+the mellow light; but it is during cloudless wind-storms that these
+colossal pines are most impressively beautiful. Then they bow like
+willows, their leaves streaming forward all in one direction, and, when
+the sun shines upon them at the required angle, entire groves glow as
+if every leaf were burnished silver. The fall of tropic light on the
+crown of a palm is a truly glorious spectacle, the fervid sun-flood
+breaking upon the glossy leaves in long lance-rays, like mountain water
+among boulders at the foot of an enthusiastic cataract. But to me there
+is something more impressive in the fall of light upon these noble,
+silver pine pillars: it is beaten to the finest dust and shed off in
+myriads of minute sparkles that seem to radiate from the very heart of
+the tree as if like rain, falling upon fertile soil, it had been
+absorbed to reappear in flowers of light. This species also gives forth
+the finest wind music. After listening to it in all kinds of winds,
+night and day, season after season, I think I could approximate to my
+position on the mountain by this pine music alone. If you would catch
+the tone of separate needles climb a tree in breezy weather. Every
+needle is carefully tempered and gives forth no uncertain sound each
+standing out with no interference excepting during head gales; then you
+may detect the click of one needle upon another, readily
+distinguishable from the free wind-like hum.
+
+When a sugar pine and one of this species equal in size are observed
+together, the latter is seen to be more simple in manners, more lively
+and graceful, and its beauty is of a kind more easily appreciated; on
+the other hand it is less dignified and original in demeanor. The
+yellow pine seems ever eager to shoot aloft, higher and higher. Even
+while it is drowsing in autumn sun-gold you may still detect a skyward
+aspiration, but the sugar pine seems too unconsciously noble and too
+complete in every way to leave room for even a heavenward care.
+
+The Douglas Spruce
+
+The Douglas Spruce (_Pseudotsuga Douglasii_) is one of the largest and
+longest-lived of the giants that flourish throughout the main pine
+belt, often attaining a height of nearly 200 feet, and a diameter of
+six or seven feet. Where the growth is not too close, the stout,
+spreading branches, covering more than half of the trunk, are hung with
+innumerable slender, drooping sprays, handsomely feathered with the
+short leaves which radiate at right angles all around them. This
+vigorous tree is ever beautiful, welcoming the mountain winds and the
+snow as well as the mellow summer light; and it maintains its youthful
+freshness undiminished from century to century through a thousand
+storms. It makes its finest appearance during the months of June and
+July, when the brown buds at the ends of the sprays swell and open,
+revealing the young leaves, which at first are bright yellow, making
+the tree appear as if covered with gay blossoms; while the pendulous
+bracted cones, three or four inches long, with their shell-like scales,
+are a constant adornment.
+
+The young trees usually are assembled in family groups, each sapling
+exquisitely symmetrical. The primary branches are whorled regularly
+around the axis, generally in fives, while each is draped with long,
+feathery sprays that descend in lines as free and as finely drawn as
+those of falling water.
+
+In Oregon and Washington it forms immense forests, growing tall and
+mast-like to a height of 300 feet, and is greatly prized as a lumber
+tree. Here it is scattered among other trees, or forms small groves,
+seldom ascending higher than 5500 feet, and never making what would be
+called a forest. It is not particular in its choice of soil: wet or
+dry, smooth or rocky, it makes out to live well on them all. Two of the
+largest specimens, as we have seen, are in Yosemite; one of these, more
+than eight feet in diameter, is growing on a moraine; the other, nearly
+as large, on angular blocks of granite. No other tree in the Sierra
+seems so much at home on earthquake taluses and many of these huge
+boulder-slopes are almost exclusively occupied by it.
+
+The Incense Cedar
+
+Incense Cedar (_Libocedrus decurrens_), already noticed among the
+Yosemite trees, is quite generally distributed throughout the pine belt
+without exclusively occupying any considerable area, or even making
+extensive groves. On the warmer mountain slopes it ascends to about
+5000 feet, and reaches the climate most congenial to it at a height of
+about 4000 feet, growing vigorously at this elevation in all kinds of
+soil and, in particular, it is capable of enduring more moisture about
+its roots than any of its companions excepting only the sequoia.
+
+Casting your eye over the general forest from some ridge-top you can
+identify it by the color alone of its spiry summits, a warm
+yellow-green. In its youth up to the age of seventy or eighty years,
+none of its companions forms so strictly tapered a cone from top to
+bottom. As it becomes older it oftentimes grows strikingly irregular
+and picturesque. Large branches push out at right angles to the trunk,
+forming stubborn elbows and shoot up parallel with the axis. Very old
+trees are usually dead at the top. The flat fragrant plumes are
+exceedingly beautiful: no waving fern-frond is finer in form and
+texture. In its prime the whole tree is thatched with them, but if you
+would see the libocedrus in all its glory you must go to the woods in
+midwinter when it is laden with myriads of yellow flowers about the
+size of wheat grains, forming a noble illustration of Nature’s immortal
+virility and vigor. The mature cones, about three-fourths of an inch
+long, born on the ends of the plumy branchlets, serve to enrich still
+more the surpassing beauty of this winter-blooming tree-goldenrod.
+
+The Silver Firs
+
+We come now to the most regularly planted and most clearly defined of
+the main forest belts, composed almost exclusively of two Silver
+Firs—_Abies concolor_ and _Abies magnifica_—extending with but little
+interruption 450 miles at an elevation of from 5000 to 9000 feet above
+the sea. In its youth _A. concolor_ is a charmingly symmetrical tree
+with its flat plumy branches arranged in regular whorls around the
+whitish-gray axis which terminates in a stout, hopeful shoot, pointing
+straight to the zenith, like an admonishing finger. The leaves are
+arranged in two horizontal rows along branchlets that commonly are less
+than eight years old, forming handsome plumes, pinnated like the fronds
+of ferns. The cones are grayish-green when ripe, cylindrical, from
+three to four inches long, and one and a half to two inches wide, and
+stand upright on the upper horizontal branches. Full-grown trees in
+favorable situations are usually about 200 feet high and five or six
+feet in diameter. As old age creeps on, the rough bark becomes rougher
+and grayer, the branches lose their exact regularity of form, many that
+are snow-bent are broken off and the axis often becomes double or
+otherwise irregular from accidents to the terminal bud or shoot.
+Nevertheless, throughout all the vicissitudes of its three or four
+centuries of life, come what may, the noble grandeur of this species,
+however obscured, is never lost.
+
+The magnificent Silver Fir, or California Red Fir (_Abies magnifica_)
+is the most symmetrical of all the Sierra giants, far surpassing its
+companion species in this respect and easily distinguished from it by
+the purplish-red bark, which is also more closely furrowed than that of
+the white, and by its larger cones, its more regularly whorled and
+fronded branches, and its shorter leaves, which grow all around the
+branches and point upward instead of being arranged in two horizontal
+rows. The branches are mostly whorled in fives, and stand out from the
+straight, red-purple bole in level, or in old trees in drooping
+collars, every branch regularly pinnated like fern-fronds, making broad
+plumes, singularly rich and sumptuous-looking. The flowers are in their
+prime about the middle of June; the male red, growing on the underside
+of the branches in crowded profusion, giving a very rich color to all
+the trees; the female greenish-yellow, tinged with pink, standing erect
+on the upper side of the topmost branches, while the tufts of young
+leaves, about as brightly colored as those of the Douglas spruce, make
+another grand show. The cones mature in a single season from the
+flowers. When mature they are about six to eight inches long, three or
+four in diameter, covered with a fine gray down and streaked and beaded
+with transparent balsam, very rich and precious-looking, and stand
+erect like casks on the topmost branches. The inside of the cone is, if
+possible, still more beautiful. The scales and bracts are tinged with
+red and the seed-wings are purple with bright iridescence. Both of the
+silver firs live between two and three centuries when the conditions
+about them are at all favorable. Some venerable patriarch may be seen
+heavily storm-marked, towering in severe majesty above the rising
+generation, with a protecting grove of hopeful saplings pressing close
+around his feet, each dressed with such loving care that not a leaf
+seems wanting. Other groups are made up of trees near the prime of
+life, nicely arranged as if Nature had culled them with discrimination
+from all the rest of the woods. It is from this tree, called Red Fir by
+the lumbermen, that mountaineers cut boughs to sleep on when they are
+so fortunate as to be within its limit. Two or three rows of the
+sumptuous plushy-fronded branches, overlapping along the middle, and a
+crescent of smaller plumes mixed to one’s taste with ferns and flowers
+for a pillow, form the very best bed imaginable. The essence of the
+pressed leaves seems to fill every pore of one’s body. Falling water
+makes a soothing hush, while the spaces between the grand spires afford
+noble openings through which to gaze dreamily into the starry sky. The
+fir woods are fine sauntering-grounds at almost any time of the year,
+but finest in autumn when the noble trees are hushed in the hazy light
+and drip with balsam; and the flying, whirling seeds, escaping from the
+ripe cones, mottle the air like flocks of butterflies. Even in the
+richest part of these unrivaled forests where so many noble trees
+challenge admiration we linger fondly among the colossal firs and extol
+their beauty again and again, as if no other tree in the world could
+henceforth claim our love. It is in these woods the great granite domes
+arise that are so striking and characteristic a feature of the Sierra.
+Here, too, we find the best of the garden-meadows full of lilies. A dry
+spot a little way back from the margin of a silver fir lily-garden
+makes a glorious camp-ground, especially where the slope is toward the
+east with a view of the distant peaks along the summit of the Range.
+The tall lilies are brought forward most impressively like visitors by
+the light of your camp-fire and the nearest of the trees with their
+whorled branches tower above you like larger lilies and the sky seen
+through the garden-opening seems one vast meadow of white lily stars.
+
+The Two-Leaved Pine
+
+The Two-Leaved Pine (_Pinus contorta_, var. _Murrayana_), above the
+Silver Fir zone, forms the bulk of the alpine forests up to a height of
+from 8000 to 9500 feet above the sea, growing in beautiful order on
+moraines scarcely changed as yet by post-glacial weathering. Compared
+with the giants of the lower regions this is a small tree, seldom
+exceeding a height of eighty or ninety feet. The largest I ever
+measured was ninety feet high and a little over six feet in diameter.
+The average height of mature trees throughout the entire belt is
+probably not far from fifty or sixty feet with a diameter of two feet.
+It is a well-proportioned, rather handsome tree with grayish-brown bark
+and crooked, much-divided branches which cover the greater part of the
+trunk, but not so densely as to prevent it being seen. The lower limbs,
+like those of most other conifers that grow in snowy regions, curve
+downward, gradually take a horizontal position about half-way up the
+trunk, then aspire more and more toward the summit. The short, rigid
+needles in fascicles of two are arranged in comparatively long
+cylindrical tassels at the ends of the tough up-curving branches. The
+cones are about two inches long, growing in clusters among the needles
+without any striking effect except while very young, when the flowers
+are of a vivid crimson color and the whole tree appears to be dotted
+with brilliant flowers. The staminate flowers are still more showy on
+account of their great abundance, often giving a reddish-yellow tinge
+to the whole mass of foliage and filling the air with pollen. No other
+pine on the Range is so regularly planted as this one, covering
+moraines that extend along the sides of the high rocky valleys for
+miles without interruption. The thin bark is streaked and sprinkled
+with resin as though it had been showered upon the forest like rain.
+
+Therefore this tree more than any other is subject to destruction by
+fire. During strong winds extensive forests are destroyed, the flames
+leaping from tree to tree in continuous belts that go surging and
+racing onward above the bending wood like prairie-grass fires. During
+the calm season of Indian summer the fire creeps quietly along the
+ground, feeding on the needles and cones; arriving at the foot of a
+tree, the resiny bark is ignited and the heated air ascends in a swift
+current, increasing in velocity and dragging the flames upward. Then
+the leaves catch forming an immense column of fire, beautifully spired
+on the edges and tinted a rose-purple hue. It rushes aloft thirty or
+forty feet above the top of the tree, forming a grand spectacle,
+especially at night. It lasts, however, only a few seconds, vanishing
+with magical rapidity, to be succeeded by others along the fire-line at
+irregular intervals, tree after tree, upflashing and darting, leaving
+the trunks and branches scarcely scarred. The heat, however, is
+sufficient to kill the tree and in a few years the bark shrivels and
+falls off. Forests miles in extent are thus killed and left standing,
+with the branches on, but peeled and rigid, appearing gray in the
+distance like misty clouds. Later the branches drop off, leaving a
+forest of bleached spars. At length the roots decay and the forlorn
+gray trunks are blown down during some storm and piled one upon
+another, encumbering the ground until, dry and seasoned, they are
+consumed by another fire and leave the ground ready for a fresh crop.
+
+In sheltered lake-hollows, on beds of alluvium, this pine varies so far
+from the common form that frequently it could be taken for a distinct
+species, growing in damp sods like grasses from forty to eighty feet
+high, bending all together to the breeze and whirling in eddying gusts
+more lively than any other tree in the woods. I frequently found
+specimens fifty feet high less than five inches in diameter. Being so
+slender and at the same time clad with leafy boughs, it is often bent
+and weighed down to the ground when laden with soft snow; thus forming
+fine ornamental arches, many of them to last until the melting of the
+snow in the spring.
+
+The Mountain Pine
+
+The Mountain Pine (_Pinus monticola_) is the noblest tree of the alpine
+zone—hardy and long-lived towering grandly above its companions and
+becoming stronger and more imposing just where other species begin to
+crouch and disappear. At its best it is usually about ninety feet high
+and five or six feet in diameter, though you may find specimens here
+and there considerably larger than this. It is as massive and
+suggestive of enduring strength as an oak. About two-thirds of the
+trunk is commonly free of limbs, but close, fringy tufts of spray occur
+nearly all the way down to the ground. On trees that occupy exposed
+situations near its upper limit the bark is deep reddish-brown and
+rather deeply furrowed, the main furrows running nearly parallel to
+each other and connected on the old trees by conspicuous cross-furrows.
+The cones are from four to eight inches long, smooth, slender,
+cylindrical and somewhat curved. They grow in clusters of from three to
+six or seven and become pendulous as they increase in weight. This
+species is nearly related to the sugar pine and, though not half so
+tall, it suggests its noble relative in the way that it extends its
+long branches in general habit. It is first met on the upper margin of
+the silver fir zone, singly, in what appears as chance situations
+without making much impression on the general forest. Continuing up
+through the forests of the two-leaved pine it begins to show its
+distinguishing characteristic in the most marked way at an elevation of
+about 10,000 feet extending its tough, rather slender arms in the
+frosty air, welcoming the storms and feeding on them and reaching
+sometimes to the grand old age of 1000 years.
+
+The Western Juniper
+
+The Juniper or Red Cedar (_Juniperus occidentalis_) is preëminently a
+rock tree, occupying the baldest domes and pavements in the upper
+silver fir and alpine zones, at a height of from 7000 to 9500 feet. In
+such situations, rooted in narrow cracks or fissures, where there is
+scarcely a handful of soil, it is frequently over eight feet in
+diameter and not much more in height. The tops of old trees are almost
+always dead, and large stubborn-looking limbs push out horizontally,
+most of them broken and dead at the end, but densely covered, and
+imbedded here and there with tufts or mounds of gray-green scalelike
+foliage. Some trees are mere storm-beaten stumps about as broad as
+long, decorated with a few leafy sprays, reminding one of the crumbling
+towers of old castles scantily draped with ivy. Its homes on bare,
+barren dome and ridge-top seem to have been chosen for safety against
+fire, for, on isolated mounds of sand and gravel free from grass and
+bushes on which fire could feed, it is often found growing tall and
+unscathed to a height of forty to sixty feet, with scarce a trace of
+the rocky angularity and broken limbs so characteristic a feature
+throughout the greater part of its range. It never makes anything like
+a forest; seldom even a grove. Usually it stands out separate and
+independent, clinging by slight joints to the rocks, living chiefly on
+snow and thin air and maintaining sound health on this diet for 2000
+years or more. Every feature or every gesture it makes expresses
+steadfast, dogged endurance. The bark is of a bright cinnamon color and
+is handsomely braided and reticulated on thrifty trees, flaking off in
+thin, shining ribbons that are sometimes used by the Indians for tent
+matting. Its fine color and picturesqueness are appreciated by artists,
+but to me the juniper seems a singularly strange and taciturn tree. I
+have spent many a day and night in its company and always have found it
+silent and rigid. It seems to be a survivor of some ancient race,
+wholly unacquainted with its neighbors. Its broad stumpiness, of
+course, makes wind-waving or even shaking out of the question, but it
+is not this rocky rigidity that constitutes its silence. In calm,
+sun-days the sugar pine preaches like an enthusiastic apostle without
+moving a leaf. On level rocks the juniper dies standing and wastes
+insensibly out of existence like granite, the wind exerting about as
+little control over it, alive or dead, as is does over a glacier
+boulder.
+
+I have spent a good deal of time trying to determine the age of these
+wonderful trees, but as all of the very old ones are honey-combed with
+dry rot I never was able to get a complete count of the largest. Some
+are undoubtedly more than 2000 years old, for though on deep moraine
+soil they grow about as fast as some of the pines, on bare pavements
+and smoothly glaciated, overswept ridges in the dome region they grow
+very slowly. One on the Starr King Ridge only two feet eleven inches in
+diameter was 1140 years old forty years ago. Another on the same ridge,
+only one foot seven and a half inches in diameter, had reached the age
+of 834 years. The first fifteen inches from the bark of a medium-size
+tree six feet in diameter, on the north Tenaya pavement, had 859 layers
+of wood. Beyond this the count was stopped by dry rot and scars. The
+largest examined was thirty-three feet in girth, or nearly ten feet in
+diameter and, although I have failed to get anything like a complete
+count, I learned enough from this and many other specimens to convince
+me that most of the trees eight or ten feet thick, standing on
+pavements, are more than twenty centuries old rather than less. Barring
+accidents, for all I can see they would live forever; even then
+overthrown by avalanches, they refuse to lie at rest, lean stubbornly
+on their big branches as if anxious to rise, and while a single root
+holds to the rock, put forth fresh leaves with a grim, never-say-die
+expression.
+
+The Mountain Hemlock
+
+As the juniper is the most stubborn and unshakeable of trees in the
+Yosemite region, the Mountain Hemlock (_Tsuga Mertensiana_) is the most
+graceful and pliant and sensitive. Until it reaches a height of fifty
+or sixty feet it is sumptuously clothed down to the ground with
+drooping branches, which are divided again and again into delicate
+waving sprays, grouped and arranged in ways that are indescribably
+beautiful, and profusely adorned with small brown cones. The flowers
+also are peculiarly beautiful and effective; the female dark rich
+purple, the male blue, of so fine and pure a tone. What the best azure
+of the mountain sky seems to be condensed in them. Though apparently
+the most delicate and feminine of all the mountain trees, it grows best
+where the snow lies deepest, at a height of from 9000 to 9500 feet, in
+hollows on the northern slopes of mountains and ridges. But under all
+circumstances, sheltered from heavy winds or in bleak exposure to them,
+well fed or starved, even at its highest limit, 10,500 feet above the
+sea, on exposed ridge-tops where it has to crouch and huddle close in
+low thickets, it still contrives to put forth its sprays and branches
+in forms of invincible beauty, while on moist, well-drained moraines it
+displays a perfectly tropical luxuriance of foliage, flowers and fruit.
+The snow of the first winter storm is frequently soft, and lodges in
+due dense leafy branches, weighing them down against the trunk, and the
+slender, drooping axis, bending lower and lower as the load increases,
+at length reaches the ground, forming an ornamental arch. Then, as
+storm succeeds storm and snow is heaped on snow, the whole tree is at
+last buried, not again to see the light of day or move leaf or limb
+until set free by the spring thaws in June or July. Not only the young
+saplings are thus carefully covered and put to sleep in the whitest of
+white beds for five or six months of the year, but trees thirty feet
+high or more. From April to May, when the snow by repeated thawing and
+freezing is firmly compacted, you may ride over the prostrate groves
+without seeing a single branch or leaf of them. No other of our alpine
+conifers so finely veils its strength; poised in thin, white sunshine,
+clad with branches from head to foot, it towers in unassuming majesty,
+drooping as if unaffected with the aspiring tendencies of its race,
+loving the ground, conscious of heaven and joyously receptive of its
+blessings, reaching out its branches like sensitive tentacles, feeling
+the light and reveling in it. The largest specimen I ever found was
+nineteen feet seven inches in circumference. It was growing on the edge
+of Lake Hollow, north of Mount Hoffman, at an elevation of 9250 feet
+above the level of the sea, and was probably about a hundred feet in
+height. Fine groves of mature trees, ninety to a hundred feet in
+height, are growing near the base of Mount Conness. It is widely
+distributed from near the south extremity of the high Sierra northward
+along the Cascade Mountains of Oregon and Washington and the coast
+ranges of British Columbia to Alaska, where it was first discovered in
+1827. Its northernmost limit, so far as I have observed, is in the icy
+fiords of Prince William Sound in latitude 61°, where it forms pure
+forests at the level of the sea, growing tall and majestic on the banks
+of glaciers. There, as in the Yosemite region, it is ineffably
+beautiful, the very loveliest of all the American conifers.
+
+The White-Bark Pine
+
+The Dwarf Pine, or White-Bark Pine (_Pinus albicaulis_), forms the
+extreme edge of the timberline throughout nearly the whole extent of
+the Range on both flanks. It is first met growing with the two-leaved
+pine on the upper margin of the alpine belt, as an erect tree from
+fifteen to thirty feet high and from one to two feet in diameter hence
+it goes straggling up the flanks of the summit peaks, upon moraines or
+crumbling ledges, wherever it can get a foothold, to an elevation of
+from 10,000 to 12,000 feet, where it dwarfs to a mass of crumpled
+branches, covered with slender shoots, each tipped with a short,
+close-packed, leaf tassel. The bark is smooth and purplish, in some
+places almost white. The flowers are bright scarlet and rose-purple,
+giving a very flowery appearance little looked for in such a tree. The
+cones are about three inches long, an inch and a half in diameter, grow
+in rigid clusters, and are dark chocolate in color while young, and
+bear beautiful pearly-white seeds about the size of peas, most of which
+are eaten by chipmunks and the Clarke’s crows. Pines are commonly
+regarded as sky-loving trees that must necessarily aspire or die. This
+species forms a marked exception, crouching and creeping in compliance
+with the most rigorous demands of climate; yet enduring bravely to a
+more advanced age than many of its lofty relatives in the sun-lands far
+below it. Seen from a distance it would never be taken for a tree of
+any kind. For example, on Cathedral Peak there is a scattered growth of
+this pine, creeping like mosses over the roof, nowhere giving hint of
+an ascending axis. While, approached quite near, it still appears matty
+and heathy, and one experiences no difficulty in walking over the top
+of it, yet it is seldom absolutely prostrate, usually attaining a
+height of three or four feet with a main trunk, and with branches
+outspread above it, as if in ascending they had been checked by a
+ceiling against which they had been compelled to spread horizontally.
+The winter snow is a sort of ceiling, lasting half the year; while the
+pressed surface is made yet smoother by violent winds armed with
+cutting sand-grains that bear down any shoot which offers to rise much
+above the general level, and that carve the dead trunks and branches in
+beautiful patterns.
+
+During stormy nights I have often camped snugly beneath the interlacing
+arches of this little pine. The needles, which have accumulated for
+centuries, make fine beds, a fact well known to other mountaineers,
+such as deer and wild sheep, who paw out oval hollows and lie beneath
+the larger trees in safe and comfortable concealment. This lowly dwarf
+reaches a far greater age than would be guessed. A specimen that I
+examined, growing at an elevation of 10,700 feet, yet looked as though
+it might be plucked up by the roots, for it was only three and a half
+inches in diameter and its topmost tassel reached hardly three feet
+above the ground. Cutting it half through and counting the annual rings
+with the aid of a lens, I found its age to be no less than 255 years.
+Another specimen about the same height, with a trunk six inches in
+diameter, I found to be 426 years old, forty years ago; and one of its
+supple branchlets hardly an eighth of an inch in diameter inside the
+bark, was seventy-five years old, and so filled with oily balsam and
+seasoned by storms that I tied it in knots like a whip-cord.
+
+The Nut Pine
+
+In going across the Range from the Tuolumne River Soda Springs to Mono
+Lake one makes the acquaintance of the curious little Nut Pine (_Pinus
+monophylla_). It dots the eastern flank of the Sierra to which it is
+mostly restricted in grayish bush-like patches, from the margin of the
+sage-plains to an elevation of from 7000 to 8000 feet. A more
+contented, fruitful and unaspiring conifer could not be conceived. All
+the species we have been sketching make departures more or less distant
+from the typical spire form, but none goes so far as this. Without any
+apparent cause it keeps near the ground, throwing out crooked,
+divergent branches like an orchard apple-tree, and seldom pushes a
+single shoot higher than fifteen or twenty feet above the ground.
+
+The average thickness of the trunk is, perhaps, about ten or twelve
+inches. The leaves are mostly undivided, like round awls, instead of
+being separated, like those of other pines, into twos and threes and
+fives. The cones are green while growing, and are usually found over
+all the tree, forming quite a marked feature as seen against the
+bluish-gray foliage. They are quite small, only about two inches in
+length, and seem to have but little space for seeds; but when we come
+to open them, we find that about half the entire bulk of the cone is
+made up of sweet, nutritious nuts, nearly as large as hazel-nuts. This
+is undoubtedly the most important food-tree on the Sierra, and
+furnishes the Mona, Carson, and Walker River Indians with more and
+better nuts than all the other species taken together. It is the
+Indian’s own tree, and many a white man have they killed for cutting it
+down. Being so low, the cones are readily beaten off with poles, and
+the nuts procured by roasting them until the scales open. In bountiful
+seasons a single Indian may gather thirty or forty bushels.
+
+
+
+Chapter 7
+The Big Trees
+
+
+Between the heavy pine and silver fir zones towers the Big Tree
+(_Sequoia gigantea_), the king of all the conifers in the world, “the
+noblest of the noble race.” The groves nearest Yosemite Valley are
+about twenty miles to the westward and southward and are called the
+Tuolumne, Merced and Mariposa groves. It extends, a widely interrupted
+belt, from a very small grove on the middle fork of the American River
+to the head of Deer Creek, a distance of about 260 miles, its northern
+limit being near the thirty-ninth parallel, the southern a little below
+the thirty-sixth. The elevation of the belt above the sea varies from
+about 5000 to 8000 feet. From the American River to Kings River the
+species occurs only in small isolated groups so sparsely distributed
+along the belt that three of the gaps in it are from forty to sixty
+miles wide. But from Kings River south-ward the sequoia is not
+restricted to mere groves but extends across the wide rugged basins of
+the Kaweah and Tule Rivers in noble forests, a distance of nearly
+seventy miles, the continuity of this part of the belt being broken
+only by the main cañons. The Fresno, the largest of the northern
+groves, has an area of three or four square miles, a short distance to
+the southward of the famous Mariposa grove. Along the south rim of the
+cañon of the south fork of Kings River there is a majestic sequoia
+forest about six miles long by two wide. This is the northernmost group
+that may fairly be called a forest. Descending the divide between the
+Kings and Kaweah Rivers you come to the grand forests that form the
+main continuous portion of the belt. Southward the giants become more
+and more irrepressibly exuberant, heaving their massive crowns into the
+sky from every ridge and slope, waving onward in graceful compliance
+with the complicated topography of the region. The finest of the Kaweah
+section of the belt is on the broad ridge between Marble Creek and the
+middle fork, and is called the Giant Forest. It extends from the
+granite headlands, overlooking the hot San Joaquin plains, to within a
+few miles of the cool glacial fountains of the summit peaks. The
+extreme upper limit of the belt is reached between the middle and south
+forks of the Kaweah at a height of 8400 feet, but the finest block of
+big tree forests in the entire belt is on the north fork of Tule River,
+and is included in the Sequoia National Park.
+
+In the northern groves there are comparatively few young trees or
+saplings. But here for every old storm-beaten giant there are many in
+their prime and for each of these a crowd of hopeful young trees and
+saplings, growing vigorously on moraines, rocky edges, along water
+courses and meadows. But though the area occupied by the big tree
+increases so greatly from north to south, here is no marked increase in
+the size of the trees. The height of 275 feet or thereabouts and a
+diameter of about twenty feet, four feet from the ground is, perhaps,
+about the average size of what may be called full-grown trees, where
+they are favorably located. The specimens twenty-five feet in diameter
+are not very rare and a few are nearly three hundred feet high. In the
+Calaveras grove there are four trees over 300 feet in height, the
+tallest of which as measured by the Geological Survey is 325 feet. The
+very largest that I have yet met in the course of my explorations is a
+majestic old fire-scarred monument in the Kings River forest. It is
+thirty-five feet and eight inches in diameter inside the bark, four
+feet above the ground. It is burned half through, and I spent a day in
+clearing away the charred surface with a sharp ax and counting the
+annual wood-rings with the aid of a pocket lens. I succeeded in laying
+bare a section all the way from the outside to the heart and counted a
+little over four thousand rings, showing that this tree was in its
+prime about twenty-seven feet in diameter at the beginning of the
+Christian era. No other tree in the world, as far as I know, has looked
+down on so many centuries as the sequoia or opens so many impressive
+and suggestive views into history. Under the most favorable conditions
+these giants probably live 5000 years or more though few of even the
+larger trees are half as old. The age of one that was felled in
+Calaveras grove, for the sake of having its stump for a dancing-floor,
+was about 1300 years, and its diameter measured across the stump
+twenty-four feet inside the bark. Another that was felled in the Kings
+River forest was about the same size but nearly a thousand years older
+(2200 years), though not a very old-looking tree.
+
+So harmonious and finely balanced are even the mightiest of these
+monarchs in all their proportions that there is never anything
+overgrown or monstrous about them. Seeing them for the first time you
+are more impressed with their beauty than their size, their grandeur
+being in great part invisible; but sooner or later it becomes manifest
+to the loving eye, stealing slowly on the senses like the grandeur of
+Niagara or of the Yosemite Domes. When you approach them and walk
+around them you begin to wonder at their colossal size and try to
+measure them. They bulge considerably at the base, but not more than is
+required for beauty and safety and the only reason that this bulging
+seems in some cases excessive is that only a comparatively small
+section is seen in near views. One that I measured in the Kings River
+forest was twenty-five feet in diameter at the ground and ten feet in
+diameter 220 feet above the ground showing the fineness of the taper of
+the trunk as a whole. No description can give anything like an adequate
+idea of their singular majesty, much less of their beauty. Except the
+sugar pine, most of their neighbors with pointed tops seem ever trying
+to go higher, while the big tree, soaring above them all, seems
+satisfied. Its grand domed head seems to be poised about as lightly as
+a cloud, giving no impression of seeking to rise higher. Only when it
+is young does it show like other conifers a heavenward yearning,
+sharply aspiring with a long quick-growing top. Indeed, the whole tree
+for the first century or two, or until it is a hundred or one hundred
+and fifty feet high, is arrowhead in form, and, compared with the
+solemn rigidity of age, seems as sensitive to the wind as a squirrel’s
+tail. As it grows older, the lower branches are gradually dropped and
+the upper ones thinned out until comparatively few are left. These,
+however, are developed to a great size, divide again and again and
+terminate in bossy, rounded masses of leafy branch-lets, while the head
+becomes dome-shaped, and is the first to feel the touch of the rosy
+beams of the morning, the last to bid the sun good night. Perfect
+specimens, unhurt by running fires or lightning, are singularly regular
+and symmetrical in general form though not in the least
+conventionalized, for they show extraordinary variety in the unity and
+harmony of their general outline. The immensely strong, stately shafts
+are free of limbs for one hundred and fifty feet or so. The large limbs
+reach out with equal boldness a every direction, showing no weather
+side, and no other tree has foliage so densely massed, so finely molded
+in outline and so perfectly subordinate to an ideal type. A
+particularly knotty, angular, ungovernable-looking branch, from five to
+seven or eight feet in diameter and perhaps a thousand years old, may
+occasionally be seen pushing out from the trunk as if determined to
+break across the bounds of the regular curve, but like all the others
+it dissolves in bosses of branchlets and sprays as soon as the general
+outline is approached. Except in picturesque old age, after being
+struck by lightning or broken by thousands of snow-storms, the
+regularity of forms is one of their most distinguishing
+characteristics. Another is the simple beauty of the trunk and its
+great thickness as compared with its height and the width of the
+branches, which makes them look more like finely modeled and sculptured
+architectural columns than the stems of trees, while the great limbs
+look like rafters, supporting the magnificent dome-head. But though so
+consummately beautiful, the big tree always seems unfamiliar, with
+peculiar physiognomy, awfully solemn and earnest; yet with all its
+strangeness it impresses us as being more at home than any of its
+neighbors, holding the best right to the ground as the oldest strongest
+inhabitant. One soon becomes acquainted with new species of pine and
+fir and spruce as with friendly people, shaking their outstretched
+branches like shaking hands and fondling their little ones, while the
+venerable aboriginal sequoia, ancient of other days, keeps you at a
+distance, looking as strange in aspect and behavior among its neighbor
+trees as would the mastodon among the homely bears and deers. Only the
+Sierra juniper is at all like it, standing rigid and unconquerable on
+glacier pavements for thousands of years, grim and silent, with an air
+of antiquity about as pronounced as that of the sequoia.
+
+The bark of the largest trees is from one to two feet thick, rich
+cinnamon brown, purplish on young trees, forming magnificent masses of
+color with the underbrush. Toward the end of winter the trees are in
+bloom, while the snow is still eight or ten feet deep. The female
+flowers are about three-eighths of an inch long, pale green, and grow
+in countless thousands on the ends of sprays. The male are still more
+abundant, pale yellow, a fourth of an inch long and when the pollen is
+ripe they color the whole tree and dust the air and the ground. The
+cones are bright grass-green in color, about two and a half inches
+long, one and a half wide, made up of thirty or forty strong,
+closely-packed, rhomboidal scales, with four to eight seeds at the base
+of each. The seeds are wonderfully small end light, being only from an
+eighth to a fourth of an inch long and wide, including a filmy
+surrounding wing, which causes them to glint and waver in falling and
+enables the wind to carry them considerable distances. Unless harvested
+by the squirrels, the cones discharge their seed and remain on the tree
+for many years. In fruitful seasons the trees are fairly laden. On two
+small branches one and a half and two inches in diameter I counted 480
+cones. No other California conifer produces nearly so many seeds,
+except, perhaps, the other sequoia, the Redwood of the Coast Mountains.
+Millions are ripened annually by a single tree, and in a fruitful year
+the product of one of the northern groves would be enough to plant all
+the mountain ranges in the world.
+
+As soon as any accident happens to the crown, such as being smashed off
+by lightning, the branches beneath the wound, no matter how situated,
+seem to be excited, like a colony of bees that have lost their queen,
+and become anxious to repair the damage. Limbs that have grown outward
+for centuries at right angles to the trunk begin to turn upward to
+assist in making a new crown, each speedily assuming the special form
+of true summits. Even in the case of mere stumps, burned half through,
+some mere ornamental tuft will try to go aloft and do its best as a
+leader in forming a new head. Groups of two or three are often found
+standing close together, the seeds from which they sprang having
+probably grown on ground cleared for their reception by the fall of a
+large tree of a former generation. They are called “loving couples,”
+“three graces,” etc. When these trees are young they are seen to stand
+twenty or thirty feet apart, by the time they are full-grown their
+trunks will touch and crowd against each other and in some cases even
+appear as one.
+
+It is generally believed that the sequoia was once far more widely
+distributed over the Sierra; but after long and careful study I have
+come to the conclusion that it never was, at least since the close of
+the glacial period, because a diligent search along the margins of the
+groves, and in the gaps between fails to reveal a single trace of its
+previous existence beyond its present bounds. Notwithstanding, I feel
+confident that if every sequoia in the Range were to die today,
+numerous monuments of their existence would remain, of so imperishable
+a nature as to be available for the student more than ten thousand
+years hence.
+
+In the first place, no species of coniferous tree in the Range keeps
+its members so well together as the sequoia; a mile is, perhaps, the
+greatest distance of any straggler from the main body, and all of those
+stragglers that have come under my observation are young, instead of
+old monumental trees, relics of a more extended growth.
+
+Again, the great trunks of the sequoia last for centuries after they
+fall. I have a specimen block of sequoia wood, cut from a fallen tree,
+which is hardly distinguishable from a similar section cut from a
+living tree, although the one cut from the fallen trunk has certainly
+lain on the damp forest floor more than 380 years, probably thrice as
+long. The time-measure in the case is simply this: When the ponderous
+trunk to which the old vestige belonged fell, it sunk itself into the
+ground, thus making a long, straight ditch, and in the middle of this
+ditch a silver fir four feet in diameter and 380 years old was growing,
+as I determined by cutting it half through and counting the rings, thus
+demonstrating that the remnant of the trunk that made the ditch has
+lain on the ground _more_ than 380 years. For it is evident that, to
+find the whole time, we must add to the 380 years the time that the
+vanished portion of the trunk lay in the ditch before being burned out
+of the way, plus the time that passed before the seed from which the
+monumental fir sprang fell into the prepared soil and took root. Now,
+because sequoia trunks are never wholly consumed in one forest fire,
+and those fires recur only at considerable intervals, and because
+sequoia ditches after being cleared are often left unplanted for
+centuries, it becomes evident that the trunk-remnant in question may
+probably have lain a thousand years or more. And this instance is by no
+means a late one.
+
+Again, admitting that upon those areas supposed to have been once
+covered with sequoia forests, every tree may have fallen, and every
+trunk may have been burned or buried, leaving not a remnant, many of
+the ditches made by the fall of the ponderous trunks, and the bowls
+made by their upturning roots, would remain patent for thousands of
+years after the last vestige of the trunks that made them had vanished.
+Much of this ditch-writing would no doubt be quickly effaced by the
+flood-action of overflowing streams and rain-washing; but no
+inconsiderable portion would remain enduringly engraved on ridge-tops
+beyond such destructive action; for, where all the conditions are
+favorable, it is almost imperishable. Now these historic ditches and
+root-bowls occur in all the present sequoia groves and forests, but, as
+far as I have observed, not the faintest vestige of one presents itself
+outside of them.
+
+We therefore conclude that the area covered by sequoia has not been
+diminished during the last eight or ten thousand years, and probably
+not at all in post-glacial time. Nevertheless, the questions may be
+asked: Is the species verging toward extinction? What are its relations
+to climate, soil, and associated trees?
+
+All the phenomena bearing on these questions also throw light, as we
+shall endeavor to show, upon the peculiar distribution of the species,
+and sustain the conclusion already arrived at as to the question of
+former extension. In the northern groups, as we have seen, there are
+few young trees or saplings growing up around the old ones to
+perpetuate the race, and inasmuch as those aged sequoias, so nearly
+childless, are the only ones commonly known the species, to most
+observers, seems doomed to speedy extinction, as being nothing more
+than an expiring remnant, vanquished in the so-called struggle for life
+by pines and firs that have driven it into its last strongholds in
+moist glens where the climate is supposed to be exceptionally
+favorable. But the story told by the majestic continuous forests of the
+south creates a very different impression. No tree in the forest is
+more enduringly established in concordance with both climate and soil.
+It grows heartily everywhere—on moraines, rocky ledges, along
+watercourses, and in the deep, moist alluvium of meadows with, as we
+have seen, a multitude of seedlings and saplings crowding up around the
+aged, abundantly able to maintain the forest in prime vigor. So that if
+all the trees of any section of the main sequoia forest were ranged
+together according to age, a very promising curve would be presented,
+all the way up from last year’s seedlings to giants, and with the young
+and middle-aged portion of the curve many times longer than the old
+portion. Even as far north as the Fresno, I counted 536 saplings and
+seedlings, growing promisingly upon a landslip not exceeding two acres
+in area. This soil-bed was about seven years old, and had been seeded
+almost simultaneously by pines, firs, libocedrus, and sequoia,
+presenting a simple and instructive illustration of the struggle for
+life among the rival species; and it was interesting to note that the
+conditions thus far affecting them have enabled the young sequoias to
+gain a marked advantage. Toward the south where the sequoia becomes
+most exuberant and numerous, the rival trees become less so; and where
+they mix with sequoias they grow up beneath them like slender grasses
+among stalks of Indian corn. Upon a bed of sandy floodsoil I counted
+ninety-four sequoias, from one to twelve feet high, on a patch of
+ground once occupied by four large sugar pines which lay crumbling
+beneath them—an instance of conditions which have enabled sequoias to
+crowd out the pines. I also noted eighty-six vigorous saplings upon a
+piece of fresh ground prepared for their reception by fire. Thus fire,
+the great destroyer of the sequoia, also furnishes the bare ground
+required for its growth from the seed. Fresh ground is, however,
+furnished in sufficient quantities for the renewal of the forests
+without the aid of fire—by the fall of old trees. The soil is thus
+upturned and mellowed, and many trees are planted for every one that
+falls.
+
+It is constantly asserted in a vague way that the Sierra was vastly
+wetter than now, and that the increasing drought will of itself
+extinguish the sequoia, leaving its ground to other trees supposed
+capable of flourishing in a drier climate. But that the sequoia can and
+does grow on as dry ground as any of its present rivals is manifest in
+a thousand places. “Why, then,” it will be asked, “are sequoias always
+found only in well-watered places?” Simply because a growth of sequoias
+creates those streams. The thirsty mountaineer knows well that in every
+sequoia grove he will find running water, but it is a mistake to
+suppose that the water is the cause of the grove being there; on the
+contrary, the grove is the cause of the water being there. Drain off
+the water and the trees will remain, but cut off the trees, and the
+streams will vanish. Never was cause more completely mistaken for
+effect than in the case of these related phenomena of sequoia woods and
+perennial streams.
+
+When attention is called to the method of sequoia stream-making, it
+will be apprehended at once. The roots of this immense tree fill the
+ground, forming a thick sponge that absorbs and holds back the rain and
+melting snow, only allowing it to ooze and flow gently. Indeed, every
+fallen leaf and rootlet, as well as long clasping root, and prostrate
+trunk, may be regarded as a dam hoarding the bounty of storm-clouds,
+and dispensing it as blessings all through the summer, instead of
+allowing it to go headlong in short-lived floods.
+
+Since, then, it is a fact that thousands of sequoias are growing
+thriftily on what is termed dry ground, and even clinging like mountain
+pines to rifts in granite precipices, and since it has also been shown
+that the extra moisture found in connection with the denser growths is
+an effect of their presence, instead of a cause of their presence, then
+the notions as to the former extension of the species and its near
+approach to extinction, based upon its supposed dependence on greater
+moisture, are seen to be erroneous.
+
+The decrease in rain and snowfall since the close of the glacial period
+in the Sierra is much less than is commonly guessed. The highest
+post-glacial water-marks are well preserved in all the upper river
+channels, and they are not greatly higher than the spring flood-marks
+of the present; showing conclusively that no extraordinary decrease has
+taken place in the volume of the upper tributaries of post-glacial
+Sierra streams since they came into existence. But, in the meantime,
+eliminating all this complicated question of climatic change, the plain
+fact remains that the present rain and snowfall is abundantly
+sufficient for the luxuriant growth of sequoia forests. Indeed, all my
+observations tend to show that in a prolonged drought the sugar pines
+and firs would perish before the sequoia, not alone because of the
+greater longevity of individual trees, but because the species can
+endure more drought, and make the most of whatever moisture falls.
+
+Again, if the restriction and irregular distribution of the species be
+interpreted as a result of the desiccation of the Range, then instead
+of increasing as it does in individuals toward the south where the
+rainfall is less, it should diminish. If, then, the peculiar
+distribution of sequoia has not been governed by superior conditions of
+soil as to fertility or moisture, by what has it been governed?
+
+In the course of my studies I observed that the northern groves, the
+only ones I was at first acquainted with, were located on just those
+portions of the general forest soil-belt that were first laid bare
+toward the close of the glacial period when the ice-sheet began to
+break up into individual glaciers. And while searching the wide basin
+of the San Joaquin, and trying to account for the absence of sequoia
+where every condition seemed favorable for its growth, it occurred to
+me that this remarkable gap in the sequoia belt fifty miles wide is
+located exactly in the basin of the vast, ancient _mer de glace_ of the
+San Joaquin and Kings River basins which poured its frozen floods to
+the plain through this gap as its channel. I then perceived that the
+next great gap in the belt to the northward, forty miles wide,
+extending between the Calaveras and Tuolumne groves, occurs in the
+basin of the great ancient mer de glace of the Tuolumne and Stanislaus
+basins; and that the smaller gap between the Merced and Mariposa groves
+occurs in the basin of the smaller glacier of the Merced. The wider the
+ancient glacier, the wider the corresponding gap in the sequoia belt.
+
+Finally, pursuing my investigations across the basins of the Kaweah and
+Tule, I discovered that the sequoia belt attained its greatest
+development just where, owing to the topographical peculiarities of the
+region, the ground had been best protected from the main ice-rivers
+that continued to pour past from the summit fountains long after the
+smaller local glaciers had been melted.
+
+Taking now a general view of the belt, beginning at the south we see
+that the majestic ancient glaciers were shed off right and left down
+the valleys of Kern and Kings Rivers by the lofty protective spurs
+outspread embracingly above the warm sequoia-filled basins of the
+Kaweah and Tule. Then, next northward, occurs the wide sequoia-less
+channel, or basin of the ancient San Joaquin and sings River mer de
+glace; then the warm, protected spots of Fresno and Mariposa groves;
+then the sequoia-less channel of the ancient Merced glacier; next the
+warm, sheltered ground of the Merced and Tuolumne groves; then the
+sequoia-less channel of the grand ancient mer de glace of the Tuolumne
+and Stanislaus; then the warm old ground of the Calaveras and
+Stanislaus groves. It appears, therefore, that just where, at a certain
+period in the history of the Sierra, the glaciers were not, there the
+sequoia is, and just where the glaciers were, there the sequoia is not.
+
+But although all the observed phenomena bearing on the post-glacial
+history of this colossal tree point to the conclusion that it never was
+more widely distributed on the Sierra since the close of the glacial
+epoch; that its present forests are scarcely past prime, if, indeed,
+they have reached prime; that the post-glacial day of the species is
+probably not half done; yet, when from a wider outlook the vast
+antiquity of the genus is considered, and its ancient richness in
+species and individuals,—comparing our Sierra Giant and _Sequoia
+sempervirens_ of the Coast Range, the only other living species of
+sequoia, with the twelve fossil species already discovered and
+described by Heer and Lesquereux, some of which flourished over vast
+areas in the Arctic regions and in Europe and our own territories,
+during tertiary and cretaceous times—then, indeed, it becomes plain
+that our two surviving species, restricted to narrow belts within the
+limits of California, are mere remnants of the genus, both as to
+species and individuals, and that they may be verging to extinction.
+But the verge of a period beginning in cretaceous times may have a
+breadth of tens of thousands of years, not to mention the possible
+existence of conditions calculated to multiply and re-extend both
+species and individuals.
+
+There is no absolute limit to the existence of any tree. Death is due
+to accidents, not, as that of animals, to the wearing out of organs.
+Only the leaves die of old age. Their fall is foretold in their
+structure; but the leaves are renewed every year, and so also are the
+essential organs wood, roots, bark, buds. Most of the Sierra trees die
+of disease, insects, fungi, etc., but nothing hurts the big tree. I
+never saw one that was sick or showed the slightest sign of decay.
+Barring accidents, it seems to be immortal. It is a curious fact that
+all the very old sequoias had lost their heads by lightning strokes.
+“All things come to him who waits.” But of all living things, sequoia
+is perhaps the only one able to wait long enough to make sure of being
+struck by lightning.
+
+So far as I am able to see at present only fire and the ax threaten the
+existence of these noblest of God’s trees. In Nature’s keeping they are
+safe, but through the agency of man destruction is making rapid
+progress, while in the work of protection only a good beginning has
+been made. The Fresno grove, the Tuolumne, Merced and Mariposa groves
+are under the protection of the Federal Government in the Yosemite
+National Park. So are the General Grant and Sequoia National Parks; the
+latter, established twenty-one years ago, has an area of 240 square
+miles and is efficiently guarded by a troop of cavalry under the
+direction of the Secretary of the Interior; so also are the small
+General Grant National Park, estatblished at the same time with an area
+of four square miles, and the Mariposa grove, about the same size and
+the small Merced and Tuolumne group. Perhaps more than half of all the
+big trees have been thoughtlessly sold and are now in the hands of
+speculators and mill men. It appears, therefore, that far the largest
+and important section of protected big trees is in the great Sequoia
+National Park, now easily accessible by rail to Lemon Cove and thence
+by a good stage road into the giant forest of the Kaweah and thence by
+rail to other parts of the park; but large as it is it should be made
+much larger. Its natural eastern boundary is the High Sierra and the
+northern and southern boundaries are the Kings and Kern Rivers. Thus
+could be included the sublime scenery on the headwaters of these rivers
+and perhaps nine-tenths of all the big trees in existence. All private
+claims within these bounds should be gradually extinguished by purchase
+by the Government. The big tree, leaving all its higher uses out of the
+count, is a tree of life to the dwellers of the plain dependent on
+irrigation, a never-failing spring, sending living waters to the
+lowland. For every grove cut down a stream is dried up. Therefore all
+California is crying, “Save the trees of the fountains.” Nor, judging
+by the signs of the times, is it likely that the cry will cease until
+the salvation of all that is left of _Sequoia gigantea_ is made sure.
+
+
+
+Chapter 8
+The Flowers
+
+
+Yosemite was all one glorious flower garden before plows and scythes
+and trampling, biting horses came to make its wide open spaces look
+like farmers’ pasture fields. Nevertheless, countless flowers still
+bloom every year in glorious profusion on the grand talus slopes, wall
+benches and tablets, and in all the fine, cool side-cañons up to the
+rim of the Valley, and beyond, higher and higher, to the summits of the
+peaks. Even on the open floor and in easily-reached side-nooks many
+common flowering plants have survived and still make a brave show in
+the spring and early summer. Among these we may mention tall œnotheras,
+_Pentstemon lutea_, and _P. Douglasii_ with fine blue and red flowers;
+Spraguea, scarlet zauschneria, with its curious radiant rosettes
+characteristic of the sandy flats; mimulus, eunanus, blue and white
+violets, geranium, columbine, erythraea, larkspur, collomia, draperia,
+gilias, heleniums, bahia, goldenrods, daisies, honeysuckle; heuchera,
+bolandra, saxifrages, gentians; in cool cañon nooks and on Clouds’ Rest
+and the base of Starr King Dome you may find _Primula suffrutescens_,
+the only wild primrose discovered in California, and the only known
+shrubby species in the genus. And there are several fine orchids,
+habenaria, and cypripedium, the latter very rare, once common in the
+Valley near the foot of Glacier Point, and in a bog on the rim of the
+Valley near a place called Gentry’s Station, now abandoned. It is a
+very beautiful species, the large oval lip white, delicately veined
+with purple; the other petals and the sepals purple, strap-shaped, and
+elegantly curled and twisted.
+
+Of the lily family, fritillaria, smilacina, chlorogalum and several
+fine species of brodiæa, Ithuriel’s spear, and others less prized are
+common, and the favorite calochortus, or Mariposa lily, a unique genus
+of many species, something like the tulips of Europe but far finer.
+Most of them grow on the warm foothills below the Valley, but two
+charming species, _C. cœruleus_ and _C. nudus_, dwell in springy places
+on the Wawona road a few miles beyond the brink of the walls.
+
+The snow plant (_Sarcodes sanguinea_) is more admired by tourists than
+any other in California. It is red, fleshy and watery and looks like a
+gigantic asparagus shoot. Soon after the snow is off the round it rises
+through the dead needles and humus in the pine and fir woods like a
+bright glowing pillar of fire. In a week or so it grows to a height of
+eight or twelve inches with a diameter of an inch and a half or two
+inches; then its long fringed bracts curl aside, allowing the twenty-
+or thirty-five-lobed, bell-shaped flowers to open and look straight out
+from the axis. It is said to grow up through the snow; on the contrary,
+it always waits until the ground is warm, though with other early
+flowers it is occasionally buried or half-buried for a day or two by
+spring storms. The entire plant—flowers, bracts, stem, scales, and
+roots—is fiery red. Its color could appeal to one’s blood.
+Nevertheless, it is a singularly cold and unsympathetic plant.
+Everybody admires it as a wonderful curiosity, but nobody loves it as
+lilies, violets, roses, daisies are loved. Without fragrance, it stands
+beneath the pines and firs lonely and silent, as if unacquainted with
+any other plant in the world; never moving in the wildest storms; rigid
+as if lifeless, though covered with beautiful rosy flowers.
+
+Far the most delightful and fragrant of the Valley flowers is the
+Washington lily, white, moderate in size, with from three- to
+ten-flowered racemes. I found one specimen in the lower end of the
+Valley at the foot of the Wawona grade that was eight feet high, the
+raceme two feet long, with fifty-two flowers, fifteen of them open; the
+others had faded or were still in the bud. This famous lily is
+distributed over the sunny portions of the sugar-pine woods, never in
+large meadow-garden companies like the large and the small tiger lilies
+(_pardalinum_ and _parvum_), but widely scattered, standing up to the
+waist in dense ceanothus and manzanita chaparral, waving its lovely
+flowers above the blooming wilderness of brush, and giving their
+fragrance to the breeze. It is now becoming scarce in the most
+accessible parts of its range on account of the high price paid for its
+bulbs by gardeners through whom it has been distributed far and wide
+over the flower-loving world. For, on account of its pure color and
+delicate, delightful fragrance, all lily lovers at once adopted it as a
+favorite.
+
+The principal shrubs are manzanita and ceanothus, several species of
+each, azalea, _Rubus nutkanus_, brier rose, choke-cherry philadelphus,
+calycanthus, garrya, rhamnus, etc.
+
+The manzanita never fails to attract particular attention. The species
+common in the Valley is usually about six or seven feet high,
+round-headed with innumerable branches, red or chocolate-color bark,
+pale green leaves set on edge, and a rich profusion of small, pink,
+narrow-throated, urn-shaped flowers, like those of arbutus. The knotty,
+crooked, angular branches are about as rigid as bones, and the red bark
+is so thin and smooth on both trunk and branches, they look as if they
+had been peeled and polished and painted. In the spring large areas on
+the mountain up to a height of eight or nine thousand feet are
+brightened with the rosy flowers, and in autumn with their red fruit.
+The pleasantly acid berries, about the size of peas, look like little
+apples, and a hungry mountaineer is glad to eat them, though half their
+bulk is made up of hard seeds. Indians, bears, coyotes, foxes, birds
+and other mountain people live on them for weeks and months. The
+different species of ceanothus usually associated with manzanita are
+flowery fragrant and altogether delightful shrubs, growing in glorious
+abundance, not only in the Valley, but high up in the forest on sunny
+or half-shaded ground. In the sugar-pine woods the most beautiful
+species is _C. integerrimus_, often called Californian lilac, or deer
+brush. It is five or six feet high with slender branches, glossy
+foliage, and abundance of blue flowers in close, showy panicles. Two
+species, _C. prostrates_ and _C. procumbens_, spread smooth,
+blue-flowered mats and rugs beneath the pines, and offer fine beds to
+tired mountaineers. The commonest species, _C. cordulatus_, is most
+common in the silver-fir woods. It is white-flowered and thorny, and
+makes dense thickets of tangled chaparral, difficult to wade through or
+to walk over. But it is pressed flat every winter by ten or fifteen
+feet of snow. The western azalea makes glorious beds of bloom along the
+river bank and meadows. In the Valley it is from two to five feet high,
+has fine green leaves, mostly hidden beneath its rich profusion of
+large, fragrant white and yellow flowers, which are in their prime in
+June, July and August, according to the elevation, ranging from 3000 to
+6000 feet. Near the azalea-bordered streams the small wild rose,
+resembling _R. blanda_, makes large thickets deliciously fragrant,
+especially on a dewy morning and after showers. Not far from these
+azalea and rose gardens, _Rubus nutkanus_ covers the ground with broad,
+soft, velvety leaves, and pure-white flowers as large as those of its
+neighbor and relative, the rose, and much finer in texture, followed at
+the end of summer by soft red berries good for everybody. This is the
+commonest and the most beautiful of the whole blessed, flowery, fruity
+Rubus genus.
+
+There are a great many interesting ferns in the Valley and about it.
+Naturally enough the greater number are rock ferns—pellæa, cheilanthes,
+polypodium, adiantum, woodsia, cryptogramma, etc., with small tufted
+fronds, lining cool glens and fringing the seams of the cliffs. The
+most important of the larger species are woodwardia, aspidium,
+asplenium, and, above all, the common pteris. _Woodwardia radicans_ is
+a superb, broad-shouldered fern five to eight feet high, growing in
+vase-shaped clumps where tile ground is nearly level and on some of the
+benches of the north wall of the Valley where it is watered by a broad
+trickling stream. It thatches the sloping rocks, frond overlapping
+frond like roof shingles. The broad-fronded, hardy _Pteris aquilina_,
+the commonest of ferns, covers large areas on the floor of the Valley.
+No other fern does so much for the color glory of autumn, with its
+browns and reds and yellows, even after lying dead beneath the snow all
+winter. It spreads a rich brown mantle over the desolate ground in the
+spring before the grass has sprouted, and at the first touch of
+sun-heat its young fronds come rearing up full of faith and hope
+through the midst of the last year’s ruins.
+
+Of the five species of pellæa, _P. Breweri_ is the hardiest as to
+enduring high altitudes and stormy weather and at the same time it is
+the most fragile of the genus. It grows in dense tufts in the clefts of
+storm-beaten rocks, high up on the mountain-side on the very edge of
+the fern line. It is a handsome little fern about four or five inches
+high, has pale-green pinnate fronds, and shining bronze-colored stalks
+about as brittle as glass. Its companions on the lower part of its
+range are _Cryptogramma acrostichoides_ and _Phegopteris alpestris_,
+the latter with soft, delicate fronds, not in the least like those of
+Rock fern, though it grows on the rocks where the snow lies longest.
+_Pellaea Bridgesii_, with blue-green, narrow, simply-pinnate fronds, is
+about the same size as Breweri and ranks next to it as a mountaineer,
+growing in fissures, wet or dry, and around the edges of boulders that
+are resting on glacier pavements with no fissures whatever. About a
+thousand feet lower we find the smaller, more abundant _P. densa_ on
+ledges and boulder-strewn, fissured pavements, watered until late in
+summer from oozing currents, derived from lingering snowbanks. It is,
+or rather was, extremely abundant between the foot of the Nevada and
+the head of the Vernal Fall, but visitors with great industry have dug
+out almost every root, so that now one has to scramble in
+out-of-the-way places to find it. The three species of Cheilanthes in
+the Valley—_C. californica_, _C. gracillima_, and _myriophylla_, with
+beautiful two-to-four-pinnate fronds, an inch to five inches long,
+adorn the stupendous walls however dry and sheer. The exceedingly
+delicate californica is so rare that I have found it only once. The
+others are abundant and are sometimes accompanied by the little gold
+fern, _Gymnogramme triangularis_, and rarely by the curious little
+_Botrychium simplex_, some of them less than an inch high. The finest
+of all the rock ferns is _Adiantum pedatum_, lover of waterfalls and
+the finest spray-dust. The homes it loves best are over-leaning,
+cave-like hollows, beside the larger falls, where it can wet its
+fingers with their dewy spray. Many of these moss-lined chambers
+contain thousands of these delightful ferns, clinging to mossy walls by
+the slightest hold, reaching out their delicate finger-fronds on dark,
+shining stalks, sensitive and tremulous, throbbing in unison with every
+movement and tone of the falling water, moving each division of the
+frond separately at times, as if fingering the music.
+
+May and June are the main bloom-months of the year. Both the flowers
+and falls are then at their best. By the first of August the midsummer
+glories of the Valley are past their prime. The young birds are then
+out of their nests. Most of the plants have gone to seed; berries are
+ripe; autumn tints begin to kindle and burn over meadow and grove, and
+a soft mellow haze in the morning sunbeams heralds the approach of
+Indian summer. The shallow river is now at rest, its flood-work done.
+It is now but little more than a series of pools united by trickling,
+whispering currents that steal softly over brown pebbles and sand with
+scarce an audible murmur. Each pool has a character of its own and,
+though they are nearly currentless, the night air and tree shadows keep
+them cool. Their shores curve in and out in bay and promontory, giving
+the appearance of miniature lakes, their banks in most places embossed
+with brier and azalea, sedge and grass and fern; and above these in
+their glory of autumn colors a mingled growth of alder, willow, dogwood
+and balm-of-Gilead; mellow sunshine overhead, cool shadows beneath;
+light filtered and strained in passing through the ripe leaves like
+that which passes through colored windows. The surface of the water is
+stirred, perhaps, by whirling water-beetles, or some startled trout,
+seeking shelter beneath fallen logs or roots. The falls, too, are
+quiet; no wind stirs, and the whole Valley floor is a mosaic of greens
+and purples, yellows and reds. Even the rocks seem strangely soft and
+mellow, as if they, too, had ripened.
+
+
+
+Chapter 9
+The Birds
+
+
+The songs of the Yosemite winds and waterfalls are delightfully
+enriched with bird song, especially in the nesting time of spring and
+early summer. The most familiar and best known of all is the common
+robin, who may be seen every day, hopping about briskly on the meadows
+and uttering his cheery, enlivening call. The black-headed grosbeak,
+too, is here, with the Bullock oriole, and western tanager, brown
+song-sparrow, hermit thrush, the purple finch,—a fine singer, with head
+and throat of a rosy-red hue,—several species of warblers and vireos,
+kinglets, flycatchers, etc.
+
+But the most wonderful singer of all the birds is the water-ouzel that
+dives into foaming rapids and feeds at the bottom, holding on in a
+wonderful way, living a charmed life.
+
+Several species of humming-birds are always to be seen, darting and
+buzzing among the showy flowers. The little red-bellied nuthatches, the
+chickadees, and little brown creepers, threading the furrows of the
+bark of the pines, searching for food in the crevices. The large
+Steller’s jay makes merry in the pine-tops; flocks of beautiful green
+swallows skim over the streams, and the noisy Clarke’s crow may
+oftentimes be seen on the highest points around the Valley; and in the
+deep woods beyond the walls you may frequently hear and see the dusky
+grouse and the pileated woodpecker, or woodcock almost as large as a
+pigeon. The junco or snow-bird builds its nest on the floor of the
+Valley among the ferns; several species of sparrow are common and the
+beautiful lazuli bunting, a common bird in the underbrush, flitting
+about among the azalea and ceanothus bushes and enlivening the groves
+with his brilliant color; and on gravelly bars the spotted sandpiper is
+sometimes seen. Many woodpeckers dwell in the Valley; the familiar
+flicker, the Harris woodpecker and the species which so busily stores
+up acorns in the thick bark of the yellow pines.
+
+The short, cold days of winter are also sweetened with the music and
+hopeful chatter of a considerable number of birds. No cheerier choir
+ever sang in snow. First and best of all is the water-ouzel, a dainty,
+dusky little bird about the size of a robin, that sings in sweet fluty
+song all winter and all summer, in storms and calms, sunshine and
+shadow, haunting the rapids and waterfalls with marvelous constancy,
+building his nest in the cleft of a rock bathed in spray. He is not
+web-footed, yet he dives fearlessly into foaming rapids, seeming to
+take the greater delight the more boisterous the stream, always as
+cheerful and calm as any linnet in a grove. All his gestures as he
+flits about amid the loud uproar of the falls bespeak the utmost
+simplicity and confidence—bird and stream one and inseparable. What a
+pair! yet they are well related. A finer bloom than the foam bell in an
+eddying pool is this little bird. We may miss the meaning of the
+loud-resounding torrent, but the flute-like voice of the bird—only love
+is in it.
+
+A few robins, belated on their way down from the upper Meadows, linger
+in the Valley and make out to spend the winter in comparative comfort,
+feeding on the mistletoe berries that grow on the oaks. In the depths
+of the great forests, on the high meadows, in the severest altitudes,
+they seem as much at home as in the fields and orchards about the busy
+habitations of man, ascending the Sierra as the snow melts, following
+the green footsteps of Spring, until in July or August the highest
+glacier meadows are reached on the summit of the Range. Then, after the
+short summer is over, and their work in cheering and sweetening these
+lofty wilds is done, they gradually make their way down again in accord
+with the weather, keeping below the snow-storms, lingering here and
+there to feed on huckleberries and frost-nipped wild cherries growing
+on the upper slopes. Thence down to the vineyards and orchards of the
+lowlands to spend the winter; entering the gardens of the great towns
+as well as parks and fields, where the blessed wanderers are too often
+slaughtered for food—surely a bad use to put so fine a musician to;
+better make stove wood of pianos to feed the kitchen fire.
+
+The kingfisher winters in the Valley, and the flicker and, of course,
+the carpenter woodpecker, that lays up large stores of acorns in the
+bark of trees; wrens also, with a few brown and gray linnets, and
+flocks of the arctic bluebird, making lively pictures among the
+snow-laden mistletoe bushes. Flocks of pigeons are often seen, and
+about six species of ducks, as the river is never wholly frozen over.
+Among these are the mallard and the beautiful woodduck, now less common
+on account of being so often shot at. Flocks of wandering geese used to
+visit the Valley in March and April, and perhaps do so still, driven
+down by hunger or stress of weather while on their way across the
+Range. When pursued by the hunters I have frequently seen them try to
+fly over the walls of Lee Valley until tired out and compelled to
+re-alight. Yosemite magnitudes seem to be as deceptive to geese as to
+men, for after circling to a considerable height and forming regular
+harrow-shaped ranks they would suddenly find themselves in danger of
+being dashed against the face of the cliff, much nearer the bottom than
+the top. Then turning in confusion with loud screams they would try
+again and again until exhausted and compelled to descend. I have
+occasionally observed large flocks on their travels crossing the
+summits of the Range at a height of 12,000 to 13,000 feet above the
+level of the sea, and even in so rare an atmosphere as this they seemed
+to be sustaining themselves without extra effort. Strong, however, as
+they are of wind and wing, they cannot fly over Yosemite walls,
+starting from the bottom.
+
+A pair of golden eagles have lived in the Valley ever since I first
+visited it, hunting all winter along the northern cliffs and down the
+river cañon. Their nest is on a ledge of the cliff over which pours the
+Nevada Fall. Perched on the top of a dead spar, they were always
+interested observers of the geese when they were being shot at. I once
+noticed one of the geese compelled to leave the flock on account of
+being sorely wounded, although it still seemed to fly pretty well.
+Immediately the eagles pursued it and no doubt struck it down, although
+I did not see the result of the hunt. Anyhow, it flew past me up the
+Valley, closely pursued.
+
+One wild, stormy winter morning after five feet of snow had fallen on
+the floor of the Valley and the flying flakes driven by a strong wind
+still thickened the air, making darkness like the approach of night, I
+sallied forth to see what I might learn and enjoy. It was impossible to
+go very far without the aid of snow-shoes, but I found no great
+difficulty in making my way to a part of the river where one of my
+ouzels lived. I found him at home busy about his breakfast, apparently
+unaware of anything uncomfortable in the weather. Presently he flew out
+to a stone against which the icy current was beating, and turning his
+back to the wind, sang as delightfully as a lark in springtime.
+
+After spending an hour or two with my favorite, I made my way across
+the Valley, boring and wallowing through the loose snow, to learn as
+much as possible about the way the other birds were spending their
+time. In winter one can always find them because they are then
+restricted to the north side of the Valley, especially the Indian Cañon
+groves, which from their peculiar exposure are the warmest.
+
+I found most of the robins cowering on the lee side of the larger
+branches of the trees, where the snow could not fall on them, while two
+or three of the more venturesome were making desperate efforts to get
+at the mistletoe berries by clinging to the underside of the
+snow-crowned masses, back downward, something like woodpeckers. Every
+now and then some of the loose snow was dislodged and sifted down on
+the hungry birds, sending them screaming back to their companions in
+the grove, shivering and muttering like cold, hungry children.
+
+Some of the sparrows were busy scratching and pecking at the feet of
+the larger trees where the snow had been shed off, gleaning seeds and
+benumbed insects, joined now and then by a robin weary of his
+unsuccessful efforts to get at the snow-covered mistletoe berries. The
+brave woodpeckers were clinging to the snowless sides of the larger
+boles and overarching branches of the camp trees, making short flights
+from side to side of the grove, pecking now and then at the acorns they
+had stored in the bark, and chattering aimlessly as if unable to keep
+still, evidently putting in the time in a very dull way. The hardy
+nuthatches were threading the open furrows of the barks in their usual
+industrious manner and uttering their quaint notes, giving no evidence
+of distress. The Steller’s jays were, of course, making more noise and
+stir than all the other birds combined; ever coming and going with loud
+bluster, screaming as if each had a lump of melting sludge in his
+throat, and taking good care to improve every opportunity afforded by
+the darkness and confusion of the storm to steal from the acorn stores
+of the woodpeckers. One of the golden eagles made an impressive picture
+as he stood bolt upright on the top of a tall pine-stump, braving the
+storm, with his back to the wind and a tuft of snow piled on his broad
+shoulders, a monument of passive endurance. Thus every storm-bound bird
+seemed more or less uncomfortable, if not in distress. The storm was
+reflected in every gesture, and not one cheerful note, not to say song,
+came from a single bill. Their cowering, joyless endurance offered
+striking contrasts to the spontaneous, irrepressible gladness of the
+ouzel, who could no more help giving out sweet song than a rose sweet
+fragrance. He must sing, though the heavens fall.
+
+
+
+Chapter 10
+The South Dome
+
+
+With the exception of a few spires and pinnacles, the South Dome is the
+only rock about the Valley that is strictly inaccessible without
+artificial means, and its inaccessibility is expressed in severe terms.
+Nevertheless many a mountaineer, gazing admiringly, tried hard to
+invent a way to the top of its noble crown—all in vain, until in the
+year 1875, George Anderson, an indomitable Scotchman, undertook the
+adventure. The side facing Tenaya Cañon is an absolutely vertical
+precipice from the summit to a depth of about 1600 feet, and on the
+opposite side it is nearly vertical for about as great a depth. The
+southwest side presents a very steep and finely drawn curve from the
+top down a thousand feet or more, while on the northeast, where it is
+united with the Clouds’ Rest Ridge, one may easily reach a point called
+the Saddle, about seven hundred feet below the summit. From the Saddle
+the Dome rises in a graceful curve a few degrees too steep for unaided
+climbing, besides being defended by overleaning ends of the concentric
+dome layers of the granite.
+
+A year or two before Anderson gained the summit, John Conway, the
+master trail-builder of the Valley, and his little sons, who climbed
+smooth rocks like lizards, made a bold effort to reach the top by
+climbing barefooted up the grand curve with a rope which they fastened
+at irregular intervals by means of eye-bolts driven into joints of the
+rock. But finding that the upper part would require laborious drilling,
+they abandoned the attempt, glad to escape from the dangerous position
+they had reached, some 300 feet above the Saddle. Anderson began with
+Conway’s old rope, which had been left in place, and resolutely drilled
+his way to the top, inserting eye-bolts five to six feet apart, and
+making his rope fast to each in succession, resting his feet on the
+last bolt while he drilled a hole for the next above. Occasionally some
+irregularity in the curve, or slight foothold, would enable him to
+climb a few feet without a rope, which he would pass and begin drilling
+again, and thus the whole work was accomplished in a few days. From
+this slender beginning he proposed to construct a substantial stairway
+which he hoped to complete in time for the next year’s travel, but
+while busy getting out timber for his stairway and dreaming of the
+wealth he hoped to gain from tolls, he was taken sick and died all
+alone in his little cabin.
+
+On the 10th of November, after returning from a visit to Mount Shasta,
+a month or two after Anderson had gained the summit, I made haste to
+the Dome, not only for the pleasure of climbing, but to see what I
+might learn. The first winter storm-clouds had blossomed and the
+mountains and all the high points about the Valley were mantled in
+fresh snow. I was, therefore, a little apprehensive of danger from the
+slipperiness of the rope and the rock. Anderson himself tried to
+prevent me from making the attempt, refusing to believe that any one
+could climb his rope in the now-muffled condition in which it then was.
+Moreover, the sky was overcast and solemn snow-clouds began to curl
+around the summit, and my late experiences on icy Shasta came to mind.
+But reflecting that I had matches in my pocket, and that a little
+firewood might be found, I concluded that in case of a storm the night
+could be spent on the Dome without suffering anything worth minding, no
+matter what the clouds might bring forth. I therefore pushed on and
+gained the top.
+
+It was one of those brooding, changeful days that come between Indian
+summer and winter, when the leaf colors have grown dim and the clouds
+come and go among the cliffs like living creatures looking for work:
+now hovering aloft, now caressing rugged rock-brows with great
+gentleness, or, wandering afar over the tops of the forests, touching
+the spires of fir and pine with their soft silken fringes as if trying
+to tell the glad news of the coming of snow.
+
+The first view was perfectly glorious. A massive cloud of pure pearl
+luster, apparently as fixed and calm as the meadows and groves in the
+shadow beneath it, was arched across the Valley from wall to wall, one
+end resting on the grand abutment of El Capitan, the other on Cathedral
+Rock. A little later, as I stood on the tremendous verge overlooking
+Mirror Lake, a flock of smaller clouds, white as snow, came from the
+north, trailing their downy skirts over the dark forests, and entered
+the Valley with solemn god-like gestures through Indian Cañon and over
+the North Dome and Royal Arches, moving swiftly, yet with majestic
+deliberation. On they came, nearer and nearer, gathering and massing
+beneath my feet and filling the Tenaya Cañon. Then the sun shone free,
+lighting the pearly gray surface of the cloud-like sea and making it
+glow. Gazing, admiring, I was startled to see for the first time the
+rare optical phenomenon of the “Specter of the Brocken.” My shadow,
+clearly outlined, about half a mile long, lay upon this glorious white
+surface with startling effect. I walked back and forth, waved my arms
+and struck all sorts of attitudes, to see every slightest movement
+enormously exaggerated. Considering that I have looked down so many
+times from mountain tops on seas of all sorts of clouds, it seems
+strange that I should have seen the “Brocken Specter” only this once. A
+grander surface and a grander stand-point, however, could hardly have
+been found in all the Sierra.
+
+After this grand show the cloud-sea rose higher, wreathing the Dome,
+and for a short time submerging it, making darkness like night, and I
+began to think of looking for a camp ground in a cluster of dwarf
+pines. But soon the sun shone free again, the clouds, sinking lower and
+lower, gradually vanished, leaving the Valley with its Indian-summer
+colors apparently refreshed, while to the eastward the summit-peaks,
+clad in new snow, towered along the horizon in glorious array.
+
+Though apparently it is perfectly bald, there are four clumps of pines
+growing on the summit, representing three species, Pinus albicaulis, P.
+contorta and P. ponderosa, var. Jeffreyi—all three, of course,
+repressed and storm-beaten. The alpine spiræa grows here also and
+blossoms profusely with potentilla, erigeron, eriogonum, pentstemon,
+solidago, and an interesting species of onion, and four or five species
+of grasses and sedges. None of these differs in any respect from those
+of other summits of the same height, excepting the curious little
+narrow-leaved, waxen-bulbed onion, which I had not seen elsewhere.
+
+Notwithstanding the enthusiastic eagerness of tourists to reach the
+crown of the Dome the views of the Valley from this lofty standpoint
+are less striking than from many other points comparatively low,
+chiefly on account of the foreshortening effect produced by looking
+down from so great a height. The North Dome is dwarfed almost beyond
+recognition, the grand sculpture of the Royal Arches is scarcely
+noticeable, and the whole range of walls on both sides seem
+comparatively low, especially when the Valley is flooded with noon
+sunshine; while the Dome itself, the most sublime feature of all the
+Yosemite views, is out of sight beneath one’s feet. The view of Little
+Yosemite Valley is very fine, though inferior to one obtained from the
+base of the Starr King Cone, but the summit landscapes towards Mounts
+Ritter, Lyell, Dana, Conness, and the Merced Group, are very effective
+and complete.
+
+No one has attempted to carry out Anderson’s plan of making the Dome
+accessible. For my part I should prefer leaving it in pure wildness,
+though, after all, no great damage could be done by tramping over it.
+The surface would be strewn with tin cans and bottles, but the winter
+gales would blow the rubbish away. Avalanches might strip off any sort
+of stairway or ladder that might be built. Blue jays and Clark’s crows
+have trodden the Dome for many a day, and so have beetles and
+chipmunks, and Tissiack would hardly be more “conquered” or spoiled
+should man be added to her list of visitors. His louder scream and
+heavier scrambling would not stir a line of her countenance.
+
+When the sublime ice-floods of the glacial period poured down the flank
+of the Range over what is now Yosemite Valley, they were compelled to
+break through a dam of domes extending across from Mount Starr King to
+North Dome; and as the period began to draw near a close the shallowing
+ice-currents were divided and the South Dome was, perhaps, the first to
+emerge, burnished and shining like a mirror above the surface of the
+icy sea; and though it has sustained the wear and tear of the elements
+tens of thousands of years, it yet remains a telling monument of the
+action of the great glaciers that brought it to light. Its entire
+surface is still covered with glacial hieroglyphics whose
+interpretation is the reward of all who devoutly study them.
+
+
+
+Chapter 11
+The Ancient Yosemite Glaciers:
+How the Valley Was Formed
+
+
+All California has been glaciated, the low plains and valleys as well
+as the mountains. Traces of an ice-sheet, thousands of feet in
+thickness, beneath whose heavy folds the present landscapes have been
+molded, may be found everywhere, though glaciers now exist only among
+the peaks of the High Sierra. No other mountain chain on this or any
+other of the continents that I have seen is so rich as the Sierra in
+bold, striking, well-preserved glacial monuments. Indeed, every feature
+is more or less tellingly glacial. Not a peak, ridge, dome, cañon,
+yosemite, lake-basin, stream or forest will you see that does not in
+some way explain the past existence and modes of action of flowing,
+grinding, sculpturing, soil-making, scenery-making ice. For,
+notwithstanding the post-glacial agents—the air, rain, snow, frost,
+river, avalanche, etc.—have been at work upon the greater portion of
+the Range for tens of thousands of stormy years, each engraving its own
+characters more and more deeply over those of the ice, the latter are
+so enduring and so heavily emphasized, they still rise in sublime
+relief, clear and legible, through every after-inscription. The
+landscapes of North Greenland, Antarctica, and some of those of our own
+Alaska, are still being fashioned beneath a slow-crawling mantle of
+ice, from a quarter of a mile to probably more than a mile in
+thickness, presenting noble illustrations of the ancient condition of
+California, when its sublime scenery lay hidden in process of
+formation. On the Himalaya, the mountains of Norway and Switzerland,
+the Caucasus, and on most of those of Alaska, their ice-mantle has been
+melted down into separate glaciers that flow river-like through the
+valleys, illustrating a similar past condition in the Sierra, when
+every cañon and valley was the channel of an ice-stream, all of which
+may be easily traced back to their fountains, where some sixty-five or
+seventy of their topmost residual branches still linger beneath
+protecting mountain shadows.
+
+The change from one to another of those glacial conditions was slow as
+we count time. When the great cycle of snow years, called the Glacial
+Period, was nearly complete in California, the ice-mantle, wasting from
+season to season faster than it was renewed, began to withdraw from the
+lowlands and gradually became shallower everywhere. Then the highest of
+the Sierra domes and dividing ridges, containing distinct glaciers
+between them, began to appear above the icy sea. These first river-like
+glaciers remained united in one continuous sheet toward the summit of
+the Range for many centuries. But as the snow-fall diminished, and the
+climate became milder, this upper part of the ice-sheet was also in
+turn separated into smaller distinct glaciers, and these again into
+still smaller ones, while at the same time all were growing shorter and
+shallower, though fluctuations of the climate now and then occurred
+that brought their receding ends to a standstill, or even enabled them
+to advance for a few tens or hundreds of years.
+
+Meanwhile, hardy, home-seeking plants and animals, after long waiting,
+flocked to their appointed places, pushing bravely on higher and
+higher, along every sun-warmed slope, closely following the retreating
+ice, which, like shreds of summer clouds, at length vanished from the
+new-born mountains, leaving them in all their main, telling features
+nearly as we find them now.
+
+Tracing the ways of glaciers, learning how Nature sculptures
+mountain-waves in making scenery-beauty that so mysteriously influences
+every human being, is glorious work.
+
+The most striking and attractive of the glacial phenomena in the upper
+Yosemite region are the polished glacier pavements, because they are so
+beautiful, and their beauty is of so rare a kind, so unlike any portion
+of the loose, deeply weathered lowlands where people make homes and
+earn their bread. They are simply flat or gently undulating areas of
+hard resisting granite, which present the unchanged surface upon which
+with enormous pressure the ancient glaciers flowed. They are found in
+most perfect condition in the subalpine region, at an elevation of from
+eight thousand to nine thousand feet. Some are miles in extent, only
+slightly interrupted by spots that have given way to the weather, while
+the best preserved portions reflect the sunbeams like calm water or
+glass, and shine as if polished afresh every day, notwithstanding they
+have been exposed to corroding rains, dew, frost, and snow measureless
+thousands of years.
+
+The attention of wandering hunters and prospectors, who see so many
+mountain wonders, is seldom commanded by other glacial phenomena,
+moraines however regular and artificial-looking, cañons however deep or
+strangely modeled, rocks however high; but when they come to these
+shining pavements they stop and stare in wondering admiration, kneel
+again and again to examine the brightest spots, and try hard to account
+for their mysterious shining smoothness. They may have seen the winter
+avalanches of snow descending in awful majesty through the woods,
+scouring the rocks and sweeping away like weeds the trees that stood in
+their way, but conclude that this cannot be the work of avalanches,
+because the scratches and fine polished strife show that the agent,
+whatever it was, moved along the sides of high rocks and ridges and up
+over the tops of them as well as down their slopes. Neither can they
+see how water may possibly have been the agent, for they find the same
+strange polish upon ridges and domes thousands of feet above the reach
+of any conceivable flood. Of all the agents of whose work they know
+anything, only the wind seems capable of moving across the face of the
+country in the directions indicated by the scratches and grooves. The
+Indian name of Lake Tenaya is “Pyweak”—the lake of shining rocks. One
+of the Yosemite tribe, Indian Tom, came to me and asked if I could tell
+him what had made the Tenaya rocks so smooth. Even dogs and horses,
+when first led up the mountains, study geology to this extent that they
+gaze wonderingly at the strange brightness of the ground and smell it,
+and place their feet cautiously upon it as if afraid of falling or
+sinking.
+
+In the production of this admirable hard finish, the glaciers in many
+places flowed with a pressure of more than a thousand tons to the
+square yard, planing down granite, slate, and quartz alike, and
+bringing out the veins and crystals of the rocks with beautiful
+distinctness. Over large areas below the sources of the Tuolumne and
+Merced the granite is porphyritic; feldspar crystals in inch or two in
+length in many places form the greater part of the rock, and these,
+when planed off level with the general surface, give rise to a
+beautiful mosaic on which the happy sunbeams plash and glow in
+passionate enthusiasm. Here lie the brightest of all the Sierra
+landscapes. The Range both to the north and south of this region was,
+perhaps, glaciated about as heavily, but because the rocks are less
+resisting, their polished surfaces have mostly given way to the
+weather, leaving only small imperfect patches. The lower remnants of
+the old glacial surface occur at an elevation of from 3000 to 5000 feet
+above the sea level, and twenty to thirty miles below the axis of the
+Range. The short, steeply inclined cañons of the eastern flank also
+contain enduring, brilliantly striated and polished rocks, but these
+are less magnificent than those of the broad western flank.
+
+One of the best general views of the brightest and best of the Yosemite
+park landscapes that every Yosemite tourist should see, is to be had
+from the top of Fairview Dome, a lofty conoidal rock near Cathedral
+Peak that long ago I named the Tuolumne Glacier Monument, one of the
+most striking and best preserved of the domes. Its burnished crown is
+about 1500 feet above the Tuolumne Meadows and 10,000 above the sea. At
+first sight it seems inaccessible, though a good climber will find it
+may be scaled on the south side. About half-way up you will find it so
+steep that there is danger of slipping, but feldspar crystals, two or
+three inches long, of which the rock is full, having offered greater
+resistance to atmospheric erosion than the mass of the rock in which
+they are imbedded, have been brought into slight relief in some places,
+roughening the surface here and there, and affording helping footholds.
+
+The summit is burnished and scored like the sides and base, the
+scratches and strife indicating that the mighty Tuolumne Glacier swept
+over it as if it were only a mere boulder in the bottom of its channel.
+The pressure it withstood must have been enormous. Had it been less
+solidly built it would have been carried away, ground into moraine
+fragments, like the adjacent rock in which it lay imbedded; for, great
+as it is, it is only a hard residual knot like the Yosemite domes,
+brought into relief by the removal of less resisting rock about it; an
+illustration of the survival of the strongest and most favorably
+situated.
+
+Hardly less wonderful is the resistance it has offered to the trying
+mountain weather since first its crown rose above the icy sea. The
+whole quantity of post-glacial wear and tear it has suffered has not
+degraded it a hundredth of an inch, as may readily be shown by the
+polished portions of the surface. A few erratic boulders, nicely poised
+on its crown, tell an interesting story. They came from the
+summit-peaks twelve miles away, drifting like chips on the frozen sea,
+and were stranded here when the top of the monument merged from the
+ice, while their companions, whose positions chanced to be above the
+slopes of the sides where they could not find rest, were carried
+farther on by falling back on the shallowing ice current.
+
+The general view from the summit consists of a sublime assemblage of
+ice-born rocks and mountains, long wavering ridges, meadows, lakes, and
+forest-covered moraines, hundreds of square miles of them. The lofty
+summit-peaks rise grandly along the sky to the east, the gray pillared
+slopes of the Hoffman Range toward the west, and a billowy sea of
+shining rocks like the Monument, some of them almost as high and which
+from their peculiar sculpture seem to be rolling westward in the middle
+ground, something like breaking waves. Immediately beneath you are the
+Big Tuolumne Meadows, smooth lawns with large breadths of woods on
+either side, and watered by the young Tuolumne River, rushing cool and
+clear from its many snow- and ice-fountains. Nearly all the upper part
+of the basin of the Tuolumne Glacier is in sight, one of the greatest
+and most influential of all the Sierra ice-rivers. Lavishly flooded by
+many a noble affluent from the ice-laden flanks of Mounts Dana, Lyell,
+McClure, Gibbs, Conness, it poured its majestic outflowing current full
+against the end of the Hoffman Range, which divided and deflected it to
+right and left, just as a river of water is divided against an island
+in the middle of its channel. Two distinct glaciers were thus formed,
+one of which flowed through the great Tuolumne Cañon and Hetch Hetchy
+Valley, while the other swept upward in a deep current two miles wide
+across the divide, five hundred feet high between the basins of the
+Tuolumne and Merced, into the Tenaya Basin, and thence down through the
+Tenaya Cañon and Yosemite.
+
+The map-like distinctness and freshness of this glacial landscape
+cannot fail to excite the attention of every beholder, no matter how
+little of its scientific significance may be recognized. These bald,
+westward-leaning rocks, with their rounded backs and shoulders toward
+the glacier fountains of the summit-mountains, and their split, angular
+fronts looking in the opposite direction, explain the tremendous
+grinding force with which the ice-flood passed over them, and also the
+direction of its flow. And the mountain peaks around the sides of the
+upper general Tuolumne Basin, with their sharp unglaciated summits and
+polished rounded sides, indicate the height to which the glaciers rose;
+while the numerous moraines, curving and swaying in beautiful lines,
+mark the boundaries of the main trunk and its tributaries as they
+existed toward the close of the glacial winter. None of the commerical
+highways of the land or sea, marked with buoys and lamps, fences, and
+guide-boards, is so unmistakably indicated as are these broad, shining
+trails of the vanished Tuolumne Glacier and its far-reaching
+tributaries.
+
+I should like now to offer some nearer views of a few characteristic
+specimens of these wonderful old ice-streams, though it is not easy to
+make a selection from so vast a system intimately inter-blended. The
+main branches of the Merced Glacier are, perhaps, best suited to our
+purpose, because their basins, full of telling inscriptions, are the
+ones most attractive and accessible to the Yosemite visitors who like
+to look beyond the valley walls. They number five, and may well be
+called Yosemite glaciers, since they were the agents Nature used in
+developing and fashioning the grand Valley. The names I have given them
+are, beginning with the northern-most, Yosemite Creek, Hoffman, Tenaya,
+South Lyell, and Illilouette Glaciers. These all converged in admirable
+poise around from northeast to southeast, welded themselves together
+into the main Yosemite Glacier, which, grinding gradually deeper, swept
+down through the Valley, receiving small tributaries on its way from
+the Indian, Sentinel, and Pohono Cañons; and at length flowed out of
+the Valley, and on down the Range in a general westerly direction. At
+the time that the tributaries mentioned above were well defined as to
+their boundaries, the upper portion of the valley walls, and the
+highest rocks about them, such as the Domes, the uppermost of the Three
+Brothers and the Sentinel, rose above the surface of the ice. But
+during the Valley’s earlier history, all its rocks, however lofty, were
+buried beneath a continuous sheet, which swept on above and about them
+like the wind, the upper portion of the current flowing steadily, while
+the lower portion went mazing and swedging down in the crooked and
+dome-blocked cañons toward the head of the Valley.
+
+Every glacier of the Sierra fluctuated in width and depth and length,
+and consequently in degree of individuality, down to the latest glacial
+days. It must, therefore, be borne in mind that the following
+description of the Yosemite glaciers applies only to their separate
+condition, and to that phase of their separate condition that they
+presented toward the close of the glacial period after most of their
+work was finished, and all the more telling features of the Valley and
+the adjacent region were brought into relief.
+
+The comparatively level, many-fountained Yosemite Creek Glacier was
+about fourteen miles in length by four or five in width, and from five
+hundred to a thousand feet deep. Its principal tributaries, drawing
+their sources from the northern spurs of the Hoffman Range, at first
+pursued a westerly course; then, uniting with each other, and a series
+of short affluents from the western rim of the basin, the trunk thus
+formed swept around to the southward in a magnificent curve, and poured
+its ice over the north wall of Yosemite in cascades about two miles
+wide. This broad and comparatively shallow glacier formed a sort of
+crawling, wrinkled ice-cloud, that gradually became more regular in
+shape and river-like as it grew older. Encircling peaks began to
+overshadow its highest fountains, rock islets rose here and there amid
+its ebbing currents, and its picturesque banks, adorned with domes and
+round-backed ridges, extended in massive grandeur down to the brink of
+the Yosemite walls.
+
+In the meantime the chief Hoffman tributaries, slowly receding to the
+shelter of the shadows covering their fountains, continued to live and
+work independently, spreading soil, deepening lake-basins and giving
+finishing touches to the sculpture in general. At length these also
+vanished, and the whole basin is now full of light. Forests flourish
+luxuriantly upon its ample moraines, lakes and meadows shine and bloom
+amid its polished domes, and a thousand gardens adorn the banks of its
+streams.
+
+It is to the great width and even slope of the Yosemite Creek Glacier
+that we owe the unrivaled height and sheerness of the Yosemite Falls.
+For had the positions of the ice-fountains and the structure of the
+rocks been such as to cause down-thrusting concentration of the Glacier
+as it approached the Valley, then, instead of a high vertical fall we
+should have had a long slanting cascade, which after all would perhaps
+have been as beautiful and interesting, if we only had a mind to see it
+so.
+
+The short, comparatively swift-flowing Hoffman Glacier, whose fountains
+extend along the south slopes of the Hoffman Range, offered a striking
+contrast to the one just described. The erosive energy of the latter
+was diffused over a wide field of sunken, boulder-like domes and
+ridges. The Hoffman Glacier, on the contrary moved right ahead on a
+comparatively even surface, making descent of nearly five thousand feet
+in five miles, steadily contracting and deepening its current, and
+finally united with the Tenaya Glacier as one of its most influential
+tributaries in the development and sculpture of the great Half Dome,
+North Dome and the rocks adjacent to them about the head of the Valley.
+
+The story of its death is not unlike that of its companion already
+described, though the declivity of its channel, and its uniform
+exposure to sun-heat prevented any considerable portion of its current
+from becoming torpid, lingering only well up on the Mountain slopes to
+finish their sculpture and encircle them with a zone of moraine soil
+for forests and gardens. Nowhere in all this wonderful region will you
+find more beautiful trees and shrubs and flowers covering the traces of
+ice.
+
+The rugged Tenaya Glacier wildly crevassed here and there above the
+ridges it had to cross, instead of drawing its sources direct from the
+summit of the Range, formed, as we have seen, one of the outlets of the
+great Tuolumne Glacier, issuing from this noble fountain like a river
+from a lake, two miles wide, about fourteen miles long, and from 1500
+to 2000 feet deep.
+
+In leaving the Tuolumne region it crossed over the divide, as mentioned
+above, between the Tuolumne and Tenaya basins, making an ascent of five
+hundred feet. Hence, after contracting its wide current and receiving a
+strong affluent from the fountains about Cathedral Peak, it poured its
+massive flood over the northeastern rim of its basin in splendid
+cascades. Then, crushing heavily against the Clouds’ Rest Ridge, it
+bore down upon the Yosemite domes with concentrated energy.
+
+Toward the end of the ice period, while its Hoffman companion continued
+to grind rock-meal for coming plants, the main trunk became torpid, and
+vanished, exposing wide areas of rolling rock-waves and glistening
+pavements, on whose channelless surface water ran wild and free. And
+because the trunk vanished almost simultaneously throughout its whole
+extent, no terminal moraines are found in its cañon channel; nor, since
+its walls are, in most places, too steeply inclined to admit of the
+deposition of moraine matter, do we find much of the two main laterals.
+The lowest of its residual glaciers lingered beneath the shadow of the
+Yosemite Half Dome; others along the base of Coliseum Peak above Lake
+Tenaya and along the precipitous wall extending from the lake to the
+Big Tuolumne Meadows. The latter, on account of the uniformity and
+continuity of their protecting shadows, formed moraines of considerable
+length and regularity that are liable to be mistaken for portions of
+the left lateral of the Tuolumne tributary glacier.
+
+Spend all the time you can spare or steal on the tracks of this grand
+old glacier, charmed and enchanted by its magnificent cañon, lakes and
+cascades and resplendent glacier pavements.
+
+The Nevada Glacier was longer and more symmetrical than the last, and
+the only one of the Merced system whose sources extended directly back
+to the main summits on the axis of the Range. Its numerous fountains
+were ranged side by side in three series, at an elevation of from
+10,000 to 12,000 feet above the sea. The first, on the right side of
+the basin, extended from the Matterhorn to Cathedral Peak; that on the
+left through the Merced group, and these two parallel series were
+united by a third that extended around the head of the basin in a
+direction at right angles to the others.
+
+The three ranges of high peaks and ridges that supplied the snow for
+these fountains, together with the Clouds’ Rest Ridge, nearly inclose a
+rectangular basin, that was filled with a massive sea of ice, leaving
+an outlet toward the west through which flowed the main trunk glacier,
+three-fourths of a mile to a mile and a half wide, fifteen miles long,
+and from 1000 to 1500 feet deep, and entered Yosemite between the Half
+Dome and Mount Starr King.
+
+Could we have visited Yosemite Valley at this period of its history, we
+should have found its ice cascades vastly more glorious than their tiny
+water representatives of the present day. One of the grandest of these
+was formed by that portion of the Nevada Glacier that poured over the
+shoulder of the Half Dome.
+
+This glacier, as a whole, resembled an oak, with a gnarled swelling
+base and wide-spreading branches. Picturesque rocks of every
+conceivable form adorned its banks, among which glided the numerous
+tributaries, mottled with black and red and gray boulders, from the
+fountain peaks, while ever and anon, as the deliberate centuries passed
+away, dome after dome raised its burnished crown above the ice-flood to
+enrich the slowly opening landscapes.
+
+The principal moraines occur in short irregular sections along the
+sides of the cañons, their fragmentary condition being due to
+interruptions caused by portions of the sides of the cañon walls being
+too steep for moraine matter to lie on, and to down-sweeping torrents
+and avalanches. The left lateral of the trunk may be traced about five
+miles from the mouth of the first main tributary to the Illilouette
+Cañon. The corresponding section of the right lateral, extending from
+Cathedral tributary to the Half Dome, is more complete because of the
+more favorable character of the north side of the cañon. A short
+side-glacier came in against it from the slopes of Clouds’ Rest; but
+being fully exposed to the sun, it was melted long before the main
+trunk, allowing the latter to deposit this portion of its moraine
+undisturbed. Some conception of the size and appearance of this fine
+moraine may be gained by following the Clouds’ Rest trail from
+Yosemite, which crosses it obliquely and conducts past several sections
+made by streams. Slate boulders may be seen that must have come from
+the Lyell group, twelve miles distant. But the bulk of the moraine is
+composed of porphyritic granite derived from Feldspar and Cathedral
+Valleys.
+
+On the sides of the moraines we find a series of terraces, indicating
+fluctuations in the level of the glacier, caused by variations of
+snow-fall, temperature, etc., showing that the climate of the glacial
+period was diversified by cycles of milder or stormier seasons similar
+to those of post-glacial time.
+
+After the depth of the main trunk diminished to about five hundred
+feet, the greater portion became torpid, as is shown by the moraines,
+and lay dying in its crooked channel like a wounded snake, maintaining
+for a time a feeble squirming motion in places of exceptional depth, or
+where the bottom of the cañon was more steeply inclined. The numerous
+fountain-wombs, however, continued fruitful long after the trunk had
+vanished, giving rise to an imposing array of short residual glaciers,
+extending around the rim of the general basin a distance of nearly
+twenty-four miles. Most of these have but recently succumbed to the new
+climate, dying in turn as determined by elevation, size, and exposure,
+leaving only a few feeble survivors beneath the coolest shadows, which
+are now slowly completing the sculpture of one of the noblest of the
+Yosemite basins.
+
+The comparatively shallow glacier that at this time filled the
+Illilouette Basin, though once far from shallow, more resembled a lake
+than a river of ice, being nearly half as wide as it was long. Its
+greatest length was about ten miles, and its depth perhaps nowhere much
+exceeded 1000 feet. Its chief fountains, ranged along the west side of
+the Merced group, at an elevation of about 10,000 feet, gave birth to
+fine tributaries that flowed in a westerly direction, and united in the
+center of the basin. The broad trunk at first poured northwestward,
+then curved to the northward, deflected by the lofty wall forming its
+western bank, and finally united with the grand Yosemite trunk,
+opposite Glacier Point.
+
+All the phenomena relating to glacial action in this basin are
+remarkably simple and orderly, on account of the sheltered positions
+occupied by its ice-fountains, with reference to the disturbing effects
+of larger glaciers from the axis of the main Range earlier in the
+period. From the eastern base of the Starr King cone you may obtain a
+fine view of the principal moraines sweeping grandly out into the
+middle of the basin from the shoulders of the peaks, between which the
+ice-fountains lay. The right lateral of the tributary, which took its
+rise between Red and Merced Mountains, measures two hundred and fifty
+feet in height at its upper extremity, and displays three well-defined
+terraces, similar to those of the south Lyell Glacier. The comparative
+smoothness of the upper-most terrace shows that it is considerably more
+ancient than the others, many of the boulders of which it is composed
+having crumbled. A few miles to the westward, this moraine has an
+average slope of twenty-seven degrees, and an elevation above the
+bottom of the channel of six hundred and sixty feet. Near the middle of
+the main basin, just where the regularly formed medial and lateral
+moraines flatten out and disappear, there is a remarkably smooth field
+of gravel, planted with arctostaphylos, that looks at the distance of a
+mile like a delightful meadow. Stream sections show the gravel deposit
+to be composed of the same material as the moraines, but finer, and
+more water-worn from the action of converging torrents issuing from the
+tributary glaciers after the trunk was melted. The southern boundary of
+the basin is a strikingly perfect wall, gray on the top, and white down
+the sides and at the base with snow, in which many a crystal brook
+takes rise. The northern boundary is made up of smooth undulating
+masses of gray granite, that lift here and there into beautiful domes
+of which the Starr King cluster is the finest, while on the east tower
+of the majestic fountain-peaks with wide cañons and neve amphitheaters
+between them, whose variegated rocks show out gloriously against the
+sky.
+
+The ice-plows of this charming basin, ranged side by side in orderly
+gangs, furrowed the rocks with admirable uniformity, producing
+irrigating channels for a brood of wild streams, and abundance of rich
+soil adapted to every requirement of garden and grove. No other section
+of the Yosemite uplands is in so perfect a state of glacial
+cultivation. Its domes and peaks, and swelling rock-waves, however
+majestic in themselves, and yet submissively subordinate to the garden
+center. The other basins we have been describing are combinations of
+sculptured rocks, embellished with gardens and groves; the Illilouette
+is one grand garden and forest, embellished with rocks, each of the
+five beautiful in its own way, and all as harmoniously related as are
+the five petals of a flower. After uniting in the Yosemite Valley, and
+expending the down-thrusting energy derived from their combined weight
+and the declivity of their channels, the grand trunk flowed on through
+and out of the Valley. In effecting its exit a considerable ascent was
+made, traces of which may still be seen on the abraded rocks at the
+lower end of the Valley, while the direction pursued after leaving the
+Valley is surely indicated by the immense lateral moraines extending
+from the ends of the walls at an elevation of from 1500 to 1800 feet.
+The right lateral moraine was disturbed by a large tributary glacier
+that occupied the basin of Cascade Creek, causing considerable
+complication in its structure. The left is simple in form for several
+miles of its length, or to the point where a tributary came in from the
+southeast. But both are greatly obscured by the forests and underbrush
+growing upon them, and by the denuding action of rains and melting
+snows, etc. It is, therefore, the less to be wondered at that these
+moraines, made up of material derived from the distant
+fountain-mountains, and from the Valley itself, were not sooner
+recognized.
+
+The ancient glacier systems of the Tuolumne, San Joaquin, Kern, and
+Kings River Basins were developed on a still grander scale and are so
+replete with interest that the most sketchy outline descriptions of
+each, with the works they have accomplished would fill many a volume.
+Therefore I can do but little more than invite everybody who is free to
+go and see for himself.
+
+The action of flowing ice, whether in the form of river-like glaciers
+or broad mantles, especially the part it played in sculpturing the
+earth, is as yet but little understood. Water rivers work openly where
+people dwell, and so does the rain, and the sea, thundering on all the
+shores of the world; and the universal ocean of air, though invisible,
+speaks aloud in a thousand voices, and explains its modes of working
+and its power. But glaciers, back in their white solitudes, work apart
+from men, exerting their tremendous energies in silence and darkness.
+Outspread, spirit-like, they brood above the predestined landscapes,
+work on unwearied through immeasurable ages, until, in the fullness of
+time, the mountains and valleys are brought forth, channels furrowed
+for rivers, basins made for lakes and meadows, and arms of the sea,
+soils spread for forests and fields; then they shrink and vanish like
+summer clouds.
+
+
+
+Chapter 12
+How Best to Spend One’s Yosemite Time
+
+One-Day Excursions
+No. 1.
+
+If I were so time-poor as to have only one day to spend in Yosemite I
+should start at daybreak, say at three o’clock in midsummer, with a
+pocketful of any sort of dry breakfast stuff, for Glacier Point,
+Sentinel Dome, the head of Illilouette Fall, Nevada Fall, the top of
+Liberty Cap, Vernal Fall and the wild boulder-choked River Cañon. The
+trail leaves the Valley at the base of the Sentinel Rock, and as you
+slowly saunter from point to point along its many accommodating zigzags
+nearly all the Valley rocks and falls are seen in striking,
+ever-changing combinations. At an elevation of about five hundred feet
+a particularly fine, wide-sweeping view down the Valley is obtained,
+past the sheer face of the Sentinel and between the Cathedral Rocks and
+El Capitan. At a height of about 1500 feet the great Half Dome comes
+full in sight, overshadowing every other feature of the Valley to the
+eastward. From Glacier Point you look down 3000 feet over the edge of
+its sheer face to the meadows and groves and innumerable yellow pine
+spires, with the meandering river sparkling and spangling through the
+midst of them. Across the Valley a great telling view is presented of
+the Royal Arches, North Dome, Indian Cañon, Three Brothers and El
+Capitan, with the dome-paved basin of Yosemite Creek and Mount Hoffman
+in the background. To the eastward, the Half Dome close beside you
+looking higher and more wonderful than ever; southeastward the Starr
+King, girdled with silver firs, and the spacious garden-like basin of
+the Illilouette and its deeply sculptured fountain-peaks, called “The
+Merced Group”; and beyond all, marshaled along the eastern horizon, the
+icy summits on the axis of the Range and broad swaths of forests
+growing on ancient moraines, while the Nevada, Vernal and Yosemite
+Falls are not only full in sight but are distinctly heard as if one
+were standing beside them in their spray.
+
+The views from the summit of Sentinel Dome are still more extensive and
+telling. Eastward the crowds of peaks at the head of the Merced,
+Tuolumne and San Joaquin Rivers are presented in bewildering array;
+westward, the vast forests, yellow foothills and the broad San Joaquin
+plains and the Coast Ranges, hazy and dim in the distance.
+
+From Glacier Point go down the trail into the lower end of the
+Illilouette basin, cross Illilouette Creek and follow it to the Fall
+where from an outjutting rock at its head you will get a fine view of
+its rejoicing waters and wild cañon and the Half Dome. Thence returning
+to the trail, follow it to the head of the Nevada Fall. Linger here an
+hour or two, for not only have you glorious views of the wonderful
+fall, but of its wild, leaping, exulting rapids and, greater than all,
+the stupendous scenery into the heart of which the white passionate
+river goes wildly thundering, surpassing everything of its kind in the
+world. After an unmeasured hour or so of this glory, all your body
+aglow, nerve currents flashing through you never before felt, go to the
+top of the Liberty Cap, only a glad saunter now that your legs as well
+as head and heart are awake and rejoicing with everything. The Liberty
+Cap, a companion of the Half Dome, is sheer and inaccessible on three
+of its sides but on the east a gentle, ice-burnished, juniper-dotted
+slope extends to the summit where other wonderful views are displayed
+where all are wonderful: the south side and shoulders of Half Dome and
+Clouds’ Rest, the beautiful Little Yosemite Valley and its many domes,
+the Starr King cluster of domes, Sentinel Dome, Glacier Point, and,
+perhaps the most tremendously impressive of all, the views of the
+hopper-shaped cañon of the river from the head of the Nevada Fall to
+the head of the Valley.
+
+Returning to the trail you descend between the Nevada Fall and the
+Liberty Cap with fine side views of both the fall and the rock, pass on
+through clouds of spray and along the rapids to the head of the Vernal
+Fall, about a mile below the Nevada. Linger here if night is still
+distant, for views of this favorite fall and the stupendous rock
+scenery about it. Then descend a stairway by its side, follow a dim
+trail through its spray, and a plain one along the border of the
+boulder-dashed rapids and so back to the wide, tranquil Valley.
+
+One-Day Excursions
+No. 2.
+
+Another grand one-day excursion is to the Upper Yosemite Fall, the top
+of the highest of the Three Brothers, called Eagle Peak on the
+Geological Survey maps; the brow of El Capitan; the head of the Ribbon
+Fall; across the beautiful Ribbon Creek Basin; and back to the Valley
+by the Big Oak Flat wagon-road.
+
+The trail leaves the Valley on the east side of the largest of the
+earthquake taluses immediately opposite the Sentinel Rock and as it
+passes within a few rods of the foot of the great fall, magnificent
+views are obtained as you approach it and pass through its spray,
+though when the snow is melting fast you will be well drenched. From
+the foot of the Fall the trail zigzags up a narrow cañon between the
+fall and a plain mural cliff that is burnished here and there by
+glacial action.
+
+You should stop a while on a flat iron-fenced rock a little below the
+head of the fall beside the enthusiastic throng of starry comet-like
+waters to learn something of their strength, their marvelous variety of
+forms, and above all, their glorious music, gathered and composed from
+the snow-storms, hail-, rain- and wind-storms that have fallen on their
+glacier-sculptured, domey, ridgy basin. Refreshed and exhilarated, you
+follow your trail-way through silver fir and pine woods to Eagle Peak,
+where the most comprehensive of all the views to be had on the
+north-wall heights are displayed. After an hour or two of gazing,
+dreaming, studying the tremendous topography, etc., trace the rim of
+the Valley to the grand El Capitan ridge and go down to its brow, where
+you will gain everlasting impressions of Nature’s steadfastness and
+power combined with ineffable fineness of beauty.
+
+Dragging yourself away, go to the head of the Ribbon Fall, thence
+across the beautiful Ribbon Creek Basin to the Big Oak Flat stage-road,
+and down its fine grades to the Valley, enjoying glorious Yosemite
+scenery all the way to the foot of El Capitan and your camp.
+
+Two-Day Excursions
+No. 1.
+
+For a two-day trip I would go straight to Mount Hoffman, spend the
+night on the summit, next morning go down by May Lake to Tenaya Lake
+and return to the Valley by Cloud’s Rest and the Nevada and Vernal
+Falls. As on the foregoing excursion, you leave the Valley by the
+Yosemite Falls trail and follow it to the Tioga wagon-road, a short
+distance east of Porcupine Flat. From that point push straight up to
+the summit. Mount Hoffman is a mass of gray granite that rises almost
+in the center of the Yosemite Park, about eight or ten miles in a
+straight line from the Valley. Its southern slopes are low and easily
+climbed, and adorned here and there with castle-like crumbling piles
+and long jagged crests that look like artificial masonry; but on the
+north side it is abruptly precipitous and banked with lasting snow.
+Most of the broad summit is comparatively level and thick sown with
+crystals, quartz, mica, hornblende, feldspar, granite, zircon,
+tourmaline, etc., weathered out and strewn closely and loosely as if
+they had been sown broadcast. Their radiance is fairly dazzling in
+sunlight, almost hiding the multitude of small flowers that grow among
+them. At first sight only these radiant crystals are likely to be
+noticed, but looking closely you discover a multitude of very small
+gilias, phloxes, mimulus, etc., many of them with more petals than
+leaves. On the borders of little streams larger plants
+flourish—lupines, daisies, asters, goldenrods, hairbell, mountain
+columbine, potentilla, astragalus and a few gentians; with charming
+heathworts—bryanthus, cassiope, kalmia, vaccinium in boulder-fringing
+rings or bank covers. You saunter among the crystals and flowers as if
+you were walking among stars. From the summit nearly all the Yosemite
+Park is displayed like a map: forests, lakes, meadows, and snowy peaks.
+Northward lies Yosemite’s wide basin with its domes and small lakes,
+shining like larger crystals; eastward the rocky, meadowy Tuolumne
+region, bounded by its snowy peaks in glorious array; southward
+Yosemite and westward the vast forest. On no other Yosemite Park
+mountain are you more likely to linger. You will find it a magnificent
+sky camp. Clumps of dwarf pine and mountain hemlock will furnish resin
+roots and branches for fuel and light, and the rills, sparkling water.
+Thousands of the little plant people will gaze at your camp-fire with
+the crystals and stars, companions and guardians as you lie at rest in
+the heart of the vast serene night.
+
+The most telling of all the wide Hoffman views is the basin of the
+Tuolumne with its meadows, forests and hundreds of smooth rock-waves
+that appear to be coming rolling on towards you like high heaving waves
+ready to break, and beyond these the great mountains. But best of all
+are the dawn and the sunrise. No mountain top could be better placed
+for this most glorious of mountain views—to watch and see the deepening
+colors of the dawn and the sunbeams streaming through the snowy High
+Sierra passes, awakening the lakes and crystals, the chilled plant
+people and winged people, and making everything shine and sing in pure
+glory.
+
+With your heart aglow, spangling Lake Tenaya and Lake May will beckon
+you away for walks on their ice-burnished shores. Leave Tenaya at the
+west end, cross to the south side of the outlet, and gradually work
+your way up in an almost straight south direction to the summit of the
+divide between Tenaya Creek and the main upper Merced River or Nevada
+Creek and follow the divide to Clouds Rest. After a glorious view from
+the crest of this lofty granite wave you will find a trail on its
+western end that will lead you down past Nevada and Vernal Falls to the
+Valley in good time, provided you left your Hoffman sky camp early.
+
+Two-Day Excursions
+No. 2.
+
+Another grand two-day excursion is the same as the first of the one-day
+trips, as far as the head of Illilouette Fall. From there trace the
+beautiful stream up through the heart of its magnificent forests and
+gardens to the cañons between the Red and Merced Peaks, and pass the
+night where I camped forty-one years ago. Early next morning visit the
+small glacier on the north side of Merced Peak, the first of the
+sixty-five that I discovered in the Sierra.
+
+Glacial phenomena in the Illilouette Basin are on the grandest scale,
+and in the course of my explorations I found that the cañon and
+moraines between the Merced and Red Mountains were the most interesting
+of them all. The path of the vanished glacier shone in many places as
+if washed with silver, and pushing up the cañon on this bright road I
+passed lake after lake in solid basins of granite and many a meadow
+along the cañon stream that links them together. The main lateral
+moraines that bound the view below the cañon are from a hundred to
+nearly two hundred feet high and wonderfully regular, like artificial
+embankments covered with a magnificent growth of silver fir and pine.
+But this garden and forest luxuriance is speedily left behind, and
+patches of bryanthus, cassiope and arctic willows begin to appear. The
+small lakes which a few miles down the Valley are so richly bordered
+with flowery meadows have at an elevation of 10,000 feet only small
+brown mats of carex, leaving bare rocks around more than half their
+shores. Yet, strange to say, amid all this arctic repression the
+mountain pine on ledges and buttresses of Red Mountain seems to find
+the climate best suited to it. Some specimens that I measured were over
+a hundred feet high and twenty-four feet in circumference, showing
+hardly a trace of severe storms, looking as fresh and vigorous as the
+giants of the lower zones. Evening came on just as I got fairly into
+the main cañon. It is about a mile wide and a little less than two
+miles long. The crumbling spurs of Red Mountain bound it on the north,
+the somber cliffs of Merced Mountain on the south and a
+deeply-serrated, splintered ridge curving around from mountain to
+mountain shuts it in on the east. My camp was on the brink of one of
+the lakes in a thicket of mountain hemlock, partly sheltered from the
+wind. Early next morning I set out to trace the ancient glacier to its
+head. Passing around the north shore of my camp lake I followed the
+main stream from one lakelet to another. The dwarf pines and hemlocks
+disappeared and the stream was bordered with icicles. The main lateral
+moraines that extend from the mouth of the cañon are continued in
+straggling masses along the walls. Tracing the streams back to the
+highest of its little lakes, I noticed a deposit of fine gray mud,
+something like the mud corn from a grindstone. This suggested its
+glacial origin, for the stream that was carrying it issued from a
+raw-looking moraine that seemed to be in process of formation. It is
+from sixty to over a hundred feet high in front, with a slope of about
+thirty-eight degrees. Climbing to the top of it, I discovered a very
+small but well-characterized glacier swooping down from the shadowy
+cliffs of the mountain to its terminal moraine. The ice appeared on all
+the lower portion of the glacier; farther up it was covered with snow.
+The uppermost crevasse or “bergeschrund” was from twelve to fourteen
+feet wide. The melting snow and ice formed a network of rills that ran
+gracefully down the surface of the glacier, merrily singing in their
+shining channels. After this discovery I made excursions over all the
+High Sierra and discovered that what at first sight looked like
+snowfields were in great part glaciers which were completing the
+sculpture of the summit peaks.
+
+Rising early,—which will be easy, as your bed will be rather cold and
+you will not be able to sleep much anyhow,—after visiting the glacier,
+climb the Red Mountain and enjoy the magnificent views from the summit.
+I counted forty lakes from one standpoint an this mountain, and the
+views to the westward over the Illilouette Basin, the most superbly
+forested of all the basins whose waters rain into Yosemite, and those
+of the Yosemite rocks, especially the Half Dome and the upper part of
+the north wall, are very fine. But, of course, far the most imposing
+view is the vast array of snowy peaks along the axis of the Range. Then
+from the top of this peak, light and free and exhilarated with mountain
+air and mountain beauty, you should run lightly down the northern slope
+of the mountain, descend the cañon between Red and Gray Mountains,
+thence northward along the bases of Gray Mountain and Mount Clark and
+go down into the head of Little Yosemite, and thence down past the
+Nevada and Vernal Falls to the Valley, a truly glorious two-day trip!
+
+A Three-Day Excursion
+
+The best three-day excursion, as far as I can see, is the same as the
+first of the two-day trips until you reach Lake Tenaya. There instead
+of returning to the Valley, follow the Tioga road around the northwest
+side of the lake, over to the Tuolumne Meadows and up to the west base
+of Mount Dana. Leave the road there and make straight for the highest
+point on the timber line between Mounts Dana and Gibbs and camp there.
+
+On the morning of the third day go to the top of Mount Dana in time for
+the glory of the dawn and the sunrise over the gray Mono Desert and the
+sublime forest of High Sierra peaks. When you leave the mountain go far
+enough down the north side for a view of the Dana Glacier, then make
+your way back to the Tioga road, follow it along the Tuolumne Meadows
+to the crossing of Budd Creek where you will find the Sunrise trail
+branching off up the mountain-side through the forest in a
+southwesterly direction past the west side of Cathedral Peak, which
+will lead you down to the Valley by the Vernal and Nevada Falls. If you
+are a good walker you can leave the trail where it begins to descend a
+steep slope in the silver fir woods, and bear off to the right and make
+straight for the top of Clouds’ Rest. The walking is good and almost
+level and from the west end of Clouds’ Rest take the Clouds’ Rest Trail
+which will lead direct to the Valley by the Nevada and Vernal Falls. To
+any one not desperately time-poor this trip should have four days
+instead of three; camping the second night at the Soda Springs; thence
+to Mount Dana and return to the Soda Springs, camping the third night
+there; thence by the Sunrise trail to Cathedral Peak, visiting the
+beautiful Cathedral lake which lies about a mile to the west of
+Cathedral Peak, eating your luncheon, and thence to Clouds’ Rest and
+the Valley as above. This is one of the most interesting of all the
+comparatively short trips that can be made in the whole Yosemite
+region. Not only do you see all the grandest of the Yosemite rocks and
+waterfalls and the High Sierra with their glaciers, glacier lakes and
+glacier meadows, etc., but sections of the magnificent silver fir,
+two-leaved pine, and dwarf pine zones; with the principal alpine
+flowers and shrubs, especially sods of dwarf vaccinium covered with
+flowers and fruit though less than an inch high, broad mats of dwarf
+willow scarce an inch high with catkins that rise straight from the
+ground, and glorious beds of blue gentians,—grandeur enough and beauty
+enough for a lifetime.
+
+The Upper Tuolumne Excursion
+
+We come now to the grandest of all the Yosemite excursions, one that
+requires at least two or three weeks. The best time to make it is from
+about the middle of July. The visitor entering the Yosemite in July has
+the advantage of seeing the falls not, perhaps, in their very flood
+prime but next thing to it; while the glacier-meadows will be in their
+glory and the snow on the mountains will be firm enough to make
+climbing safe. Long ago I made these Sierra trips, carrying only a
+sackful of bread with a little tea and sugar and was thus independent
+and free, but now that trails or carriage roads lead out of the Valley
+in almost every direction it is easy to take a pack animal, so that the
+luxury of a blanket and a supply of food can easily be had.
+
+The best way to leave the Valley will be by the Yosemite Fall trail,
+camping the first night on the Tioga road opposite the east end of the
+Hoffman Range. Next morning climb Mount Hoffman; thence push on past
+Tenaya Lake into the Tuolumne Meadows and establish a central camp near
+the Soda Springs, from which glorious excursions can be made at your
+leisure. For here in this upper Tuolumne Valley is the widest,
+smoothest, most serenely spacious, and in every way the most delightful
+summer pleasure-park in all the High Sierra. And since it is connected
+with Yosemite by two good trails, and a fairly good carriage road that
+passes between Yosemite and Mount Hoffman, it is also the most
+accessible. It is in the heart of the High Sierra east of Yosemite,
+8500 to 9000 feet above the level of the sea. The gray, picturesque
+Cathedral Range bounds it on the south; a similar range or spur, the
+highest peak of which is Mount Conness, on the north; the noble Mounts
+Dana, Gibbs, Mammoth, Lyell, McClure and others on the axis of the
+Range on the east; a heaving, billowing crowd of glacier-polished rocks
+and Mount Hoffman on the west. Down through the open sunny
+meadow-levels of the Valley flows the Tuolumne River, fresh and cool
+from its many glacial fountains, the highest of which are the glaciers
+that lie on the north sides of Mount Lyell and Mount McClure.
+
+Along the river a series of beautiful glacier-meadows extend with but
+little interruption, from the lower end of the Valley to its head, a
+distance of about twelve miles, forming charming sauntering-grounds
+from which the glorious mountains may be enjoyed as they look down in
+divine serenity over the dark forests that clothe their bases. Narrow
+strips of pine woods cross the meadow-carpet from side to side, and it
+is somewhat roughened here and there by moraine boulders and dead trees
+brought down from the heights by snow avalanches; but for miles and
+miles it is so smooth and level that a hundred horsemen may ride
+abreast over it.
+
+The main lower portion of the meadows is about four miles long and from
+a quarter to half a mile wide, but the width of the Valley is, on an
+average, about eight miles. Tracing the river, we find that it forks a
+mile above the Soda Springs, the main fork turning southward to Mount
+Lyell, the other eastward to Mount Dana and Mount Gibbs. Along both
+forks strips of meadow extend almost to their heads. The most beautiful
+portions of the meadows are spread over lake basins, which have been
+filled up by deposits from the river. A few of these river-lakes still
+exist, but they are now shallow and are rapidly approaching extinction.
+The sod in most places is exceedingly fine and silky and free from
+weeds and bushes; while charming flowers abound, especially gentians,
+dwarf daisies, potentillas, and the pink bells of dwarf vaccinium. On
+the banks of the river and its tributaries cassiope and bryanthus may
+be found, where the sod curls over stream banks and around boulders.
+The principal grass of these meadows is a delicate calamagrostis with
+very slender filiform leaves, and when it is in flower the ground seems
+to be covered with a faint purple mist, the stems of the panicles being
+so fine that they are almost invisible, and offer no appreciable
+resistance in walking through them. Along the edges of the meadows
+beneath the pines and throughout the greater part of the Valley tall
+ribbon-leaved grasses grow in abundance, chiefly bromus, triticum and
+agrostis.
+
+In October the nights are frosty, and then the meadows at sunrise, when
+every leaf is laden with crystals, are a fine sight. The days are still
+warm and calm, and bees and butterflies continue to waver and hum about
+the late-blooming flowers until the coming of the snow, usually in
+November. Storm then follows storm in quick succession, burying the
+meadows to a depth of from ten to twenty feet, while magnificent
+avalanches descend through the forests from the laden heights,
+depositing huge piles of snow mixed with uprooted trees and boulders.
+In the open sunshine the snow usually lasts until the end of June but
+the new season’s vegetation is not generally in bloom until late in
+July. Perhaps the best all round excursion-time after winters of
+average snowfall is from the middle of July to the middle or end of
+August. The snow is then melted from the woods and southern slopes of
+the mountains and the meadows and gardens are in their glory, while the
+weather is mostly all-reviving, exhilarating sunshine. The few clouds
+that rise now and then and the showers they yield are only enough to
+keep everything fresh and fragrant.
+
+The groves about the Soda Springs are favorite camping-grounds on
+account of the cold, pleasant-tasting water charged with carbonic acid,
+and because of the views of the mountains across the meadow—the Glacier
+Monument, Cathedral Peak, Cathedral Spires, Unicorn Peak and a series
+of ornamental nameless companions, rising in striking forms and
+nearness above a dense forest growing on the left lateral moraine of
+the ancient Tuolumne glacier, which, broad, deep, and far-reaching,
+exerted vast influence on the scenery of this portion of the Sierra.
+But there are fine camping-grounds all along the meadows, and one may
+move from grove to grove every day all summer, enjoying new homes and
+new beauty to satisfy every roving desire for change.
+
+There are five main capital excursions to be made from here—to the
+summits of Mounts Dana, Lyell and Conness, and through the Bloody Cañon
+Pass to Mono Lake and the volcanoes, and down the Tuolumne Cañon, at
+least as far as the foot of the wonderful series of river cataracts.
+All of these excursions are sure to be made memorable with joyful
+health-giving experiences; but perhaps none of them will be remembered
+with keener delight than the days spent in sauntering on the broad
+velvet lawns by the river, sharing the sky with the mountains and
+trees, gaining something of their strength and peace.
+
+The excursion to the top of Mount Dana is a very easy one; for though
+the mountain is 13,000 feet high, the ascent from the west side is so
+gentle and smooth that one may ride a mule to the very summit. Across
+many a busy stream, from meadow to meadow, lies your flowery way;
+mountains all about you, few of them hidden by irregular foregrounds.
+Gradually ascending, other mountains come in sight, peak rising above
+peak with their snow and ice in endless variety of grouping and
+sculpture. Now your attention is turned to the moraines, sweeping in
+beautiful curves from the hollows and cañons, now to the granite waves
+and pavements rising here and there above the heathy sod, polished a
+thousand years ago and still shining. Towards the base of the mountain
+you note the dwarfing of the trees, until at a height of about 11,000
+feet you find patches of the tough, white-barked pine, pressed so flat
+by the ten or twenty feet of snow piled upon them every winter for
+centuries that you may walk over them as if walking on a shaggy rug.
+And, if curious about such things, you may discover specimens of this
+hardy tree-mountaineer not more than four feet high and about as many
+inches in diameter at the ground, that are from two hundred to four
+hundred years old, still holding bravely to life, making the most of
+their slender summers, shaking their tasseled needles in the breeze
+right cheerily, drinking the thin sunshine and maturing their fine
+purple cones as if they meant to live forever. The general view from
+the summit is one of the most extensive and sublime to be found in all
+the Range. To the eastward you gaze far out over the desert plains and
+mountains of the “Great Basin,” range beyond range extending with soft
+outlines, blue and purple in the distance. More than six thousand feet
+below you lies Lake Mono, ten miles in diameter from north to south,
+and fourteen from west to east, lying bare in the treeless desert like
+a disk of burnished metal, though at times it is swept by mountain
+storm winds and streaked with foam. To the southward there is a well
+defined range of pale-gray extinct volcanoes, and though the highest of
+them rises nearly two thousand feet above the lake, you can look down
+from here into their circular, cup-like craters, from which a
+comparatively short time ago ashes and cinders were showered over the
+surrounding sage plains and glacier-laden mountains.
+
+To the westward the landscape is made up of exceedingly strong, gray,
+glaciated domes and ridge waves, most of them comparatively low, but
+the largest high enough to be called mountains; separated by cañons and
+darkened with lines and fields of forest, Cathedral Peak and Mount
+Hoffman in the distance; small lakes and innumerable meadows in the
+foreground. Northward and southward the great snowy mountains,
+marshaled along the axis of the Range, are seen in all their glory,
+crowded together in some places like trees in groves, making landscapes
+of wild, extravagant, bewildering magnificence, yet calm and silent as
+the sky.
+
+Some eight glaciers are in sight. One of these is the Dana Glacier on
+the north side of the mountain, lying at the foot of a precipice about
+a thousand feet high, with a lovely pale-green lake a little below it.
+This is one of the many, small, shrunken remnants of the vast glacial
+system of the Sierra that once filled the hollows and valleys of the
+mountains and covered all the lower ridges below the immediate
+summit-fountains, flowing to right and left away from the axis of the
+Range, lavishly fed by the snows of the glacial period.
+
+In the excursion to Mount Lyell the immediate base of the mountain is
+easily reached on meadow walks along the river. Turning to the
+southward above the forks of the river, you enter the narrow Lyell
+branch of the Valley, narrow enough and deep enough to be called a
+cañon. It is about eight miles long and from 2000 to 3000 feet deep.
+The flat meadow bottom is from about three hundred to two hundred yards
+wide, with gently curved margins about fifty yards wide from which rise
+the simple massive walls of gray granite at an angle of about
+thirty-three degrees, mostly timbered with a light growth of pine and
+streaked in many places with avalanche channels. Towards the upper end
+of the cañon the Sierra crown comes in sight, forming a finely balanced
+picture framed by the massive cañon walls. In the foreground, when the
+grass is in flower, you have the purple meadow willow-thickets on the
+river banks; in the middle distance huge swelling bosses of granite
+that form the base of the general mass of the mountain, with fringing
+lines of dark woods marking the lower curves, smoothly snow-clad except
+in the autumn.
+
+If you wish to spend two days on the Lyell trip you will find a good
+camp-ground on the east side of the river, about a mile above a fine
+cascade that comes down over the cañon wall in telling style and makes
+good camp music. From here to the top of the mountains is usually an
+easy day’s work. At one place near the summit careful climbing is
+necessary, but it is not so dangerous or difficult as to deter any one
+of ordinary skill, while the views are glorious. To the northward are
+Mammoth Mountain, Mounts Gibbs, Dana, Warren, Conness and others,
+unnumbered and unnamed; to the southeast the indescribably wild and
+jagged range of Mount Ritter and the Minarets; southwestward stretches
+the dividing ridge between the north fork of the San Joaquin and the
+Merced, uniting with the Obelisk or Merced group of peaks that form the
+main fountains of the Illilouette branch of the Merced; and to the
+north-westward extends the Cathedral spur. These spurs like distinct
+ranges meet at your feet; therefore you look at them mostly in the
+direction of their extension, and their peaks seem to be massed and
+crowded against one another, while immense amphitheaters, cañons and
+subordinate ridges with their wealth of lakes, glaciers, and
+snow-fields, maze and cluster between them. In making the ascent in
+June or October the glacier is easily crossed, for then its snow mantle
+is smooth or mostly melted off. But in midsummer the climbing is
+exceedingly tedious because the snow is then weathered into curious and
+beautiful blades, sharp and slender, and set on edge in a leaning
+position. They lean towards the head of the glacier and extend across
+from side to side in regular order in a direction at right angles to
+the direction of greatest declivity, the distance between the crests
+being about two or three feet, and the depth of the troughs between
+them about three feet. A more interesting problem than a walk over a
+glacier thus sculptured and adorned is seldom presented to the
+mountaineer.
+
+The Lyell Glacier is about a mile wide and less than a mile long, but
+presents, nevertheless, all the essential characters of large,
+river-like glaciers—moraines, earth-bands, blue veins, crevasses, etc.,
+while the streams that issue from it are, of course, turbid with
+rock-mud, showing its grinding action on its bed. And it is all the
+more interesting since it is the highest and most enduring remnant of
+the great Tuolumne Glacier, whose traces are still distinct fifty miles
+away, and whose influence on the landscape was so profound. The McClure
+Glacier, once a tributary of the Lyell, is smaller. Thirty-eight years
+ago I set a series of stakes in it to determine its rate of motion.
+Towards the end of summer in the middle of the glacier it was only a
+little over an inch in twenty-four hours.
+
+The trip to Mono from the Soda Springs can be made in a day, but many
+days may profitably be spent near the shores of the lake, out on its
+islands and about the volcanoes.
+
+In making the trip down the Big Tuolumne Cañon, animals may be led as
+far as a small, grassy, forested lake-basin that lies below the
+crossing of the Virginia Creek trail. And from this point any one
+accustomed to walking on earthquake boulders, carpeted with cañon
+chaparral, can easily go down as far as the big cascades and return to
+camp in one day. Many, however, are not able to do his, and it is
+better to go leisurely, prepared to camp anywhere, and enjoy the
+marvelous grandeur of the place.
+
+The cañon begins near the lower end of the meadows and extends to the
+Hetch Hetchy Valley, a distance of about eighteen miles, though it will
+seem much longer to any one who scrambles through it. It is from twelve
+hundred to about five thousand feet deep, and is comparatively narrow,
+but there are several roomy, park-like openings in it, and throughout
+its whole extent Yosemite natures are displayed on a grand scale—domes,
+El Capitan rocks, gables, Sentinels, Royal Arches, Glacier Points,
+Cathedral Spires, etc. There is even a Half Dome among its wealth of
+rock forms, though far less sublime than the Yosemite Half Dome. Its
+falls and cascades are innumerable. The sheer falls, except when the
+snow is melting in early spring, are quite small in volume as compared
+with those of Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy; though in any other country
+many of them would be regarded as wonders. But it is the cascades or
+sloping falls on the main river that are the crowning glory of the
+cañon, and these in volume, extent and variety surpass those of any
+other cañon in the Sierra. The most showy and interesting of them are
+mostly in the upper part of the cañon, above the point of entrance of
+Cathedral Creek and Hoffman Creek. For miles the river is one wild,
+exulting, on-rushing mass of snowy purple bloom, spreading over glacial
+waves of granite without any definite channel, gliding in magnificent
+silver plumes, dashing and foaming through huge boulder-dams, leaping
+high into the air in wheel-like whirls, displaying glorious enthusiasm,
+tossing from side to side, doubling, glinting, singing in exuberance of
+mountain energy.
+
+Every one who is anything of a mountaineer should go on through the
+entire length of the cañon, coming out by Hetch Hetchy. There is not a
+dull step all the way. With wide variations, it is a Yosemite Valley
+from end to end.
+
+Besides these main, far-reaching, much-seeing excursions from the main
+central camp, there are numberless, lovely little saunters and
+scrambles and a dozen or so not so very little. Among the best of these
+are to Lambert and Fair View Domes; to the topmost spires of Cathedral
+Peak, and to those of the North Church, around the base of which you
+pass on your way to Mount Conness; to one of the very loveliest of the
+glacier-meadows imbedded in the pine woods about three miles north of
+the Soda Springs, where forty-two years ago I spent six weeks. It
+trends east and west, and you can find it easily by going past the base
+of Lambert’s Dome to Dog Lake and thence up northward through the woods
+about a mile or so; to the shining rock-waves full of ice-burnished,
+feldspar crystals at the foot of the meadows; to Lake Tenaya; and, last
+but not least, a rather long and very hearty scramble down by the end
+of the meadow along the Tioga road toward Lake Tenaya to the crossing
+of Cathedral Creek, where you turn off and trace the creek down to its
+confluence with the Tuolumne. This is a genuine scramble much of the
+way but one of the most wonderfully telling in its glacial rock-forms
+and inscriptions.
+
+If you stop and fish at every tempting lake and stream you come to, a
+whole month, or even two months, will not be too long for this grand
+High Sierra excursion. My own Sierra trip was ten years long.
+
+Other Trips From The Valley
+
+Short carriage trips are usually made in the early morning to Mirror
+Lake to see its wonderful reflections of the Half Dome and Mount
+Watkins; and in the afternoon many ride down the Valley to see the
+Bridal Veil rainbows or up the river cañon to see those of the Vernal
+Fall; where, standing in the spray, not minding getting drenched, you
+may see what are called round rainbows, when the two ends of the
+ordinary bow are lengthened and meet at your feet, forming a complete
+circle which is broken and united again and again as determined by the
+varying wafts of spray. A few ambitious scramblers climb to the top of
+the Sentinel Rock, others walk or ride down the Valley and up to the
+once-famous Inspiration Point for a last grand view; while a good many
+appreciative tourists, who slave only day or two, do no climbing or
+riding but spend their time sauntering on the meadows by the river,
+watching the falls, and the relay of light and shade among the rocks
+from morning to night, perhaps gaining more than those who make haste
+up the trails in large noisy parties. Those who have unlimited time
+find something worth while all the year round on every accessible part
+of the vast deeply sculptured walls. At least so I have found it after
+making the Valley my home for years.
+
+Here are a few specimens selected from my own short trips which walkers
+may find useful.
+
+One, up the river cañon, across the bridge between the Vernal and
+Nevada Falls, through chaparral beds and boulders to the shoulder of
+Half Dome, along the top of the shoulder to the dome itself, down by a
+crumbling slot gully and close along the base of the tremendous split
+front (the most awfully impressive, sheer, precipice view I ever found
+in all my cañon wanderings), thence up the east shoulder and along the
+ridge to Clouds’ Rest—a glorious sunset—then a grand starry run back
+home to my cabin; down through the junipers, down through the firs, now
+in black shadows, now in white light, past roaring Nevada and Vernal,
+flowering ghost-like beneath their huge frowning cliffs; down the dark,
+gloomy cañon, through the pines of the Valley, dreamily murmuring in
+their calm, breezy sleep—a fine wild little excursion for good legs and
+good eyes—so much sun-, moon- and star-shine in it, and sublime,
+up-and-down rhythmical, glacial topography.
+
+Another, to the head of Yosemite Fall by Indian Cañon; thence up the
+Yosemite Creek, tracing it all the way to its highest sources back of
+Mount Hoffman, then a wide sweep around the head of its dome-paved
+basin, passing its many little lakes and bogs, gardens and groves,
+trilling, warbling rills, and back by the Fall Cañon. This was one of
+my Sabbath walk, run-and-slide excursions long ago before any trail had
+been made on the north side of the Valley.
+
+Another fine trip was up, bright and early, by Avalanche Cañon to
+Glacier Point, along the rugged south wall, tracing all its far outs
+and ins to the head of the Bridal Veil Fall, thence back home, bright
+and late, by a brushy, bouldery slope between Cathedral rocks and
+Cathedral spires and along the level Valley floor. This was one of my
+long, bright-day and bright-night walks thirty or forty years ago when,
+like river and ocean currents, time flowed undivided, uncounted—a fine
+free, sauntery, scrambly, botanical, beauty-filled ramble. The walk up
+the Valley was made glorious by the marvelous brightness of the morning
+star. So great was her light, she made every tree cast a well-defined
+shadow on the smooth sandy ground.
+
+Everybody who visits Yosemite wants to see the famous Big Trees. Before
+the railroad was constructed, all three of the stage-roads that entered
+the Valley passed through a grove of these trees by the way; namely,
+the Tuolumne, Merced and Mariposa groves. The Tuolumne grove was passed
+on the Big Oak Flat road, the Merced grove by the Coulterville road and
+the Mariposa grove by the Raymond and Wawona road. Now, to see any one
+of these groves, a special trip has to be made. Most visitors go to the
+Mariposa grove, the largest of the three. On this Sequoia trip you see
+not only the giant Big Trees but magnificent forests of silver fir,
+sugar pine, yellow pine, libocedrus and Douglas spruce. The trip need
+not require more than two days, spending a night in a good hotel at
+Wawona, a beautiful place on the south fork of the Merced River, and
+returning to the Valley or to El Portal, the terminus of the railroad.
+This extra trip by stage costs fifteen dollars. All the High Sierra
+excursions that I have sketched cost from a dollar a week to anything
+you like. None of mine when I was exploring the Sierra cost over a
+dollar a week, most of them less.
+
+
+
+Chapter 13
+Early History Of The Valley
+
+
+In the wild gold years of 1849 and ’50, the Indian tribes along thus
+western Sierra foothills became alarmed at the sudden invasion of their
+acorn orchard and game fields by miners, and soon began to make war
+upon them, in their usual murdering, plundering style. This continued
+until the United States Indian Commissioners succeeded in gathering
+them into reservations, some peacefully, others by burning their
+villages and stores of food. The Yosemite or Grizzly Bear tribe,
+fancying themselves secure in their deep mountain stronghold, were the
+most troublesome and defiant of all, and it was while the Mariposa
+battalion, under command of Major Savage, was trying to capture this
+warlike tribe and conduct them to the Fresno reservation that their
+deep mountain home, the Yosemite Valley, was discovered. From a camp on
+the south fork of the Merced, Major Savage sent Indian runners to the
+bands who were supposed to be hiding in the mountains, instructing them
+to tell the Indians that if they would come in and make treaty with the
+Commissioners they would be furnished with food and clothing and be
+protected, but if they did not come in he would make war upon them and
+kill them all. None of the Yosemite Indians responded to this general
+message, but when a special messenger was sent to the chief he appeared
+the next day. He came entirely alone and stood in dignified silence
+before one of the guards until invited to enter the camp. He was
+recognized by one of the friendly Indians as Tenaya, the old chief of
+the Grizzlies, and, after he had been supplied with food, Major Savage,
+with the aid of Indian interpreters, informed him of the wishes of the
+Commissioners. But the old chief was very suspicious of Savage and
+feared that he was taking this method of getting the tribe into his
+power for the purpose of revenging his personal wrong. Savage told him
+if he would go to the Commissioners and make peace with them as the
+other tribes had done there would be no more war. Tenaya inquired what
+was the object of taking all the Indians to the San Joaquin plain. “My
+people,” said he, “do not want anything from the Great Father you tell
+me about. The Great Spirit is our father and he has always supplied us
+with all we need. We do not want anything from white men. Our women are
+able to do our work. Go, then. Let us remain in the mountains where we
+were born, where the ashes of our fathers have been given to the wind.
+I have said enough.”
+
+To this the Major answered abruptly in Indian style: “If you and your
+people have all you desire, why do you steal our horses and mules? Why
+do you rob the miners’ camps? Why do you murder the white men and
+plunder and burn their houses?”
+
+Tenaya was silent for some time. He evidently understood what the Major
+had said, for he replied, “My young men have sometimes taken horses and
+mules from the whites. This was wrong. It is not wrong to take the
+property of enemies who have wronged my people. My young men believed
+that the gold diggers were our enemies. We now know they are not and we
+shall be glad to live in peace with them. We will stay here and be
+friends. My people do not want to go to the plains. Some of the tribes
+who have gone there are very bad. We cannot live with them. Here we can
+defend ourselves.”
+
+To the Major Savage firmly said, “Your people must go to the
+Commissioners. If they do not your young men will again steal horses
+and kill and plunder the whites. It was your people who robbed my
+stores, burned my houses and murdered my men. It they do not make a
+treaty, your whole tribe will be destroyed. Not one of them will be
+left alive.”
+
+To this the old chief replied, “It is useless to talk to you about who
+destroyed your property and killed your people. I am old and you can
+kill me if you will, but it is useless to lie to you who know more than
+all the Indians. Therefore I will not lie to you but if you will let me
+return to my people I will bring them in.” He was allowed to go. The
+next day he came back and said his people were on the way to our camp
+to go with the men sent by the Great Father, who was so good and rich.
+
+Another day passed but no Indians from the deep Valley appeared. The
+old chief said that the snow was so deep and his village was so far
+down that it took a long time to climb out of it. After waiting still
+another day the expedition started for the Valley. When Tenaya was
+questioned as to the route and distance he said that the snow was so
+deep that the horses could not go through it. Old Tenaya was taken
+along as guide. When the party had gone about half-way to the Valley
+they met the Yosemites on their way to the camp on the south fork.
+There were only seventy-two of them and when the old chief was asked
+what had become of the rest of his band, he replied, “This is all of my
+people that are willing to go with me to the plains. All the rest have
+gone with their wives end children over the mountains to the Mono and
+Tuolumne tribes.” Savage told Tenaya that he was not telling the truth,
+for Indians could not cross the mountains in the deep snow, and that he
+knew they must still be at his village or hiding somewhere near it. The
+tribe had been estimated to number over two hundred. Major Savage then
+said to him, “You may return to camp with your people and I will take
+one of your young men with me to your village to see your people who
+will not come. They will come if I find them.” “You will not find any
+of my people there,” said Tenaya; “I do not know where they are. My
+tribe is small. Many of the people of my tribe have come from other
+tribes and if they go to the plains and are seen they will be killed by
+the friends of those with whom they have quarreled. I was told that I
+was growing old and it was well that I should go, but that young and
+strong men can find plenty in the mountains: therefore, why should they
+go to the hot plains to be penned up like horses and cattle? My heart
+has been sore since that talk but I am now willing to go, for it is
+best for my people.”
+
+Pushing ahead, taking turns in breaking a way through the snow, they
+arrived in sight of the great Valley early in the afternoon and, guided
+by one of Tenaya’s Indians, descended by the same route as that
+followed by the Mariposa trail, and the weary party went into camp on
+the river bank opposite El Capitan. After supper, seated around a big
+fire, the wonderful Valley became the topic of conversation and Dr.
+Bunell suggested giving it a name. Many were proposed, but after a vote
+had been taken the name Yosemite, proposed by Dr. Bunell, was adopted
+almost unanimously to perpetuate the name of the tribe who so long had
+made their home there. The Indian name of the Valley, however, is
+Ahwahnee. The Indians had names for all the different rocks and streams
+of the Valley, but very few of them are now in use by the whites,
+Pohono, the Bridal Veil, being the principal one. The expedition
+remained only one day and two nights in the Valley, hurrying out on the
+approach of a storm and reached the south-fork headquarters on the
+evening of the third day after starting out. Thus, in three days the
+round trip had been made to the Valley, most of it had been explored in
+a general way and some of its principal features had been named. But
+the Indians had fled up the Tenaya Cañon trail and none of them were
+seen, except an old woman unable to follow the fugitives.
+
+A second expedition was made in the same year under command of Major
+Boling. When the Valley was entered no Indians were seen, but the many
+wigwams with smoldering fires showed that they had been hurriedly
+abandoned that very day. Later, five young Indians who had been left to
+watch the movements of the expedition were captured at the foot of the
+Three Brothers after a lively chase. Three of the five were sons of the
+old chief and the rock was named for them. All of these captives made
+good their escape within a few days, except the youngest son of Tenaya,
+who was shot by his guard while trying to escape. That same day the old
+chief was captured on the cliff on the east side of Indian Cañon by
+some of Boling’s scouts. As Tenaya walked toward the camp his eye fell
+upon the dead body of his favorite son. Captain Boling through an
+interpreter, expressed his regret at the occurrence, but not a word did
+Tenaya utter in reply. Later, he made an attempt to escape but was
+caught as he was about to swim across the river. Tenaya expected to be
+shot for this attempt and when brought into the presence of Captain
+Boling he said in great emotion, “Kill me, Sir Captain, yes, kill me as
+you killed my son, as you would kill my people if they were to come to
+you. You would kill all my tribe if you had the power. Yes, Sir
+America, you can now tell your warriors to kill the old chief. You have
+made my life dark with sorrow. You killed the child of my heart. Why
+not kill the father? But wait a little and when I am dead I will call
+my people to come and they shall hear me in their sleep and come to
+avenge the death of their chief and his son. Yes, Sir America, my
+spirit will make trouble for you and your people, as you have made
+trouble to me and my people. With the wizards I will follow the white
+people and make them fear me. You may kill me, Sir Captain, but you
+shall not live in peace. I will follow in your footsteps. I will not
+leave my home, but be with the spirits among the rocks, the waterfalls,
+in the rivers and in the winds; wherever you go I will be with you. You
+will not see me but you will fear the spirit of the old chief and grow
+cold. The Great Spirit has spoken. I am done.”
+
+This expedition finally captured the remnants of the tribes at the head
+of Lake Tenaya and took them to the Fresno reservation, together with
+their chief, Tenaya. But after a short stay they were allowed to return
+to the Valley under restrictions. Tenaya promised faithfully to conform
+to everything required, joyfully left the hot and dry reservation, and
+with his family returned to his Yosemite home.
+
+The following year a party of miners was attacked by the Indians in the
+Valley and two of them were killed. This led to another Yosemite
+expedition. A detachment of regular soldiers from Fort Miller under
+Lieutenant Moore, U.S.A., was at once dispatched to capture or punish
+the murderers. Lieutenant Moore entered the Valley in the night and
+surprised and captured a party of five Indians, but an alarm was given
+and Tenaya and his people fled from their huts and escaped to the Monos
+on the east side of the Range. On examination of the five prisoners in
+the morning it was discovered that each of them had some article of
+clothing that belonged to the murdered men. The bodies of the two
+miners were found and buried on the edge of the Bridal Veil meadow.
+When the captives were accused of the murder of the two white men they
+admitted that they had killed them to prevent white men from coming to
+their Valley, declaring that it was their home and that white men had
+no right to come there without their consent. Lieutenant Moore told
+them through his interpreter that they had sold their lands to the
+Government, that it belonged to the white men now and that they had
+agreed to live on the reservation provided for them. To this they
+replied that Tenaya had never consented to the sale of their Valley and
+had never received pay for it. The other chief, they said, had no right
+to sell their territory. The lieutenant being fully satisfied that he
+had captured the real murderers, promptly pronounced judgment and had
+them placed in line and shot. Lieutenant Moore pursued the fugitives to
+Mono but was not successful in finding any of them. After being
+hospitably entertained and protected by the Mono and Paute tribes, they
+stole a number of stolen horses from their entertainers and made their
+way by a long, obscure route by the head of the north fork of the San
+Joaquin, reached their Yosemite home once more, but early one morning,
+after a feast of horse-flesh, a band of Monos surprised them in their
+huts, killing Tenaya and nearly all his tribe. Only a small remnant
+escaped down the river cañon. The Tenaya Cañon and Lake were named for
+the famous old chief.
+
+Very few visits were made to the Valley before the summer or 1855, when
+Mr. J. M. Hutchings, having heard of its wonderful scenery, collected a
+party and made the first regular tourist’s visit to the Yosemite and in
+his California magazine described it in articles illustrated by a good
+artist, who was taken into the Valley by him for that purpose. This
+first party was followed by another from Mariposa the same year,
+consisting of sixteen or eighteen persons. The next year the regular
+pleasure travel began and a trail on the Mariposa side of the Valley
+was opened by Mann Brothers. This trail was afterwards purchased by the
+citizens of the county and made free to the public. The first house
+built in the Yosemite Valley was erected in the autumn of 1856 and was
+kept as a hotel the next year by G. A. Hite and later by J. H. Neal and
+S. M. Cunningham. It was situated directly opposite the Yosemite Fall.
+A little over half a mile farther up the Valley a canvas house was put
+up in 1858 by G. A. Hite. Next year a frame house was built and kept as
+a hotel by Mr. Peck, afterward by Mr. Longhurst and since 1864 by Mr.
+Hutchings. All these hotels have vanished except the frame house built
+in 1859, which has been changed beyond recognition. A large hotel built
+on the brink of the river in front of the old one is now the only hotel
+in the Valley. A large hotel built by the State and located farther up
+the Valley was burned. To provide for the overflow of visitors there
+are three camps with board floors, wood frame, and covered with canvas,
+well furnished, some of them with electric light. A large first-class
+hotel is very much needed.
+
+Travel of late years has been rapidly increasing, especially after the
+establishment, by Act of Congress in 1890, of the Yosemite National
+Park and the recession in 1905 of the original reservation to the
+Federal Government by the State. The greatest increase, of course, was
+caused by the construction of the Yosemite Valley railroad from Merced
+to the border of the Park, eight miles below the Valley.
+
+It is eighty miles long, and the entire distance, except the first
+twenty-four miles from the town of Merced, is built through the
+precipitous Merced River Cañon. The roadbed was virtually blasted out
+of the solid rock for the entire distance in the cañon. Work was begun
+in September, 1905, and the first train entered El Portal, the
+terminus, April 15, 1907. Many miles of the road cost as much as
+$100,000 per mile. Its business has increased from 4000 tourists in the
+first year it was operated to 15,000 in 1910.
+
+
+
+Chapter 14
+Lamon
+
+
+The good old pioneer, Lamon, was the first of all the early Yosemite
+settlers who cordially and unreservedly adopted the Valley as his home.
+
+He was born in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, May 10, 1817, emigrated
+to Illinois with his father, John Lamon, at the age of nineteen;
+afterwards went to Texas and settled on the Brazos, where he raised
+melons and hunted alligators for a living. “Right interestin’
+business,” he said; “especially the alligator part of it.” From the
+Brazos he went to the Comanche Indian country between Gonzales and
+Austin, twenty miles from his nearest neighbor. During the first
+summer, the only bread he had was the breast meat of wild turkeys. When
+the formidable Comanche Indians were on the war-path he left his cabin
+after dark and slept in the woods. From Texas he crossed the plains to
+California and worked In the Calaveras and Mariposa gold-fields.
+
+He first heard Yosemite spoken of as a very beautiful mountain valley
+and after making two excursions in the summers of 1857 and 1858 to see
+the wonderful place, he made up his mind to quit roving and make a
+permanent home in it. In April, 1859, he moved into it, located a
+garden opposite the Half Dome, set out a lot of apple, pear and peach
+trees, planted potatoes, etc., that he had packed in on a “contrary old
+mule,” and worked for his board in building a hotel which was
+afterwards purchased by Mr. Hutchings. His neighbors thought he was
+very foolish in attempting to raise crops in so high and cold a valley,
+and warned him that he could raise nothing and sell nothing, and would
+surely starve.
+
+For the first year or two lack of provisions compelled him to move out
+on the approach of winter, but in 1862 after he had succeeded in
+raising some fruit and vegetables he began to winter in the Valley.
+
+The first winter he had no companions, not even a dog or cat, and one
+evening was greatly surprised to see two men coming up the Valley. They
+were very glad to see him, for they had come from Mariposa in search of
+him, a report having been spread that he had been killed by Indians. He
+assured his visitors that he felt safer in his Yosemite home, lying
+snug and squirrel-like in his 10 x 12 cabin, than in Mariposa. When the
+avalanches began to slip, he wondered where all the wild roaring and
+booming came from, the flying snow preventing them from being seen.
+But, upon the whole, he wondered most at the brightness, gentleness,
+and sunniness of the weather, and hopefully employed the calm days in
+tearing ground for an orchard and vegetable garden.
+
+In the second winter he built a winter cabin under the Royal Arches,
+where he enjoyed more sunshine. But no matter how he praised the
+weather he could not induce any one to winter with him until 1864.
+
+He liked to describe the great flood of 1867, the year before I reached
+California, when all the walls were striped with thundering waterfalls.
+
+He was a fine, erect, whole-souled man, between six and seven feet
+high, with a broad, open face, bland and guileless as his pet oxen. No
+stranger to hunger and weariness, he knew well how to appreciate
+suffering of a like kind in others, and many there be, myself among the
+number, who can testify to his simple, unostentatious kindness that
+found expression in a thousand small deeds.
+
+After gaining sufficient means to enjoy a long afternoon of life in
+comparative affluence and ease, he died in the autumn of 1876. He
+sleeps in a beautiful spot near Galen Clark and a monument hewn from a
+block of Yosemite granite marks his grave.
+
+
+
+Chapter 15
+Galen Clark
+
+
+Galen Clark was the best mountaineer I ever met, and one of the kindest
+and most amiable of all my mountain friends. I first met him at his
+Wawona ranch forty-three years ago on my first visit to Yosemite. I had
+entered the Valley with one companion by way of Coulterville, and
+returned by what was then known as the Mariposa trail. Both trails were
+buried in deep snow where the elevation was from 5000 to 7000 feet
+above sea level in the sugar pine and silver fir regions. We had no
+great difficulty, however, in finding our way by the trends of the main
+features of the topography. Botanizing by the way, we made slow,
+plodding progress, and were again about out of provisions when we
+reached Clark’s hospitable cabin at Wawona. He kindly furnished us with
+flour and a little sugar and tea, and my companion, who complained of
+the be-numbing poverty of a strictly vegetarian diet, gladly accepted
+Mr. Clark’s offer of a piece of a bear that had just been killed. After
+a short talk about bears and the forests and the way to the Big Trees,
+we pushed on up through the Wawona firs and sugar pines, and camped in
+the now-famous Mariposa grove.
+
+Later, after making my home in the Yosemite Valley, I became well
+acquainted with Mr. Clark, while he was guardian. He was elected again
+and again to this important office by different Boards of Commissioners
+on account of his efficiency and his real love of the Valley.
+
+Although nearly all my mountaineering has been done without companions,
+I had the pleasure of having Galen Clark with me on three excursions.
+About thirty-five years ago I invited him to accompany me on a trip
+through the Big Tuolumne Cañon from Hetch Hetchy Valley. The cañon up
+to that time had not been explored, and knowing that the difference in
+the elevation of the river at the head of the cañon and in Hetch Hetchy
+was about 5000 feet, we expected to find some magnificent cataracts or
+falls; nor were we disappointed. When we were leaving Yosemite an
+ambitious young man begged leave to join us. I strongly advised him not
+to attempt such a long, hard trip, for it would undoubtedly prove very
+trying to an inexperienced climber. He assured us, however, that he was
+equal to anything, would gladly meet every difficulty as it came, and
+cause us no hindrance or trouble of any sort. So at last, after
+repeating our advice that he give up the trip, we consented to his
+joining us. We entered the cañon by way of Hetch Hetchy Valley, each
+carrying his own provisions, and making his own tea, porridge, bed,
+etc.
+
+In the morning of the second day out from Hetch Hetchy we came to what
+is now known as “Muir Gorge,” and Mr. Clark without hesitation prepared
+to force a way through it, wading and jumping from one submerged
+boulder to another through the torrent, bracing and steadying himself
+with a long pole. Though the river was then rather low, the savage,
+roaring, surging song it was ringing was rather nerve-trying,
+especially to our inexperienced companion. With careful assistance,
+however, I managed to get him through, but this hard trial, naturally
+enough, proved too much and he informed us, pale and trembling, that he
+could go no farther. I gathered some wood at the upper throat of the
+gorge, made a fire for him and advised him to feel at home and make
+himself comfortable, hoped he would enjoy the grand scenery and the
+songs of the water-ouzels which haunted the gorge, and assured him that
+we would return some time in the night, though it might be late, as we
+wished to go on through the entire cañon if possible. We pushed our way
+through the dense chaparral and over the earthquake taluses with such
+speed that we reached the foot of the upper cataract while we had still
+an hour or so of daylight for the return trip. It was long after dark
+when we reached our adventurous, but nerve-shaken companion who, of
+course, was anxious and lonely, not being accustomed to solitude,
+however kindly and flowery and full of sweet bird-song and stream-song.
+Being tired we simply lay down in restful comfort on the river bank
+beside a good fire, instead of trying to go down the gorge in the dark
+or climb over its high shoulder to our blankets and provisions, which
+we had left in the morning in a tree at the foot of the gorge. I
+remember Mr. Clark remarking that if he had his choice that night
+between provisions and blankets he would choose his blankets.
+
+The next morning in about an hour we had crossed over the ridge through
+which the gorge is cut, reached our provisions, made tea, and had a
+good breakfast. As soon as we had returned to Yosemite I obtained fresh
+provisions, pushed off alone up to the head of Yosemite Creek basin,
+entered the cañon by a side cañon, and completed the exploration up to
+the Tuolumne Meadows.
+
+It was on this first trip from Hetch Hetchy to the upper cataracts that
+I had convincing proofs of Mr. Clark’s daring and skill as mountaineer,
+particularly in fording torrents, and in forcing his way through thick
+chaparral. I found it somewhat difficult to keep up with him in dense,
+tangled brush, though in jumping on boulder taluses and slippery
+cobble-beds I had no difficulty in leaving him behind.
+
+After I had discovered the glaciers on Mount Lyell and Mount McClure,
+Mr. Clark kindly made a second excursion with me to assist in
+establishing a line of stakes across the McClure glacier to measure its
+rate of flow. On this trip we also climbed Mount Lyell together, when
+the snow which covered the glacier was melted into upleaning, icy
+blades which were extremely difficult to cross, not being strong enough
+to support our weight, nor wide enough apart to enable us to stride
+across each blade as it was met. Here again I, being lighter, had no
+difficulty in keeping ahead of him. While resting after wearisome
+staggering and falling he stared at the marvelous ranks of leaning
+blades, and said, “I think I have traveled all sorts of trails and
+cañons, through all kinds of brush and snow, but this gets me.”
+
+Mr. Clark at my urgent request joined my small party on a trip to the
+Kings River yosemite by way of the high mountains, most of the way
+without a trail. He joined us at the Mariposa Big Tree grove and
+intended to go all the way, but finding that, on account of the
+difficulties encountered, the time required was much greater than he
+expected, he turned back near the head of the north fork of the Kings
+River.
+
+In cooking his mess of oatmeal porridge and making tea, his pot was
+always the first to boil, and I used to wonder why, with all his skill
+in scrambling through brush in the easiest way, and preparing his
+meals, he was so utterly careless about his beds. He would lie down
+anywhere on any ground, rough or smooth, without taking pains even to
+remove cobbles or sharp-angled rocks protruding through the grass or
+gravel, saying that his own bones were as hard as any stones and could
+do him no harm.
+
+His kindness to all Yosemite visitors and mountaineers was marvelously
+constant and uniform. He was not a good business man, and in building
+an extensive hotel and barns at Wawona, before the travel to Yosemite
+had been greatly developed, he borrowed money, mortgaged his property
+and lost it all.
+
+Though not the first to see the Mariposa Big Tree grove, he was the
+first to explore it, after he had heard from a prospector, who had
+passed through the grove and who gave him the indefinite information,
+that there were some wonderful big trees up there on the top of the
+Wawona hill and that he believed they must be of the same kind that had
+become so famous and well-known in the Calaveras grove farther north.
+On this information, Galen Clark told me, he went up and thoroughly
+explored the grove, counting the trees and measuring the largest, and
+becoming familiar with it. He stated also that he had explored the
+forest to the southward and had discovered the much larger Fresno grove
+of about two square miles, six or seven miles distant from the Mariposa
+grove. Unfortunately most of the Fresno grove has been cut and flumed
+down to the railroad near Madera.
+
+Mr. Clark was truly and literally a gentle-man. I never heard him utter
+a hasty, angry, fault-finding word. His voice was uniformly pitched at
+a rather low tone, perfectly even, although lances of his eyes and
+slight intonations of his voice often indicated that something funny or
+mildly sarcastic was coming, but upon the whole he was serious and
+industrious, and, however deep and fun-provoking a story might be, he
+never indulged in boisterous laughter.
+
+He was very fond of scenery and once told me after I became acquainted
+with him that he liked “nothing in the world better than climbing to
+the top of a high ridge or mountain and looking off.” He preferred the
+mountain ridges and domes in the Yosemite regions on account of the
+wealth and beauty of the forests. Often times he would take his rifle,
+a few pounds of bacon, a few pound of flour, and a single blanket and
+go off hunting, for no other reason than to explore and get acquainted
+with the most beautiful points of view within a journey of a week or
+two from his Wawona home. On these trips he was always alone and could
+indulge in tranquil enjoyment of Nature to his heart’s content. He said
+that on those trips, when he was a sufficient distance from home in a
+neighborhood where he wished to linger, he always shot a deer,
+sometimes a grouse, and occasionally a bear. After diminishing the
+weight of a deer or bear by eating part of it, he carried as much as
+possible of the best of the meat to Wawona, and from his hospitable
+well-supplied cabin no weary wanderer ever went away hungry or
+unrested.
+
+The value of the mountain air in prolonging life is well examplified in
+Mr. Clark’s case. While working in the mines he contracted a severe
+cold that settled on his lungs and finally caused severe inflammation
+and bleeding, and none of his friends thought he would ever recover.
+The physicians told him he had but a short time to live. It was then
+that he repaired to the beautiful sugar pine woods at Wawona and took
+up a claim, including the fine meadows there, and building his cabin,
+began his life of wandering and exploring in the glorious mountains
+about him, usually going bare-headed. In a remarkably short time his
+lungs were healed.
+
+He was one of the most sincere tree-lovers I ever knew. About twenty
+years before his death he made choice of a plot in the Yosemite
+cemetery on the north side of the Valley, not far from the Yosemite
+Fall, and selecting a dozen or so of seedling sequoias in the Mariposa
+grove he brought them to the Valley and planted them around the spot he
+had chosen for his last rest. The ground there is gravelly and dry; by
+careful watering he finally nursed most of the seedlings into good,
+thrifty trees, and doubtless they will long shade the grave of their
+blessed lover and friend.
+
+
+
+Chapter 16
+Hetch Hetchy Valley
+
+
+Yosemite is so wonderful that we are apt to regard it as an exceptional
+creation, the only valley of its kind in the world; but Nature is not
+so poor as to have only one of anything. Several other yosemites have
+been discovered in the Sierra that occupy the same relative positions
+on the Range and were formed by the same forces in the same kind of
+granite. One of these, the Hetch Hetchy Valley, is in the Yosemite
+National Park about twenty miles from Yosemite and is easily accessible
+to all sorts of travelers by a road and trail that leaves the Big Oak
+Flat road at Bronson Meadows a few miles below Crane Flat, and to
+mountaineers by way of Yosemite Creek basin and the head of the middle
+fork of the Tuolumne.
+
+It is said to have been discovered by Joseph Screech, a hunter, in
+1850, a year before the discovery of the great Yosemite. After my first
+visit to it in the autumn of 1871, I have always called it the
+“Tuolumne Yosemite,” for it is a wonderfully exact counterpart of the
+Merced Yosemite, not only in its sublime rocks and waterfalls but in
+the gardens, groves and meadows of its flowery park-like floor. The
+floor of Yosemite is about 4000 feet above the sea; the Hetch Hetchy
+floor about 3700 feet. And as the Merced River flows through Yosemite,
+so does the Tuolumne through Hetch Hetchy. The walls of both are of
+gray granite, rise abruptly from the floor, are sculptured in the same
+style and in both every rock is a glacier monument.
+
+Standing boldly out from the south wall is a strikingly picturesque
+rock called by the Indians, Kolana, the outermost of a group 2300 feet
+high, corresponding with the Cathedral Rocks of Yosemite both in
+relative position and form. On the opposite side of the Valley, facing
+Kolana, there is a counterpart of the El Capitan that rises sheer and
+plain to a height of 1800 feet, and over its massive brow flows a
+stream which makes the most graceful fall I have ever seen. From the
+edge of the cliff to the top of an earthquake talus it is perfectly
+free in the air for a thousand feet before it is broken into cascades
+among talus boulders. It is in all its glory in June, when the snow is
+melting fast, but fades and vanishes toward the end of summer. The only
+fall I know with which it may fairly be compared is the Yosemite Bridal
+Veil; but it excels even that favorite fall both in height and
+airy-fairy beauty and behavior. Lowlanders are apt to suppose that
+mountain streams in their wild career over cliffs lose control of
+themselves and tumble in a noisy chaos of mist and spray. On the
+contrary, on no part of their travels are they more harmonious and
+self-controlled. Imagine yourself in Hetch Hetchy on a sunny day in
+June, standing waist-deep in grass and flowers (as I have often stood),
+while the great pines sway dreamily with scarcely perceptible motion.
+Looking northward across the Valley you see a plain, gray granite cliff
+rising abruptly out of the gardens and groves to a height of 1800 feet,
+and in front of it Tueeulala’s silvery scarf burning with irised
+sun-fire. In the first white outburst at the head there is abundance of
+visible energy, but it is speedily hushed and concealed in divine
+repose, and its tranquil progress to the base of the cliff is like that
+of a downy feather in a still room. Now observe the fineness and
+marvelous distinctness of the various sun-illumined fabrics into which
+the water is woven; they sift and float from form to form down the face
+of that grand gray rock in so leisurely and unconfused a manner that
+you can examine their texture, and patterns and tones of color as you
+would a piece of embroidery held in the hand. Toward the top of the
+fall you see groups of booming, comet-like masses, their solid, white
+heads separate, their tails like combed silk interlacing among delicate
+gray and purple shadows, ever forming and dissolving, worn out by
+friction in their rush through the air. Most of these vanish a few
+hundred feet below the summit, changing to varied forms of cloud-like
+drapery. Near the bottom the width of the fall has increased from about
+twenty-five feet to a hundred feet. Here it is composed of yet finer
+tissues, and is still without a trace of disorder—air, water and
+sunlight woven into stuff that spirits might wear.
+
+So fine a fall might well seem sufficient to glorify any valley; but
+here, as in Yosemite, Nature seems in nowise moderate, for a short
+distance to the eastward of Tueeulala booms and thunders the great
+Hetch Hetchy Fall, Wapama, so near that you have both of them in full
+view from the same standpoint. It is the counterpart of the Yosemite
+Fall, but has a much greater volume of water, is about 1700 feet in
+height, and appears to be nearly vertical, though considerably
+inclined, and is dashed into huge outbounding bosses of foam on
+projecting shelves and knobs. No two falls could be more
+unlike—Tueeulala out in the open sunshine descending like thistledown;
+Wapama in a jagged, shadowy gorge roaring and plundering, pounding its
+way like an earthquake avalanche.
+
+Besides this glorious pair there is a broad, massive fall on the main
+river a short distance above the head of the Valley. Its position is
+something like that of the Vernal in Yosemite, and its roar as it
+plunges into a surging trout-pool may be heard a long way, though it is
+only about twenty feet high. On Rancheria Creek, a large stream,
+corresponding in position with the Yosemite Tenaya Creek, there is a
+chain of cascades joined here and there with swift flashing plumes like
+the one between the Vernal and Nevada Falls, making magnificent shows
+as they go their glacier-sculptured way, sliding, leaping, hurrahing,
+covered with crisp clashing spray made glorious with sifting sunshine.
+And besides all these a few small streams come over the walls at wide
+intervals, leaping from ledge to ledge with birdlike song and watering
+many a hidden cliff-garden and fernery, but they are too unshowy to be
+noticed in so grand a place.
+
+The correspondence between the Hetch Hetchy walls in their trends,
+sculpture, physical structure, and general arrangement of the main
+rock-masses and those of the Yosemite Valley has excited the wondering
+admiration of every observer. We have seen that the El Capitan and
+Cathedral rocks occupy the same relative positions In both valleys; so
+also do their Yosemite points and North Domes. Again, that part of the
+Yosemite north wall immediately to the east of the Yosemite Fall has
+two horizontal benches, about 500 and 1500 feet above the floor,
+timbered with golden-cup oak. Two benches similarly situated and
+timbered occur on the same relative portion of the Hetch Hetchy north
+wall, to the east of Wapama Fall, and on no other. The Yosemite is
+bounded at the head by the great Half Dome. Hetch Hetchy is bounded in
+the same way though its head rock is incomparably less wonderful and
+sublime in form.
+
+The floor of the Valley is about three and a half miles long, and from
+a fourth to half a mile wide. The lower portion is mostly a level
+meadow about a mile long, with the trees restricted to the sides and
+the river banks, and partially separated from the main, upper, forested
+portion by a low bar of glacier-polished granite across which the river
+breaks in rapids.
+
+The principal trees are the yellow and sugar pines, digger pine,
+incense cedar, Douglas spruce, silver fir, the California and
+golden-cup oaks, balsam cottonwood, Nuttall’s flowering dogwood, alder,
+maple, laurel, tumion, etc. The most abundant and influential are the
+great yellow or silver pines like those of Yosemite, the tallest over
+two hundred feet in height, and the oaks assembled in magnificent
+groves with massive rugged trunks four to six feet in diameter, and
+broad, shady, wide-spreading heads. The shrubs forming conspicuous
+flowery clumps and tangles are manzanita, azalea, spiræa, brier-rose,
+several species of ceanothus, calycanthus, philadelphus, wild cherry,
+etc.; with abundance of showy and fragrant herbaceous plants growing
+about them or out in the open in beds by themselves—lilies, Mariposa
+tulips, brodiaeas, orchids, iris, spraguea, draperia, collomia,
+collinsia, castilleja, nemophila, larkspur, columbine, goldenrods,
+sunflowers, mints of many species, honeysuckle, etc. Many fine ferns
+dwell here also, especially the beautiful and interesting
+rock-ferns—pellaea, and cheilanthes of several species—fringing and
+rosetting dry rock-piles and ledges; woodwardia and asplenium on damp
+spots with fronds six or seven feet high; the delicate maiden-hair in
+mossy nooks by the falls, and the sturdy, broad-shouldered pteris
+covering nearly all the dry ground beneath the oaks and pines.
+
+It appears, therefore, that Hetch Hetchy Valley, far from being a
+plain, common, rock-bound meadow, as many who have not seen it seem to
+suppose, is a grand landscape garden, one of Nature’s rarest and most
+precious mountain temples. As in Yosemite, the sublime rocks of its
+walls seem to glow with life, whether leaning back in repose or
+standing erect in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and
+calms alike, their brows in the sky, their feet set in the groves and
+gay flowery meadows, while birds, bees, and butterflies help the river
+and waterfalls to stir all the air into music—things frail and fleeting
+and types of permanence meeting here and blending, just as they do in
+Yosemite, to draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with
+her.
+
+Sad to say, this most precious and sublime feature of the Yosemite
+National Park, one of the greatest of all our natural resources for the
+uplifting joy and peace and health of the people, is in danger of being
+dammed and made into a reservoir to help supply San Francisco with
+water and light, thus flooding it from wall to wall and burying its
+gardens and groves one or two hundred feet deep. This grossly
+destructive commercial scheme has long been planned and urged (though
+water as pure and abundant can be got from outside of the people’s
+park, in a dozen different places), because of the comparative
+cheapness of the dam and of the territory which it is sought to divert
+from the great uses to which it was dedicated in the Act of 1890
+establishing the Yosemite National Park.
+
+The making of gardens and parks goes on with civilization all over the
+world, and they increase both in size and number as their value is
+recognized. Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in
+and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body
+and soul alike. This natural beauty-hunger is made manifest in the
+little window-sill gardens of the poor, though perhaps only a geranium
+slip in a broken cup, as well as in the carefully tended rose and lily
+gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city parks and botanical
+gardens, and in our magnificent National parks—the Yellowstone,
+Yosemite, Sequoia, etc.—Nature’s sublime wonderlands, the admiration
+and joy of the world. Nevertheless, like anything else worth while,
+from the very beginning, however well guarded, they have always been
+subject to attack by despoiling gainseekers and mischief-makers of
+every degree from Satan to Senators, eagerly trying to make everything
+immediately and selfishly commercial, with schemes disguised in
+smug-smiling philanthropy, industriously, shampiously crying,
+“Conservation, conservation, panutilization,” that man and beast may be
+fed and the dear Nation made great. Thus long ago a few enterprising
+merchants utilized the Jerusalem temple as a place of business instead
+of a place of prayer, changing money, buying and selling cattle and
+sheep and doves; and earlier still, the first forest reservation,
+including only one tree, was likewise despoiled. Ever since the
+establishment of the Yosemite National Park, strife has been going on
+around its borders and I suppose this will go on as part of the
+universal battle between right and wrong, however much its boundaries
+may be shorn, or its wild beauty destroyed.
+
+The first application to the Government by the San Francisco
+Supervisors for the commercial use of Lake Eleanor and the Hetch Hetchy
+Valley was made in 1903, and on December 22nd of that year it was
+denied by the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Hitchcock, who truthfully
+said:
+
+Presumably the Yosemite National Park was created such by law because
+within its boundaries, inclusive alike of its beautiful small lakes,
+like Eleanor, and its majestic wonders, like Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite
+Valley. It is the aggregation of such natural scenic features that
+makes the Yosemite Park a wonderland which the Congress of the United
+States sought by law to reserve for all coming time as nearly as
+practicable in the condition fashioned by the hand of the Creator—a
+worthy object of national pride and a source of healthful pleasure and
+rest for the thousands of people who may annually sojourn there during
+the heated months.
+
+In 1907 when Mr. Garfield became Secretary of the Interior the
+application was renewed and granted; but under his successor, Mr.
+Fisher, the matter has been referred to a Commission, which as this
+volume goes to press still has it under consideration.
+
+The most delightful and wonderful camp grounds in the Park are its
+three great valleys—Yosemite, Hetch Hetchy, and Upper Tuolumne; and
+they are also the most important places with reference to their
+positions relative to the other great features—the Merced and Tuolumne
+Cañons, and the High Sierra peaks and glaciers, etc., at the head of
+the rivers. The main part of the Tuolumne Valley is a spacious flowery
+lawn four or five miles long, surrounded by magnificent snowy
+mountains, slightly separated from other beautiful meadows, which
+together make a series about twelve miles in length, the highest
+reaching to the feet of Mount Dana, Mount Gibbs, Mount Lyell and Mount
+McClure. It is about 8500 feet above the sea, and forms the grand
+central High Sierra camp ground from which excursions are made to the
+noble mountains, domes, glaciers, etc.; across the Range to the Mono
+Lake and volcanoes and down the Tuolumne Cañon to Hetch Hetchy. Should
+Hetch Hetchy be submerged for a reservoir, as proposed, not only would
+it be utterly destroyed, but the sublime cañon way to the heart of the
+High Sierra would be hopelessly blocked and the great camping ground,
+as the watershed of a city drinking system, virtually would be closed
+to the public. So far as I have learned, few of all the thousands who
+have seen the park and seek rest and peace in it are in favor of this
+outrageous scheme.
+
+One of my later visits to the Valley was made in the autumn of 1907
+with the late William Keith, the artist. The leaf-colors were then
+ripe, and the great godlike rocks in repose seemed to glow with life.
+The artist, under their spell, wandered day after day along the river
+and through the groves and gardens, studying the wonderful scenery;
+and, after making about forty sketches, declared with enthusiasm that
+although its walls were less sublime in height, in picturesque beauty
+and charm Hetch Hetchy surpassed even Yosemite.
+
+That any one would try to destroy such a place seems incredible; but
+sad experience shows that there are people good enough and bad enough
+for anything. The proponents of the dam scheme bring forward a lot of
+bad arguments to prove that the only righteous thing to do with the
+people’s parks is to destroy them bit by bit as they are able. Their
+arguments are curiously like those of the devil, devised for the
+destruction of the first garden—so much of the very best Eden fruit
+going to waste; so much of the best Tuolumne water and Tuolumne scenery
+going to waste. Few of their statements are even partly true, and all
+are misleading.
+
+Thus, Hetch Hetchy, they say, is a “low-lying meadow.” On the contrary,
+it is a high-lying natural landscape garden, as the photographic
+illustrations show.
+
+“It is a common minor feature, like thousands of others.” On the
+contrary it is a very uncommon feature; after Yosemite, the rarest and
+in many ways the most important in the National Park.
+
+“Damming and submerging it 175 feet deep would enhance its beauty by
+forming a crystal-clear lake.” Landscape gardens, places of recreation
+and worship, are never made beautiful by destroying and burying them.
+The beautiful sham lake, forsooth, should be only an eyesore, a dismal
+blot on the landscape, like many others to be seen in the Sierra. For,
+instead of keeping it at the same level all the year, allowing Nature
+centuries of time to make new shores, it would, of course, be full only
+a month or two in the spring, when the snow is melting fast; then it
+would be gradually drained, exposing the slimy sides of the basin and
+shallower parts of the bottom, with the gathered drift and waste, death
+and decay of the upper basins, caught here instead of being swept on to
+decent natural burial along the banks of the river or in the sea. Thus
+the Hetch Hetchy dam-lake would be only a rough imitation of a natural
+lake for a few of the spring months, an open sepulcher for the others.
+
+“Hetch Hetchy water is the purest of all to be found in the Sierra,
+unpolluted, and forever unpollutable.” On the contrary, excepting that
+of the Merced below Yosemite, it is less pure than that of most of the
+other Sierra streams, because of the sewerage of camp grounds draining
+into it, especially of the Big Tuolumne Meadows camp ground, occupied
+by hundreds of tourists and mountaineers, with their animals, for
+months every summer, soon to be followed by thousands from all the
+world.
+
+These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to
+have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes
+to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar.
+
+Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals
+and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the
+heart of man.
+
+
+
+Appendix A
+Legislation About the Yosemite
+
+
+In the year 1864, Congress passed the following act:—
+
+ACT OF JUNE 30, 1864 (13 STAT., 325).
+
+An Act Authorizing a grant to the State of California of the “Yo-Semite
+Valley,” and of the land embracing the “Mariposa Big Tree Grove.”
+
+“_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
+United States of America, in Congress assembled,_ That there shall be,
+and is hereby, granted to the State of California, the ‘Cleft’ or
+‘Gorge’ in the Granite Peak of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, situated in
+the county of Mariposa, in the State aforesaid, and the headwaters of
+the Merced River, and known as the Yosemite Valley, with its branches
+and spurs, in estimated length fifteen miles, and in average width one
+mile back from the main edge of the precipice, on each side of the
+Valley, with the stipulation, nevertheless, that the said State shall
+accept this grant upon the express conditions that the premises shall
+be held for public use, resort, and recreation; shall be inalienable
+for all time; but leases not exceeding ten years may be granted for
+portions of said premises. All incomes derived from leases of
+privileges to be expended in the preservation and improvement of the
+property, or the roads leading thereto; the boundaries to be
+established at the cost of said State by the United States
+Surveyor-General of California, whose official plat, when affirmed by
+the Commissioner of the General Land Office, shall constitute the
+evidence of the locus, extent, and limits of the said Cleft or Gorge;
+the premises to be managed by the Governor of the State, with eight
+other Commissioners, to be appointed by the Executive of California,
+and who shall receive no compensation for their services.
+
+“Sec. 2. _And be it further enacted,_ That there shall likewise be, and
+there is hereby, granted to the said State of California, the tracts
+embracing what is known as the ‘Mariposa Big Tree Grove,’ not to exceed
+the area of four sections, and to be taken in legal subdivisions of
+one-quarter section each, with the like stipulations as expressed in
+the first section of this Act as to the State’s acceptance, with like
+conditions as in the first section of this Act as to inalienability,
+yet with the same lease privileges; the income to be expended in the
+preservation, improvement, and protection of the property, the premises
+to be managed by Commissioners, as stipulated in the first section of
+this Act, and to be taken in legal subdivisions as aforesaid; and the
+official plat of the United States Surveyor-General, when affirmed by
+the Commissioner of the General Land Office, to be the evidence of the
+locus of the said Mariposa Big Tree Grove.”
+
+This important act was approved by the President, June 30, 1864, and
+shortly after the Governor of California, F. F. Low, issued a
+proclamation taking possession of the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa
+grove of Big Trees, in the name and on behalf of the State, appointing
+commissioners to manage them, and warning all persons against
+trespassing or settling there without authority, and especially
+forbidding the cutting of timber and other injurious acts.
+
+The first Board of Commissioners were F. Law Olmsted, J. D. Whitney,
+William Ashburner, I. W. Raymond, E. S. Holden, Alexander Deering,
+George W. Coulter, and Galen Clark.
+
+ACT OF OCTOBER 1, 1890 (26 STAT., 650).
+
+[Footnote: Sections 1 and 2 of this act pertain to the Yosemite
+National Park, while section 3 sets apart General Grant National Park,
+and also a portion of Sequoia National Park.]
+
+An Act To set apart certain tracts of land in the State of California
+as forest reservations.
+
+“_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
+United States of America in Congress assembled,_ That the tracts of
+land in the State of California known as described as follows:
+Commencing at the northwest corner of township two north, range
+nineteen east Mount Diablo meridian, thence eastwardly on the line
+between townships two and three north, ranges twenty-four and
+twenty-five east; thence southwardly on the line between ranges
+twenty-four and twenty-five east to the Mount Diablo base line; thence
+eastwardly on said base line to the corner to township one south,
+ranges twenty-five and twenty-six east; thence southwardly on the line
+between ranges twenty-five and twenty-six east to the southeast corner
+of township two south, range twenty-five east; thence eastwardly on the
+line between townships two and three south, range twenty-six east to
+the corner to townships two and three south, ranges twenty-six and
+twenty-seven east; thence southwardly on the line between ranges
+twenty-six and twenty-seven east to the first standard parallel south;
+thence westwardly on the first standard parallel south to the southwest
+corner of township four south, range nineteen east; thence northwardly
+on the line between ranges eighteen and nineteen east to the northwest
+corner of township two south, range nineteen east; thence westwardly on
+the line between townships one and two south to the southwest corner of
+township one south, range nineteen east; thence northwardly on the line
+between ranges eighteen and nineteen east to the northwest corner of
+township two north, range nineteen east, the place of beginning, are
+hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under
+the laws of the United States, and set apart as reserved forest lands;
+and all persons who shall locate or settle upon, or occupy the same or
+any part thereof, except as hereinafter provided, shall be considered
+trespassers and removed therefrom: _Provided, however,_ That nothing in
+this act shall be construed as in anywise affecting the grant of lands
+made to the State of California by virtue of the act entitled, ‘An act
+authorizing a grant to the State of California of the Yosemite Valley,
+and of the land embracing the Mariposa Big-Tree Grove,’ appeared June
+thirtieth, eighteen hundred and sixty-four; or as affecting any
+bona-fide entry of land made within the limits above described under
+any law of the United States prior to the approval of this act.
+
+“Sec. 2. That said reservation shall be under the exclusive control of
+the Secretary of the Interior, whose duty it shall be, as soon as
+practicable, to make and publish such rules and regulations as he may
+deem necessary or proper for the care and management of the same. Such
+regulations shall provide for the preservation from injury of all
+timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders within said
+reservation, and their retention in their natural condition. The
+Secretary may, in his discretion, grant leases for building purposes
+for terms not exceeding ten years of small parcels of ground not
+exceeding five acres; at such places in said reservation as shall
+require the erection of buildings for the accommodation of visitors;
+all of the proceeds of said leases and other revenues that may be
+derived from any source connected with said reservation to be expended
+under his direction in the management of the same and the construction
+of roads and paths therein. He shall provide against the wanton
+destruction of the fish, and game found within said reservation, and
+against their capture or destruction, for the purposes of merchandise
+or profit. He shall also cause all persons trespassing upon the same
+after the passage of this act to be removed therefrom, and, generally,
+shall be authorized to take all such measures as shall be necessary or
+proper to fully carry out the objects and purposes of this act.
+
+“Sec. 3. There shall also be and is hereby reserved and withdrawn from
+settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and
+shall be set apart as reserved forest lands, as herein before provided,
+and subject to all the limitations and provisions herein contained, the
+following additional lands, to wit: Township seventeen south, range
+thirty east of the Mount Diablo meridian, excepting sections
+thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, and thirty-four of said township,
+included in a previous bill. And there is also reserved and withdrawn
+from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United
+States, and set apart as forest lands, subject to like limitations,
+conditions, and provisions, all of townships fifteen and sixteen south,
+of ranges twenty-nine and thirty east of the Mount Diablo meridian. And
+there is also hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy,
+or sale under the laws of the United states, and set apart as reserved
+forest lands under like limitations, restrictions, and provisions,
+sections five and six in township fourteen south, range twenty-eight
+east of Mount Diablo meridian, and also sections thirty-one and
+thirty-two of township thirteen south, range twenty-eight east of the
+same meridian. Nothing in this act shall authorize rules or contracts
+touching the protection and improvement of said reservations, beyond
+the sums that may be received by the Secretary of the Interior under
+the foregoing provisions, or authorize any charge against the Treasury
+of the United States.”
+
+ACT OF THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, APPROVED MARCH 3,
+1905.
+
+“Sec. 1. The State of California does hereby recede and regrant unto
+the United States of America the ‘cleft’ or ‘gorge’ in the granite peak
+of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, situated in the county of Mariposa,
+State of California, and the headwaters of the Merced River, and known
+as the Yosemite Valley, with its branches and spurs, granted unto the
+State of California in trust for public use, resort, and recreation by
+the act of Congress entitled, ‘An act authorizing a grant to the State
+of California of the Yosemite Valley and of the land embracing the
+Mariposa Big Tree Grove,’ approved June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and
+sixty-four; and the State of California does hereby relinquish unto the
+United States of America and resign the trusts created and granted by
+the said act of Congress.
+
+“Sec. 2. The State of California does hereby recede and regrant unto
+the United States of America the tracts embracing what is known as the
+‘Mariposa Big Tree Grove,’ planted unto the State of California in
+trust for public use, resort, and recreation by the act of Congress
+referred to in section one of this act, and the State of California
+does hereby relinquish unto the United States of America and resign the
+trusts created and granted by the said act of Congress.
+
+“Sec. 3. This act shall take effect from and after acceptance by the
+United States of America of the recessions and regrants herein made
+thereby forever releasing the State of California from further cost of
+maintaining the said premises, the same to be held for all time by the
+United States of America for public use, resort, and recreation and
+imposing on the United States of America the cost of maintaining the
+same as a national park: _Provided, however,_ That the recession and
+regrant hereby made shall not affect vested rights and interests of
+third persons.”
+
+
+
+Appendix B
+Table of Distances
+
+
+From the Guardian’s office, in the village, the distances to various
+points are in miles as follows:
+
+                                              _Miles_.
+  Bridal Veil Fall                             4.04
+  Cascade Falls                                7.67
+  Cloud’s Rest, Summit                        11.81
+  Columbia Rock, on Eagle Peak Trail           1.98
+  Dana, Mt., Summit                           40.34
+  Eagle Peak                                   6.59
+  El Capitan Bridge                            3.63
+  Glacier Point, direct trail                  4.45
+  Glacier Point, by Nevada Falls              16.98
+  Lyell, Mt., Summit                          38.20
+  Merced Bridge                                2.03
+  Mirror Lake, by Hunt’s avenue                2.91
+  Nevada Fall (Hotel)                          4.63
+  Nevada Fall, Bridge above                    5.45
+  Pohono Bridge                                5.29
+  Register Rock                                3.24
+  Ribbon Fall                                  3.99
+  Rocky Point (base of Three Brothers)         1.45
+  Tenayah Creek Bridge                         2.26
+  Tenayah Lake                                16.00
+  Yosemite Falls, foot                         0.90
+  Yosemite Falls, foot Upper Fall              2.67
+  Yosemite Falls, top                          4.33
+  Soda Springs (Eagle Peak Trail)             24.50
+  Sentinel Dome                                5.57
+  Union Point, on Glacier Point Trail          3.13
+  Vernal Fall                                  3.50
+
+
+
+Appendix C
+Maximum Rates for Transportation
+
+
+The following rates for transportation in and about the Valley have
+been established by the Board of Commissioners:
+
+SADDLE-HORSES
+
+  _From              Route to                                       Amount_
+
+  Valley          Glacier Point and Sentinel Dome, and return,     $3.00
+                  direct, same day
+  Valley          Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, and Fissures,       3.75
+                  and return, direct, same day
+  Valley          Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, and Fissures,       3.00
+                  passing night at Glacier Point
+  Valley          Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, Nevada Fall,        3.00
+                  and Casa Nevada, passing night at Casa Nevada
+  Valley          Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, Nevada Fall,        4.00
+                  Vernal Fall, and thence to Valley same day
+  Glacier Point   Valley direct                                     2.00
+  Glacier Point   Sentinel Dome, Nevada Fall, and Casa Nevada,      2.00
+                  passing night at Casa Nevada
+  Glacier Point   Sentinel Dome, Nevada Fall, Vernal Fall,          3.00
+                  and thence to Valley same day
+  Valley          Summits, Vernal and Nevada Falls, direct,         3.00
+                  and return to Valley same day
+  Valley          Glacier Point by Casa Nevada, passing night       3.00
+                  at Glacier Point
+  Valley          Summits, Vernal and Nevada Falls, Sentinel Dome,  4.00
+                  Glacier Point, and thence to Valley same day
+  Valley          Cloud’s Rest and return to Casa Nevada            3.00
+  Valley          Cloud’s Rest and return to Valley same day        5.00
+  Casa Nevada     Cloud’s Rest and return to Casa Nevada or         3.00
+                  Valley same day
+  Casa Nevada     Valley direct                                     2.00
+  Casa Nevada     Nevada Fall, Sentinel Dome, and Glacier Point,    2.00
+                  passing night at Glacier Point
+  Valley          Nevada Fall, Sentinel Dome, Glacier Point,        3.00
+                  and Valley same day
+               Upper Yosemite Fall, Eagle Peak, and return          3.00
+               Charge for guide (including horse), when furnished   3.00
+               Saddle-horses, on level of Valley, per day           2.50
+
+1. The above charges do not include feed for horses when passing night
+at Casa Nevada or Glacier Point.
+
+2. Where Valley is specified as starting-point, the above rates prevail
+from any hotel in Valley, or from the foot of any trail.
+
+3. Any shortening of above trips, without proportionate reduction of
+rates, shall be at the option of those hiring horses.
+
+4. Trips other than those above specified shall be subject to special
+arrangement between letter and hirer.
+
+CARRIAGES
+  _From              Route to                                     
+  Amount_
+  Hotels    Mirror Lake and return, direct                        
+  $1.00 Hotels    Mirror Lake and return by Tissiack Avenue            
+    1.25 Hotels    Mirror Lake and return to foot of Trail, to Vernal  
+     1.00 and Nevada Falls Hotels    Bridal Veil Falls and return,
+  direct                    1.00 Hotels    Pohono Bridge, down either
+  side of Valley, and return   1.50 on opposite side, stopping at
+  Yosemite and Bridal Veil Falls Hotels    Cascade Falls, down either
+  side of Valley, and return   2.25 on opposite side, stopping at
+  Yosemite and Bridal Veil Falls Hotels    Artist Point and return,
+  direct, stopping at Bridal     2.00 Veil Falls Hotels    New
+  Inspiration Point and return, direct, stopping at   2.00 Bridal Veil
+  Falls Grand Round Drive, including Yosemite and Bridal Veil   2.50
+  Falls, excluding Lake and Cascades Grand Round Drive, including
+  Yosemite and Bridal Veil   3.50 Falls, Lake, and Cascades
+
+1. When the value of the seats hired in any vehicle shall exceed $15
+for a two-horse team, or $25 for a four-horse team, _for any trip_ in
+the above schedule, the persons hiring the seats shall have the
+privilege of paying no more than the aggregate sums of $15 and $25 _per
+trip_ for a two-horse and four-horse team, respectively.
+
+2. If saddle-horses should be substituted for any of the above carriage
+trips, carriage rates will apply to each horse. In no case shall the
+_per diem_ charge of $2.50 for each saddle-horse, on level of Valley,
+be exceeded.
+
+Any excess of the above rates, as well as any extortion, incivility,
+misrepresentation, or the riding of unsafe animals, should be promptly
+reported at the Guardian’s office.
+
+
+
+
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