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diff --git a/7091-h/7091-h.htm b/7091-h/7091-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2d1f566 --- /dev/null +++ b/7091-h/7091-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6752 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Yosemite, by John Muir</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Yosemite, by John Muir</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Yosemite</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: John Muir</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 9, 2003 [eBook #7091]<br /> +[Most recently updated: June 29, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Dan Anderson and Andrew Sly</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOSEMITE ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:60%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="cover" /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<h1>The Yosemite</h1> + +<h2>by John Muir</h2> + +<p class="center"> +Affectionately dedicated<br/> +to my friend,<br/> +<big>Robert Underwood Johnson</big>,<br/> +faithful<br/> +lover and defender<br/> +of our glorious forests<br/> +and originator of<br/> +the Yosemite National Park. +</p> + +<h3>Acknowledgment</h3> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 1.</td><td> <a href="#chap01">The Approach to the Valley</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 2.</td><td> <a href="#chap02">Winter Storms and Spring Floods</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 3.</td><td> <a href="#chap03">Snow-Storms</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 4.</td><td> <a href="#chap04">Snow Banners</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 5.</td><td> <a href="#chap05">The Trees of the Valley</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 6.</td><td> <a href="#chap06">The Forest Trees in General</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 7.</td><td> <a href="#chap07">The Big Trees</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 8.</td><td> <a href="#chap08">The Flowers</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 9.</td><td> <a href="#chap09">The Birds</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 10.</td><td> <a href="#chap10">The South Dome</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 11.</td><td> <a href="#chap11">The Ancient Yosemite Glaciers: How the Valley Was Formed</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 12.</td><td> <a href="#chap12">How Best to Spend One’s Yosemite Time</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 13.</td><td> <a href="#chap13">Early History of the Valley</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 14.</td><td> <a href="#chap14">Lamon</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 15.</td><td> <a href="#chap15">Galen Clark</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Chapter 16.</td><td> <a href="#chap16">Hetch Hetchy Valley</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Appendix A.</td><td> <a href="#chap17">Legislation About the Yosemite</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Appendix B.</td><td> <a href="#chap18">Table of Distances</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Appendix C.</td><td> <a href="#chap19">Maximum Rates for Transportation</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>Chapter 1<br/> +The Approach to the Valley</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Sierra From The West</h3> + +<p> +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 +<i>Compositœ</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>Characteristics Of The Cañons</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Incomparable Yosemite</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Approach To The Valley</h3> + +<p> +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 (<i>Abies magnifica</i>) 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” (<i>Sequoia gigantea</i>) 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. +</p> + +<h3>The First View: The Bridal Veil</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>General Features Of The Valley</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Upper Cañons</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>Natural Features Near The Valley</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>Down The Yosemite Creek</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Yosemite Fall</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>A Wonderful Ascent</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Grandeur Of The Yosemite Fall</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Nevada Fall</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Vernal Fall</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Illilouette Fall</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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, <i>Rubus</i> 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. +</p> + +<h3>The Minor Falls</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Beauty Of The Rainbows</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>An Unexpected Adventure</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>Climate And Weather</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>Winter Beauty Of The Valley</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>Exploring An Ice Cone</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>Chapter 2<br/> +Winter Storms and Spring Floods</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>An Extraordinary Storm And Flood</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>Chapter 3<br/> +Snow-Storms</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>Avalanches</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>A Ride On An Avalanche</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Streams In Other Seasons</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>Chapter 4<br/> +Snow Banners</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>A Wonderful Winter Scene</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>Earthquake Storms</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>down</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Wouf!</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>Chapter 5<br/> +The Trees of the Valley</h2> + +<p> +The most influential of the Valley trees is the yellow pine (<i>Pinus +ponderosa</i>). 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. +</p> + +<p> +Unfortunately there are but few sugar pines in the Valley, though in the +King’s yosemite they are in glorious abundance. The incense cedar +(<i>Libocedrus decurrens</i>) 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +After the conifers, the most important of the Yosemite trees are the oaks, two +species; the California live-oak (<i>Quercus agrifolia</i>), 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. +</p> + +<p> +The other species is the mountain live-oak, or goldcup oak (<i>Quercus +chrysolepis</i>), 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 (<i>Abies concolor</i>), +and superb forests of the magnificent species round the rim of the Valley. +</p> + +<p> +On the tops of the domes is found the sturdy, storm-enduring red cedar +(<i>Juniperus occidentalis</i>). 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. +</p> + +<p> +The principal river-side trees are poplar, alder, willow, broad-leaved maple, +and Nuttall’s flowering dogwood. The poplar (<i>Populus trichocarpa</i>), +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Scattered here and there are a few other trees, mostly small—the mountain +mahogany, cherry, chestnut-oak, and laurel. The California nutmeg (<i>Torreya +californica</i>), a handsome evergreen belonging to the yew family, forms small +groves near the cascades a mile or two below the foot of the Valley. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>Chapter 6<br/> +The Forest Trees in General</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +One will have no difficulty in knowing the Nut Pine (<i>Pinus Sabiniana</i>), +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 <i>Pinus attenuata</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Sugar Pine, King Of Pine Trees</h3> + +<p> +Of all the world’s eighty or ninety species of pine trees, the Sugar Pine +(<i>Pinus Lambertiana</i>) 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Yellow Or Silver Pine</h3> + +<p> +The Silver Pine (<i>Pinus ponderosa</i>), 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Douglas Spruce</h3> + +<p> +The Douglas Spruce (<i>Pseudotsuga Douglasii</i>) 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Incense Cedar</h3> + +<p> +Incense Cedar (<i>Libocedrus decurrens</i>), 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Silver Firs</h3> + +<p> +We come now to the most regularly planted and most clearly defined of the main +forest belts, composed almost exclusively of two Silver Firs—<i>Abies +concolor</i> and <i>Abies magnifica</i>—extending with but little +interruption 450 miles at an elevation of from 5000 to 9000 feet above the sea. +In its youth <i>A. concolor</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +The magnificent Silver Fir, or California Red Fir (<i>Abies magnifica</i>) 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. +</p> + +<h3>The Two-Leaved Pine</h3> + +<p> +The Two-Leaved Pine (<i>Pinus contorta</i>, var. <i>Murrayana</i>), 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Mountain Pine</h3> + +<p> +The Mountain Pine (<i>Pinus monticola</i>) 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. +</p> + +<h3>The Western Juniper</h3> + +<p> +The Juniper or Red Cedar (<i>Juniperus occidentalis</i>) 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Mountain Hemlock</h3> + +<p> +As the juniper is the most stubborn and unshakeable of trees in the Yosemite +region, the Mountain Hemlock (<i>Tsuga Mertensiana</i>) 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. +</p> + +<h3>The White-Bark Pine</h3> + +<p> +The Dwarf Pine, or White-Bark Pine (<i>Pinus albicaulis</i>), 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Nut Pine</h3> + +<p> +In going across the Range from the Tuolumne River Soda Springs to Mono Lake one +makes the acquaintance of the curious little Nut Pine (<i>Pinus +monophylla</i>). 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>Chapter 7<br/> +The Big Trees</h2> + +<p> +Between the heavy pine and silver fir zones towers the Big Tree (<i>Sequoia +gigantea</i>), 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>more</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>mer de +glace</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Sequoia sempervirens</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Sequoia +gigantea</i> is made sure. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>Chapter 8<br/> +The Flowers</h2> + +<p> +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, <i>Pentstemon lutea</i>, and <i>P. Douglasii</i> +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 <i>Primula suffrutescens</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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, <i>C. +cœruleus</i> and <i>C. nudus</i>, dwell in springy places on the Wawona +road a few miles beyond the brink of the walls. +</p> + +<p> +The snow plant (<i>Sarcodes sanguinea</i>) 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 (<i>pardalinum</i> and <i>parvum</i>), 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. +</p> + +<p> +The principal shrubs are manzanita and ceanothus, several species of each, +azalea, <i>Rubus nutkanus</i>, brier rose, choke-cherry philadelphus, +calycanthus, garrya, rhamnus, etc. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>C. integerrimus</i>, 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, <i>C. +prostrates</i> and <i>C. procumbens</i>, spread smooth, blue-flowered mats and +rugs beneath the pines, and offer fine beds to tired mountaineers. The +commonest species, <i>C. cordulatus</i>, 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 <i>R. +blanda</i>, makes large thickets deliciously fragrant, especially on a dewy +morning and after showers. Not far from these azalea and rose gardens, <i>Rubus +nutkanus</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. <i>Woodwardia radicans</i> 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 <i>Pteris +aquilina</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +Of the five species of pellæa, <i>P. Breweri</i> 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 <i>Cryptogramma +acrostichoides</i> and <i>Phegopteris alpestris</i>, 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. <i>Pellaea Bridgesii</i>, 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 <i>P. densa</i> 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—<i>C. +californica</i>, <i>C. gracillima</i>, and <i>myriophylla</i>, 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, <i>Gymnogramme triangularis</i>, and +rarely by the curious little <i>Botrychium simplex</i>, some of them less than +an inch high. The finest of all the rock ferns is <i>Adiantum pedatum</i>, +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>Chapter 9<br/> +The Birds</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>Chapter 10<br/> +The South Dome</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>Chapter 11<br/> +The Ancient Yosemite Glaciers:<br/> +How the Valley Was Formed</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>Chapter 12<br/> +How Best to Spend One’s Yosemite Time</h2> + +<h3>One-Day Excursions<br/> +No. 1.</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>One-Day Excursions<br/> +No. 2.</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>Two-Day Excursions<br/> +No. 1.</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>Two-Day Excursions<br/> +No. 2.</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<h3>A Three-Day Excursion</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>The Upper Tuolumne Excursion</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h3>Other Trips From The Valley</h3> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Here are a few specimens selected from my own short trips which walkers may +find useful. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>Chapter 13<br/> +Early History Of The Valley</h2> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>Chapter 14<br/> +Lamon</h2> + +<p> +The good old pioneer, Lamon, was the first of all the early Yosemite settlers +who cordially and unreservedly adopted the Valley as his home. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +He liked to describe the great flood of 1867, the year before I reached +California, when all the walls were striped with thundering waterfalls. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>Chapter 15<br/> +Galen Clark</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>Chapter 16<br/> +Hetch Hetchy Valley</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>Appendix A<br/> +Legislation About the Yosemite</h2> + +<p> +In the year 1864, Congress passed the following act:— <br/><br/> +ACT OF JUNE 30, 1864 (13 STAT., 325). <br/><br/> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the +United States of America, in Congress assembled,</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Sec. 2. <i>And be it further enacted,</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +ACT OF OCTOBER 1, 1890 (26 STAT., 650). +</p> + +<p> +[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.] +</p> + +<p> +An Act To set apart certain tracts of land in the State of California as forest +reservations. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the +United States of America in Congress assembled,</i> 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: <i>Provided, +however,</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +ACT OF THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, APPROVED MARCH 3, 1905. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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: <i>Provided, +however,</i> That the recession and regrant hereby made shall not affect vested +rights and interests of third persons.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>Appendix B<br/> +Table of Distances</h2> + +<p> +From the Guardian’s office, in the village, the distances to various +points are in miles as follows: +</p> + +<pre> + <i>Miles</i>. + 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 +</pre> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>Appendix C<br/> +Maximum Rates for Transportation</h2> + +<p> +The following rates for transportation in and about the Valley have been +established by the Board of Commissioners: +</p> + +<pre> +SADDLE-HORSES + + <i>From Route to Amount</i> + + 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 +</pre> + +<p> +1. The above charges do not include feed for horses when passing night at Casa +Nevada or Glacier Point. +</p> + +<p> +2. Where Valley is specified as starting-point, the above rates prevail from +any hotel in Valley, or from the foot of any trail. +</p> + +<p> +3. Any shortening of above trips, without proportionate reduction of rates, +shall be at the option of those hiring horses. +</p> + +<p> +4. Trips other than those above specified shall be subject to special +arrangement between letter and hirer. +</p> + +<pre> +CARRIAGES + + <i>From Route to Amount</i> + + 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 +</pre> + +<p> +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, <i>for any trip</i> 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 <i>per trip</i> for a two-horse and +four-horse team, respectively. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>per diem</i> +charge of $2.50 for each saddle-horse, on level of Valley, be exceeded. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOSEMITE ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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