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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Yosemite, by John Muir
+(#2 in our series by John Muir)
+
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+Title: The Yosemite
+
+Author: John Muir
+
+Release Date: December, 2004  [EBook #7091]
+[This file was first posted on March 9, 2003]
+[Date last updated: August 28, 2006]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE YOSEMITE ***
+
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dan Anderson and Andrew Sly.
+Thanks to the John Muir Exhibit for making this eBook available.
+http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/
+
+
+
+The Yosemite
+
+by John Muir
+
+
+
+Affectionately dedicated to my friend,
+Robert Underwood Johnson,
+faithful lover and defender of our glorious forests
+and originator of the Yosemite National Park.
+
+
+Acknowledgment
+
+On the early history of Yosemite the writer is indebted to Prof. J. D.
+Whitney for quotations from his volume entitled "Yosemite Guide-Book,"
+and to Dr. Bunnell for extracts from his interesting volume entitled
+"Discovery of the Yosemite."
+
+
+Contents
+
+   1. The Approach to the Valley
+   2. Winter Storms and Spring Floods
+   3. Snow-Storms
+   4. Snow Banners
+   5. The Trees of the Valley
+   6. The Forest Trees in General
+   7. The Big Trees
+   8. The Flowers
+   9. The Birds
+  10. The South Dome
+  11. The Ancient Yosemite Glaciers: How the Valley Was Formed
+  12. How Best to Spend One's Yosemite Time
+  13. Early History of the Valley
+  14. Lamon
+  15. Galen Clark
+  16. Hetch Hetchy Valley
+  Appendix A. Legislation About the Yosemite
+  Appendix B. Table of Distances
+  Appendix C. Maximum Rates for Transportation
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 1
+
+The Approach to the Valley
+
+
+When I set out on the long excursion that finally led to California I
+wandered afoot and alone, from Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico, with a
+plant-press on my back, holding a generally southward course, like the
+birds when they are going from summer to winter. From the west coast
+of Florida I crossed the gulf to Cuba, enjoyed the rich tropical flora
+there for a few months, intending to go thence to the north end of South
+America, make my way through the woods to the headwaters of the Amazon,
+and float down that grand river to the ocean. But I was unable to find a
+ship bound for South America--fortunately perhaps, for I had incredibly
+little money for so long a trip and had not yet fully recovered from
+a fever caught in the Florida swamps. Therefore I decided to visit
+California for a year or two to see its wonderful flora and the famous
+Yosemite Valley. All the world was before me and every day was a
+holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of the world's
+wildernesses I first should wander.
+
+Arriving by the Panama steamer, I stopped one day in San Francisco and
+then inquired for the nearest way out of town. "But where do you want to
+go?" asked the man to whom I had applied for this important information.
+"To any place that is wild," I said. This reply startled him. He seemed
+to fear I might be crazy and therefore the sooner I was out of town the
+better, so he directed me to the Oakland ferry.
+
+So on the first of April, 1868, I set out afoot for Yosemite. It was the
+bloom-time of the year over the lowlands and coast ranges the landscapes
+of the Santa Clara Valley were fairly drenched with sunshine, all the
+air was quivering with the songs of the meadow-larks, and the hills were
+so covered with flowers that they seemed to be painted. Slow indeed was
+my progress through these glorious gardens, the first of the California
+flora I had seen. Cattle and cultivation were making few scars as yet,
+and I wandered enchanted in long wavering curves, knowing by my pocket
+map that Yosemite Valley lay to the east and that I should surely find
+it.
+
+
+The Sierra From The West
+
+
+Looking eastward from the summit of the Pacheco Pass one shining
+morning, a landscape was displayed that after all my wanderings still
+appears as the most beautiful I have ever beheld. At my feet lay the
+Great Central Valley of California, level and flowery, like a lake of
+pure sunshine, forty or fifty miles wide, five hundred miles long, one
+rich furred garden of yellow Compositoe. And from the eastern boundary
+of this vast golden flower-bed rose the mighty Sierra, miles in height,
+and so gloriously colored and so radiant, it seemed not clothed with
+light, but wholly composed of it, like the wall of some celestial city.
+Along the top and extending a good way down, was a rich pearl-gray belt
+of snow; below it a belt of blue and dark purple, marking the extension
+of the forests; and stretching along the base of the range a broad belt
+of rose-purple; all these colors, from the blue sky to the yellow
+valley smoothly blending as they do in a rainbow, making a wall of light
+ineffably fine. Then it seemed to me that the Sierra should be called,
+not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten
+years of wandering and wondering in the heart of it, rejoicing in its
+glorious floods of light, the white beams of the morning streaming
+through the passes, the noonday radiance on the crystal rocks, the
+flush of the alpenglow, and the irised spray of countless waterfalls,
+it still seems above all others the Range of Light.
+
+In general views no mark of man is visible upon it, nor any thing to
+suggest the wonderful depth and grandeur of its sculpture. None of its
+magnificent forest-crowned ridges seems to rise much above the general
+level to publish its wealth. No great valley or river is seen, or group
+of well-marked features of any kind standing out as distinct pictures.
+Even the summit peaks, marshaled in glorious array so high in the sky,
+seem comparatively regular in form. Nevertheless the whole range five
+hundred miles long is furrowed with canyons 2000 to 5000 feet deep, in
+which once flowed majestic glaciers, and in which now flow and sing the
+bright rejoicing rivers.
+
+
+Characteristics Of The Canyons
+
+
+Though of such stupendous depth, these canyons 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 canyons
+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 canyons in falls of every conceivable form, to join the
+river that flow in tranquil, shining beauty down the middle of each
+one of them.
+
+
+The Incomparable Yosemite
+
+
+The most famous and accessible of these canyon 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 canyons, and
+they are so sheer in front, and so compactly and harmoniously arranged
+on a level floor, that the Valley, comprehensively seen, looks like an
+immense hall or temple lighted from above.
+
+But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in
+its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose;
+others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance
+beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to
+storms and calms alike, seemingly aware, yet heedless, of everything
+going on about them. Awful in stern, immovable majesty, how softly these
+rocks are adorned, and how fine and reassuring the company they keep:
+their feet among beautiful groves and meadows, their brows in the sky,
+a thousand flowers leaning confidingly against their feet, bathed in
+floods of water, floods of light, while the snow and waterfalls, the
+winds and avalanches and clouds shine and sing and wreathe about them
+as the years go by, and myriads of small winged creatures birds, bees,
+butterflies--give glad animation and help to make all the air into
+music. Down through the middle of the Valley flows the crystal Merced,
+River of Mercy, peacefully quiet, reflecting lilies and trees and the
+onlooking rocks; things frail and fleeting and types of endurance
+meeting here and blending in countless forms, as if into this one
+mountain mansion Nature had gathered her choicest treasures, to draw
+her lovers into close and confiding communion with her.
+
+
+The Approach To The Valley
+
+
+Sauntering up the foothills to Yosemite by any of the old trails or
+roads in use before the railway was built from the town of Merced up the
+river to the boundary of Yosemite Park, richer and wilder become the
+forests and streams. At an elevation of 6000 feet above the level of the
+sea the silver firs are 200 feet high, with branches whorled around the
+colossal shafts in regular order, and every branch beautifully pinnate
+like a fern frond. The Douglas spruce, the yellow and sugar pines and
+brown-barked Libocedrus here reach their finest developments of beauty
+and grandeur. The majestic Sequoia is here, too, the king of conifers,
+the noblest of all the noble race. These colossal trees are as wonderful
+in fineness of beauty and proportion as in stature--an assemblage of
+conifers surpassing all that have ever yet been discovered in the
+forests of the world. Here indeed is the tree-lover's paradise; the
+woods, dry and wholesome, letting in the light in shimmering masses of
+half sunshine, half shade; the night air as well as the day air
+indescribably spicy and exhilarating; plushy fir-boughs for campers'
+beds and cascades to sing us to sleep. On the highest ridges, over which
+these old Yosemite ways passed, the silver fir (Abies magnifica) forms
+the bulk of the woods, pressing forward in glorious array to the very
+brink of the Valley walls on both sides, and beyond the Valley to a
+height of from 8000 to 9000 feet above the level of the sea. Thus it
+appears that Yosemite, presenting such stupendous faces of bare granite,
+is nevertheless imbedded in magnificent forests, and the main species of
+pine, fir, spruce and libocedrus are also found in the Valley itself,
+but there are no "big trees" (Sequoia gigantea) in the Valley or about
+the rim of it. The nearest are about ten and twenty miles beyond the
+lower end of the valley on small tributaries of the Merced and Tuolumne
+Rivers.
+
+
+The First View: The Bridal Veil
+
+
+From the margin of these glorious forests the first general view of the
+Valley used to be gained--a revelation in landscape affairs that
+enriches one's life forever. Entering the Valley, gazing overwhelmed
+with the multitude of grand objects about us, perhaps the first to fix
+our attention will be the Bridal Veil, a beautiful waterfall on our
+right. Its brow, where it first leaps free from the cliff, is about 900
+feet above us; and as it sways and sings in the wind, clad in gauzy,
+sun-sifted spray, half falling, half floating, it seems infinitely
+gentle and fine; but the hymns it sings tell the solemn fateful power
+hidden beneath its soft clothing.
+
+The Bridal Veil shoots free from the upper edge of the cliff by the
+velocity the stream has acquired in descending a long slope above the
+head of the fall. Looking from the top of the rock-avalanche talus
+on the west side, about one hundred feet above the foot of the fall,
+the under surface of the water arch is seen to be finely grooved and
+striated; and the sky is seen through the arch between rock and water,
+making a novel and beautiful effect.
+
+Under ordinary weather conditions the fall strikes on flat-topped slabs,
+forming a kind of ledge about two-thirds of the way down from the top,
+and as the fall sways back and forth with great variety of motions
+among these flat-topped pillars, kissing and plashing notes as well as
+thunder-like detonations are produced, like those of the Yosemite Fall,
+though on a smaller scale.
+
+The rainbows of the Veil, or rather the spray- and foam-bows, are
+superb, because the waters are dashed among angular blocks of granite
+at the foot, producing abundance of spray of the best quality for iris
+effects, and also for a luxuriant growth of grass and maiden-hair on
+the side of the talus, which lower down is planted with oak, laurel
+and willows.
+
+
+General Features Of The Valley
+
+
+On the other side of the Valley, almost immediately opposite the Bridal
+Veil, there is another fine fall, considerably wider than the Veil when
+the snow is melting fast and more than 1000 feet in height, measured
+from the brow of the cliff where it first springs out into the air to
+the head of the rocky talus on which it strikes and is broken up into
+ragged cascades. It is called the Ribbon Fall or Virgin's Tears. During
+the spring floods it is a magnificent object, but the suffocating blasts
+of spray that fill the recess in the wall which it occupies prevent a
+near approach. In autumn, however when its feeble current falls in a
+shower, it may then pass for tear with the sentimental onlooker fresh
+from a visit to the Bridal Veil.
+
+Just beyond this glorious flood the El Capitan Rock, regarded by many as
+the most sublime feature of the Valley, is seen through the pine groves,
+standing forward beyond the general line of the wall in most imposing
+grandeur, a type of permanence. It is 3300 feet high, a plain, severely
+simple, glacier-sculptured face of granite, the end of one of the most
+compact and enduring of the mountain ridges, unrivaled in height and
+breadth and flawless strength.
+
+Across the Valley from here, next to the Bridal Veil, are the
+picturesque Cathedral Rocks, nearly 2700 feet high, making a noble
+display of fine yet massive sculpture. They are closely related to El
+Capitan, having been eroded from the same mountain ridge by the great
+Yosemite Glacier when the Valley was in process of formation.
+
+Next to the Cathedral Rocks on the south side towers the Sentinel Rock
+to a height of more than 3000 feet, a telling monument of the glacial
+period.
+
+Almost immediately opposite the Sentinel are the Three Brothers, an
+immense mountain mass with three gables fronting the Valley, one above
+another, the topmost gable nearly 4000 feet high. They were named for
+three brothers, sons of old Tenaya, the Yosemite chief, captured here
+during the Indian War, at the time of the discovery of the Valley in
+1852.
+
+Sauntering up the Valley through meadow and grove, in the company of
+these majestic rocks, which seem to follow us as we advance, gazing,
+admiring, looking for new wonders ahead where all about us is so
+wonderful, the thunder of the Yosemite Fall is heard, and when we
+arrive in front of the Sentinel Rock it is revealed in all its glory
+from base to summit, half a mile in height, and seeming to spring out
+into the Valley sunshine direct from the sky. But even this fall,
+perhaps the most wonderful of its kind in the world, cannot at first
+hold our attention, for now the wide upper portion of the Valley is
+displayed to view, with the finely modeled North Dome, the Royal Arches
+and Washington Column on our left; Glacier Point, with its massive,
+magnificent sculpture on the right; and in the middle, directly in
+front, looms Tissiack or Half Dome, the most beautiful and most sublime
+of all the wonderful Yosemite rocks, rising in serene majesty from
+flowery groves and meadows to a height of 4750 feet.
+
+
+The Upper Canyons
+
+
+Here the Valley divides into three branches, the Tenaya, Nevada, and
+Illilouette Canyons, extending back into the fountains of the High
+Sierra, with scenery every way worthy the relation they bear to
+Yosemite.
+
+In the south branch, a mile or two from the main Valley, is the
+Illilouette Fall, 600 feet high, one of the most beautiful of all the
+Yosemite choir, but to most people inaccessible as yet on account of its
+rough, steep, boulder-choked canyon. 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 canyon is
+noted for the beauty of its lakes and forests and magnificent moraines.
+
+Returning to the Valley, and going up the north branch of Tenaya Canyon,
+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 canyon is the sublime Ed Capitan-like rock
+called Mount Watkins; on the south the vast granite wave of Clouds' Rest,
+a mile in height; and between them the fine Tenaya Cascade with silvery
+plumes outspread on smooth glacier-polished folds of granite, making a
+vertical descent in all of about 700 feet.
+
+Just beyond the Dome Cascades, on the shoulder of Mount Watkins, there
+is an old trail once used by Indians on their was across the range to
+Mono, but in the canyon above this point there is no trail of any sort.
+Between Mount Watkins and Clouds' Rest the canyon 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 canyon, 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 canyon having been the channel of one of the main
+tributaries of the ancient Yosemite Glacier.
+
+About ten miles above the Valley we come to the beautiful Tenaya Lake,
+and here the canyon terminates. A mile or two above the lake stands the
+grand Sierra Cathedral, a building of one stone, sewn from the living
+rock, with sides, roof, gable, spire and ornamental pinnacles, fashioned
+and finished symmetrically like a work of art, and set on a well-graded
+plateau about 9000 feet high, as if Nature in making so fine a building
+had also been careful that it should be finely seen. From every
+direction its peculiar form and graceful, majestic beauty of expression
+never fail to charm. Its height from its base to the ridge of the roof
+is about 2500 feet, and among the pinnacles that adorn the front grand
+views may be gained of the upper basins of the Merced and Tuolumne
+Rivers.
+
+Passing the Cathedral we descend into the delightful, spacious Tuolumne
+Valley, from which excursions may be made to Mounts Dana, Lyell, Ritter,
+Conness, and Mono Lake, and to the many curious peaks that rise above
+the meadows on the south, and to the Big Tuolumne Canyon, with its
+glorious abundance of rock and falling, gliding, tossing water. For all
+these the beautiful meadows near the Soda Springs form a delightful
+center.
+
+
+Natural Features Near The Valley
+
+
+Returning now to Yosemite and ascending the middle or Nevada branch of
+the Valley, occupied by the main Merced River, we come within a few
+miles to the Vernal and Nevada Falls, 400 and 600 feet high, pouring
+their white, rejoicing waters in the midst of the most novel and sublime
+rock scenery to be found in all the World. Tracing the river beyond the
+head of the Nevada Fall we are lead into the Little Yosemite, a valley
+like the great Yosemite in form, sculpture and vegetation. It is about
+three miles long, with walls 1500 to 2000 feet high, cascades coming
+over them, and the ever flowing through the meadows and groves of the
+level bottom in tranquil, richly-embowered reaches.
+
+Beyond this Little Yosemite in the main canyon, there are three other
+little yosemites, the highest situated a few miles below the base of
+Mount Lyell, at an elevation of about 7800 feet above the sea. To
+describe these, with all their wealth of Yosemite furniture, and the
+wilderness of lofty peaks above them, the home of the avalanche and
+treasury of the fountain snow, would take us far beyond the bounds of a
+single book. Nor can we here consider the formation of these mountain
+landscapes--how the crystal rock were brought to light by glaciers made
+up of crystal snow, making beauty whose influence is so mysterious on
+every one who sees it.
+
+Of the small glacier lakes so characteristic of these upper regions,
+there are no fewer than sixty-seven in the basin of the main middle
+branch, besides countless smaller pools. In the basin of the Illilouette
+there are sixteen, in the Tenaya basin and its branches thirteen, in the
+Yosemite Creek basin fourteen, and in the Pohono or Bridal Veil one,
+making a grand total of one hundred and eleven lakes whose waters come
+to sing at Yosemite. So glorious is the background of the great Valley,
+so harmonious its relations to its widespreading fountains.
+
+The same harmony prevails in all the other features of the adjacent
+landscapes. Climbing out of the Valley by the subordinate canyons, 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 Canyon and the fountains of the Hoffman Range.
+
+
+Down The Yosemite Creek
+
+
+In general views the Yosemite Creek basin seems to be paved with
+domes and smooth, whaleback masses of granite in every stage of
+development--some showing only their crowns; others rising high and free
+above the girdling forests, singly or in groups. Others are developed
+only on one side, forming bold outstanding bosses usually well fringed
+with shrubs and trees, and presenting the polished surfaces given them
+by the glacier that brought them into relief. On the upper portion of
+the basin broad moraine beds have been deposited and on these fine,
+thrifty forests are growing. Lakes and meadows and small spongy bogs
+may be found hiding here and there in the woods or back in the fountain
+recesses of Mount Hoffman, while a thousand gardens are planted along
+the banks of the streams.
+
+All the wide, fan-shaped upper portion of the basin is covered with a
+network of small rills that go cheerily on their way to their grand fall
+in the Valley, now flowing on smooth pavements in sheets thin as glass,
+now diving under willows and laving their red roots, oozing through
+green, plushy bogs, plashing over small falls and dancing down slanting
+cascades, calming again, gliding through patches of smooth glacier
+meadows with sod of alpine agrostis mixed with blue and white violets
+and daisies, breaking, tossing among rough boulders and fallen trees,
+resting in calm pools, flowing together until, all united, they go to
+their fate with stately, tranquil gestures like a full-grown river. At
+the crossing of the Mono Trail, about two miles above the head of the
+Yosemite Fall, the stream is nearly forty feet wide, and when the snow
+is melting rapidly in the spring it is about four feet deep, with a
+current of two and a half miles an hour. This is about the volume of
+water that forms the Fall in May and June when there had been much snow
+the preceding winter; but it varies greatly from month to month. The
+snow rapidly vanishes from the open portion of the basin, which faces
+southward, and only a few of the tributaries reach back to perennial
+snow and ice fountains in the shadowy amphitheaters on the precipitous
+northern slopes of Mount Hoffman. The total descent made by the stream
+from its highest sources to its confluence with the Merced in the Valley
+is about 6000 feet, while the distance is only about ten miles, an
+average fall of 600 feet per mile. The last mile of its course lies
+between the sides of sunken domes and swelling folds of the granite that
+are clustered and pressed together like a mass of bossy cumulus clouds.
+Through this shining way Yosemite Creek goes to its fate, swaying and
+swirling with easy, graceful gestures and singing the last of its
+mountain songs before it reaches the dizzy edge of Yosemite to fall 2600
+feet into another world, where climate, vegetation, inhabitants, all are
+different. Emerging from this last canyon the stream glides, in flat
+lace-like folds, down a smooth incline into a small pool where it seems
+to rest and compose itself before taking the grand plunge. Then calmly,
+as if leaving a lake, it slips over the polished lip of the pool down
+another incline and out over the brow of the precipice in a magnificent
+curve thick-sown with rainbow spray.
+
+
+The Yosemite Fall
+
+
+Long ago before I had traced this fine stream to its head back of Mount
+Hoffman, I was eager to reach the extreme verge to see how it behaved in
+flying so far through the air; but after enjoying this view and getting
+safely away I have never advised any one to follow my steps. The last
+incline down which the stream journeys so gracefully is so steep and
+smooth one must slip cautiously forward on hands and feet alongside the
+rushing water, which so near one's head is very exciting. But to gain a
+perfect view one must go yet farther, over a curving brow to a slight
+shelf on the extreme brink. This shelf, formed by the flaking off of a
+fold of granite, is about three inches wide, just wide enough for a safe
+rest for one's heels. To me it seemed nerve-trying to slip to this
+narrow foothold and poise on the edge of such precipice so close to the
+confusing whirl of the waters; and after casting longing glances over
+the shining brow of the fall and listening to its sublime psalm, I
+concluded not to attempt to go nearer, but, nevertheless, against
+reasonable judgment, I did. Noticing some tufts of artemisia in a cleft
+of rock, I filled my mouth with the leaves, hoping their bitter taste
+might help to keep caution keen and prevent giddiness. In spite of
+myself I reached the little ledge, got my heels well set, and worked
+sidewise twenty or thirty feet to a point close to the out-plunging
+current. Here the view is perfectly free down into the heart of the
+bright irised throng of comet-like streamers into which the whole
+ponderous volume of the fall separates, two or three hundred feet below
+the brow. So glorious a display of pure wildness, acting at close range
+while cut off from all the world beside, is terribly impressive. A less
+nerve-trying view may be obtained from a fissured portion of the edge of
+the cliff about forty yards to the eastward of the fall. Seen from this
+point towards noon, in the spring, the rainbow on its brow seems to be
+broken up and mingled with the rushing comets until all the fall is
+stained with iris colors, leaving no white water visible. This is the
+best of the safe views from above, the huge steadfast rocks, the flying
+waters, and the rainbow light forming one of the most glorious pictures
+conceivable.
+
+The Yosemite Fall is separated into an upper and a lower fall with a
+series of falls and cascades between them, but when viewed in front from
+the bottom of the Valley they all appear as one.
+
+So grandly does this magnificent fall display itself from the floor of
+the Valley, few visitors take the trouble to climb the walls to gain
+nearer views, unable to realize how vastly more impressive it is near by
+than at a distance of one or two miles.
+
+
+A Wonderful Ascent
+
+
+The views developed in a walk up the zigzags of the trail leading to
+the foot of the Upper Fall are about as varied and impressive as those
+displayed along the favorite Glacier Point Trail. One rises as if on
+wings. The groves, meadows, fern-flats and reaches of the river gain
+new interest, as if never seen before; all the views changing in a most
+striking manner as we go higher from point to point. The foreground
+also changes every few rods in the most surprising manner, although the
+earthquake talus and the level bench on the face of the wall over which
+the trail passes seem monotonous and commonplace as seen from the bottom
+of the Valley. Up we climb with glad exhilaration, through shaggy
+fringes of laurel, ceanothus, glossy-leaved manzanita and live-oak, from
+shadow to shadow across bars and patches of sunshine, the leafy openings
+making charming frames for the Valley pictures beheld through gem, and
+for the glimpses of the high peaks that appear in the distance. The
+higher we go the farther we seem to be from the summit of the vast
+granite wall. Here we pass a projecting buttress hose grooved and
+rounded surface tells a plain story of the time when the Valley, now
+filled with sunshine, was filled with ice, when the grand old Yosemite
+Glacier, flowing river-like from its distant fountains, swept through
+it, crushing, grinding, wearing its way ever deeper, developing and
+fashioning these sublime rocks. Again we cross a white, battered gully,
+the pathway of rock avalanches or snow avalanches. Farther on we come
+to a gentle stream slipping down the face of the Cliff in lace-like
+strips, and dropping from ledge to ledge--too small to be called a
+fall--trickling, dripping, oozing, a pathless wanderer from one of
+the upland meadow lying a little way back of the Valley rim, seeking
+a way century after century to the depths of the Valley without any
+appreciable channel. Every morning after a cool night, evaporation being
+checked, it gathers strength and sings like a bird, but as the day
+advances and the sun strikes its thin currents outspread on the heated
+precipices, most of its waters vanish ere the bottom of the Valley is
+reached. Many a fine, hanging-garden aloft on breezy inaccessible heights
+owes to it its freshness and fullness of beauty; ferneries in shady
+nooks, filled with Adiantum, Woodwardia, Woodsia, Aspidium, Pellaea,
+and Cheilanthes, rosetted and tufted and ranged in lines, daintily
+overlapping, thatching the stupendous cliffs with softest beauty, some
+of the delicate fronds seeming to float on the warm moist air, without
+any connection with rock or stream. Nor is there any lack of colored
+plants wherever they can find a place to cling to; lilies and mints,
+the showy cardinal mimulus, and glowing cushions of the golden bahia,
+enlivened with butterflies and bees and all the other small, happy
+humming creatures that belong to them.
+
+After the highest point on the lower division of the trail is gained it
+leads up into the deep recess occupied by the great fall, the noblest
+display of falling water to be found in the Valley, or perhaps in the
+world. When it first comes in sight it seems almost within reach of
+one's hand, so great in the spring is its volume and velocity, yet it is
+still nearly a third of a mile away and appears to recede as we advance.
+The sculpture of the walls about it is on a scale of grandeur, according
+nobly with the fall plain and massive, though elaborately finished, like
+all the other cliffs about the Valley.
+
+In the afternoon an immense shadow is cast athwart the plateau in front
+of the fall, and over the chaparral bushes that clothe the slopes and
+benches of the walls to the eastward, creeping upward until the fall is
+wholly overcast, the contrast between the shaded and illumined sections
+being very striking in these near views.
+
+Under this shadow, during the cool centuries immediately following the
+breaking-up of the Glacial Period, dwelt a small residual glacier, one
+of the few that lingered on this sun-beaten side of the Valley after the
+main trunk glacier had vanished. It sent down a long winding current
+through the narrow canyon on the west side of the fall, and must have
+formed a striking feature of the ancient scenery of the Valley; the
+lofty fall of ice and fall of water side by side, yet separate and
+distinct.
+
+The coolness of the afternoon shadow and the abundant dewy spray make a
+fine climate for the plateau ferns and grasses, and for the beautiful
+azalea bushes that grow here in profusion and bloom in September, long
+after the warmer thickets down on the floor of the Valley have withered
+and gone to seed. Even close to the fall, and behind it at the base of
+the cliff, a few venturesome plants may be found undisturbed by the
+rock-shaking torrent.
+
+The basin at the foot of the fall into which the current directly pours,
+when it is not swayed by the wind, is about ten feet deep and fifteen to
+twenty feet in diameter. That it is not much deeper is surprising, when
+the great height and force of the fall is considered. But the rock where
+the water strikes probably suffers less erosion than it would were the
+descent less than half as great, since the current is outspread, and
+much of its force is spent ere it reaches the bottom--being received on
+the air as upon an elastic cushion, and borne outward and dissipated
+over a surface more than fifty yards wide.
+
+This surface, easily examined when the water is low, is intensely clean
+and fresh looking. It is the raw, quick flesh of the mountain wholly
+untouched by the weather. In summer droughts when the snowfall of the
+preceding winter has been light, the fall is reduced to a mere shower of
+separate drops without any obscuring spray. Then we may safely go back
+of it and view the crystal shower from beneath, each drop wavering and
+pulsing as it makes its way through the air, and flashing off jets of
+colored light of ravishing beauty. But all this is invisible from the
+bottom of the Valley, like a thousand other interesting things. One must
+labor for beauty as for bread, here as elsewhere.
+
+
+The Grandeur Of The Yosemite Fall
+
+
+During the time of the spring floods the best near view of the fall is
+obtained from Fern Ledge on the east side above the blinding spray at a
+height of about 400 feet above the base of the fall. A climb of about
+1400 feet from the Valley has to be made, and there is no trail, but
+to any one fond of climbing this will make the ascent all the more
+delightful. A narrow part of the ledge extends to the side of the fall
+and back of it, enabling us to approach it as closely as we wish. When
+the afternoon sunshine is streaming through the throng of comets, ever
+wasting, ever renewed, fineness, firmness and variety of their forms are
+beautifully revealed. At the top of the fall they seem to burst forth in
+irregular spurts from some grand, throbbing mountain heart. Now and then
+one mighty throb sends forth a mass of solid water into the free air
+far beyond the others which rushes alone to the bottom of the fall with
+long streaming tail, like combed silk, while the others, descending in
+clusters, gradually mingle and lose their identity. But they all rush
+past us with amazing velocity and display of power though apparently
+drowsy and deliberate in their movements when observed from a distance
+of a mile or two. The heads of these comet-like masses are composed of
+nearly solid water, and are dense white in color like pressed snow, from
+the friction they suffer in rushing through the air, the portion worn
+off forming the tail between the white lustrous threads and films of
+which faint, grayish pencilings appear, while the outer, finer sprays of
+water-dust, whirling in sunny eddies, are pearly gray throughout. At the
+bottom of the fall there is but little distinction of form visible. It
+is mostly a hissing, clashing, seething, upwhirling mass of scud and
+spray, through which the light sifts in gray and purple tones while
+at times when the sun strikes at the required angle, the whole wild
+and apparently lawless, stormy, striving mass is changed to brilliant
+rainbow hues, manifesting finest harmony. The middle portion of the
+fall is the most openly beautiful; lower, the various forms into which
+the waters are wrought are more closely and voluminously veiled, while
+higher, towards the head, the current is comparatively simple and
+undivided. But even at the bottom, in the boiling clouds of spray,
+there is no confusion, while the rainbow light makes all divine, adding
+glorious beauty and peace to glorious power. This noble fall has far the
+richest, as well as the most powerful, voice of all the falls of the
+Valley, its tones varying from the sharp hiss and rustle of the wind
+in the glossy leaves of the live-oak and the soft, sifting, hushing
+tones of the pines, to the loudest rush and roar of storm winds and
+thunder among the crags of the summit peaks. The low bass, booming,
+reverberating tones, heard under favorable circumstances five or six
+miles away are formed by the dashing and exploding of heavy masses
+mixed with air upon two projecting ledges on the face of the cliff, the
+one on which we are standing and another about 200 feet above it. The
+torrent of massive comets is continuous at time of high water, while
+the explosive, booming notes are wildly intermittent, because, unless
+influenced by the wind, most of the heavier masses shoot out from the
+face of the precipice, and pass the ledges upon which at other times
+they are exploded. Occasionally the whole fall is swayed away from the
+front of the cliff, then suddenly dashed flat against it, or vibrated
+from side to side like a pendulum, giving rise to endless variety of
+forms and sounds.
+
+
+The Nevada Fall
+
+
+The Nevada Fall is 600 feet high and is usually ranked next to the
+Yosemite in general interest among the five main falls of the Valley.
+Coming through the Little Yosemite in tranquil reaches, the river is
+first broken into rapids on a moraine boulder-bar that crosses the lower
+end of the Valley. Thence it pursues its way to the head of the fall in
+a rough, solid rock channel, dashing on side angles, heaving in heavy
+surging masses against elbow knobs, and swirling and swashing in
+pot-holes without a moment's rest. Thus, already chafed and dashed to
+foam, overfolded and twisted, it plunges over the brink of the precipice
+as if glad to escape into the open air. But before it reaches the bottom
+it is pulverized yet finer by impinging upon a sloping portion of the
+cliff about half-way down, thus making it the whitest of all the falls
+of the Valley, and altogether one of the most wonderful in the world.
+
+On the north side, close to its head, a slab of granite projects over the
+brink, forming a fine point for a view, over its throng of streamers and
+wild plunging, into its intensely white bosom, and through the broad
+drifts of spray, to the river far below, gathering its spent waters and
+rushing on again down the canyon 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 canyon on either hand,
+with the sublime mass of the Glacier Point Ridge in front, form a huge
+triangular pit-like basin, which, filled with the roaring of the falling
+river seems as if it might be the hopper of one of the mills of the gods
+in which the mountains were being ground.
+
+
+The Vernal Fall
+
+
+The Vernal, about a mile below the Nevada, is 400 feet high, a staid,
+orderly, graceful, easy-going fall, proper and exact in every movement
+and gesture, with scarce a hint of the passionate enthusiasm of the
+Yosemite or of the impetuous Nevada, whose chafed and twisted waters
+hurrying over the cliff seem glad to escape into the open air, while its
+deep, booming, thunder-tones reverberate over the listening landscape.
+Nevertheless it is a favorite with most visitors, doubtless because it
+is more accessible than any other, more closely approached and better
+seen and heard. A good stairway ascends the cliff beside it and the
+level plateau at the head enables one to saunter safely along the edge
+of the river as it comes from Emerald Pool and to watch its waters,
+calmly bending over the brow of the precipice, in a sheet eighty feet
+wide, changing in color from green to purplish gray and white until
+dashed on a boulder talus. Thence issuing from beneath its fine broad
+spray-clouds we see the tremendously adventurous river still unspent,
+beating its way down the wildest and deepest of all its canyons in
+gray roaring rapids, dear to the ouzel, and below the confluence of
+the Illilouette, sweeping around the shoulder of the Half Dome on its
+approach to the head of the tranquil levels of the Valley.
+
+
+The Illilouette Fall
+
+
+The Illilouette in general appearance most resembles the Nevada. The
+volume of water is less than half as great, but it is about the same
+height (600 feet) and its waters receive the same kind of preliminary
+tossing in a rocky, irregular channel. Therefore it is a very white and
+fine-grained fall. When it is in full springtime bloom it is partly
+divided by rocks that roughen the lip of the precipice, but this
+division amounts only to a kind of fluting and grooving of the column,
+which has a beautiful effect. It is not nearly so grand a fall as the
+upper Yosemite, or so symmetrical as the Vernal, or so airily graceful
+and simple as the Bridal Veil, nor does it ever display so tremendous
+an outgush of snowy magnificence as the Nevada; but in the exquisite
+fineness and richness of texture of its flowing folds it surpasses
+them all.
+
+One of the finest effects of sunlight on falling water I ever saw in
+Yosemite or elsewhere I found on the brow of this beautiful fall. It
+was in the Indian summer, when the leaf colors were ripe and the great
+cliffs and domes were transfigured in the hazy golden air. I had
+scrambled up its rugged talus-dammed canyon, oftentimes stopping to take
+breath and look back to admire the wonderful views to be had there of
+the great Half Dome, and to enjoy the extreme purity of the water, which
+in the motionless pools on this stream is almost perfectly invisible;
+the colored foliage of the maples, dogwoods, Rubus tangles, etc., and
+the late goldenrods and asters. The voice of the fall was now low, and
+the grand spring and summer floods had waned to sifting, drifting gauze
+and thin-broidered folds of linked and arrowy lace-work. When I reached
+the foot of the fall sunbeams were glinting across its head, leaving all
+the rest of it in shadow; and on its illumined brow a group of yellow
+spangles of singular form and beauty were playing, flashing up and
+dancing in large flame-shaped masses, wavering at times, then steadying,
+rising and falling in accord with the shifting forms of the water. But
+the color of the dancing spangles changed not at all. Nothing in clouds
+or flowers, on bird-wings or the lips of shells, could rival it in
+fineness. It was the most divinely beautiful mass of rejoicing yellow
+light I ever beheld--one of Nature's precious gifts that perchance may
+come to us but once in a lifetime.
+
+
+The Minor Falls
+
+
+There are many other comparatively small falls and cascades in the
+Valley. The most notable are the Yosemite Gorge Fall and Cascades,
+Tenaya Fall and Cascades, Royal Arch Falls, the two Sentinel Cascades
+and the falls of Cascade and Tamarack Creeks, a mile or two below the
+lower end of the Valley. These last are often visited. The others are
+seldom noticed or mentioned; although in almost any other country they
+would be visited and described as wonders.
+
+The six intermediate falls in the gorge between the head of the Lower
+and the base of the Upper Yosemite Falls, separated by a few deep pools
+and strips of rapids, and three slender, tributary cascades on the west
+side form a series more strikingly varied and combined than any other
+in the Valley, yet very few of all the Valley visitors ever see them or
+hear of them. No available standpoint commands a view of them all. The
+best general view is obtained from the mouth of the gorge near the head
+of the Lower Fall. The two lowest of the series, together with one of
+the three tributary cascades, are visible from this standpoint, but in
+reaching it the last twenty or thirty feet of the descent is rather
+dangerous in time of high water, the shelving rocks being then slippery
+on account of spray, but if one should chance to slip when the water is
+low, only a bump or two and a harmless plash would be the penalty. No
+part of the gorge, however, is safe to any but cautious climbers.
+
+Though the dark gorge hall of these rejoicing waters is never flushed by
+the purple light of morning or evening, it is warmed and cheered by the
+white light of noonday, which, falling into so much foam and and spray
+of varying degrees of fineness, makes marvelous displays of rainbow
+colors. So filled, indeed, is it with this precious light, at favorable
+times it seems to take the place of common air. Laurel bushes shed
+fragrance into it from above and live-oaks, those fearless mountaineers,
+hold fast to angular seams and lean out over it with their fringing
+sprays and bright mirror leaves.
+
+One bird, the ouzel, loves this gorge and flies through it merrily, or
+cheerily, rather, stopping to sing on foam-washed bosses where other
+birds could find no rest for their feet. I have even seen a gray
+squirrel down in the heart of it beside the wild rejoicing water.
+
+One of my favorite night walks was along the rim of this wild gorge in
+times of high water when the moon was full, to see the lunar bows in the
+spray.
+
+For about a mile above Mirror Lake the Tenaya Canyon is level, and
+richly planted with fir, Douglas spruce and libocedrus, forming a
+remarkably fine grove, at the head of which is the Tenaya Fall. Though
+seldom seen or described, this is, I think, the most picturesque of all
+the small falls. A considerable distance above it, Tenaya Creek comes
+hurrying down, white and foamy, over a flat pavement inclined at an
+angle of about eighteen degrees. In time of high water this sheet of
+rapids is nearly seventy feet wide, and is varied in a very striking way
+by three parallel furrows that extend in the direction of its flow.
+These furrows, worn by the action of the stream upon cleavage joints,
+vary in width, are slightly sinuous, and have large boulders firmly
+wedged in them here and there in narrow places, giving rise, of course,
+to a complicated series of wild dashes, doublings, and upleaping arches
+in the swift torrent. Just before it reaches the head of the fall the
+current is divided, the left division making a vertical drop of about
+eighty feet in a romantic, leafy, flowery, mossy nook, while the other
+forms a rugged cascade.
+
+The Royal Arch Fall in time of high water is a magnificent object,
+forming a broad ornamental sheet in front of the arches. The two
+Sentinel Cascades, 3000 feet high, are also grand spectacles when the
+snow is melting fast in the spring, but by the middle of summer they
+have diminished to mere streaks scarce noticeable amid their sublime
+surroundings.
+
+
+The Beauty Of The Rainbows
+
+
+The Bridal Veil and Vernal Falls are famous for their rainbows; and
+special visits to them are often made when the sun shines into the spray
+at the most favorable angle. But amid the spray and foam and fine-ground
+mist ever rising from the various falls and cataracts there is an
+affluence and variety of iris bows scarcely known to visitors who stay
+only a day or two. Both day and night, winter and summer, this divine
+light may be seen wherever water is falling dancing, singing; telling
+the heart-peace of Nature amid the wildest displays of her power. In the
+bright spring mornings the black-walled recess at the foot of the Lower
+Yosemite Fall is lavishly fine with irised spray; and not simply does
+this span the dashing foam, but the foam itself, the whole mass of it,
+beheld at a certain distance, seems to be colored, and drips and wavers
+from color to color, mingling with the foliage of the adjacent trees,
+without suggesting any relationship to the ordinary rainbow. This is
+perhaps the largest and most reservoir-like fountain of iris colors to
+be found in the Valley.
+
+Lunar rainbows or spray-bows also abound in the glorious affluence of
+dashing, rejoicing, hurrahing, enthusiastic spring floods, their colors
+as distinct as those of the sun and regularly and obviously banded,
+though less vivid. Fine specimens may be found any night at the foot of
+the Upper Yosemite Fall, glowing gloriously amid the gloomy shadows and
+thundering waters, whenever there is plenty of moonlight and spray. Even
+the secondary bow is at times distinctly visible.
+
+The best point from which to observe them is on Fern Ledge. For some
+time after moonrise, at time of high water, the arc has a span of about
+five hundred feet, and is set upright; one end planted in the boiling
+spray at the bottom, the other in the edge of the fall, creeping lower,
+of course, and becoming less upright as the moon rises higher. This
+grand arc of color, glowing in mild, shapely beauty in so weird and huge
+a chamber of night shadows, and amid the rush and roar and tumultuous
+dashing of this thunder-voiced fall, is one of the most impressive and
+most cheering of all the blessed mountain evangels.
+
+Smaller bows may be seen in the gorge on the plateau between the Upper
+and Lower Falls. Once toward midnight, after spending a few hours with
+the wild beauty of the Upper Fall, I sauntered along the edge of the
+gorge, looking in here and there, wherever the footing felt safe, to see
+what I could learn of the night aspects of the smaller falls that dwell
+there. And down in an exceedingly black, pit-like portion of the gorge,
+at the foot of the highest of the intermediate falls, into which the
+moonbeams were pouring through a narrow opening, I saw a well-defined
+spray-bow, beautifully distinct in colors, spanning the pit from side
+to side, while pure white foam-waves beneath the beautiful bow were
+constantly springing up out of the dark into the moonlight like dancing
+ghosts.
+
+
+An Unexpected Adventure
+
+
+A wild scene, but not a safe one, is made by the moon as it appears
+through the edge of the Yosemite Fall when one is behind it. Once, after
+enjoying the night-song of the waters and watching the formation of the
+colored bow as the moon came round the domes and sent her beams into the
+wild uproar, I ventured out on the narrow bench that extends back of the
+fall from Fern Ledge and began to admire the dim-veiled grandeur of the
+view. I could see the fine gauzy threads of the fall's filmy border by
+having the light in front; and wishing to look at the moon through the
+meshes of some of the denser portions of the fall, I ventured to creep
+farther behind it while it was gently wind-swayed, without taking
+sufficient thought about the consequences of its swaying back to its
+natural position after the wind-pressure should be removed. The effect
+was enchanting: fine, savage music sounding above, beneath, around me;
+while the moon, apparently in the very midst of the rushing waters,
+seemed to be struggling to keep her place, on account of the
+ever-varying form and density of the water masses through which she was
+seen, now darkly veiled or eclipsed by a rush of thick-headed comets,
+now flashing out through openings between their tails. I was in
+fairyland between the dark wall and the wild throng of illumined waters,
+but suffered sudden disenchantment; for, like the witch-scene in Alloway
+Kirk, "in an instant all was dark." Down came a dash of spent comets,
+thin and harmless-looking in the distance, but they felt desperately
+solid and stony when they struck my shoulders, like a mixture of choking
+spray and gravel and big hailstones. Instinctively dropping on my knees,
+I gripped an angle of the rock, curled up like a young fern frond with
+my face pressed against my breast, and in this attitude submitted as
+best I could to my thundering bath. The heavier masses seemed to strike
+like cobblestones, and there was a confused noise of many waters about
+my ears--hissing, gurgling, clashing sounds that were not heard as
+music. The situation was quickly realized. How fast one's thoughts burn
+in such times of stress! I was weighing chances of escape. Would the
+column be swayed a few inches away from the wall, or would it come yet
+closer? The fall was in flood and not so lightly would its ponderous
+mass be swayed. My fate seemed to depend on a breath of the "idle wind."
+It was moved gently forward, the pounding ceased, and I was once more
+visited by glimpses of the moon. But fearing I might be caught at a
+disadvantage in making too hasty a retreat, I moved only a few feet
+along the bench to where a block of ice lay. I wedged myself between the
+ice and the wall and lay face downwards, until the steadiness of the
+light gave encouragement to rise and get away. Somewhat nerve-shaken,
+drenched, and benumbed, I made out to build a fire, warmed myself, ran
+home, reached my cabin before daylight, got an hour or two of sleep,
+and awoke sound and comfortable, better, not worse for my hard midnight
+bath.
+
+
+Climate And Weather
+
+
+Owing to the westerly trend of the Valley and its vast depth there
+is a great difference between the climates of the north and south
+sides--greater than between many countries far apart; for the south wall
+is in shadow during the winter months, while the north is bathed in
+sunshine every clear day. Thus there is mild spring weather on one side
+of the Valley while winter rules the other. Far up the north-side cliffs
+many a nook may be found closely embraced by sun-beaten rock-bosses in
+which flowers bloom every month of the year. Even butterflies may be
+seen in these high winter gardens except when snow-storms are falling
+and a few days after they have ceased. Near the head of the lower
+Yosemite Fall in January I found the ant lions lying in wait in their
+warm sand-cups, rock ferns being unrolled, club mosses covered with
+fresh-growing plants, the flowers of the laurel nearly open, and the
+honeysuckle rosetted with bright young leaves; every plant seemed to be
+thinking about summer. Even on the shadow-side of the Valley the frost
+is never very sharp. The lowest temperature I ever observed during four
+winters was 7 degrees Fahrenheit. The first twenty-four days of January
+had an average temperature at 9 A.M. of 32 degrees, minimum 22 degrees;
+at 3 P.M. the average was 40 degrees 30', the minimum 32 degrees. Along
+the top of the walls, 7000 and 8000 feet high, the temperature was, of
+course, much lower. But the difference in temperature between the north
+and south sides is due not so much to the winter sunshine as to the heat
+of the preceding summer, stored up in the rocks, which rapidly melts the
+snow in contact with them. For though summer sun-heat is stored in the
+rocks of the south side also, the amount is much less because the rays
+fall obliquely on the south wall even in summer and almost vertically
+on the north.
+
+The upper branches of the Yosemite streams are buried every winter
+beneath a heavy mantle of snow, and set free in the spring in
+magnificent floods. Then, all the fountains, full and overflowing, every
+living thing breaks forth into singing, and the glad exulting streams
+shining and falling in the warm sunny weather, shake everything into
+music making all the mountain-world a song.
+
+The great annual spring thaw usually begins in May in the forest region,
+and in June and July on the high Sierra, varying somewhat both in time
+and fullness with the weather and the depth of the snow. Toward the end
+of summer the streams are at their lowest ebb, few even of the strongest
+singing much above a whisper they slip and ripple through gravel and
+boulder-beds from pool to pool in the hollows of their channels, and
+drop in pattering showers like rain, and slip down precipices and fall
+in sheets of embroidery, fold over fold. But, however low their singing,
+it is always ineffably fine in tone, in harmony with the restful time of
+the year.
+
+The first snow of the season that comes to the help of the streams
+usually falls in September or October, sometimes even is the latter part
+of August, in the midst of yellow Indian summer when the goldenrods and
+gentians of the glacier meadows are is their prime. This Indian-summer
+snow, however, soon melts, the chilled flowers spread their petals to
+the sun, and the gardens as well as the streams are refreshed as if only
+a warm shower had fallen. The snow-storms that load the mountains to
+form the main fountain supply for the year seldom set in before the
+middle or end of November.
+
+
+Winter Beauty Of The Valley
+
+
+When the first heavy storms stopped work on the high mountains, I made
+haste down to my Yosemite den, not to "hole up" and sleep the white
+months away; I was out every day, and often all night, sleeping but
+little, studying the so-called wonders and common things ever on show,
+wading, climbing, sauntering among the blessed storms and calms,
+rejoicing in almost everything alike that I could see or hear: the
+glorious brightness of frosty mornings; the sunbeams pouring over the
+white domes and crags into the groves end waterfalls, kindling marvelous
+iris fires in the hoarfrost and spray; the great forests and mountains
+in their deep noon sleep; the good-night alpenglow; the stars; the
+solemn gazing moon, drawing the huge domes and headlands one by one
+glowing white out of the shadows hushed and breathless like an audience
+in awful enthusiasm, while the meadows at their feet sparkle with
+frost-stars like the sky; the sublime darkness of storm-nights, when all
+the lights are out; the clouds in whose depths the frail snow-flowers
+grow; the behavior and many voices of the different kinds of storms,
+trees, birds, waterfalls, and snow-avalanches in the ever-changing
+weather.
+
+Every clear, frosty morning loud sounds are heard booming and
+reverberating from side to side of the Valley at intervals of a few
+minutes, beginning soon after sunrise and continuing an hour or two like
+a thunder-storm. In my first winter in the Valley I could not make out
+the source of this noise. I thought of falling boulders, rock-blasting,
+etc. Not till I saw what looked like hoarfrost dropping from the side of
+the Fall was the problem explained. The strange thunder is made by the
+fall of sections of ice formed of spray that is frozen on the face of
+the cliff along the sides of the Upper Yosemite Fan--a sort of crystal
+plaster, a foot or two thick, racked off by the sunbeams, awakening all
+the Valley like cock-crowing, announcing the finest weather, shouting
+aloud Nature's infinite industry and love of hard work in creating
+beauty.
+
+
+Exploring An Ice Cone
+
+
+This frozen spray gives rise to one of the most interesting winter
+features of the Valley--a cone of ice at the foot of the fall, four or
+five hundred feet high. From the Fern Ledge standpoint its crater-like
+throat is seen, down which the fall plunges with deep, gasping
+explosions of compressed air, and, after being well churned in the wormy
+interior, the water bursts forth through arched openings at its base,
+apparently scourged and weary and glad to escape, while belching spray,
+spouted up out of the throat past the descending current, is wafted
+away in irised drifts to the adjacent rocks and groves. It is built
+during the night and early hours of the morning; only in spells of
+exceptionally cold and cloudy weather is the work continued through the
+day. The greater part of the spray material falls in crystalline showers
+direct to its place, something like a small local snow-storm; but a
+considerable portion is first frozen on the face of the cliff along the
+sides of the fall and stays there until expanded and cracked off in
+irregular masses, some of them tons in weight, to be built into the
+walls of the cone; while in windy, frosty weather, when the fall is
+swayed from side to side, the cone is well drenched and the loose ice
+masses and spray-dust are all firmly welded and frozen together. Thus
+the finest of the downy wafts and curls of spray-dust, which in mild
+nights fall about as silently as dew, are held back until sunrise to
+make a store of heavy ice to reinforce the waterfall's thunder-tones.
+
+While the cone is in process of formation, growing higher and wider in
+the frosty weather, it looks like a beautiful smooth, pure-white hill;
+but when it is wasting and breaking up in the spring its surface is
+strewn with leaves, pine branches, stones, sand, etc., that have been
+brought over the fall, making it look like a heap of avalanche detritus.
+
+Anxious to learn what I could about the structure of this curious hill
+I often approached it in calm weather and tried to climb it, carrying
+an ax to cut steps. Once I nearly succeeded in gaining the summit. At
+the base I was met by a current of spray and wind that made seeing and
+breathing difficult. I pushed on backward however, and soon gained the
+slope of the hill, where by creeping close to the surface most of the
+choking blast passed over me and I managed to crawl up with but little
+difficulty. Thus I made my way nearly to the summit, halting at times
+to peer up through the wild whirls of spray at the veiled grandeur of
+the fall, or to listen to the thunder beneath me; the whole hill was
+sounding as if it were a huge, bellowing drum. I hoped that by waiting
+until the fall was blown aslant I should be able to climb to the lip of
+the crater and get a view of the interior; but a suffocating blast, half
+air, half water, followed by the fall of an enormous mass of frozen
+spray from a spot high up on the wall, quickly discouraged me. The whole
+cone was jarred by the blow and some fragments of the mass sped past me
+dangerously near; so I beat a hasty retreat, chilled and drenched, and
+lay down on a sunny rock to dry.
+
+Once during a wind-storm when I saw that the fall was frequently blown
+westward, leaving the cone dry, I ran up to Fern Ledge hoping to gain a
+clear view of the interior. I set out at noon. All the way up the storm
+notes were so loud about me that the voice of the fall was almost
+drowned by them. Notwithstanding the rocks and bushes everywhere were
+drenched by the wind-driven spray, I approached the brink of the
+precipice overlooking the mouth of the ice cone, but I was almost
+suffocated by the drenching, gusty spray, and was compelled to seek
+shelter. I searched for some hiding-place in the wall from whence I
+might run out at some opportune moment when the fall with its whirling
+spray and torn shreds of comet tails and trailing, tattered skirts was
+borne westward, as I had seen it carried several times before, leaving
+the cliffs on the east side and the ice hill bare in the sunlight. I had
+not long to wait, for, as if ordered so for my special accommodation,
+the mighty downrush of comets with their whirling drapery swung westward
+and remained aslant for nearly half an hour. The cone was admirably
+lighted and deserted by the water, which fell most of the time on the
+rocky western slopes mostly outside of the cone. The mouth into which
+the fall pours was, as near as I could guess, about one hundred feet in
+diameter north and south and about two hundred feet east and west, which
+is about the shape and size of the fall at its best in its normal
+condition at this season.
+
+The crater-like opening was not a true oval, but more like a huge coarse
+mouth. I could see down the throat about one hundred feet or perhaps
+farther.
+
+The fall precipice overhangs from a height of 400 feet above the base;
+therefore the water strikes some distance from the base off the cliff,
+allowing space for the accumulation of a considerable mass of ice
+between the fall and the wall.
+
+
+
+Chapter 2
+
+Winter Storms and Spring Floods
+
+
+The Bridal Veil and the Upper Yosemite Falls, on account of their height
+and exposure, are greatly influenced by winds. The common summer winds
+that come up the river canyon from the plains are seldom very strong;
+but the north winds do some very wild work, worrying the falls and the
+forests, and hanging snow-banners on the comet-peaks. One wild winter
+morning I was awakened by storm-wind that was playing with the falls as
+if they were mere wisps of mist and making the great pines bow and sing
+with glorious enthusiasm. The Valley had been visited a short time
+before by a series of fine snow-storms, and the floor and the cliffs and
+all the region round about were lavishly adorned with its best winter
+jewelry, the air was full of fine snow-dust, and pine branches, tassels
+and empty cones were flying in an almost continuous flock.
+
+Soon after sunrise, when I was seeking a place safe from flying
+branches, I saw the Lower Yosemite Fall thrashed and pulverized from top
+to bottom into one glorious mass of rainbow dust; while a thousand feet
+above it the main Upper Fall was suspended on the face of the cliff in
+the form of an inverted bow, all silvery white and fringed with short
+wavering strips. Then, suddenly assailed by a tremendous blast, the
+whole mass of the fall was blown into thread and ribbons, and driven
+back over the brow of the cliff whence it came, as if denied admission
+to the Valley. This kind of storm-work was continued about ten or
+fifteen minutes; then another change in the play of the huge exulting
+swirls and billows and upheaving domes of the gale allowed the baffled
+fall to gather and arrange its tattered waters, and sink down again in
+its place. As the day advanced, the gale gave no sign of dying,
+excepting brief lulls, the Valley was filled with its weariless roar,
+and the cloudless sky grew garish-white from myriads of minute,
+sparkling snow-spicules. In the afternoon, while I watched the Upper
+Fall from the shelter of a big pine tree, it was suddenly arrested in
+its descent at a point about half-way down, and was neither blown upward
+nor driven aside, but simply held stationary in mid-air, as if
+gravitation below that point in the path of its descent had ceased to
+act. The ponderous flood, weighing hundreds of tons, was sustained,
+hovering, hesitating, like a bunch of thistledown, while I counted one
+hundred and ninety. All this time the ordinary amount of water was
+coming over the cliff and accumulating in the air, swedging and widening
+and forming an irregular cone about seven hundred feet high, tapering to
+the top of the wall, the whole standing still, jesting on the invisible
+arm of the North Wind. At length, as if commanded to go on again, scores
+of arrowy comets shot forth from the bottom of the suspended mass as if
+escaping from separate outlets.
+
+The brow of El Capitan was decked with long snow-streamers like hair,
+Clouds' Rest was fairly enveloped in drifting gossamer elms, and the Half
+Dome loomed up in the garish light like a majestic, living creature clad
+in the same gauzy, wind-woven drapery, while upward currents meeting at
+times overhead made it smoke like a volcano.
+
+
+An Extraordinary Storm And Flood
+
+
+Glorious as are these rocks and waters arrayed in storm robes, or
+chanting rejoicing in every-day dress, they are still more glorious when
+rare weather conditions meet to make them sing with floods. Only once
+during all the years I have lived in the Valley have I seen it in full
+flood bloom. In 1871 the early winter weather was delightful; the days
+all sunshine, the nights all starry and calm, calling forth fine crops
+of frost-crystals on the pines and withered ferns and grasses for the
+morning sunbeams to sift through. In the afternoon of December 16, when
+I was sauntering on the meadows, I noticed a massive crimson cloud
+growing in solitary grandeur above the Cathedral Rocks, its form
+scarcely less striking than its color. It had a picturesque, bulging
+base like an old sequoia, a smooth, tapering stem, and a bossy,
+down-curling crown like a mushroom; all its parts were colored alike,
+making one mass of translucent crimson. Wondering what the meaning of
+that strange, lonely red cloud might be, I was up betimes next morning
+looking at the weather, but all seemed tranquil as yet. Towards noon
+gray clouds with a lose, curly grain like bird's-eye maple began to
+grow, and late at night rain fell, which soon changed to snow. Next
+morning the snow on the meadows was about ten inches deep, and it was
+still falling in a fine, cordial storm. During the night of the 18th
+heavy rain fell on the snow, but as the temperature was 34 degrees, the
+snow-line was only a few hundred feet above the bottom of the Valley, and
+one had only to climb a little higher than the tops of the pines to get
+out of the rain-storm into the snow-storm. The streams, instead of being
+increased in volume by the storm, were diminished, because the snow
+sponged up part of their waters and choked the smaller tributaries. But
+about midnight the temperature suddenly rose to 42 degrees, carrying
+the snow-line far beyond the Valley walls, and next morning Yosemite
+was rejoicing in a glorious flood. The comparatively warm rain falling
+on the snow was at first absorbed and held back, and so also was that
+portion of the snow that the rain melted, and all that was melted by the
+warm wind, until the whole mass of snow was saturated and became sludgy,
+and at length slipped and rushed simultaneously from a thousand slopes
+in wildest extravagance, heaping and swelling flood over flood, and
+plunging into the Valley in stupendous avalanches.
+
+Awakened by the roar, I looked out and at once recognized the
+extraordinary character of the storm. The rain was still pouring in
+torrent abundance and the wind at gale speed was doing all it could with
+the flood-making rain.
+
+The section of the north wall visible from my cabin was fairly streaked
+with new falls--wild roaring singers that seemed strangely out of place.
+Eager to get into the midst of the show, I snatched a piece of bread for
+breakfast and ran out. The mountain waters, suddenly liberated, seemed
+to be holding a grand jubilee. The two Sentinel Cascades rivaled the
+great falls at ordinary stages, and across the Valley by the Three
+Brothers I caught glimpses of more falls than I could readily count;
+while the whole Valley throbbed and trembled, and was filled with an
+awful, massive, solemn, sea-like roar. After gazing a while enchanted
+with the network of new falls that were adorning and transfiguring every
+rock in sight, I tried to reach the upper meadows, where the Valley is
+widest, that I might be able to see the walls on both sides, and thus
+gain general views. But the river was over its banks and the meadows
+were flooded, forming an almost continuous lake dotted with blue sludgy
+islands, while innumerable streams roared like lions across my path and
+were sweeping forward rocks and logs with tremendous energy over ground
+where tiny gilias had been growing but a short time before. Climbing
+into the talus slopes, where these savage torrents were broken among
+earthquake boulders, I managed to cross them, and force my way up the
+Valley to Hutchings' Bridge, where I crossed the river and waded to the
+middle of the upper meadow. Here most of the new falls were in sight,
+probably the most glorious assemblage of waterfalls ever displayed from
+any one standpoint. On that portion of the south wall between Hutchings'
+and the Sentinel there were ten falls plunging and booming from a height
+of nearly three thousand feet, the smallest of which might have been
+heard miles away. In the neighborhood of Glacier Point there were six;
+between the Three Brothers and Yosemite Fall, nine; between Yosemite and
+Royal Arch Falls, ten; from Washington Column to Mount Watkins, ten; on
+the slopes of Half Dome and Clouds' Rest, facing Mirror Lake and Tenaya
+Canyon, eight; on the shoulder of Half Dome, facing the Valley, three;
+fifty-six new falls occupying the upper end of the Valley, besides a
+countless host of silvery threads gleaming everywhere. In all the Valley
+there must have been upwards of a hundred. As if celebrating some
+great event, falls and cascades in Yosemite costume were coming down
+everywhere from fountain basins, far and near; and, though newcomers,
+they behaved and sang as if they had lived here always.
+
+All summer-visitors will remember the comet forms of the Yosemite Fall
+and the laces of the Bridal Veil and Nevada. In the falls of this
+winter jubilee the lace forms predominated, but there was no lack of
+thunder-toned comets. The lower portion of one of the Sentinel Cascades
+was composed of two main white torrents with the space between them
+filled in with chained and beaded gauze of intricate pattern, through
+the singing threads of which the purplish-gray rock could be dimly seen.
+The series above Glacier Point was still more complicated in structure,
+displaying every form that one could imagine water might be dashed and
+combed and woven into. Those on the north wall between Washington Column
+and the Royal Arch Fall were so nearly related they formed an almost
+continuous sheet, and these again were but slightly separated from those
+about Indian Canyon. The group about the Three Brothers and El Capitan,
+owing to the topography and cleavage of the cliffs back of them, was
+more broken and irregular. The Tissiack Cascades were comparatively
+small, yet sufficient to give that noblest of mountain rocks a glorious
+voice. In the midst of all this extravagant rejoicing the great Yosemite
+Fall was scarce heard until about three o'clock in the afternoon. Then I
+was startled by a sudden thundering crash as if a rock avalanche had
+come to the help of the roaring waters. This was the flood-wave of
+Yosemite Creek, which had just arrived delayed by the distance it had to
+travel, and by the choking snows of its widespread fountains. Now, with
+volume tenfold increased beyond its springtime fullness, it took its
+place as leader of the glorious choir.
+
+And the winds, too, were singing in wild accord, playing on every tree
+and rock, surging against the huge brows and domes and outstanding
+battlements, deflected hither and thither and broken into a thousand
+cascading, roaring currents in the canyons, 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 canyon-boulder dens,
+the squirrels in their knot-hole nests, the grouse in close fir groves,
+and the small singers in the Indian Canyon chaparral, trying to keep
+warm and dry. Strange to say, I did not see even the water-ouzels,
+though they must have greatly enjoyed the storm.
+
+This was the most sublime waterfall flood I ever saw--clouds, winds,
+rocks, waters, throbbing together as one. And then to contemplate what
+was going on simultaneously with all this in other mountain temples; the
+Big Tuolumne Canyon--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 canyons and valleys from Shasta to the
+southernmost fountains of the Kern, thousands of rejoicing flood
+waterfalls chanting together in jubilee dress.
+
+
+
+Chapter 3
+
+Snow-Storms
+
+
+As has been already stated, the first of the great snow-storms that
+replenish the Yosemite fountains seldom sets in before the end of
+November. Then, warned by the sky, wide-awake mountaineers, together
+with the deer and most of the birds, make haste to the lowlands or
+foothills; and burrowing marmots, mountain beavers, wood-rats, and other
+small mountain people, go into winter quarters, some of them not again
+to see the light of day until the general awakening and resurrection of
+the spring in June or July. The fertile clouds, drooping and condensing
+in brooding silence, seem to be thoughtfully examining the forests and
+streams with reference to the work that lies before them. At length, all
+their plans perfected, tufted flakes and single starry crystals come in
+sight, solemnly swirling and glinting to their blessed appointed places;
+and soon the busy throng fills the sky and makes darkness like night.
+The first heavy fall is usually from about two to four feet in depth
+then with intervals of days or weeks of bright weather storm succeeds
+storm, heaping snow on snow, until thirty to fifty feet has fallen. But
+on account of its settling and compacting, and waste from melting and
+evaporation, the average depth actually found at any time seldom exceeds
+ten feet in the forest regions, or fifteen feet along the slopes of the
+summit peaks. After snow-storms come avalanches, varying greatly in
+form, size, behavior and in the songs they sing; some on the smooth
+slopes of the mountains are short and broad; others long and river-like
+in the side canyons of yosemites and in the main canyons, flowing in
+regular channels and booming like waterfalls, while countless smaller
+ones fall everywhere from laden trees and rocks and lofty canyon walls.
+Most delightful it is to stand in the middle of Yosemite on still clear
+mornings after snow-storms and watch the throng of avalanches as they
+come down, rejoicing, to their places, whispering, thrilling like birds,
+or booming and roaring like thunder. The noble yellow pines stand hushed
+and motionless as if under a spell until the morning sunshine begins to
+sift through their laden spires; then the dense masses on the ends of
+the leafy branches begin to shift and fall, those from the upper
+branches striking the lower ones in succession, enveloping each tree in
+a hollow conical avalanche of fairy fineness; while the relieved
+branches spring up and wave with startling effect in the general
+stillness, as if each tree was moving of its own volition. Hundreds of
+broad cloud-shaped masses may also be seen, leaping over the brows of
+the cliffs from great heights, descending at first with regular
+avalanche speed until, worn into dust by friction, they float in front
+of the precipices like irised clouds. Those which descend from the brow
+of El Capitan are particularly fine; but most of the great Yosemite
+avalanches flow in regular channels like cascades and waterfalls. When
+the snow first gives way on the upper slopes of their basins, a dull
+rushing, rumbling sound is heard which rapidly increases and seems to
+draw nearer with appalling intensity of tone. Presently the white flood
+comes bounding into sight over bosses and sheer places, leaping from
+bench to bench, spreading and narrowing and throwing off clouds of
+whirling dust like the spray of foaming cataracts. Compared with
+waterfalls and cascades, avalanches are short-lived, few of them lasting
+more than a minute or two, and the sharp, clashing sounds so common in
+falling water are mostly wanting; but in their low massy thundertones
+and purple-tinged whiteness, and in their dress, gait, gestures and
+general behavior, they are much alike.
+
+
+Avalanches
+
+
+Besides these common after-storm avalanches that are to be found not
+only in the Yosemite but in all the deep, sheer-walled canyon 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 canyon and mountain-sides at an elevation
+of from nine to ten thousand feet, where the slopes are inclined at an
+angle too low to shed off the dry winter snow, and which accumulates
+until the spring thaws sap their foundations and make them slippery;
+then away in grand style go the ponderous icy masses without any fine
+snow-dust. Those of Clouds' Rest descend like thunderbolts for more than
+a mile.
+
+The great century avalanches and the kind that mow wide swaths through
+the upper forests occur on mountain-sides about ten or twelve thousand
+feet high, where under ordinary weather conditions the snow accumulated
+from winter to winter lies at rest for many years, allowing trees, fifty
+to a hundred feet high, to grow undisturbed on the slopes beneath them.
+On their way down through the woods they seldom fail to make a perfectly
+clean sweep, stripping off the soil as well as the trees, clearing paths
+two or three hundred yards wide from the timber line to the glacier
+meadows or lakes, and piling their uprooted trees, head downward, in
+rows along the sides of the gaps like lateral moraines. Scars and broken
+branches of the trees standing on the sides of the gaps record the depth
+of the overwhelming flood; and when we come to count the annual
+wood-rings on the uprooted trees we learn that some of these immense
+avalanches occur only once in a century or even at still wider
+intervals.
+
+
+A Ride On An Avalanche
+
+
+Few Yosemite visitors ever see snow avalanches and fewer still know the
+exhilaration of riding on them. In all my mountaineering I have enjoyed
+only one avalanche ride, and the start was so sudden and the end came
+so soon I had but little time to think of the danger that attends this
+sort of travel, though at such times one thinks fast. One fine Yosemite
+morning after a heavy snowfall, being eager to see as many avalanches
+as possible and wide views of the forest and summit peaks in their new
+white robes before the sunshine had time to change them, I set out early
+to climb by a side canyon 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 canyon 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 canyon head, where the snow was strained,
+started an avalanche, and I was swished down to the foot of the canyon
+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 canyon is very steep, it is not interrupted by
+precipices large enough to cause outbounding or free plunging. On no
+part of the rush was I buried. I was only moderately imbedded on the
+surface or at times a little below it, and covered with a veil of
+back-streaming dust particles; and as the whole mass beneath and about
+me joined in the flight there was no friction, though I was tossed here
+and there and lurched from side to side. When the avalanche swedged and
+came to rest I found myself on top of the crumpled pile without bruise
+or scar. This was a fine experience. Hawthorne says somewhere that steam
+has spiritualized travel; though unspiritual smells, smoke, etc., still
+attend steam travel. This flight in what might be called a milky way of
+snow-stars was the most spiritual and exhilarating of all the modes of
+motion I have ever experienced. Elijah's flight in a chariot of fire
+could hardly have been more gloriously exciting.
+
+
+The Streams In Other Seasons
+
+
+In the spring, after all the avalanches are down and the snow is melting
+fast, then all the Yosemite streams, from their fountains to their
+falls, sing their grandest songs. Countless rills make haste to the
+rivers, running and singing soon after sunrise, louder and louder with
+increasing volume until sundown; then they gradually fail through the
+frosty hours of the night. In this way the volume of the upper branches
+of the river is nearly doubled during the day, rising and falling as
+regularly as the tides of the sea. Then the Merced overflows its banks,
+flooding the meadows, sometimes almost from wall to wall in some places,
+beginning to rise towards sundown just when the streams on the fountains
+are beginning to diminish, the difference in time of the daily rise and
+fall being caused by the distance the upper flood streams have to travel
+before reaching the Valley. In the warmest weather they seem fairly to
+shout for joy and clash their upleaping waters together like clapping
+of hands; racing down the canyons with white manes flying in glorious
+exuberance of strength, compelling huge, sleeping boulders to wake up
+and join in their dance and song, to swell their exulting chorus.
+
+In early summer, after the flood season, the Yosemite streams are in
+their prime, running crystal clear, deep and full but not overflowing
+their banks--about as deep through the night as the day, the difference
+in volume so marked in spring being now too slight to be noticed. Nearly
+all the weather is cloudless and everything is at its brightest--lake,
+river, garden and forest with all their life. Most of the plants are in
+full flower. The blessed ouzels have built their mossy huts and are now
+singing their best songs with the streams.
+
+In tranquil, mellow autumn, when the year's work is about done and
+the fruits are ripe, birds and seeds out of their nests, and all the
+landscape is glowing like a benevolent countenance, then the streams
+are at their lowest ebb, with scarce a memory left of their wild spring
+floods. The small tributaries that do not reach back to the lasting
+snow fountains of the summit peaks shrink to whispering, tinkling
+currents. After the snow is gone from the basins, excepting occasional
+thundershowers, they are now fed only by small springs whose waters
+are mostly evaporated in passing over miles of warm pavements, and in
+feeling their way slowly from pool to pool through the midst of boulders
+and sand. Even the main rivers are so low they may easily be forded, and
+their grand falls and cascades, now gentle and approachable, have waned
+to sheets of embroidery.
+
+
+
+Chapter 4
+
+Snow Banners
+
+
+But it is on the mountain tops, when they are laden with loose, dry snow
+and swept by a gale from the north, that the most magnificent storm
+scenery is displayed. The peaks along the axis of the Range are then
+decorated with resplendent banners, some of them more than a mile long,
+shining, streaming, waving with solemn exuberant enthusiasm as if
+celebrating some surpassingly glorious event.
+
+The snow of which these banners are made falls on the high Sierra in
+most extravagant abundance, sometimes to a depth of fifteen or twenty
+feet, coming from the fertile clouds not in large angled flakes such as
+one oftentimes sees in Yosemite, seldom even in complete crystals, for
+many of the starry blossoms fall before they are ripe, while most of
+those that attain perfect development as six-petaled flowers are more
+or less broken by glinting and chafing against one another on the
+way down to their work. This dry frosty snow is prepared for the grand
+banner-waving celebrations by the action of the wind. Instead of at
+once finding rest like that which falls into the tranquil depths of
+the forest, it is shoved and rolled and beaten against boulders and
+out-jutting rocks, swirled in pits and hollows like sand in river
+pot-holes, and ground into sparkling dust. And when storm winds find
+this snow-dust in a loose condition on the slopes above the timber-line
+they toss it back into the sky and sweep it onward from peak to peak
+in the form of smooth regular banners, or in cloudy drifts, according
+to the velocity and direction of the wind, and the conformation of the
+slopes over which it is driven. While thus flying through the air a
+small portion escapes from the mountains to the sky as vapor; but far
+the greater part is at length locked fast in bossy overcurling cornices
+along the ridges, or in stratified sheets in the glacier cirques, some
+of it to replenish the small residual glaciers and remain silent and
+rigid for centuries before it is finally melted and sent singing down
+home to the sea.
+
+But, though snow-dust and storm-winds abound on the mountains, regular
+shapely banners are, for causes we shall presently see, seldom produced.
+During the five winters that I spent in Yosemite I made many excursions
+to high points above the walls in all kinds of weather to see what was
+going on outside; from all my lofty outlooks I saw only one banner-storm
+that seemed in every way perfect. This was in the winter of 1873, when
+the snow-laden peaks were swept by a powerful norther. I was awakened
+early in the morning by a wild storm-wind and of course I had to make
+haste to the middle of the Valley to enjoy it. Rugged torrents and
+avalanches from the main wind-flood overhead were roaring down the side
+canyons and over the cliffs, arousing the rocks and the trees and the
+streams alike into glorious hurrahing enthusiasm, shaking the whole
+Valley into one huge song. Yet inconceivable as it must seem even to
+those who love all Nature's wildness, the storm was telling its story
+on the mountains in still grander characters.
+
+
+A Wonderful Winter Scene
+
+
+I had long been anxious to study some points in the structure of the
+ice-hill at the foot of the Upper Yosemite Fall, but, as I have already
+explained, blinding spray had hitherto prevented me from getting
+sufficiently near it. This morning the entire body of the Fall was
+oftentimes torn into gauzy strips and blown horizontally along the face
+of the cliff, leaving the ice-hill dry; and while making my way to the
+top of Fern Ledge to seize so favorable an opportunity to look down its
+throat, the peaks of the Merced group came in sight over the shoulder of
+the South Dome, each waving a white glowing banner against the dark blue
+sky, as regular in form and firm and fine in texture as if it were made
+of silk. So rare and splendid a picture, of course, smothered everything
+else and I at once began to scramble and wallow up the snow-choked
+Indian Canyon to a ridge about 8000 feet high, commanding a general
+view of the main summits along the axis of the Range, feeling assured I
+should find them bannered still more gloriously; nor was I in the least
+disappointed. I reached the top of the ridge in four or five hours, and
+through an opening in the woods the most imposing wind-storm effect I
+ever beheld came full in sight; unnumbered mountains rising sharply
+into the cloudless sky, their bases solid white their sides plashed with
+snow, like ocean rocks with foam, and on every summit a magnificent
+silvery banner, from two thousand to six thousand feet in length,
+slender at the point of attachment, and widening gradually until about
+a thousand or fifteen hundred feet in breadth, and as shapely and as
+substantial looking in texture as the banners of the finest silk, all
+streaming and waving free and clear in the sun-glow with nothing to blur
+the sublime picture they made.
+
+Fancy yourself standing beside me on this Yosemite Ridge. There is a
+strange garish glitter in the air and the gale drives wildly overhead,
+but you feel nothing of its violence, for you are looking out through a
+sheltered opening in the woods, as through a window. In the immediate
+foreground there is a forest of silver fir their foliage warm
+yellow-green, and the snow beneath them strewn with their plumes,
+plucked off by the storm; and beyond broad, ridgy, canyon-furrowed,
+dome-dotted middle ground, darkened here and there with belts of pines,
+you behold the lofty snow laden mountains in glorious array, waving
+their banners with jubilant enthusiasm as if shouting aloud for joy.
+They are twenty miles away, but you would not wish them nearer, for
+every feature is distinct and the whole wonderful show is seen in its
+right proportions, like a painting on the sky.
+
+And now after this general view, mark how sharply the ribs and
+buttresses and summits of the mountains are defined, excepting the
+portions veiled by the banners; how gracefully and nobly the banners
+are waving in accord with the throbbing of the wind flood; how trimly
+each is attached to the very summit of its peak like a streamer at a
+mast-head; how bright and glowing white they are, and how finely their
+fading fringes are penciled on the sky! See how solid white and opaque
+they are at the point of attachment and how filmy and translucent toward
+the end, so that the parts of the peaks past which they are streaming
+look dim as if seen through a veil of ground glass. And see how some of
+the longest of the banners on the highest peaks are streaming perfectly
+free from peak to peak across intervening notches or passes, while
+others overlap and partly hide one another.
+
+As to their formation, we find that the main causes of the wondrous
+beauty and perfection of those we are looking at are the favorable
+direction and force of the wind, the abundance of snow-dust, and the
+form of the north sides of the peaks. In general, the north sides are
+concave in both their horizontal and vertical sections, having been
+sculptured into this shape by the residual glaciers that lingered in
+the protecting northern shadows, while the sun-beaten south sides,
+having never been subjected to this kind of glaciation, are convex or
+irregular. It is essential, therefore, not only that the wind should
+move with great velocity and steadiness to supply a sufficiently copious
+and continuous stream of snow-dust, but that it should come from the
+north. No perfect banner is ever hung on the Sierra peaks by the south
+wind. Had the gale today blown from the south, leaving the other
+conditions unchanged, only swirling, interfering, cloudy drifts would
+have been produced; for the snow, instead of being spouted straight up
+and over the tops of the peaks in condensed currents to be drawn out as
+streamers, would have been driven over the convex southern slopes from
+peak to peak like white pearly fog.
+
+It appears, therefore, that shadows in great part determine not only the
+forms of lofty ice mountains, but also those of the snow banners that
+the wild winds hang upon them.
+
+
+Earthquake Storms
+
+
+The avalanche taluses, leaning against the walls at intervals of a mile
+or two, are among the most striking and interesting of the secondary
+features of the Valley. They are from about three to five hundred feet
+high, made up of huge, angular, well-preserved, unshifting boulders, and
+instead of being slowly weathered from the cliffs like ordinary taluses,
+they were all formed suddenly and simultaneously by a great earthquake
+that occurred at least three centuries ago. And though thus hurled into
+existence in a few seconds or minutes, they are the least changeable of
+all the Sierra soil-beds. Excepting those which were launched directly
+into the channels of swift rivers, scarcely one of their wedged and
+interlacing boulders has moved since the day of their creation; and
+though mostly made up of huge blocks of granite, many of them from ten
+to fifty feet cube, weighing thousands of tons with only a few small
+chips, trees and shrubs make out to live and thrive on them and even
+delicate herbaceous plants--draperia, collomia, zauschneria, etc.,
+soothing and coloring their wild rugged slopes with gardens and groves.
+
+I was long in doubt on some points concerning the origin of those
+taluses. Plainly enough they were derived from the cliffs above them,
+because they are of the size of scars on the wall, the rough angular
+surface of which contrasts with the rounded, glaciated, unfractured
+parts. It was plain, too, that instead of being made up of material
+slowly and gradually weathered from the cliffs like ordinary taluses,
+almost every one of them had been formed suddenly in a single avalanche,
+and had not been increased in size during the last three or four
+centuries, for trees three or four hundred years old are growing on
+them, some standing at the top close to the wall without a bruise or
+broken branch, showing that scarcely a single boulder had ever fallen
+among them. Furthermore, all these taluses throughout the Range seemed
+by the trees and lichens growing on them to be of the same age. All
+the phenomena thus pointed straight to a grand ancient earthquake. But
+for years I left the question open, and went on from canyon to canyon,
+observing again and again; measuring the heights of taluses throughout
+the Range on both flanks, and the variations in the angles of their
+surface slopes; studying the way their boulders had been assorted and
+related and brought to rest, and their correspondence in size with the
+cleavage joints of the cliffs from whence they were derived, cautious
+about making up my mind. But at last all doubt as to their formation
+vanished.
+
+At half-past two o'clock of a moonlit morning in March, I was awakened
+by a tremendous earthquake, and though I had never before enjoyed a
+storm of this sort, the strange thrilling motion could not be mistaken,
+and I ran out of my cabin, both glad and frightened, shouting, "A noble
+earthquake! A noble earthquake!" feeling sure I was going to learn
+something. The shocks were so violent and varied, and succeeded one
+another so closely, that I had to balance myself carefully in walking as
+if on the deck of a ship among waves, and it seemed impossible that the
+high cliffs of the Valley could escape being shattered. In particular,
+I feared that the sheer-fronted Sentinel Rock, towering above my cabin,
+would be shaken down, and I took shelter back of a large yellow pine,
+hoping that it might protect me from at least the smaller outbounding
+boulders. For a minute or two the shocks became more and more
+violent--flashing horizontal thrusts mixed with a few twists and
+battering, explosive, upheaving jolts,--as if Nature were wrecking her
+Yosemite temple, and getting ready to build a still better one.
+
+I was now convinced before a single boulder had fallen that earthquakes
+were the talus-makers and positive proof soon came. It was a calm
+moonlight night, and no sound was heard for the first minute or so, save
+low, muffled, underground, bubbling rumblings, and the whispering and
+rustling of the agitated trees, as if Nature were holding her breath.
+Then, suddenly, out of the strange silence and strange motion there came
+a tremendous roar. The Eagle Rock on the south wall, about a half a mile
+up the Valley, gave way and I saw it falling in thousands of the great
+boulders I had so long been studying, pouring to the Valley floor
+in a free curve luminous from friction, making a terribly sublime
+spectacle--an arc of glowing, passionate fire, fifteen hundred feet
+span, as true in form and as serene in beauty as a rainbow in the midst
+of the stupendous, roaring rock-storm. The sound was so tremendously
+deep and broad and earnest, the whole earth like a living creature
+seemed to have at last found a voice and to be calling to her sister
+planets. In trying to tell something of the size of this awful sound it
+seems to me that if all the thunder of all the storms I had ever heard
+were condensed into one roar it would not equal this rock-roar at the
+birth of a mountain talus. Think, then, of the roar that arose to heaven
+at the simultaneous birth of all the thousands of ancient canyon-taluses
+throughout the length and breadth of the Range!
+
+The first severe shocks were soon over, and eager to examine the
+new-born talus I ran up the Valley in the moonlight and climbed upon it
+before the huge blocks, after their fiery flight, had come to complete
+rest. They were slowly settling into their places, chafing, grating
+against one another, groaning, and whispering; but no motion was visible
+except in a stream of small fragments pattering down the face of the
+cliff. A cloud of dust particles, lighted by the moon, floated out
+across the whole breadth of the Valley, forming a ceiling that lasted
+until after sunrise, and the air was filled with the odor of crushed
+Douglas spruces from a grove that had been mowed down and mashed like
+weeds.
+
+After the ground began to calm I ran across the meadow to the river to
+see in what direction it was flowing and was glad to find that _down_
+the Valley was still down. Its waters were muddy from portions of its
+banks having given way, but it was flowing around its curves and over
+its ripples and shallows with ordinary tones and gestures. The mud would
+soon be cleared away and the raw slips on the banks would be the only
+visible record of the shaking it suffered.
+
+The Upper Yosemite Fall, glowing white in the moonlight, seemed to know
+nothing of the earthquake, manifesting no change in form or voice, as
+far as I could see or hear.
+
+After a second startling shock, about half-past three o'clock, the
+ground continued to tremble gently, and smooth, hollow rumbling sounds,
+not always distinguishable from the rounded, bumping, explosive tones of
+the falls, came from deep in the mountains in a northern direction.
+
+The few Indians fled from their huts to the middle of the Valley,
+fearing that angry spirits were trying to kill them; and, as I afterward
+learned, most of the Yosemite tribe, who were spending the winter at
+their village on Bull Creek forty miles away, were so terrified that
+they ran into the river and washed themselves,--getting themselves clean
+enough to say their prayers, I suppose, or to die. I asked Dick, one of
+the Indians with whom I was acquainted, "What made the ground shake and
+jump so much?" He only shook his head and said, "No good. No good," and
+looked appealingly to me to give him hope that his life was to be
+spared.
+
+In the morning I found the few white settlers assembled in front of
+the old Hutchings Hotel comparing notes and meditating flight to the
+lowlands, seemingly as sorely frightened as the Indians. Shortly after
+sunrise a low, blunt, muffled rumbling, like distant thunder, was
+followed by another series of shocks, which, though not nearly so severe
+as the first, made the cliffs and domes tremble like jelly, and the big
+pines and oaks thrill and swish and wave their branches with startling
+effect. Then the talkers were suddenly hushed, and the solemnity on
+their faces was sublime. One in particular of these winter neighbors, a
+somewhat speculative thinker with whom I had often conversed, was a firm
+believer in the cataclysmic origin of the Valley; and I now jokingly
+remarked that his wild tumble-down-and-engulfment hypothesis might soon
+be proved, since these underground rumblings and shakings might be the
+forerunners of another Yosemite-making cataclysm, which would perhaps
+double the depth of the Valley by swallowing the floor, leaving the ends
+of the roads and trails dangling three or four thousand feet in the air.
+Just then came the third series of shocks, and it was fine to see how
+awfully silent and solemn he became. His belief in the existence of a
+mysterious abyss, into which the suspended floor of the Valley and all
+the domes and battlements of the walls might at any moment go roaring
+down, mightily troubled him. To diminish his fears and laugh him into
+something like reasonable faith, I said, "Come, cheer up; smile a little
+and clap your hands, now that kind Mother Earth is trotting us on her
+knee to amuse us and make us good." But the well-meant joke seemed
+irreverent and utterly failed, as if only prayerful terror could rightly
+belong to the wild beauty-making business. Even after all the heavier
+shocks were over I could do nothing to reassure him, on the contrary,
+he handed me the keys of his little store to keep, saying that with a
+companion of like mind he was going to the lowlands to stay until the
+fate of poor, trembling Yosemite was settled. In vain I rallied them on
+their fears, calling attention to the strength of the granite walls of
+our Valley home, the very best and solidest masonry in the world, and
+less likely to collapse and sink than the sedimentary lowlands to which
+they were looking for safety; and saying that in any case they sometime
+would have to die, and so grand a burial was not to be slighted. But
+they were too seriously panic-stricken to get comfort from anything I
+could say.
+
+During the third severe shock the trees were so violently shaken that
+the birds flew out with frightened cries. In particular, I noticed two
+robins flying in terror from a leafless oak, the branches of which
+swished and quivered as if struck by a heavy battering-ram. Exceedingly
+interesting were the flashing and quivering of the elastic needles of
+the pines in the sunlight and the waving up and down of the branches
+while the trunks stood rigid. There was no swaying, waving or swirling
+as in wind-storms, but quick, quivering jerks, and at times the heavy
+tasseled branches moved as if they had all been pressed down against the
+trunk and suddenly let go, to spring up and vibrate until they came to
+rest again. Only the owls seemed to be undisturbed. Before the rumbling
+echoes had died away a hollow-voiced owl began to hoot in philosophical
+tranquillity from near the edge of the new talus as if nothing
+extraordinary had occurred, although, perhaps, he was curious to know
+what all the noise was about. His "hoot-too-hoot-too-whoo" might have
+meant, "what's a' the steer, kimmer?"
+
+It was long before the Valley found perfect rest. The rocks trembled
+more or less every day for over two months, and I kept a bucket of water
+on my table to learn what I could of the movements. The blunt thunder
+in the depths of the mountains was usually followed by sudden jarring,
+horizontal thrusts from the northward, often succeeded by twisting,
+upjolting movements. More than a month after the first great shock, when
+I was standing on a fallen tree up the Valley near Lamon's winter cabin,
+I heard a distinct bubbling thunder from the direction of Tenaya Canyon
+Carlo, a large intelligent St. Bernard dog standing beside me seemed
+greatly astonished, and looked intently in that direction with mouth
+open and uttered a low _Wouf!_ as if saying, "What's that?" He
+must have known that it was not thunder, though like it. The air was
+perfectly still, not the faintest breath of wind perceptible, and a
+fine, mellow, sunny hush pervaded everything, in the midst of which came
+that subterranean thunder. Then, while we gazed and listened, came the
+corresponding shocks, distinct as if some mighty hand had shaken the
+ground. After the sharp horizontal jars died away, they were followed
+by a gentle rocking and undulating of the ground so distinct that Carlo
+looked at the log on which he was standing to see who was shaking it. It
+was the season of flooded meadows and the pools about me, calm as sheets
+of glass, were suddenly thrown into low ruffling waves.
+
+Judging by its effects, this Yosemite, or Inyo earthquake, as it is
+sometimes called, was gentle as compared with the one that gave rise
+to the grand talus system of the Range and did so much for the canyon
+scenery. Nature, usually so deliberate in her operations, then created,
+as we have seen, a new set of features, simply by giving the mountains
+a shake--changing not only the high peaks and cliffs, but the streams.
+As soon as these rock avalanches fell the streams began to sing new
+songs; for in many places thousands of boulders were hurled into their
+channels, roughening and half-damming them, compelling the waters to
+surge and roar in rapids where before they glided smoothly. Some of
+the streams were completely dammed; driftwood, leaves, etc., gradually
+filling the interstices between the boulders, thus giving rise to lakes
+and level reaches; and these again, after being gradually filled in,
+were changed to meadows, through which the streams are now silently
+meandering; while at the same time some of the taluses took the places
+of old meadows and groves. Thus rough places were made smooth, and
+smooth places rough. But, on the whole, by what at first sight seemed
+pure confounded confusion and ruin, the landscapes were enriched; for
+gradually every talus was covered with groves and gardens, and made a
+finely proportioned and ornamental base for the cliffs. In this work of
+beauty, every boulder is prepared and measured and put in its place more
+thoughtfully than are the stones of temples. If for a moment you are
+inclined to regard these taluses as mere draggled, chaotic dumps, climb
+to the top of one of them, and run down without any haggling, puttering
+hesitation, boldly jumping from boulder to boulder with even speed. You
+will then find your feet playing a tune, and quickly discover the music
+and poetry of these magnificent rock piles--a fine lesson; and all
+Nature's wildness tells the same story--the shocks and outbursts of
+earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers, roaring, thundering waves and floods,
+the silent uprush of sap in plants, storms of every sort--each and all
+are the orderly beauty-making love-beats of Nature's heart.
+
+
+
+Chapter 5
+
+The Trees of the Valley
+
+
+The most influential of the Valley trees is the yellow pine (Pinus
+ponderosa). It attains its noblest dimensions on beds of water-washed,
+coarsely-stratified moraine material, between the talus slopes and
+meadows, dry on the surface, well-watered below and where not too
+closely assembled in groves the branches reach nearly to the ground,
+forming grand spires 200 to 220 feet in height. The largest that I have
+measured is standing alone almost opposite the Sentinel Rock, or a
+little to the westward of it. It is a little over eight feet in diameter
+and about 220 feet high. Climbing these grand trees, especially when
+they are waving and singing in worship in wind-storms, is a glorious
+experience. Ascending from the lowest branch to the topmost is like
+stepping up stairs through a blaze of white light, every needle
+thrilling and shining as if with religious ecstasy.
+
+Unfortunately there are but few sugar pines in the Valley, though in
+the King's yosemite they are in glorious abundance. The incense cedar
+(Libocedrus decurrens) with cinnamon-colored bark and yellow-green
+foliage is one of the most interesting of the Yosemite trees. Some of
+them are 150 feet high, from six to ten feet in diameter, and they are
+never out of sight as you saunter among the yellow pines. Their bright
+brown shafts and towers of flat, frondlike branches make a striking
+feature of the landscapes throughout all the seasons. In midwinter, when
+most of the other trees are asleep, this cedar puts forth its flowers
+in millions,--the pistillate pale green and inconspicuous, but the
+staminate bright yellow, tingeing all the branches and making the trees
+as they stand in the snow look like gigantic goldenrods. The branches,
+outspread in flat plumes and, beautifully fronded, sweep gracefully
+downward and outward, except those near the top, which aspire; the
+lowest, especially in youth and middle age, droop to the ground,
+overlapping one another, shedding off rain and snow like shingles, and
+making fine tents for birds and campers. This tree frequently lives more
+than a thousand years and is well worthy its place beside the great
+pines and the Douglas spruce.
+
+The two largest specimens I know of the Douglas spruce, about eight feet
+in diameter, are growing at the foot of the Liberty Cap near the Nevada
+Fall, and on the terminal moraine of the small residual glacier that
+lingered in the shady Illilouette Canyon.
+
+After the conifers, the most important of the Yosemite trees are the
+oaks, two species; the California live-oak (Quercus agrifolia), with
+black trunks, reaching a thickness of from four to nearly seven feet,
+wide spreading branches and bright deeply-scalloped leaves. It occupies
+the greater part of the broad sandy flats of the upper end of the
+Valley, and is the species that yields the acorns so highly prized by
+the Indians and woodpeckers.
+
+The other species is the mountain live-oak, or goldcup oak (Quercus
+chrysolepis), a sturdy mountaineer of a tree, growing mostly on the
+earthquake taluses and benches of the sunny north wall of the Valley.
+In tough, unwedgeable, knotty strength, it is the oak of oaks, a
+magnificent tree.
+
+The largest and most picturesque specimen in the Valley is near the foot
+of the Tenaya Fall, a romantic spot seldom seen on account of the rough
+trouble of getting to it. It is planted on three huge boulders and yet
+manages to draw sufficient moisture and food from this craggy soil to
+maintain itself in good health. It is twenty feet in circumference,
+measured above a large branch between three and four feet in diameter
+that has been broken off. The main knotty trunk seems to be made up of
+craggy granite boulders like those on which it stands, being about the
+same color as the mossy, lichened boulders and about as rough. Two
+moss-lined caves near the ground open back into the trunk, one on the
+north side, the other on the west, forming picturesque, romantic seats.
+The largest of the main branches is eighteen feet and nine inches in
+circumference, and some of the long pendulous branchlets droop over the
+stream at the foot of the fall where it is gray with spray. The leaves
+are glossy yellow-green, ever in motion from the wind from the fall. It
+is a fine place to dream in, with falls, cascades, cool rocks lined with
+hypnum three inches thick; shaded with maple, dogwood, alder, willow;
+grand clumps of lady-ferns where no hand may touch them; light filtering
+through translucent leaves; oaks fifty feet high; lilies eight feet high
+in a filled lake basin near by, and the finest libocedrus groves and
+tallest ferns and goldenrods.
+
+In the main river canyon below the Vernal Fall and on the shady south
+side of the Valley there are a few groves of the silver fir (Abies
+concolor), and superb forests of the magnificent species round the rim
+of the Valley.
+
+On the tops of the domes is found the sturdy, storm-enduring red cedar
+(Juniperus occidentalis). It never makes anything like a forest here,
+but stands out separate and independent in the wind, clinging by slight
+joints to the rock, with scarce a handful of soil in sight of it,
+seeming to depend chiefly on snow and air for nourishment, and yet it
+has maintained tough health on this diet for two thousand years or more.
+The largest hereabouts are from five to six feet in diameter and fifty
+feet in height.
+
+The principal river-side trees are poplar, alder, willow, broad-leaved
+maple, and Nuttall's flowering dogwood. The poplar (Populus
+trichocarpa), often called balm-of-Gilead from the gum on its buds, is
+a tall tree, towering above its companions and gracefully embowering
+the banks of the river. Its abundant foliage turns bright yellow in the
+fall, and the Indian-summer sunshine sifts through it in delightful
+tones over the slow-gliding waters when they are at their lowest ebb.
+
+Some of the involucres of the flowering dogwood measure six to eight
+inches in diameter, and the whole tree when in flower looks as if
+covered with snow. In the spring when the streams are in flood it is the
+whitest of trees. In Indian summer the leaves become bright crimson,
+making a still grander show than the flowers.
+
+The broad-leaved maple and mountain maple are found mostly in the cool
+canyons at the head of the Valley, spreading their branches in beautiful
+arches over the foaming streams.
+
+Scattered here and there are a few other trees, mostly small--the
+mountain mahogany, cherry, chestnut-oak, and laurel. The California
+nutmeg (Torreya californica), a handsome evergreen belonging to the
+yew family, forms small groves near the cascades a mile or two below
+the foot of the Valley.
+
+
+
+Chapter 6
+
+The Forest Trees in General
+
+
+For the use of the ever-increasing number of Yosemite visitors who make
+extensive excursions into the mountains beyond the Valley, a sketch of
+the forest trees in general will probably be found useful. The different
+species are arranged in zones and sections, which brings the forest as
+a whole within the comprehension of every observer. These species are
+always found as controlled by the climates of different elevations,
+by soil and by the comparative strength of each species in taking and
+holding possession of the ground; and so appreciable are these relations
+the traveler need never be at a loss in determining within a few
+hundred feet his elevation above sea level by the trees alone; for,
+notwithstanding some of the species range upward for several thousand
+feet and all pass one another more or less, yet even those species
+possessing the greatest vertical range are available in measuring
+the elevation; inasmuch as they take on new forms corresponding with
+variations in altitude. Entering the lower fringe of the forest composed
+of Douglas oaks and Sabine pines, the trees grow so far apart that not
+one-twentieth of the surface of the ground is in shade at noon. After
+advancing fifteen or twenty miles towards Yosemite and making an ascent
+of from two to three thousand feet you reach the lower margin of the
+main pine belt, composed of great sugar pine, yellow pine, incense cedar
+and sequoia. Next you come to the magnificent silver-fir belt and lastly
+to the upper pine belt, which sweep up to the feet of the summit peaks
+in a dwarfed fringe, to a height of from ten to twelve thousand feet.
+That this general order of distribution depends on climate as affected
+by height above the sea, is seen at once, but there are other harmonies
+that become manifest only after observation and study. One of the most
+interesting of these is the arrangement of the forest in long curving
+bands, braided together into lace-like patterns in some places and
+out-spread in charming variety. The key to these striking arrangements
+is the system of ancient glaciers; where they flowed the trees followed,
+tracing their courses along the sides of canyons, over ridges, and high
+plateaus. The cedar of Lebanon, said Sir Joseph Hooker, occurs upon one
+of the moraines of an ancient glacier. All the forests of the Sierra are
+growing upon moraines, but moraines vanish like the glaciers that make
+them. Every storm that falls upon them wastes them, carrying away their
+decaying, disintegrating material into new formations, until they are no
+longer recognizable without tracing their transitional forms down the
+Range from those still in process of formation in some places through
+those that are more and more ancient and more obscured by vegetation and
+all kinds of post-glacial weathering. It appears, therefore, that the
+Sierra forests indicate the extent and positions of ancient moraines as
+well as they do belts of climate.
+
+One will have no difficulty in knowing the Nut Pine (Pinus Sabiniana),
+for it is the first conifer met in ascending the Range from the west,
+springing up here and there among Douglas oaks and thickets of ceanothus
+and manzanita; its extreme upper limit being about 4000 feet above the
+sea, its lower about from 500 to 800 feet. It is remarkable for its
+loose, airy, wide-branching habit and thin gray foliage. Full-grown
+specimens are from forty to fifty feet in height and from two to three
+feet in diameter. The trunk usually divides into three or four main
+branches about fifteen or twenty feet from the ground that, after
+bearing away from one another, shoot straight up and form separate
+summits. Their slender, grayish needles are from eight to twelve inches
+long, and inclined to droop, contrasting with the rigid, dark-colored
+trunk and branches. No other tree of my acquaintance so substantial in
+its body has foliage so thin and pervious to the light. The cones are
+from five to eight inches long and about as large in thickness; rich
+chocolate-brown in color and protected by strong, down-curving nooks
+which terminate the scales. Nevertheless the little Douglas Squirrel can
+open them. Indians climb the trees like bears and beat off the cones or
+recklessly cut off the more fruitful branches with hatchets, while the
+squaws gather and roast them until the scales open sufficiently to
+allow the hard-shell seeds to be beaten out. The curious little Pinus
+attenuata is found at an elevation of from 1500 to 3000 feet, growing in
+close groves and belts. It is exceedingly slender and graceful, although
+trees that chance to stand alone send out very long, curved branches,
+making a striking contrast to the ordinary grove form. The foliage is of
+the same peculiar gray-green color as that of the nut pine, and is worn
+about as loosely, so that the body of the tree is scarcely obscured
+by it. At the age of seven or eight years it begins to bear cones in
+whorls on the main axis, and as they never fall off, the trunk is soon
+picturesquely dotted with them. Branches also soon become fruitful. The
+average size of the tree is about thirty or forty feet in height and
+twelve to fourteen inches in diameter. The cones are about four inches
+long and covered with a sort of varnish and gum, rendering them
+impervious to moisture.
+
+No observer can fail to notice the admirable adaptation of this curious
+pine to the fire-swept regions where alone it is found. After a running
+fire has scorched and killed it the cones open and the ground beneath it
+is then sown broadcast with all the seeds ripened during its whole life.
+Then up spring a crowd of bright, hopeful seedlings, giving beauty for
+ashes in lavish abundance.
+
+
+The Sugar Pine, King Of Pine Trees
+
+
+Of all the world's eighty or ninety species of pine trees, the Sugar
+Pine (Pinus Lambertiana) is king, surpassing all others, not merely in
+size but in lordly beauty and majesty. In the Yosemite region it grows
+at an elevation of from 3000 to 7000 feet above the sea and attains
+most perfect development at a height of about 5000 feet. The largest
+specimens are commonly about 220 feet high and from six to eight feet
+in diameter four feet from the ground, though some grand old patriarch
+may be met here and there that has enjoyed six or eight centuries of
+storms and attained a thickness of ten or even twelve feet, still sweet
+and fresh in every fiber. The trunk is a remarkably smooth, round,
+delicately-tapered shaft, straight and regular as if turned in a lathe,
+mostly without limbs, purplish brown in color and usually enlivened with
+tufts of a yellow lichen. Toward the head of this magnificent column
+long branches sweep gracefully outward and downward, sometimes forming
+a palm-like crown, but far more impressive than any palm crown I ever
+beheld. The needles are about three inches long in fascicles of five,
+and arranged in rather close tassels at the ends of slender branchlets
+that clothe the long outsweeping limbs. How well they sing in the wind,
+and how strikingly harmonious an effect is made by the long cylindrical
+cones, depending loosely from the ends of the long branches! The cones
+are about fifteen to eighteen inches long, and three in diameter;
+green, shaded with dark purple on their sunward sides. They are ripe in
+September and October of the second year from the flower. Then the flat,
+thin scales open and the seeds take wing, but the empty cones become
+still more beautiful and effective as decorations, for their diameter is
+nearly doubled by the spreading of the scales, and their color changes
+to yellowish brown while they remain, swinging on the tree all the
+following winter and summer, and continue effectively beautiful even on
+the ground many years after they fall. The wood is deliciously fragrant,
+fine in grain and texture and creamy yellow, as if formed of condensed
+sunbeams. The sugar from which the common name is derived is, I think,
+the best of sweets. It exudes from the heart-wood where wounds have been
+made by forest fires or the ax, and forms irregular, crisp, candy-like
+kernels of considerable size, something like clusters of resin beads.
+When fresh it is white, but because most of the wounds on which it is
+found have been made by fire the sap is stained and the hardened sugar
+becomes brown. Indians are fond of it, but on account of its laxative
+properties only small quantities may be eaten. No tree lover will ever
+forget his first meeting with the sugar pine. In most pine trees there
+is the sameness of expression which to most people is apt to become
+monotonous, for the typical spiral form of conifers, however beautiful,
+affords little scope for appreciable individual character. The sugar
+pine is as free from conventionalities as the most picturesque oaks. No
+two are alike, and though they toss out their immense arms in what might
+seem extravagant gestures they never lose their expression of serene
+majesty. They are the priests of pines and seem ever to be addressing
+the surrounding forest. The yellow pine is found growing with them on
+warm hillsides, and the silver fir on cool northern slopes but, noble
+as these are, the sugar pine is easily king, and spreads his arms above
+them in blessing while they rock and wave in sign of recognition. The
+main branches are sometimes forty feet long, yet persistently simple,
+seldom dividing at all, excepting near the end; but anything like a
+bare cable appearance is prevented by the small, tasseled branchlets
+that extend all around them; and when these superb limbs sweep out
+symmetrically on all sides, a crown sixty or seventy feet wide is
+formed, which, gracefully poised on the summit of the noble shaft, is
+a glorious object. Commonly, however, there is a preponderance of
+limbs toward the east, away from the direction of the prevailing winds.
+
+Although so unconventional when full-grown, the sugar pine is a
+remarkably proper tree in youth--a strict follower of coniferous
+fashions--slim, erect, with leafy branches kept exactly in place, each
+tapering in outline and terminating in a spiry point. The successive
+forms between the cautious neatness of youth and the bold freedom of
+maturity offer a delightful study. At the age of fifty or sixty years,
+the shy, fashionable form begins to be broken up. Specialized branches
+push out and bend with the great cones, giving individual character,
+that becomes more marked from year to year. Its most constant companion
+is the yellow pine. The Douglas spruce, libocedrus, sequoia, and the
+silver fir are also more or less associated with it; but on many
+deep-soiled mountain-sides, at an elevation of about 5000 feet above the
+sea, it forms the bulk of the forest, filling every swell and hollow and
+down-plunging ravine. The majestic crowns, approaching each other in
+bold curves, make a glorious canopy through which the tempered sunbeams
+pour, silvering the needles, and gilding the massive boles and the
+flowery, park-like ground into a scene of enchantment. On the most sunny
+slopes the white-flowered, fragrant chamaebatia is spread like a carpet,
+brightened during early summer with the crimson sarcodes, the wild rose,
+and innumerable violets and gilias. Not even in the shadiest nooks will
+you find any rank, untidy weeds or unwholesome darkness. In the north
+sides of ridges the boles are more slender, and the ground is mostly
+occupied by an underbrush of hazel, ceanothus, and flowering dogwood,
+but not so densely as to prevent the traveler from sauntering where he
+will; while the crowning branches are never impenetrable to the rays of
+the sun, and never so interblended as to lose their individuality.
+
+
+The Yellow Or Silver Pine
+
+
+The Silver Pine (Pinus ponderosa), or Yellow Pine, as it is commonly
+called, ranks second among the pines of the Sierra as a lumber tree, and
+almost rivals the sugar pine in stature and nobleness of port. Because
+of its superior powers of enduring variations of climate and soil, it
+has a more extensive range than any other conifer growing on the Sierra.
+On the western slope it is first met at an elevation of about 2000 feet,
+and extends nearly to the upper limit of the timber-line. Thence,
+crossing the range by the lowest passes, it descends to the eastern
+base, and pushes out for a considerable distance into the hot, volcanic
+plains, growing bravely upon well-watered moraines, gravelly lake
+basins, climbing old volcanoes and dropping ripe cones among ashes and
+cinders.
+
+The average size of full-grown trees on the western slope where it is
+associated with the sugar pine, is a little less than 200 feet in height
+and from five to six feet in diameter, though specimens considerably
+larger may easily be found. Where there is plenty of free sunshine and
+other conditions are favorable, it presents a striking contrast in form
+to the sugar pine, being a symmetrical spire, formed of a straight round
+trunk, clad with innumerable branches that are divided over and over
+again. Unlike the Yosemite form about one-half of the trunk is commonly
+branchless, but where it grows at all close three-fourths or more is
+naked, presenting then a more slender and elegant shaft than any other
+tree in the woods. The bark is mostly arranged in massive plates, some
+of them measuring four or five feet in length by eighteen inches in
+width, with a thickness of three or four inches, forming a quite
+marked and distinguishing feature. The needles are of a fine, warm,
+yellow-green color, six to eight inches long, firm and elastic, and
+crowded in handsome, radiant tassels on the upturning ends of the
+branches. The cones are about three or four inches long, and two and
+a half wide, growing in close, sessile clusters among the leaves.
+
+The species attains its noblest form in filled-up lake basins,
+especially in those of the older yosemites, and as we have seen, so
+prominent a part does it form of their groves that it may well be called
+the Yosemite Pine.
+
+The Jeffrey variety attains its finest development in the northern
+portion of the Range, in the wide basins of the McCloud and Pitt Rivers,
+where it forms magnificent forests scarcely invaded by any other tree.
+It differs from the ordinary form in size, being only about half as tall,
+in its redder and more closely-furrowed bark grayish-green foliage, less
+divided branches, and much larger cones; but intermediate forms come in
+which make a clear separation impossible, although some botanists regard
+it as a distinct species. It is this variety of ponderosa that climbs
+storm-swept ridges alone, and wanders out among the volcanoes of the
+Great Basin. Whether exposed to extremes of heat or cold, it is dwarfed
+like many other trees, and becomes all knots and angles, wholly unlike
+the majestic forms we have been sketching. Old specimens, bearing cones
+about as big as pineapples, may sometimes be found clinging to rifted
+rocks at an elevation of 7000 or 8000 feet, whose highest branches
+scarce reach above one's shoulders.
+
+I have often feasted on the beauty of these noble trees when they were
+towering in all their winter grandeur, laden with snow--one mass of
+bloom; in summer, too, when the brown, staminate clusters hang thick
+among the shimmering needles, and the big purple burrs are ripening in
+the mellow light; but it is during cloudless wind-storms that these
+colossal pines are most impressively beautiful. Then they bow like
+willows, their leaves streaming forward all in one direction, and, when
+the sun shines upon them at the required angle, entire groves glow as if
+every leaf were burnished silver. The fall of tropic light on the crown
+of a palm is a truly glorious spectacle, the fervid sun-flood breaking
+upon the glossy leaves in long lance-rays, like mountain water among
+boulders at the foot of an enthusiastic cataract. But to me there is
+something more impressive in the fall of light upon these noble, silver
+pine pillars: it is beaten to the finest dust and shed off in myriads
+of minute sparkles that seem to radiate from the very heart of the tree
+as if like rain, falling upon fertile soil, it had been absorbed to
+reappear in flowers of light. This species also gives forth the finest
+wind music. After listening to it in all kinds of winds, night and
+day, season after season, I think I could approximate to my position
+on the mountain by this pine music alone. If you would catch the tone
+of separate needles climb a tree in breezy weather. Every needle is
+carefully tempered and gives forth no uncertain sound each standing out
+with no interference excepting during head gales; then you may detect
+the click of one needle upon another, readily distinguishable from the
+free wind-like hum.
+
+When a sugar pine and one of this species equal in size are observed
+together, the latter is seen to be more simple in manners, more lively
+and graceful, and its beauty is of a kind more easily appreciated; on
+the other hand it is less dignified and original in demeanor. The yellow
+pine seems ever eager to shoot aloft, higher and higher. Even while it
+is drowsing in autumn sun-gold you may still detect a skyward
+aspiration, but the sugar pine seems too unconsciously noble and too
+complete in every way to leave room for even a heavenward care.
+
+
+The Douglas Spruce
+
+
+The Douglas Spruce (Pseudotsuga Douglasii) is one of the largest and
+longest-lived of the giants that flourish throughout the main pine belt,
+often attaining a height of nearly 200 feet, and a diameter of six or
+seven feet. Where the growth is not too close, the stout, spreading
+branches, covering more than half of the trunk, are hung with
+innumerable slender, drooping sprays, handsomely feathered with the
+short leaves which radiate at right angles all around them. This
+vigorous tree is ever beautiful, welcoming the mountain winds and the
+snow as well as the mellow summer light; and it maintains its youthful
+freshness undiminished from century to century through a thousand
+storms. It makes its finest appearance during the months of June and
+July, when the brown buds at the ends of the sprays swell and open,
+revealing the young leaves, which at first are bright yellow, making the
+tree appear as if covered with gay blossoms; while the pendulous bracted
+cones, three or four inches long, with their shell-like scales, are a
+constant adornment.
+
+The young trees usually are assembled in family groups, each sapling
+exquisitely symmetrical. The primary branches are whorled regularly
+around the axis, generally in fives, while each is draped with long,
+feathery sprays that descend in lines as free and as finely drawn as
+those of falling water.
+
+In Oregon and Washington it forms immense forests, growing tall and
+mast-like to a height of 300 feet, and is greatly prized as a lumber
+tree. Here it is scattered among other trees, or forms small groves,
+seldom ascending higher than 5500 feet, and never making what would be
+called a forest. It is not particular in its choice of soil: wet or dry,
+smooth or rocky, it makes out to live well on them all. Two of the
+largest specimens, as we have seen, are in Yosemite; one of these, more
+than eight feet in diameter, is growing on a moraine; the other, nearly
+as large, on angular blocks of granite. No other tree in the Sierra
+seems so much at home on earthquake taluses and many of these huge
+boulder-slopes are almost exclusively occupied by it.
+
+
+The Incense Cedar
+
+
+Incense Cedar (Libocedrus decurrens), already noticed among the Yosemite
+trees, is quite generally distributed throughout the pine belt without
+exclusively occupying any considerable area, or even making extensive
+groves. On the warmer mountain slopes it ascends to about 5000 feet, and
+reaches the climate most congenial to it at a height of about 4000 feet,
+growing vigorously at this elevation in all kinds of soil and, in
+particular, it is capable of enduring more moisture about its roots
+than any of its companions excepting only the sequoia.
+
+Casting your eye over the general forest from some ridge-top you
+can identify it by the color alone of its spiry summits, a warm
+yellow-green. In its youth up to the age of seventy or eighty years,
+none of its companions forms so strictly tapered a cone from top to
+bottom. As it becomes older it oftentimes grows strikingly irregular
+and picturesque. Large branches push out at right angles to the trunk,
+forming stubborn elbows and shoot up parallel with the axis. Very
+old trees are usually dead at the top. The flat fragrant plumes are
+exceedingly beautiful: no waving fern-frond is finer in form and
+texture. In its prime the whole tree is thatched with them, but if you
+would see the libocedrus in all its glory you must go to the woods in
+midwinter when it is laden with myriads of yellow flowers about the
+size of wheat grains, forming a noble illustration of Nature's immortal
+virility and vigor. The mature cones, about three-fourths of an inch
+long, born on the ends of the plumy branchlets, serve to enrich still
+more the surpassing beauty of this winter-blooming tree-goldenrod.
+
+
+The Silver Firs
+
+
+We come now to the most regularly planted and most clearly defined
+of the main forest belts, composed almost exclusively of two Silver
+Firs--Abies concolor and Abies magnifica--extending with but little
+interruption 450 miles at an elevation of from 5000 to 9000 feet above
+the sea. In its youth A. concolor is a charmingly symmetrical tree
+with its flat plumy branches arranged in regular whorls around the
+whitish-gray axis which terminates in a stout, hopeful shoot, pointing
+straight to the zenith, like an admonishing finger. The leaves are
+arranged in two horizontal rows along branchlets that commonly are less
+than eight years old, forming handsome plumes, pinnated like the fronds
+of ferns. The cones are grayish-green when ripe, cylindrical, from three
+to four inches long, and one and a half to two inches wide, and stand
+upright on the upper horizontal branches. Full-grown trees in favorable
+situations are usually about 200 feet high and five or six feet in
+diameter. As old age creeps on, the rough bark becomes rougher and
+grayer, the branches lose their exact regularity of form, many that are
+snow-bent are broken off and the axis often becomes double or otherwise
+irregular from accidents to the terminal bud or shoot. Nevertheless,
+throughout all the vicissitudes of its three or four centuries of life,
+come what may, the noble grandeur of this species, however obscured, is
+never lost.
+
+The magnificent Silver Fir, or California Red Fir (Abies magnifica)
+is the most symmetrical of all the Sierra giants, far surpassing its
+companion species in this respect and easily distinguished from it by
+the purplish-red bark, which is also more closely furrowed than that
+of the white, and by its larger cones, its more regularly whorled and
+fronded branches, and its shorter leaves, which grow all around the
+branches and point upward instead of being arranged in two horizontal
+rows. The branches are mostly whorled in fives, and stand out from the
+straight, red-purple bole in level, or in old trees in drooping collars,
+every branch regularly pinnated like fern-fronds, making broad plumes,
+singularly rich and sumptuous-looking. The flowers are in their prime
+about the middle of June; the male red, growing on the underside of the
+branches in crowded profusion, giving a very rich color to all the
+trees; the female greenish-yellow, tinged with pink, standing erect on
+the upper side of the topmost branches, while the tufts of young leaves,
+about as brightly colored as those of the Douglas spruce, make another
+grand show. The cones mature in a single season from the flowers. When
+mature they are about six to eight inches long, three or four in
+diameter, covered with a fine gray down and streaked and beaded with
+transparent balsam, very rich and precious-looking, and stand erect like
+casks on the topmost branches. The inside of the cone is, if possible,
+still more beautiful. The scales and bracts are tinged with red and the
+seed-wings are purple with bright iridescence. Both of the silver firs
+live between two and three centuries when the conditions about them
+are at all favorable. Some venerable patriarch may be seen heavily
+storm-marked, towering in severe majesty above the rising generation,
+with a protecting grove of hopeful saplings pressing close around his
+feet, each dressed with such loving care that not a leaf seems wanting.
+Other groups are made up of trees near the prime of life, nicely
+arranged as if Nature had culled them with discrimination from all
+the rest of the woods. It is from this tree, called Red Fir by the
+lumbermen, that mountaineers cut boughs to sleep on when they are so
+fortunate as to be within its limit. Two or three rows of the sumptuous
+plushy-fronded branches, overlapping along the middle, and a crescent of
+smaller plumes mixed to one's taste with ferns and flowers for a pillow,
+form the very best bed imaginable. The essence of the pressed leaves
+seems to fill every pore of one's body. Falling water makes a soothing
+hush, while the spaces between the grand spires afford noble openings
+through which to gaze dreamily into the starry sky. The fir woods are
+fine sauntering-grounds at almost any time of the year, but finest in
+autumn when the noble trees are hushed in the hazy light and drip with
+balsam; and the flying, whirling seeds, escaping from the ripe cones,
+mottle the air like flocks of butterflies. Even in the richest part of
+these unrivaled forests where so many noble trees challenge admiration
+we linger fondly among the colossal firs and extol their beauty again
+and again, as if no other tree in the world could henceforth claim our
+love. It is in these woods the great granite domes arise that are so
+striking and characteristic a feature of the Sierra. Here, too, we find
+the best of the garden-meadows full of lilies. A dry spot a little
+way back from the margin of a silver fir lily-garden makes a glorious
+camp-ground, especially where the slope is toward the east with a view
+of the distant peaks along the summit of the Range. The tall lilies are
+brought forward most impressively like visitors by the light of your
+camp-fire and the nearest of the trees with their whorled branches tower
+above you like larger lilies and the sky seen through the garden-opening
+seems one vast meadow of white lily stars.
+
+
+The Two-Leaved Pine
+
+
+The Two-Leaved Pine (Pinus contorta, var. Murrayana), above the Silver
+Fir zone, forms the bulk of the alpine forests up to a height of from
+8000 to 9500 feet above the sea, growing in beautiful order on moraines
+scarcely changed as yet by post-glacial weathering. Compared with the
+giants of the lower regions this is a small tree, seldom exceeding a
+height of eighty or ninety feet. The largest I ever measured was ninety
+feet high and a little over six feet in diameter. The average height of
+mature trees throughout the entire belt is probably not far from fifty
+or sixty feet with a diameter of two feet. It is a well-proportioned,
+rather handsome tree with grayish-brown bark and crooked, much-divided
+branches which cover the greater part of the trunk, but not so densely
+as to prevent it being seen. The lower limbs, like those of most other
+conifers that grow in snowy regions, curve downward, gradually take a
+horizontal position about half-way up the trunk, then aspire more and
+more toward the summit. The short, rigid needles in fascicles of two are
+arranged in comparatively long cylindrical tassels at the ends of the
+tough up-curving branches. The cones are about two inches long, growing
+in clusters among the needles without any striking effect except while
+very young, when the flowers are of a vivid crimson color and the whole
+tree appears to be dotted with brilliant flowers. The staminate flowers
+are still more showy on account of their great abundance, often giving a
+reddish-yellow tinge to the whole mass of foliage and filling the air
+with pollen. No other pine on the Range is so regularly planted as this
+one, covering moraines that extend along the sides of the high rocky
+valleys for miles without interruption. The thin bark is streaked and
+sprinkled with resin as though it had been showered upon the forest like
+rain.
+
+Therefore this tree more than any other is subject to destruction by
+fire. During strong winds extensive forests are destroyed, the flames
+leaping from tree to tree in continuous belts that go surging and racing
+onward above the bending wood like prairie-grass fires. During the
+calm season of Indian summer the fire creeps quietly along the ground,
+feeding on the needles and cones; arriving at the foot of a tree, the
+resiny bark is ignited and the heated air ascends in a swift current,
+increasing in velocity and dragging the flames upward. Then the leaves
+catch forming an immense column of fire, beautifully spired on the edges
+and tinted a rose-purple hue. It rushes aloft thirty or forty feet above
+the top of the tree, forming a grand spectacle, especially at night. It
+lasts, however, only a few seconds, vanishing with magical rapidity, to
+be succeeded by others along the fire-line at irregular intervals, tree
+after tree, upflashing and darting, leaving the trunks and branches
+scarcely scarred. The heat, however, is sufficient to kill the tree and
+in a few years the bark shrivels and falls off. Forests miles in extent
+are thus killed and left standing, with the branches on, but peeled
+and rigid, appearing gray in the distance like misty clouds. Later the
+branches drop off, leaving a forest of bleached spars. At length the
+roots decay and the forlorn gray trunks are blown down during some
+storm and piled one upon another, encumbering the ground until, dry and
+seasoned, they are consumed by another fire and leave the ground ready
+for a fresh crop.
+
+In sheltered lake-hollows, on beds of alluvium, this pine varies so far
+from the common form that frequently it could be taken for a distinct
+species, growing in damp sods like grasses from forty to eighty feet
+high, bending all together to the breeze and whirling in eddying gusts
+more lively than any other tree in the woods. I frequently found
+specimens fifty feet high less than five inches in diameter. Being so
+slender and at the same time clad with leafy boughs, it is often bent
+and weighed down to the ground when laden with soft snow; thus forming
+fine ornamental arches, many of them to last until the melting of the
+snow in the spring.
+
+
+The Mountain Pine
+
+
+The Mountain Pine (Pinus monticola) is the noblest tree of the alpine
+zone--hardy and long-lived towering grandly above its companions and
+becoming stronger and more imposing just where other species begin to
+crouch and disappear. At its best it is usually about ninety feet high
+and five or six feet in diameter, though you may find specimens here and
+there considerably larger than this. It is as massive and suggestive of
+enduring strength as an oak. About two-thirds of the trunk is commonly
+free of limbs, but close, fringy tufts of spray occur nearly all the way
+down to the ground. On trees that occupy exposed situations near its
+upper limit the bark is deep reddish-brown and rather deeply furrowed,
+the main furrows running nearly parallel to each other and connected on
+the old trees by conspicuous cross-furrows. The cones are from four to
+eight inches long, smooth, slender, cylindrical and somewhat curved.
+They grow in clusters of from three to six or seven and become pendulous
+as they increase in weight. This species is nearly related to the sugar
+pine and, though not half so tall, it suggests its noble relative in the
+way that it extends its long branches in general habit. It is first met
+on the upper margin of the silver fir zone, singly, in what appears as
+chance situations without making much impression on the general forest.
+Continuing up through the forests of the two-leaved pine it begins to
+show its distinguishing characteristic in the most marked way at an
+elevation of about 10,000 feet extending its tough, rather slender arms
+in the frosty air, welcoming the storms and feeding on them and reaching
+sometimes to the grand old age of 1000 years.
+
+
+The Western Juniper
+
+
+The Juniper or Red Cedar (Juniperus occidentalis) is preeminently a
+rock tree, occupying the baldest domes and pavements in the upper silver
+fir and alpine zones, at a height of from 7000 to 9500 feet. In such
+situations, rooted in narrow cracks or fissures, where there is scarcely
+a handful of soil, it is frequently over eight feet in diameter and not
+much more in height. The tops of old trees are almost always dead, and
+large stubborn-looking limbs push out horizontally, most of them broken
+and dead at the end, but densely covered, and imbedded here and there
+with tufts or mounds of gray-green scalelike foliage. Some trees are
+mere storm-beaten stumps about as broad as long, decorated with a few
+leafy sprays, reminding one of the crumbling towers of old castles
+scantily draped with ivy. Its homes on bare, barren dome and ridge-top
+seem to have been chosen for safety against fire, for, on isolated
+mounds of sand and gravel free from grass and bushes on which fire could
+feed, it is often found growing tall and unscathed to a height of forty
+to sixty feet, with scarce a trace of the rocky angularity and broken
+limbs so characteristic a feature throughout the greater part of its
+range. It never makes anything like a forest; seldom even a grove.
+Usually it stands out separate and independent, clinging by slight
+joints to the rocks, living chiefly on snow and thin air and maintaining
+sound health on this diet for 2000 years or more. Every feature or every
+gesture it makes expresses steadfast, dogged endurance. The bark is of
+a bright cinnamon color and is handsomely braided and reticulated on
+thrifty trees, flaking off in thin, shining ribbons that are sometimes
+used by the Indians for tent matting. Its fine color and picturesqueness
+are appreciated by artists, but to me the juniper seems a singularly
+strange and taciturn tree. I have spent many a day and night in its
+company and always have found it silent and rigid. It seems to be a
+survivor of some ancient race, wholly unacquainted with its neighbors.
+Its broad stumpiness, of course, makes wind-waving or even shaking out
+of the question, but it is not this rocky rigidity that constitutes its
+silence. In calm, sun-days the sugar pine preaches like an enthusiastic
+apostle without moving a leaf. On level rocks the juniper dies standing
+and wastes insensibly out of existence like granite, the wind exerting
+about as little control over it, alive or dead, as is does over a
+glacier boulder.
+
+I have spent a good deal of time trying to determine the age of these
+wonderful trees, but as all of the very old ones are honey-combed with
+dry rot I never was able to get a complete count of the largest. Some
+are undoubtedly more than 2000 years old, for though on deep moraine
+soil they grow about as fast as some of the pines, on bare pavements and
+smoothly glaciated, overswept ridges in the dome region they grow very
+slowly. One on the Starr King Ridge only two feet eleven inches in
+diameter was 1140 years old forty years ago. Another on the same ridge,
+only one foot seven and a half inches in diameter, had reached the age
+of 834 years. The first fifteen inches from the bark of a medium-size
+tree six feet in diameter, on the north Tenaya pavement, had 859 layers
+of wood. Beyond this the count was stopped by dry rot and scars. The
+largest examined was thirty-three feet in girth, or nearly ten feet in
+diameter and, although I have failed to get anything like a complete
+count, I learned enough from this and many other specimens to convince
+me that most of the trees eight or ten feet thick, standing on
+pavements, are more than twenty centuries old rather than less. Barring
+accidents, for all I can see they would live forever; even then
+overthrown by avalanches, they refuse to lie at rest, lean stubbornly
+on their big branches as if anxious to rise, and while a single root
+holds to the rock, put forth fresh leaves with a grim, never-say-die
+expression.
+
+
+The Mountain Hemlock
+
+
+As the juniper is the most stubborn and unshakeable of trees in the
+Yosemite region, the Mountain Hemlock (Tsuga Mertensiana) is the most
+graceful and pliant and sensitive. Until it reaches a height of fifty or
+sixty feet it is sumptuously clothed down to the ground with drooping
+branches, which are divided again and again into delicate waving
+sprays, grouped and arranged in ways that are indescribably beautiful,
+and profusely adorned with small brown cones. The flowers also are
+peculiarly beautiful and effective; the female dark rich purple, the
+male blue, of so fine and pure a tone. What the best azure of the
+mountain sky seems to be condensed in them. Though apparently the most
+delicate and feminine of all the mountain trees, it grows best where
+the snow lies deepest, at a height of from 9000 to 9500 feet, in
+hollows on the northern slopes of mountains and ridges. But under all
+circumstances, sheltered from heavy winds or in bleak exposure to them,
+well fed or starved, even at its highest limit, 10,500 feet above the
+sea, on exposed ridge-tops where it has to crouch and huddle close in
+low thickets, it still contrives to put forth its sprays and branches in
+forms of invincible beauty, while on moist, well-drained moraines it
+displays a perfectly tropical luxuriance of foliage, flowers and fruit.
+The snow of the first winter storm is frequently soft, and lodges in due
+dense leafy branches, weighing them down against the trunk, and the
+slender, drooping axis, bending lower and lower as the load increases,
+at length reaches the ground, forming an ornamental arch. Then, as storm
+succeeds storm and snow is heaped on snow, the whole tree is at last
+buried, not again to see the light of day or move leaf or limb until set
+free by the spring thaws in June or July. Not only the young saplings
+are thus carefully covered and put to sleep in the whitest of white beds
+for five or six months of the year, but trees thirty feet high or more.
+From April to May, when the snow by repeated thawing and freezing is
+firmly compacted, you may ride over the prostrate groves without seeing
+a single branch or leaf of them. No other of our alpine conifers so
+finely veils its strength; poised in thin, white sunshine, clad with
+branches from head to foot, it towers in unassuming majesty, drooping
+as if unaffected with the aspiring tendencies of its race, loving the
+ground, conscious of heaven and joyously receptive of its blessings,
+reaching out its branches like sensitive tentacles, feeling the light
+and reveling in it. The largest specimen I ever found was nineteen
+feet seven inches in circumference. It was growing on the edge of Lake
+Hollow, north of Mount Hoffman, at an elevation of 9250 feet above the
+level of the sea, and was probably about a hundred feet in height. Fine
+groves of mature trees, ninety to a hundred feet in height, are growing
+near the base of Mount Conness. It is widely distributed from near the
+south extremity of the high Sierra northward along the Cascade Mountains
+of Oregon and Washington and the coast ranges of British Columbia to
+Alaska, where it was first discovered in 1827. Its northernmost limit,
+so far as I have observed, is in the icy fiords of Prince William Sound
+in latitude 61 degrees, where it forms pure forests at the level of the
+sea, growing tall and majestic on the banks of glaciers. There, as in
+the Yosemite region, it is ineffably beautiful, the very loveliest of
+all the American conifers.
+
+
+The White-Bark Pine
+
+
+The Dwarf Pine, or White-Bark Pine (Pinus albicaulis), forms the extreme
+edge of the timberline throughout nearly the whole extent of the Range
+on both flanks. It is first met growing with the two-leaved pine on the
+upper margin of the alpine belt, as an erect tree from fifteen to thirty
+feet high and from one to two feet in diameter hence it goes straggling
+up the flanks of the summit peaks, upon moraines or crumbling ledges,
+wherever it can get a foothold, to an elevation of from 10,000 to 12,000
+feet, where it dwarfs to a mass of crumpled branches, covered with
+slender shoots, each tipped with a short, close-packed, leaf tassel. The
+bark is smooth and purplish, in some places almost white. The flowers
+are bright scarlet and rose-purple, giving a very flowery appearance
+little looked for in such a tree. The cones are about three inches long,
+an inch and a half in diameter, grow in rigid clusters, and are dark
+chocolate in color while young, and bear beautiful pearly-white seeds
+about the size of peas, most of which are eaten by chipmunks and the
+Clarke's crows. Pines are commonly regarded as sky-loving trees that
+must necessarily aspire or die. This species forms a marked exception,
+crouching and creeping in compliance with the most rigorous demands of
+climate; yet enduring bravely to a more advanced age than many of its
+lofty relatives in the sun-lands far below it. Seen from a distance it
+would never be taken for a tree of any kind. For example, on Cathedral
+Peak there is a scattered growth of this pine, creeping like mosses over
+the roof, nowhere giving hint of an ascending axis. While, approached
+quite near, it still appears matty and heathy, and one experiences no
+difficulty in walking over the top of it, yet it is seldom absolutely
+prostrate, usually attaining a height of three or four feet with a main
+trunk, and with branches outspread above it, as if in ascending they
+had been checked by a ceiling against which they had been compelled to
+spread horizontally. The winter snow is a sort of ceiling, lasting half
+the year; while the pressed surface is made yet smoother by violent
+winds armed with cutting sand-grains that bear down any shoot which
+offers to rise much above the general level, and that carve the dead
+trunks and branches in beautiful patterns.
+
+During stormy nights I have often camped snugly beneath the interlacing
+arches of this little pine. The needles, which have accumulated for
+centuries, make fine beds, a fact well known to other mountaineers, such
+as deer and wild sheep, who paw out oval hollows and lie beneath the
+larger trees in safe and comfortable concealment. This lowly dwarf
+reaches a far greater age than would be guessed. A specimen that I
+examined, growing at an elevation of 10,700 feet, yet looked as though
+it might be plucked up by the roots, for it was only three and a half
+inches in diameter and its topmost tassel reached hardly three feet
+above the ground. Cutting it half through and counting the annual rings
+with the aid of a lens, I found its age to be no less than 255 years.
+Another specimen about the same height, with a trunk six inches in
+diameter, I found to be 426 years old, forty years ago; and one of its
+supple branchlets hardly an eighth of an inch in diameter inside the
+bark, was seventy-five years old, and so filled with oily balsam and
+seasoned by storms that I tied it in knots like a whip-cord.
+
+
+The Nut Pine
+
+
+In going across the Range from the Tuolumne River Soda Springs to Mono
+Lake one makes the acquaintance of the curious little Nut Pine (Pinus
+monophylla). It dots the eastern flank of the Sierra to which it is
+mostly restricted in grayish bush-like patches, from the margin of the
+sage-plains to an elevation of from 7000 to 8000 feet. A more contented,
+fruitful and unaspiring conifer could not be conceived. All the species
+we have been sketching make departures more or less distant from the
+typical spire form, but none goes so far as this. Without any apparent
+cause it keeps near the ground, throwing out crooked, divergent branches
+like an orchard apple-tree, and seldom pushes a single shoot higher than
+fifteen or twenty feet above the ground.
+
+The average thickness of the trunk is, perhaps, about ten or twelve
+inches. The leaves are mostly undivided, like round awls, instead of
+being separated, like those of other pines, into twos and threes and
+fives. The cones are green while growing, and are usually found over all
+the tree, forming quite a marked feature as seen against the bluish-gray
+foliage. They are quite small, only about two inches in length, and seem
+to have but little space for seeds; but when we come to open them, we
+find that about half the entire bulk of the cone is made up of sweet,
+nutritious nuts, nearly as large as hazel-nuts. This is undoubtedly the
+most important food-tree on the Sierra, and furnishes the Mona, Carson,
+and Walker River Indians with more and better nuts than all the other
+species taken together. It is the Indian's own tree, and many a white
+man have they killed for cutting it down. Being so low, the cones are
+readily beaten off with poles, and the nuts procured by roasting them
+until the scales open. In bountiful seasons a single Indian may gather
+thirty or forty bushels.
+
+
+
+Chapter 7
+
+The Big Trees
+
+
+Between the heavy pine and silver fir zones towers the Big Tree (Sequoia
+gigantea), the king of all the conifers in the world, "the noblest of
+the noble race." The groves nearest Yosemite Valley are about twenty
+miles to the westward and southward and are called the Tuolumne, Merced
+and Mariposa groves. It extends, a widely interrupted belt, from a very
+small grove on the middle fork of the American River to the head of Deer
+Creek, a distance of about 260 miles, its northern limit being near the
+thirty-ninth parallel, the southern a little below the thirty-sixth. The
+elevation of the belt above the sea varies from about 5000 to 8000 feet.
+From the American River to Kings River the species occurs only in small
+isolated groups so sparsely distributed along the belt that three of
+the gaps in it are from forty to sixty miles wide. But from Kings River
+south-ward the sequoia is not restricted to mere groves but extends
+across the wide rugged basins of the Kaweah and Tule Rivers in noble
+forests, a distance of nearly seventy miles, the continuity of this part
+of the belt being broken only by the main canyons. 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 canyon of the south fork of Kings River there
+is a majestic sequoia forest about six miles long by two wide. This is
+the northernmost group that may fairly be called a forest. Descending
+the divide between the Kings and Kaweah Rivers you come to the grand
+forests that form the main continuous portion of the belt. Southward
+the giants become more and more irrepressibly exuberant, heaving their
+massive crowns into the sky from every ridge and slope, waving onward in
+graceful compliance with the complicated topography of the region. The
+finest of the Kaweah section of the belt is on the broad ridge between
+Marble Creek and the middle fork, and is called the Giant Forest. It
+extends from the granite headlands, overlooking the hot San Joaquin
+plains, to within a few miles of the cool glacial fountains of the
+summit peaks. The extreme upper limit of the belt is reached between the
+middle and south forks of the Kaweah at a height of 8400 feet, but the
+finest block of big tree forests in the entire belt is on the north fork
+of Tule River, and is included in the Sequoia National Park.
+
+In the northern groves there are comparatively few young trees or
+saplings. But here for every old storm-beaten giant there are many in
+their prime and for each of these a crowd of hopeful young trees and
+saplings, growing vigorously on moraines, rocky edges, along water
+courses and meadows. But though the area occupied by the big tree
+increases so greatly from north to south, here is no marked increase
+in the size of the trees. The height of 275 feet or thereabouts and a
+diameter of about twenty feet, four feet from the ground is, perhaps,
+about the average size of what may be called full-grown trees, where
+they are favorably located. The specimens twenty-five feet in diameter
+are not very rare and a few are nearly three hundred feet high. In
+the Calaveras grove there are four trees over 300 feet in height, the
+tallest of which as measured by the Geological Survey is 325 feet. The
+very largest that I have yet met in the course of my explorations is
+a majestic old fire-scarred monument in the Kings River forest. It is
+thirty-five feet and eight inches in diameter inside the bark, four
+feet above the ground. It is burned half through, and I spent a day
+in clearing away the charred surface with a sharp ax and counting the
+annual wood-rings with the aid of a pocket lens. I succeeded in laying
+bare a section all the way from the outside to the heart and counted a
+little over four thousand rings, showing that this tree was in its prime
+about twenty-seven feet in diameter at the beginning of the Christian
+era. No other tree in the world, as far as I know, has looked down on so
+many centuries as the sequoia or opens so many impressive and suggestive
+views into history. Under the most favorable conditions these giants
+probably live 5000 years or more though few of even the larger trees are
+half as old. The age of one that was felled in Calaveras grove, for the
+sake of having its stump for a dancing-floor, was about 1300 years, and
+its diameter measured across the stump twenty-four feet inside the bark.
+Another that was felled in the Kings River forest was about the same
+size but nearly a thousand years older (2200 years), though not a very
+old-looking tree.
+
+So harmonious and finely balanced are even the mightiest of these
+monarchs in all their proportions that there is never anything overgrown
+or monstrous about them. Seeing them for the first time you are more
+impressed with their beauty than their size, their grandeur being in
+great part invisible; but sooner or later it becomes manifest to the
+loving eye, stealing slowly on the senses like the grandeur of Niagara
+or of the Yosemite Domes. When you approach them and walk around them
+you begin to wonder at their colossal size and try to measure them. They
+bulge considerably at the base, but not more than is required for beauty
+and safety and the only reason that this bulging seems in some cases
+excessive is that only a comparatively small section is seen in near
+views. One that I measured in the Kings River forest was twenty-five
+feet in diameter at the ground and ten feet in diameter 220 feet above
+the ground showing the fineness of the taper of the trunk as a whole. No
+description can give anything like an adequate idea of their singular
+majesty, much less of their beauty. Except the sugar pine, most of their
+neighbors with pointed tops seem ever trying to go higher, while the big
+tree, soaring above them all, seems satisfied. Its grand domed head
+seems to be poised about as lightly as a cloud, giving no impression
+of seeking to rise higher. Only when it is young does it show like
+other conifers a heavenward yearning, sharply aspiring with a long
+quick-growing top. Indeed, the whole tree for the first century or
+two, or until it is a hundred or one hundred and fifty feet high, is
+arrowhead in form, and, compared with the solemn rigidity of age, seems
+as sensitive to the wind as a squirrel's tail. As it grows older, the
+lower branches are gradually dropped and the upper ones thinned out
+until comparatively few are left. These, however, are developed to a
+great size, divide again and again and terminate in bossy, rounded
+masses of leafy branch-lets, while the head becomes dome-shaped, and is
+the first to feel the touch of the rosy beams of the morning, the last
+to bid the sun good night. Perfect specimens, unhurt by running fires or
+lightning, are singularly regular and symmetrical in general form though
+not in the least conventionalized, for they show extraordinary variety
+in the unity and harmony of their general outline. The immensely strong,
+stately shafts are free of limbs for one hundred end fifty feet or so
+The large limbs reach out with equal boldness a every direction, showing
+no weather side, and no other tree has foliage so densely massed, so
+finely molded in outline and so perfectly subordinate to an ideal type.
+A particularly knotty, angular, ungovernable-looking branch, from five
+to seven or eight feet in diameter and perhaps a thousand years old,
+may occasionally be seen pushing out from the trunk as if determined to
+break across the bounds of the regular curve, but like all the others
+it dissolves in bosses of branchlets and sprays as soon as the general
+outline is approached. Except in picturesque old age, after being struck
+by lightning or broken by thousands of snow-storms, the regularity of
+forms is one of their most distinguishing characteristics. Another is
+the simple beauty of the trunk and its great thickness as compared with
+its height and the width of the branches, which makes them look more
+like finely modeled and sculptured architectural columns than the stems
+of trees, while the great limbs look like rafters, supporting the
+magnificent dome-head. But though so consummately beautiful, the big
+tree always seems unfamiliar, with peculiar physiognomy, awfully solemn
+and earnest; yet with all its strangeness it impresses us as being more
+at home than any of its neighbors, holding the best right to the ground
+as the oldest strongest inhabitant. One soon becomes acquainted with new
+species of pine and fir and spruce as with friendly people, shaking
+their outstretched branches like shaking hands and fondling their little
+ones, while the venerable aboriginal sequoia, ancient of other days,
+keeps you at a distance, looking as strange in aspect and behavior among
+its neighbor trees as would the mastodon among the homely bears and
+deers. Only the Sierra juniper is at all like it, standing rigid and
+unconquerable on glacier pavements for thousands of years, grim and
+silent, with an air of antiquity about as pronounced as that of the
+sequoia.
+
+The bark of the largest trees is from one to two feet thick, rich
+cinnamon brown, purplish on young trees, forming magnificent masses
+of color with the underbrush. Toward the end of winter the trees are
+in bloom, while the snow is still eight or ten feet deep. The female
+flowers are about three-eighths of an inch long, pale green, and grow
+in countless thousands on the ends of sprays. The male are still more
+abundant, pale yellow, a fourth of an inch long and when the pollen is
+ripe they color the whole tree and dust the air and the ground. The
+cones are bright grass-green in color, about two and a half inches long,
+one and a half wide, made up of thirty or forty strong, closely-packed,
+rhomboidal scales, with four to eight seeds at the base of each. The
+seeds are wonderfully small end light, being only from an eighth to a
+fourth of an inch long and wide, including a filmy surrounding wing,
+which causes them to glint and waver in falling and enables the wind to
+carry them considerable distances. Unless harvested by the squirrels,
+the cones discharge their seed and remain on the tree for many years. In
+fruitful seasons the trees are fairly laden. On two small branches one
+and a half and two inches in diameter I counted 480 cones. No other
+California conifer produces nearly so many seeds, except, perhaps, the
+other sequoia, the Redwood of the Coast Mountains. Millions are ripened
+annually by a single tree, and in a fruitful year the product of one of
+the northern groves would be enough to plant all the mountain ranges in
+the world.
+
+As soon as any accident happens to the crown, such as being smashed off
+by lightning, the branches beneath the wound, no matter how situated,
+seem to be excited, like a colony of bees that have lost their queen,
+and become anxious to repair the damage. Limbs that have grown outward
+for centuries at right angles to the trunk begin to turn upward to
+assist in making a new crown, each speedily assuming the special form of
+true summits. Even in the case of mere stumps, burned half through, some
+mere ornamental tuft will try to go aloft and do its best as a leader
+in forming a new head. Groups of two or three are often found standing
+close together, the seeds from which they sprang having probably grown
+on ground cleared for their reception by the fall of a large tree of a
+former generation. They are called "loving couples," "three graces,"
+etc. When these trees are young they are seen to stand twenty or thirty
+feet apart, by the time they are full-grown their trunks will touch and
+crowd against each other and in some cases even appear as one.
+
+It is generally believed that the sequoia was once far more widely
+distributed over the Sierra; but after long and careful study I have
+come to the conclusion that it never was, at least since the close of
+the glacial period, because a diligent search along the margins of the
+groves, and in the gaps between fails to reveal a single trace of its
+previous existence beyond its present bounds. Notwithstanding, I feel
+confident that if every sequoia in the Range were to die today, numerous
+monuments of their existence would remain, of so imperishable a nature
+as to be available for the student more than ten thousand years hence.
+
+In the first place, no species of coniferous tree in the Range keeps
+its members so well together as the sequoia; a mile is, perhaps, the
+greatest distance of any straggler from the main body, and all of those
+stragglers that have come under my observation are young, instead of old
+monumental trees, relics of a more extended growth.
+
+Again, the great trunks of the sequoia last for centuries after they
+fall. I have a specimen block of sequoia wood, cut from a fallen tree,
+which is hardly distinguishable from a similar section cut from a living
+tree, although the one cut from the fallen trunk has certainly lain on
+the damp forest floor more than 380 years, probably thrice as long. The
+time-measure in the case is simply this: When the ponderous trunk to
+which the old vestige belonged fell, it sunk itself into the ground,
+thus making a long, straight ditch, and in the middle of this ditch a
+silver fir four feet in diameter and 380 years old was growing, as I
+determined by cutting it half through and counting the rings, thus
+demonstrating that the remnant of the trunk that made the ditch has lain
+on the ground _more_ than 380 years. For it is evident that, to find
+the whole time, we must add to the 380 years the time that the vanished
+portion of the trunk lay in the ditch before being burned out of the
+way, plus the time that passed before the seed from which the monumental
+fir sprang fell into the prepared soil and took root. Now, because
+sequoia trunks are never wholly consumed in one forest fire, and those
+fires recur only at considerable intervals, and because sequoia ditches
+after being cleared are often left unplanted for centuries, it becomes
+evident that the trunk-remnant in question may probably have lain a
+thousand years or more. And this instance is by no means a late one.
+
+Again, admitting that upon those areas supposed to have been once
+covered with sequoia forests, every tree may have fallen, and every
+trunk may have been burned or buried, leaving not a remnant, many of the
+ditches made by the fall of the ponderous trunks, and the bowls made by
+their upturning roots, would remain patent for thousands of years after
+the last vestige of the trunks that made them had vanished. Much of this
+ditch-writing would no doubt be quickly effaced by the flood-action of
+overflowing streams and rain-washing; but no inconsiderable portion
+would remain enduringly engraved on ridge-tops beyond such destructive
+action; for, where all the conditions are favorable, it is almost
+imperishable. Now these historic ditches and root-bowls occur in all the
+present sequoia groves and forests, but, as far as I have observed, not
+the faintest vestige of one presents itself outside of them.
+
+We therefore conclude that the area covered by sequoia has not been
+diminished during the last eight or ten thousand years, and probably not
+at all in post-glacial time. Nevertheless, the questions may be asked:
+Is the species verging toward extinction? What are its relations to
+climate, soil, and associated trees?
+
+All the phenomena bearing on these questions also throw light, as we
+shall endeavor to show, upon the peculiar distribution of the species,
+and sustain the conclusion already arrived at as to the question of
+former extension. In the northern groups, as we have seen, there are
+few young trees or saplings growing up around the old ones to perpetuate
+the race, and inasmuch as those aged sequoias, so nearly childless,
+are the only ones commonly known the species, to most observers, seems
+doomed to speedy extinction, as being nothing more than an expiring
+remnant, vanquished in the so-called struggle for life by pines and firs
+that have driven it into its last strongholds in moist glens where the
+climate is supposed to be exceptionally favorable. But the story told by
+the majestic continuous forests of the south creates a very different
+impression. No tree in the forest is more enduringly established in
+concordance with both climate and soil. It grows heartily everywhere--on
+moraines, rocky ledges, along watercourses, and in the deep, moist
+alluvium of meadows with, as we have seen, a multitude of seedlings and
+saplings crowding up around the aged, abundantly able to maintain the
+forest in prime vigor. So that if all the trees of any section of the
+main sequoia forest were ranged together according to age, a very
+promising curve would be presented, all the way up from last year's
+seedlings to giants, and with the young and middle-aged portion of the
+curve many times longer than the old portion. Even as far north as the
+Fresno, I counted 536 saplings and seedlings, growing promisingly upon
+a landslip not exceeding two acres in area. This soil-bed was about
+seven years old, and had been seeded almost simultaneously by pines,
+firs, libocedrus, and sequoia, presenting a simple and instructive
+illustration of the struggle for life among the rival species; and it
+was interesting to note that the conditions thus far affecting them have
+enabled the young sequoias to gain a marked advantage. Toward the south
+where the sequoia becomes most exuberant and numerous, the rival trees
+become less so; and where they mix with sequoias they grow up beneath
+them like slender grasses among stalks of Indian corn. Upon a bed of
+sandy floodsoil I counted ninety-four sequoias, from one to twelve feet
+high, on a patch of ground once occupied by four large sugar pines which
+lay crumbling beneath them--an instance of conditions which have enabled
+sequoias to crowd out the pines. I also noted eighty-six vigorous
+saplings upon a piece of fresh ground prepared for their reception by
+fire. Thus fire, the great destroyer of the sequoia, also furnishes the
+bare ground required for its growth from the seed. Fresh ground is,
+however, furnished in sufficient quantities for the renewal of the
+forests without the aid of fire--by the fall of old trees. The soil is
+thus upturned and mellowed, and many trees are planted for every one
+that falls.
+
+It is constantly asserted in a vague way that the Sierra was vastly
+wetter than now, and that the increasing drought will of itself
+extinguish the sequoia, leaving its ground to other trees supposed
+capable of flourishing in a drier climate. But that the sequoia can and
+does grow on as dry ground as any of its present rivals is manifest in
+a thousand places. "Why, then," it will be asked, "are sequoias always
+found only in well-watered places?" Simply because a growth of sequoias
+creates those streams. The thirsty mountaineer knows well that in every
+sequoia grove he will find running water, but it is a mistake to suppose
+that the water is the cause of the grove being there; on the contrary,
+the grove is the cause of the water being there. Drain off the water
+and the trees will remain, but cut off the trees, and the streams will
+vanish. Never was cause more completely mistaken for effect than in the
+case of these related phenomena of sequoia woods and perennial streams.
+
+When attention is called to the method of sequoia stream-making, it will
+be apprehended at once. The roots of this immense tree fill the ground,
+forming a thick sponge that absorbs and holds back the rain and melting
+snow, only allowing it to ooze and flow gently. Indeed, every fallen
+leaf and rootlet, as well as long clasping root, and prostrate trunk,
+may be regarded as a dam hoarding the bounty of storm-clouds, and
+dispensing it as blessings all through the summer, instead of allowing
+it to go headlong in short-lived floods.
+
+Since, then, it is a fact that thousands of sequoias are growing
+thriftily on what is termed dry ground, and even clinging like mountain
+pines to rifts in granite precipices, and since it has also been shown
+that the extra moisture found in connection with the denser growths is
+an effect of their presence, instead of a cause of their presence, then
+the notions as to the former extension of the species and its near
+approach to extinction, based upon its supposed dependence on greater
+moisture, are seen to be erroneous.
+
+The decrease in rain and snowfall since the close of the glacial period
+in the Sierra is much less than is commonly guessed. The highest
+post-glacial water-marks are well preserved in all the upper river
+channels, and they are not greatly higher than the spring flood-marks
+of the present; showing conclusively that no extraordinary decrease
+has taken place in the volume of the upper tributaries of post-glacial
+Sierra streams since they came into existence. But, in the meantime,
+eliminating all this complicated question of climatic change, the plain
+fact remains that the present rain and snowfall is abundantly sufficient
+for the luxuriant growth of sequoia forests. Indeed, all my observations
+tend to show that in a prolonged drought the sugar pines and firs would
+perish before the sequoia, not alone because of the greater longevity of
+individual trees, but because the species can endure more drought, and
+make the most of whatever moisture falls.
+
+Again, if the restriction and irregular distribution of the species be
+interpreted as a result of the desiccation of the Range, then instead of
+increasing as it does in individuals toward the south where the rainfall
+is less, it should diminish. If, then, the peculiar distribution of
+sequoia has not been governed by superior conditions of soil as to
+fertility or moisture, by what has it been governed?
+
+In the course of my studies I observed that the northern groves, the
+only ones I was at first acquainted with, were located on just those
+portions of the general forest soil-belt that were first laid bare
+toward the close of the glacial period when the ice-sheet began to break
+up into individual glaciers. And while searching the wide basin of the
+San Joaquin, and trying to account for the absence of sequoia where
+every condition seemed favorable for its growth, it occurred to me that
+this remarkable gap in the sequoia belt fifty miles wide is located
+exactly in the basin of the vast, ancient mer de glace of the San
+Joaquin and Kings River basins which poured its frozen floods to the
+plain through this gap as its channel. I then perceived that the next
+great gap in the belt to the northward, forty miles wide, extending
+between the Calaveras and Tuolumne groves, occurs in the basin of the
+great ancient mer de glace of the Tuolumne and Stanislaus basins; and
+that the smaller gap between the Merced and Mariposa groves occurs in
+the basin of the smaller glacier of the Merced. The wider the ancient
+glacier, the wider the corresponding gap in the sequoia belt.
+
+Finally, pursuing my investigations across the basins of the Kaweah
+and Tule, I discovered that the sequoia belt attained its greatest
+development just where, owing to the topographical peculiarities of the
+region, the ground had been best protected from the main ice-rivers that
+continued to pour past from the summit fountains long after the smaller
+local glaciers had been melted.
+
+Taking now a general view of the belt, beginning at the south we see
+that the majestic ancient glaciers were shed off right and left down the
+valleys of Kern and Kings Rivers by the lofty protective spurs outspread
+embracingly above the warm sequoia-filled basins of the Kaweah and Tule.
+Then, next northward, occurs the wide sequoia-less channel, or basin of
+the ancient San Joaquin and sings River mer de glace; then the warm,
+protected spots of Fresno and Mariposa groves; then the sequoia-less
+channel of the ancient Merced glacier; next the warm, sheltered ground
+of the Merced and Tuolumne groves; then the sequoia-less channel of the
+grand ancient mer de glace of the Tuolumne and Stanislaus; then the
+warm old ground of the Calaveras and Stanislaus groves. It appears,
+therefore, that just where, at a certain period in the history of the
+Sierra, the glaciers were not, there the sequoia is, and just where the
+glaciers were, there the sequoia is not.
+
+But although all the observed phenomena bearing on the post-glacial
+history of this colossal tree point to the conclusion that it never was
+more widely distributed on the Sierra since the close of the glacial
+epoch; that its present forests are scarcely past prime, if, indeed,
+they have reached prime; that the post-glacial day of the species
+is probably not half done; yet, when from a wider outlook the vast
+antiquity of the genus is considered, and its ancient richness in
+species and individuals,--comparing our Sierra Giant and Sequoia
+sempervirens of the Coast Range, the only other living species of
+sequoia, with the twelve fossil species already discovered and described
+by Heer and Lesquereux, some of which flourished over vast areas in the
+Arctic regions and in Europe and our own territories, during tertiary
+and cretaceous times--then, indeed, it becomes plain that our two
+surviving species, restricted to narrow belts within the limits of
+California, are mere remnants of the genus, both as to species and
+individuals, and that they may be verging to extinction. But the verge
+of a period beginning in cretaceous times may have a breadth of tens of
+thousands of years, not to mention the possible existence of conditions
+calculated to multiply and re-extend both species and individuals.
+
+There is no absolute limit to the existence of any tree. Death is due to
+accidents, not, as that of animals, to the wearing out of organs. Only
+the leaves die of old age. Their fall is foretold in their structure;
+but the leaves are renewed every year, and so also are the essential
+organs wood, roots, bark, buds. Most of the Sierra trees die of disease,
+insects, fungi, etc., but nothing hurts the big tree. I never saw one
+that was sick or showed the slightest sign of decay. Barring accidents,
+it seems to be immortal. It is a curious fact that all the very old
+sequoias had lost their heads by lightning strokes. "All things come to
+him who waits." But of all living things, sequoia is perhaps the only
+one able to wait long enough to make sure of being struck by lightning.
+
+So far as I am able to see at present only fire and the ax threaten the
+existence of these noblest of God's trees. In Nature's keeping they
+are safe, but through the agency of man destruction is making rapid
+progress, while in the work of protection only a good beginning has been
+made. The Fresno grove, the Tuolumne, Merced and Mariposa groves are
+under the protection of the Federal Government in the Yosemite National
+Park. So are the General Grant and Sequoia National Parks; the latter,
+established twenty-one years ago, has an area of 240 square miles and is
+efficiently guarded by a troop of cavalry under the direction of the
+Secretary of the Interior; so also are the small General Grant National
+Park, estatblished at the same time with an area of four square miles,
+and the Mariposa grove, about the same size and the small Merced and
+Tuolumne group. Perhaps more than half of all the big trees have been
+thoughtlessly sold and are now in the hands of speculators and mill men.
+It appears, therefore, that far the largest and important section of
+protected big trees is in the great Sequoia National Park, now easily
+accessible by rail to Lemon Cove and thence by a good stage road into
+the giant forest of the Kaweah and thence by rail to other parts of the
+park; but large as it is it should be made much larger. Its natural
+eastern boundary is the High Sierra and the northern and southern
+boundaries are the Kings and Kern Rivers. Thus could be included
+the sublime scenery on the headwaters of these rivers and perhaps
+nine-tenths of all the big trees in existence. All private claims
+within these bounds should be gradually extinguished by purchase by the
+Government. The big tree, leaving all its higher uses out of the count,
+is a tree of life to the dwellers of the plain dependent on irrigation,
+a never-failing spring, sending living waters to the lowland. For every
+grove cut down a stream is dried up. Therefore all California is crying,
+"Save the trees of the fountains." Nor, judging by the signs of the
+times, is it likely that the cry will cease until the salvation of all
+that is left of Sequoia gigantea is made sure.
+
+
+
+Chapter 8
+
+The Flowers
+
+
+Yosemite was all one glorious flower garden before plows and scythes and
+trampling, biting horses came to make its wide open spaces look like
+farmers' pasture fields. Nevertheless, countless flowers still bloom
+every year in glorious profusion on the grand talus slopes, wall benches
+and tablets, and in all the fine, cool side-canyons 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 oenotheras, Pentstemon lutea,
+and P. Douglasii with fine blue and red flowers; Spraguea, scarlet
+zauschneria, with its curious radiant rosettes characteristic of the
+sandy flats; mimulus, eunanus, blue and white violets, geranium,
+columbine, erythraea, larkspur, collomia, draperia, gilias, heleniums,
+bahia, goldenrods, daisies, honeysuckle; heuchera, bolandra, saxifrages,
+gentians; in cool canyon nooks and on Clouds' Rest and the base of Starr
+King Dome you may find Primula suffrutescens, the only wild primrose
+discovered in California, and the only known shrubby species in the
+genus. And there are several fine orchids, habenaria, and cypripedium,
+the latter very rare, once common in the Valley near the foot of Glacier
+Point, and in a bog on the rim of the Valley near a place called
+Gentry's Station, now abandoned. It is a very beautiful species, the
+large oval lip white, delicately veined with purple; the other petals
+and the sepals purple, strap-shaped, and elegantly curled and twisted.
+
+Of the lily family, fritillaria, smilacina, chlorogalum and several
+fine species of brodiaea, Ithuriel's spear, and others less prized are
+common, and the favorite calochortus, or Mariposa lily, a unique genus
+of many species, something like the tulips of Europe but far finer. Most
+of them grow on the warm foothills below the Valley, but two charming
+species, C. coeruleus and C. nudus, dwell in springy places on the
+Wawona road a few miles beyond the brink of the walls.
+
+The snow plant (Sarcodes sanguinea) is more admired by tourists than any
+other in California. It is red, fleshy and watery and looks like a
+gigantic asparagus shoot. Soon after the snow is off the round it rises
+through the dead needles and humus in the pine and fir woods like a
+bright glowing pillar of fire. In a week or so it grows to a height of
+eight or twelve inches with a diameter of an inch and a half or two
+inches; then its long fringed bracts curl aside, allowing the twenty- or
+thirty-five-lobed, bell-shaped flowers to open and look straight out
+from the axis. It is said to grow up through the snow; on the contrary,
+it always waits until the ground is warm, though with other early
+flowers it is occasionally buried or half-buried for a day or two
+by spring storms. The entire plant--flowers, bracts, stem, scales,
+and roots--is fiery red. Its color could appeal to one's blood.
+Nevertheless, it is a singularly cold and unsympathetic plant. Everybody
+admires it as a wonderful curiosity, but nobody loves it as lilies,
+violets, roses, daisies are loved. Without fragrance, it stands beneath
+the pines and firs lonely and silent, as if unacquainted with any other
+plant in the world; never moving in the wildest storms; rigid as if
+lifeless, though covered with beautiful rosy flowers.
+
+Far the most delightful and fragrant of the Valley flowers is the
+Washington lily, white, moderate in size, with from three- to
+ten-flowered racemes. I found one specimen in the lower end of the
+Valley at the foot of the Wawona grade that was eight feet high, the
+raceme two feet long, with fifty-two flowers, fifteen of them open;
+the others had faded or were still in the bud. This famous lily is
+distributed over the sunny portions of the sugar-pine woods, never in
+large meadow-garden companies like the large and the small tiger lilies
+(pardalinum and parvum), but widely scattered, standing up to the waist
+in dense ceanothus and manzanita chaparral, waving its lovely flowers
+above the blooming wilderness of brush, and giving their fragrance to
+the breeze. It is now becoming scarce in the most accessible parts of
+its range on account of the high price paid for its bulbs by gardeners
+through whom it has been distributed far and wide over the flower-loving
+world. For, on account of its pure color and delicate, delightful
+fragrance, all lily lovers at once adopted it as a favorite.
+
+The principal shrubs are manzanita and ceanothus, several species of
+each, azalea, Rubus nutkanus, brier rose, choke-cherry philadelphus,
+calycanthus, garrya, rhamnus, etc.
+
+The manzanita never fails to attract particular attention. The
+species common in the Valley is usually about six or seven feet high,
+round-headed with innumerable branches, red or chocolate-color bark,
+pale green leaves set on edge, and a rich profusion of small, pink,
+narrow-throated, urn-shaped flowers, like those of arbutus. The knotty,
+crooked, angular branches are about as rigid as bones, and the red bark
+is so thin and smooth on both trunk and branches, they look as if they
+had been peeled and polished and painted. In the spring large areas
+on the mountain up to a height of eight or nine thousand feet are
+brightened with the rosy flowers, and in autumn with their red fruit.
+The pleasantly acid berries, about the size of peas, look like little
+apples, and a hungry mountaineer is glad to eat them, though half their
+bulk is made up of hard seeds. Indians, bears, coyotes, foxes, birds and
+other mountain people live on them for weeks and months. The different
+species of ceanothus usually associated with manzanita are flowery
+fragrant and altogether delightful shrubs, growing in glorious
+abundance, not only in the Valley, but high up in the forest on sunny or
+half-shaded ground. In the sugar-pine woods the most beautiful species
+is C. integerrimus, often called Californian lilac, or deer brush. It
+is five or six feet high with slender branches, glossy foliage, and
+abundance of blue flowers in close, showy panicles. Two species, C.
+prostrates and C. procumbens, spread smooth, blue-flowered mats and
+rugs beneath the pines, and offer fine beds to tired mountaineers. The
+commonest species, C. cordulatus, is most common in the silver-fir
+woods. It is white-flowered and thorny, and makes dense thickets of
+tangled chaparral, difficult to wade through or to walk over. But it is
+pressed flat every winter by ten or fifteen feet of snow. The western
+azalea makes glorious beds of bloom along the river bank and meadows.
+In the Valley it is from two to five feet high, has fine green leaves,
+mostly hidden beneath its rich profusion of large, fragrant white and
+yellow flowers, which are in their prime in June, July and August,
+according to the elevation, ranging from 3000 to 6000 feet. Near the
+azalea-bordered streams the small wild rose, resembling R. blanda,
+makes large thickets deliciously fragrant, especially on a dewy morning
+and after showers. Not far from these azalea and rose gardens, Rubus
+nutkanus covers the ground with broad, soft, velvety leaves, and
+pure-white flowers as large as those of its neighbor and relative, the
+rose, and much finer in texture, followed at the end of summer by soft
+red berries good for everybody. This is the commonest and the most
+beautiful of the whole blessed, flowery, fruity Rubus genus.
+
+There are a great many interesting ferns in the Valley and about
+it. Naturally enough the greater number are rock ferns--pellaea,
+cheilanthes, polypodium, adiantum, woodsia, cryptogramma, etc., with
+small tufted fronds, lining cool glens and fringing the seams of the
+cliffs. The most important of the larger species are woodwardia,
+aspidium, asplenium, and, above all, the common pteris. Woodwardia
+radicans is a superb, broad-shouldered fern five to eight feet high,
+growing in vase-shaped clumps where tile ground is nearly level and on
+some of the benches of the north wall of the Valley where it is watered
+by a broad trickling stream. It thatches the sloping rocks, frond
+overlapping frond like roof shingles. The broad-fronded, hardy Pteris
+aquilina, the commonest of ferns, covers large areas on the floor of
+the Valley. No other fern does so much for the color glory of autumn,
+with its browns and reds and yellows, even after lying dead beneath
+the snow all winter. It spreads a rich brown mantle over the desolate
+ground in the spring before the grass has sprouted, and at the first
+touch of sun-heat its young fronds come rearing up full of faith and
+hope through the midst of the last year's ruins.
+
+Of the five species of pellaea, P. Breweri is the hardiest as to
+enduring high altitudes and stormy weather and at the same time it is
+the most fragile of the genus. It grows in dense tufts in the clefts of
+storm-beaten rocks, high up on the mountain-side on the very edge of the
+fern line. It is a handsome little fern about four or five inches high,
+has pale-green pinnate fronds, and shining bronze-colored stalks about
+as brittle as glass. Its companions on the lower part of its range are
+Cryptogramma acrostichoides and Phegopteris alpestris, the latter with
+soft, delicate fronds, not in the least like those of Rock fern, though
+it grows on the rocks where the snow lies longest. Pellaea Bridgesii,
+with blue-green, narrow, simply-pinnate fronds, is about the same size
+as Breweri and ranks next to it as a mountaineer, growing in fissures,
+wet or dry, and around the edges of boulders that are resting on glacier
+pavements with no fissures whatever. About a thousand feet lower we
+find the smaller, more abundant P. densa on ledges and boulder-strewn,
+fissured pavements, watered until late in summer from oozing currents,
+derived from lingering snowbanks. It is, or rather was, extremely
+abundant between the foot of the Nevada and the head of the Vernal Fall,
+but visitors with great industry have dug out almost every root, so that
+now one has to scramble in out-of-the-way places to find it. The three
+species of Cheilanthes in the Valley--C. californica, C. gracillima, and
+myriophylla, with beautiful two-to-four-pinnate fronds, an inch to five
+inches long, adorn the stupendous walls however dry and sheer. The
+exceedingly delicate californica is so rare that I have found it only
+once. The others are abundant and are sometimes accompanied by the
+little gold fern, Gymnogramme triangularis, and rarely by the curious
+little Botrychium simplex, some of them less than an inch high. The
+finest of all the rock ferns is Adiantum pedatum, lover of waterfalls
+and the finest spray-dust. The homes it loves best are over-leaning,
+cave-like hollows, beside the larger falls, where it can wet its fingers
+with their dewy spray. Many of these moss-lined chambers contain
+thousands of these delightful ferns, clinging to mossy walls by the
+slightest hold, reaching out their delicate finger-fronds on dark,
+shining stalks, sensitive and tremulous, throbbing in unison with every
+movement and tone of the falling water, moving each division of the
+frond separately at times, as if fingering the music.
+
+May and June are the main bloom-months of the year. Both the flowers
+and falls are then at their best. By the first of August the midsummer
+glories of the Valley are past their prime. The young birds are then out
+of their nests. Most of the plants have gone to seed; berries are ripe;
+autumn tints begin to kindle and burn over meadow and grove, and a soft
+mellow haze in the morning sunbeams heralds the approach of Indian
+summer. The shallow river is now at rest, its flood-work done. It is now
+but little more than a series of pools united by trickling, whispering
+currents that steal softly over brown pebbles and sand with scarce an
+audible murmur. Each pool has a character of its own and, though they
+are nearly currentless, the night air and tree shadows keep them cool.
+Their shores curve in and out in bay and promontory, giving the
+appearance of miniature lakes, their banks in most places embossed with
+brier and azalea, sedge and grass and fern; and above these in their
+glory of autumn colors a mingled growth of alder, willow, dogwood and
+balm-of-Gilead; mellow sunshine overhead, cool shadows beneath; light
+filtered and strained in passing through the ripe leaves like that which
+passes through colored windows. The surface of the water is stirred,
+perhaps, by whirling water-beetles, or some startled trout, seeking
+shelter beneath fallen logs or roots. The falls, too, are quiet; no wind
+stirs, and the whole Valley floor is a mosaic of greens and purples,
+yellows and reds. Even the rocks seem strangely soft and mellow, as if
+they, too, had ripened.
+
+
+
+Chapter 9
+
+The Birds
+
+
+The songs of the Yosemite winds and waterfalls are delightfully enriched
+with bird song, especially in the nesting time of spring and early
+summer. The most familiar and best known of all is the common robin, who
+may be seen every day, hopping about briskly on the meadows and uttering
+his cheery, enlivening call. The black-headed grosbeak, too, is here,
+with the Bullock oriole, and western tanager, brown song-sparrow, hermit
+thrush, the purple finch,--a fine singer, with head and throat of a
+rosy-red hue,--several species of warblers and vireos, kinglets,
+flycatchers, etc.
+
+But the most wonderful singer of all the birds is the water-ouzel that
+dives into foaming rapids and feeds at the bottom, holding on in a
+wonderful way, living a charmed life.
+
+Several species of humming-birds are always to be seen, darting and
+buzzing among the showy flowers. The little red-bellied nuthatches, the
+chickadees, and little brown creepers, threading the furrows of the bark
+of the pines, searching for food in the crevices. The large Steller's
+jay makes merry in the pine-tops; flocks of beautiful green swallows
+skim over the streams, and the noisy Clarke's crow may oftentimes be
+seen on the highest points around the Valley; and in the deep woods
+beyond the walls you may frequently hear and see the dusky grouse and
+the pileated woodpecker, or woodcock almost as large as a pigeon. The
+junco or snow-bird builds its nest on the floor of the Valley among the
+ferns; several species of sparrow are common and the beautiful lazuli
+bunting, a common bird in the underbrush, flitting about among the
+azalea and ceanothus bushes and enlivening the groves with his brilliant
+color; and on gravelly bars the spotted sandpiper is sometimes seen.
+Many woodpeckers dwell in the Valley; the familiar flicker, the Harris
+woodpecker and the species which so busily stores up acorns in the thick
+bark of the yellow pines.
+
+The short, cold days of winter are also sweetened with the music and
+hopeful chatter of a considerable number of birds. No cheerier choir
+ever sang in snow. First and best of all is the water-ouzel, a dainty,
+dusky little bird about the size of a robin, that sings in sweet fluty
+song all winter and all summer, in storms and calms, sunshine and
+shadow, haunting the rapids and waterfalls with marvelous constancy,
+building his nest in the cleft of a rock bathed in spray. He is not
+web-footed, yet he dives fearlessly into foaming rapids, seeming to take
+the greater delight the more boisterous the stream, always as cheerful
+and calm as any linnet in a grove. All his gestures as he flits about
+amid the loud uproar of the falls bespeak the utmost simplicity and
+confidence--bird and stream one and inseparable. What a pair! yet they
+are well related. A finer bloom than the foam bell in an eddying pool
+is this little bird. We may miss the meaning of the loud-resounding
+torrent, but the flute-like voice of the bird--only love is in it.
+
+A few robins, belated on their way down from the upper Meadows, linger
+in the Valley and make out to spend the winter in comparative comfort,
+feeding on the mistletoe berries that grow on the oaks. In the depths
+of the great forests, on the high meadows, in the severest altitudes,
+they seem as much at home as in the fields and orchards about the busy
+habitations of man, ascending the Sierra as the snow melts, following
+the green footsteps of Spring, until in July or August the highest
+glacier meadows are reached on the summit of the Range. Then, after the
+short summer is over, and their work in cheering and sweetening these
+lofty wilds is done, they gradually make their way down again in accord
+with the weather, keeping below the snow-storms, lingering here and
+there to feed on huckleberries and frost-nipped wild cherries growing
+on the upper slopes. Thence down to the vineyards and orchards of the
+lowlands to spend the winter; entering the gardens of the great towns
+as well as parks and fields, where the blessed wanderers are too often
+slaughtered for food--surely a bad use to put so fine a musician to;
+better make stove wood of pianos to feed the kitchen fire.
+
+The kingfisher winters in the Valley, and the flicker and, of course,
+the carpenter woodpecker, that lays up large stores of acorns in the
+bark of trees; wrens also, with a few brown and gray linnets, and flocks
+of the arctic bluebird, making lively pictures among the snow-laden
+mistletoe bushes. Flocks of pigeons are often seen, and about six
+species of ducks, as the river is never wholly frozen over. Among these
+are the mallard and the beautiful woodduck, now less common on account
+of being so often shot at. Flocks of wandering geese used to visit the
+Valley in March and April, and perhaps do so still, driven down by
+hunger or stress of weather while on their way across the Range. When
+pursued by the hunters I have frequently seen them try to fly over the
+walls of Lee Valley until tired out and compelled to re-alight. Yosemite
+magnitudes seem to be as deceptive to geese as to men, for after
+circling to a considerable height and forming regular harrow-shaped
+ranks they would suddenly find themselves in danger of being dashed
+against the face of the cliff, much nearer the bottom than the top. Then
+turning in confusion with loud screams they would try again and again
+until exhausted and compelled to descend. I have occasionally observed
+large flocks on their travels crossing the summits of the Range at a
+height of 12,000 to 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, and even in
+so rare an atmosphere as this they seemed to be sustaining themselves
+without extra effort. Strong, however, as they are of wind and wing,
+they cannot fly over Yosemite walls, starting from the bottom.
+
+A pair of golden eagles have lived in the Valley ever since I first
+visited it, hunting all winter along the northern cliffs and down the
+river canyon. Their nest is on a ledge of the cliff over which pours
+the Nevada Fall. Perched on the top of a dead spar, they were always
+interested observers of the geese when they were being shot at. I once
+noticed one of the geese compelled to leave the flock on account of
+being sorely wounded, although it still seemed to fly pretty well.
+Immediately the eagles pursued it and no doubt struck it down, although
+I did not see the result of the hunt. Anyhow, it flew past me up the
+Valley, closely pursued.
+
+One wild, stormy winter morning after five feet of snow had fallen on
+the floor of the Valley and the flying flakes driven by a strong wind
+still thickened the air, making darkness like the approach of night, I
+sallied forth to see what I might learn and enjoy. It was impossible
+to go very far without the aid of snow-shoes, but I found no great
+difficulty in making my way to a part of the river where one of my
+ouzels lived. I found him at home busy about his breakfast, apparently
+unaware of anything uncomfortable in the weather. Presently he flew out
+to a stone against which the icy current was beating, and turning his
+back to the wind, sang as delightfully as a lark in springtime.
+
+After spending an hour or two with my favorite, I made my way across the
+Valley, boring and wallowing through the loose snow, to learn as much
+as possible about the way the other birds were spending their time. In
+winter one can always find them because they are then restricted to the
+north side of the Valley, especially the Indian Canyon groves, which
+from their peculiar exposure are the warmest.
+
+I found most of the robins cowering on the lee side of the larger
+branches of the trees, where the snow could not fall on them, while two
+or three of the more venturesome were making desperate efforts to get at
+the mistletoe berries by clinging to the underside of the snow-crowned
+masses, back downward, something like woodpeckers. Every now and then
+some of the loose snow was dislodged and sifted down on the hungry
+birds, sending them screaming back to their companions in the grove,
+shivering and muttering like cold, hungry children.
+
+Some of the sparrows were busy scratching and pecking at the feet of
+the larger trees where the snow had been shed off, gleaning seeds
+and benumbed insects, joined now and then by a robin weary of his
+unsuccessful efforts to get at the snow-covered mistletoe berries. The
+brave woodpeckers were clinging to the snowless sides of the larger
+boles and overarching branches of the camp trees, making short flights
+from side to side of the grove, pecking now and then at the acorns they
+had stored in the bark, and chattering aimlessly as if unable to keep
+still, evidently putting in the time in a very dull way. The hardy
+nuthatches were threading the open furrows of the barks in their usual
+industrious manner and uttering their quaint notes, giving no evidence
+of distress. The Steller's jays were, of course, making more noise and
+stir than all the other birds combined; ever coming and going with
+loud bluster, screaming as if each had a lump of melting sludge in his
+throat, and taking good care to improve every opportunity afforded by
+the darkness and confusion of the storm to steal from the acorn stores
+of the woodpeckers. One of the golden eagles made an impressive picture
+as he stood bolt upright on the top of a tall pine-stump, braving the
+storm, with his back to the wind and a tuft of snow piled on his broad
+shoulders, a monument of passive endurance. Thus every storm-bound bird
+seemed more or less uncomfortable, if not in distress. The storm was
+reflected in every gesture, and not one cheerful note, not to say song,
+came from a single bill. Their cowering, joyless endurance offered
+striking contrasts to the spontaneous, irrepressible gladness of the
+ouzel, who could no more help giving out sweet song than a rose sweet
+fragrance. He must sing, though the heavens fall.
+
+
+
+Chapter 10
+
+The South Dome
+
+
+With the exception of a few spires and pinnacles, the South Dome is
+the only rock about the Valley that is strictly inaccessible without
+artificial means, and its inaccessibility is expressed in severe terms.
+Nevertheless many a mountaineer, gazing admiringly, tried hard to
+invent a way to the top of its noble crown--all in vain, until in the
+year 1875, George Anderson, an indomitable Scotchman, undertook the
+adventure. The side facing Tenaya Canyon is an absolutely vertical
+precipice from the summit to a depth of about 1600 feet, and on the
+opposite side it is nearly vertical for about as great a depth. The
+southwest side presents a very steep and finely drawn curve from the top
+down a thousand feet or more, while on the northeast, where it is united
+with the Clouds' Rest Ridge, one may easily reach a point called the
+Saddle, about seven hundred feet below the summit. From the Saddle the
+Dome rises in a graceful curve a few degrees too steep for unaided
+climbing, besides being defended by overleaning ends of the concentric
+dome layers of the granite.
+
+A year or two before Anderson gained the summit, John Conway, the master
+trail-builder of the Valley, and his little sons, who climbed smooth
+rocks like lizards, made a bold effort to reach the top by climbing
+barefooted up the grand curve with a rope which they fastened at
+irregular intervals by means of eye-bolts driven into joints of the
+rock. But finding that the upper part would require laborious drilling,
+they abandoned the attempt, glad to escape from the dangerous position
+they had reached, some 300 feet above the Saddle. Anderson began with
+Conway's old rope, which had been left in place, and resolutely drilled
+his way to the top, inserting eye-bolts five to six feet apart, and
+making his rope fast to each in succession, resting his feet on the
+last bolt while he drilled a hole for the next above. Occasionally some
+irregularity in the curve, or slight foothold, would enable him to climb
+a few feet without a rope, which he would pass and begin drilling again,
+and thus the whole work was accomplished in a few days. From this
+slender beginning he proposed to construct a substantial stairway which
+he hoped to complete in time for the next year's travel, but while busy
+getting out timber for his stairway and dreaming of the wealth he hoped
+to gain from tolls, he was taken sick and died all alone in his little
+cabin.
+
+On the 10th of November, after returning from a visit to Mount Shasta, a
+month or two after Anderson had gained the summit, I made haste to the
+Dome, not only for the pleasure of climbing, but to see what I might
+learn. The first winter storm-clouds had blossomed and the mountains and
+all the high points about the Valley were mantled in fresh snow. I was,
+therefore, a little apprehensive of danger from the slipperiness of the
+rope and the rock. Anderson himself tried to prevent me from making
+the attempt, refusing to believe that any one could climb his rope in
+the now-muffled condition in which it then was. Moreover, the sky was
+overcast and solemn snow-clouds began to curl around the summit, and
+my late experiences on icy Shasta came to mind. But reflecting that I
+had matches in my pocket, and that a little firewood might be found, I
+concluded that in case of a storm the night could be spent on the Dome
+without suffering anything worth minding, no matter what the clouds
+might bring forth. I therefore pushed on and gained the top.
+
+It was one of those brooding, changeful days that come between Indian
+summer and winter, when the leaf colors have grown dim and the clouds
+come and go among the cliffs like living creatures looking for work: now
+hovering aloft, now caressing rugged rock-brows with great gentleness,
+or, wandering afar over the tops of the forests, touching the spires of
+fir and pine with their soft silken fringes as if trying to tell the
+glad news of the coming of snow.
+
+The first view was perfectly glorious. A massive cloud of pure pearl
+luster, apparently as fixed and calm as the meadows and groves in the
+shadow beneath it, was arched across the Valley from wall to wall, one
+end resting on the grand abutment of El Capitan, the other on Cathedral
+Rock. A little later, as I stood on the tremendous verge overlooking
+Mirror Lake, a flock of smaller clouds, white as snow, came from the
+north, trailing their downy skirts over the dark forests, and entered
+the Valley with solemn god-like gestures through Indian Canyon 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 Canyon. Then the sun shone free,
+lighting the pearly gray surface of the cloud-like sea and making it
+glow. Gazing, admiring, I was startled to see for the first time the
+rare optical phenomenon of the "Specter of the Brocken." My shadow,
+clearly outlined, about half a mile long, lay upon this glorious white
+surface with startling effect. I walked back and forth, waved my arms
+and struck all sorts of attitudes, to see every slightest movement
+enormously exaggerated. Considering that I have looked down so many
+times from mountain tops on seas of all sorts of clouds, it seems
+strange that I should have seen the "Brocken Specter" only this once.
+A grander surface and a grander stand-point, however, could hardly
+have been found in all the Sierra.
+
+After this grand show the cloud-sea rose higher, wreathing the Dome, and
+for a short time submerging it, making darkness like night, and I began
+to think of looking for a camp ground in a cluster of dwarf pines. But
+soon the sun shone free again, the clouds, sinking lower and lower,
+gradually vanished, leaving the Valley with its Indian-summer colors
+apparently refreshed, while to the eastward the summit-peaks, clad in
+new snow, towered along the horizon in glorious array.
+
+Though apparently it is perfectly bald, there are four clumps of pines
+growing on the summit, representing three species, Pinus albicaulis,
+P. contorta and P. ponderosa, var. Jeffreyi--all three, of course,
+repressed and storm-beaten. The alpine spiraea grows here also and
+blossoms profusely with potentilla, erigeron, eriogonum, pentstemon,
+solidago, and an interesting species of onion, and four or five species
+of grasses and sedges. None of these differs in any respect from those
+of other summits of the same height, excepting the curious little
+narrow-leaved, waxen-bulbed onion, which I had not seen elsewhere.
+
+Notwithstanding the enthusiastic eagerness of tourists to reach the
+crown of the Dome the views of the Valley from this lofty standpoint are
+less striking than from many other points comparatively low, chiefly on
+account of the foreshortening effect produced by looking down from so
+great a height. The North Dome is dwarfed almost beyond recognition,
+the grand sculpture of the Royal Arches is scarcely noticeable, and the
+whole range of walls on both sides seem comparatively low, especially
+when the Valley is flooded with noon sunshine; while the Dome itself,
+the most sublime feature of all the Yosemite views, is out of sight
+beneath one's feet. The view of Little Yosemite Valley is very fine,
+though inferior to one obtained from the base of the Starr King Cone,
+but the summit landscapes towards Mounts Ritter, Lyell, Dana, Conness,
+and the Merced Group, are very effective and complete.
+
+No one has attempted to carry out Anderson's plan of making the Dome
+accessible. For my part I should prefer leaving it in pure wildness,
+though, after all, no great damage could be done by tramping over it.
+The surface would be strewn with tin cans and bottles, but the winter
+gales would blow the rubbish away. Avalanches might strip off any sort
+of stairway or ladder that might be built. Blue jays and Clark's crows
+have trodden the Dome for many a day, and so have beetles and chipmunks,
+and Tissiack would hardly be more "conquered" or spoiled should man be
+added to her list of visitors. His louder scream and heavier scrambling
+would not stir a line of her countenance.
+
+When the sublime ice-floods of the glacial period poured down the flank
+of the Range over what is now Yosemite Valley, they were compelled to
+break through a dam of domes extending across from Mount Starr King to
+North Dome; and as the period began to draw near a close the shallowing
+ice-currents were divided and the South Dome was, perhaps, the first to
+emerge, burnished and shining like a mirror above the surface of the icy
+sea; and though it has sustained the wear and tear of the elements tens
+of thousands of years, it yet remains a telling monument of the action
+of the great glaciers that brought it to light. Its entire surface is
+still covered with glacial hieroglyphics whose interpretation is the
+reward of all who devoutly study them.
+
+
+
+Chapter 11
+
+The Ancient Yosemite Glaciers:
+How the Valley Was Formed
+
+
+All California has been glaciated, the low plains and valleys as well
+as the mountains. Traces of an ice-sheet, thousands of feet in thickness,
+beneath whose heavy folds the present landscapes have been molded, may
+be found everywhere, though glaciers now exist only among the peaks of
+the High Sierra. No other mountain chain on this or any other of the
+continents that I have seen is so rich as the Sierra in bold, striking,
+well-preserved glacial monuments. Indeed, every feature is more or
+less tellingly glacial. Not a peak, ridge, dome, canyon, 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 canyon and valley was the channel
+of an ice-stream, all of which may be easily traced back to their
+fountains, where some sixty-five or seventy of their topmost residual
+branches still linger beneath protecting mountain shadows.
+
+The change from one to another of those glacial conditions was slow as
+we count time. When the great cycle of snow years, called the Glacial
+Period, was nearly complete in California, the ice-mantle, wasting from
+season to season faster than it was renewed, began to withdraw from the
+lowlands and gradually became shallower everywhere. Then the highest
+of the Sierra domes and dividing ridges, containing distinct glaciers
+between them, began to appear above the icy sea. These first river-like
+glaciers remained united in one continuous sheet toward the summit of
+the Range for many centuries. But as the snow-fall diminished, and the
+climate became milder, this upper part of the ice-sheet was also in
+turn separated into smaller distinct glaciers, and these again into
+still smaller ones, while at the same time all were growing shorter and
+shallower, though fluctuations of the climate now and then occurred
+that brought their receding ends to a standstill, or even enabled them
+to advance for a few tens or hundreds of years.
+
+Meanwhile, hardy, home-seeking plants and animals, after long waiting,
+flocked to their appointed places, pushing bravely on higher and higher,
+along every sun-warmed slope, closely following the retreating ice,
+which, like shreds of summer clouds, at length vanished from the
+new-born mountains, leaving them in all their main, telling features
+nearly as we find them now.
+
+Tracing the ways of glaciers, learning how Nature sculptures
+mountain-waves in making scenery-beauty that so mysteriously influences
+every human being, is glorious work.
+
+The most striking and attractive of the glacial phenomena in the upper
+Yosemite region are the polished glacier pavements, because they are so
+beautiful, and their beauty is of so rare a kind, so unlike any portion
+of the loose, deeply weathered lowlands where people make homes and earn
+their bread. They are simply flat or gently undulating areas of hard
+resisting granite, which present the unchanged surface upon which with
+enormous pressure the ancient glaciers flowed. They are found in most
+perfect condition in the subalpine region, at an elevation of from eight
+thousand to nine thousand feet. Some are miles in extent, only slightly
+interrupted by spots that have given way to the weather, while the best
+preserved portions reflect the sunbeams like calm water or glass, and
+shine as if polished afresh every day, notwithstanding they have been
+exposed to corroding rains, dew, frost, and snow measureless thousands
+of years.
+
+The attention of wandering hunters and prospectors, who see so many
+mountain wonders, is seldom commanded by other glacial phenomena,
+moraines however regular and artificial-looking, canyons however deep
+or strangely modeled, rocks however high; but when they come to these
+shining pavements they stop and stare in wondering admiration, kneel
+again and again to examine the brightest spots, and try hard to account
+for their mysterious shining smoothness. They may have seen the winter
+avalanches of snow descending in awful majesty through the woods,
+scouring the rocks and sweeping away like weeds the trees that stood
+in their way, but conclude that this cannot be the work of avalanches,
+because the scratches and fine polished strife show that the agent,
+whatever it was, moved along the sides of high rocks and ridges and up
+over the tops of them as well as down their slopes. Neither can they see
+how water may possibly have been the agent, for they find the same
+strange polish upon ridges and domes thousands of feet above the reach
+of any conceivable flood. Of all the agents of whose work they know
+anything, only the wind seems capable of moving across the face of the
+country in the directions indicated by the scratches and grooves. The
+Indian name of Lake Tenaya is "Pyweak"--the lake of shining rocks. One
+of the Yosemite tribe, Indian Tom, came to me and asked if I could tell
+him what had made the Tenaya rocks so smooth. Even dogs and horses, when
+first led up the mountains, study geology to this extent that they gaze
+wonderingly at the strange brightness of the ground and smell it, and
+place their feet cautiously upon it as if afraid of falling or sinking.
+
+In the production of this admirable hard finish, the glaciers in many
+places flowed with a pressure of more than a thousand tons to the square
+yard, planing down granite, slate, and quartz alike, and bringing out
+the veins and crystals of the rocks with beautiful distinctness. Over
+large areas below the sources of the Tuolumne and Merced the granite is
+porphyritic; feldspar crystals in inch or two in length in many places
+form the greater part of the rock, and these, when planed off level with
+the general surface, give rise to a beautiful mosaic on which the happy
+sunbeams plash and glow in passionate enthusiasm. Here lie the brightest
+of all the Sierra landscapes. The Range both to the north and south of
+this region was, perhaps, glaciated about as heavily, but because the
+rocks are less resisting, their polished surfaces have mostly given way
+to the weather, leaving only small imperfect patches. The lower remnants
+of the old glacial surface occur at an elevation of from 3000 to 5000
+feet above the sea level, and twenty to thirty miles below the axis of
+the Range. The short, steeply inclined canyons of the eastern flank also
+contain enduring, brilliantly striated and polished rocks, but these are
+less magnificent than those of the broad western flank.
+
+One of the best general views of the brightest and best of the Yosemite
+park landscapes that every Yosemite tourist should see, is to be had
+from the top of Fairview Dome, a lofty conoidal rock near Cathedral Peak
+that long ago I named the Tuolumne Glacier Monument, one of the most
+striking and best preserved of the domes. Its burnished crown is about
+1500 feet above the Tuolumne Meadows and 10,000 above the sea. At first
+sight it seems inaccessible, though a good climber will find it may
+be scaled on the south side. About half-way up you will find it so
+steep that there is danger of slipping, but feldspar crystals, two or
+three inches long, of which the rock is full, having offered greater
+resistance to atmospheric erosion than the mass of the rock in which
+they are imbedded, have been brought into slight relief in some places,
+roughening the surface here and there, and affording helping footholds.
+
+The summit is burnished and scored like the sides and base, the
+scratches and strife indicating that the mighty Tuolumne Glacier swept
+over it as if it were only a mere boulder in the bottom of its channel.
+The pressure it withstood must have been enormous. Had it been less
+solidly built it would have been carried away, ground into moraine
+fragments, like the adjacent rock in which it lay imbedded; for, great
+as it is, it is only a hard residual knot like the Yosemite domes,
+brought into relief by the removal of less resisting rock about it;
+an illustration of the survival of the strongest and most favorably
+situated.
+
+Hardly less wonderful is the resistance it has offered to the trying
+mountain weather since first its crown rose above the icy sea. The whole
+quantity of post-glacial wear and tear it has suffered has not degraded
+it a hundredth of an inch, as may readily be shown by the polished
+portions of the surface. A few erratic boulders, nicely poised on its
+crown, tell an interesting story. They came from the summit-peaks twelve
+miles away, drifting like chips on the frozen sea, and were stranded
+here when the top of the monument merged from the ice, while their
+companions, whose positions chanced to be above the slopes of the sides
+where they could not find rest, were carried farther on by falling back
+on the shallowing ice current.
+
+The general view from the summit consists of a sublime assemblage of
+ice-born rocks and mountains, long wavering ridges, meadows, lakes, and
+forest-covered moraines, hundreds of square miles of them. The lofty
+summit-peaks rise grandly along the sky to the east, the gray pillared
+slopes of the Hoffman Range toward the west, and a billowy sea of
+shining rocks like the Monument, some of them almost as high and which
+from their peculiar sculpture seem to be rolling westward in the middle
+ground, something like breaking waves. Immediately beneath you are the
+Big Tuolumne Meadows, smooth lawns with large breadths of woods on
+either side, and watered by the young Tuolumne River, rushing cool and
+clear from its many snow- and ice-fountains. Nearly all the upper part
+of the basin of the Tuolumne Glacier is in sight, one of the greatest
+and most influential of all the Sierra ice-rivers. Lavishly flooded by
+many a noble affluent from the ice-laden flanks of Mounts Dana, Lyell,
+McClure, Gibbs, Conness, it poured its majestic outflowing current full
+against the end of the Hoffman Range, which divided and deflected it to
+right and left, just as a river of water is divided against an island
+in the middle of its channel. Two distinct glaciers were thus formed,
+one of which flowed through the great Tuolumne Canyon 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 Canyon and Yosemite.
+
+The map-like distinctness and freshness of this glacial landscape cannot
+fail to excite the attention of every beholder, no matter how little of
+its scientific significance may be recognized. These bald,
+westward-leaning rocks, with their rounded backs and shoulders toward
+the glacier fountains of the summit-mountains, and their split, angular
+fronts looking in the opposite direction, explain the tremendous
+grinding force with which the ice-flood passed over them, and also the
+direction of its flow. And the mountain peaks around the sides of the
+upper general Tuolumne Basin, with their sharp unglaciated summits and
+polished rounded sides, indicate the height to which the glaciers rose;
+while the numerous moraines, curving and swaying in beautiful lines,
+mark the boundaries of the main trunk and its tributaries as they
+existed toward the close of the glacial winter. None of the commerical
+highways of the land or sea, marked with buoys and lamps, fences, and
+guide-boards, is so unmistakably indicated as are these broad, shining
+trails of the vanished Tuolumne Glacier and its far-reaching
+tributaries.
+
+I should like now to offer some nearer views of a few characteristic
+specimens of these wonderful old ice-streams, though it is not easy to
+make a selection from so vast a system intimately inter-blended. The
+main branches of the Merced Glacier are, perhaps, best suited to our
+purpose, because their basins, full of telling inscriptions, are the
+ones most attractive and accessible to the Yosemite visitors who like to
+look beyond the valley walls. They number five, and may well be called
+Yosemite glaciers, since they were the agents Nature used in developing
+and fashioning the grand Valley. The names I have given them are,
+beginning with the northern-most, Yosemite Creek, Hoffman, Tenaya, South
+Lyell, and Illilouette Glaciers. These all converged in admirable poise
+around from northeast to southeast, welded themselves together into the
+main Yosemite Glacier, which, grinding gradually deeper, swept down
+through the Valley, receiving small tributaries on its way from the
+Indian, Sentinel, and Pohono Canyons; 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 canyons
+toward the head of the Valley.
+
+Every glacier of the Sierra fluctuated in width and depth and length,
+and consequently in degree of individuality, down to the latest
+glacial days. It must, therefore, be borne in mind that the following
+description of the Yosemite glaciers applies only to their separate
+condition, and to that phase of their separate condition that they
+presented toward the close of the glacial period after most of their
+work was finished, and all the more telling features of the Valley and
+the adjacent region were brought into relief.
+
+The comparatively level, many-fountained Yosemite Creek Glacier was
+about fourteen miles in length by four or five in width, and from five
+hundred to a thousand feet deep. Its principal tributaries, drawing
+their sources from the northern spurs of the Hoffman Range, at first
+pursued a westerly course; then, uniting with each other, and a series
+of short affluents from the western rim of the basin, the trunk thus
+formed swept around to the southward in a magnificent curve, and poured
+its ice over the north wall of Yosemite in cascades about two miles
+wide. This broad and comparatively shallow glacier formed a sort of
+crawling, wrinkled ice-cloud, that gradually became more regular in
+shape and river-like as it grew older. Encircling peaks began to
+overshadow its highest fountains, rock islets rose here and there amid
+its ebbing currents, and its picturesque banks, adorned with domes and
+round-backed ridges, extended in massive grandeur down to the brink of
+the Yosemite walls.
+
+In the meantime the chief Hoffman tributaries, slowly receding to the
+shelter of the shadows covering their fountains, continued to live and
+work independently, spreading soil, deepening lake-basins and giving
+finishing touches to the sculpture in general. At length these also
+vanished, and the whole basin is now full of light. Forests flourish
+luxuriantly upon its ample moraines, lakes and meadows shine and bloom
+amid its polished domes, and a thousand gardens adorn the banks of its
+streams.
+
+It is to the great width and even slope of the Yosemite Creek Glacier
+that we owe the unrivaled height and sheerness of the Yosemite Falls.
+For had the positions of the ice-fountains and the structure of the
+rocks been such as to cause down-thrusting concentration of the Glacier
+as it approached the Valley, then, instead of a high vertical fall we
+should have had a long slanting cascade, which after all would perhaps
+have been as beautiful and interesting, if we only had a mind to see
+it so.
+
+The short, comparatively swift-flowing Hoffman Glacier, whose fountains
+extend along the south slopes of the Hoffman Range, offered a striking
+contrast to the one just described. The erosive energy of the latter was
+diffused over a wide field of sunken, boulder-like domes and ridges. The
+Hoffman Glacier, on the contrary moved right ahead on a comparatively
+even surface, making descent of nearly five thousand feet in five miles,
+steadily contracting and deepening its current, and finally united with
+the Tenaya Glacier as one of its most influential tributaries in the
+development and sculpture of the great Half Dome, North Dome and the
+rocks adjacent to them about the head of the Valley.
+
+The story of its death is not unlike that of its companion already
+described, though the declivity of its channel, and its uniform exposure
+to sun-heat prevented any considerable portion of its current from
+becoming torpid, lingering only well up on the Mountain slopes to finish
+their sculpture and encircle them with a zone of moraine soil for
+forests and gardens. Nowhere in all this wonderful region will you find
+more beautiful trees and shrubs and flowers covering the traces of ice.
+
+The rugged Tenaya Glacier wildly crevassed here and there above the
+ridges it had to cross, instead of drawing its sources direct from the
+summit of the Range, formed, as we have seen, one of the outlets of the
+great Tuolumne Glacier, issuing from this noble fountain like a river
+from a lake, two miles wide, about fourteen miles long, and from 1500
+to 2000 feet deep.
+
+In leaving the Tuolumne region it crossed over the divide, as mentioned
+above, between the Tuolumne and Tenaya basins, making an ascent of five
+hundred feet. Hence, after contracting its wide current and receiving
+a strong affluent from the fountains about Cathedral Peak, it poured
+its massive flood over the northeastern rim of its basin in splendid
+cascades. Then, crushing heavily against the Clouds' Rest Ridge, it bore
+down upon the Yosemite domes with concentrated energy.
+
+Toward the end of the ice period, while its Hoffman companion continued
+to grind rock-meal for coming plants, the main trunk became torpid,
+and vanished, exposing wide areas of rolling rock-waves and glistening
+pavements, on whose channelless surface water ran wild and free. And
+because the trunk vanished almost simultaneously throughout its whole
+extent, no terminal moraines are found in its canyon channel; nor, since
+its walls are, in most places, too steeply inclined to admit of the
+deposition of moraine matter, do we find much of the two main laterals.
+The lowest of its residual glaciers lingered beneath the shadow of the
+Yosemite Half Dome; others along the base of Coliseum Peak above Lake
+Tenaya and along the precipitous wall extending from the lake to the
+Big Tuolumne Meadows. The latter, on account of the uniformity and
+continuity of their protecting shadows, formed moraines of considerable
+length and regularity that are liable to be mistaken for portions of
+the left lateral of the Tuolumne tributary glacier.
+
+Spend all the time you can spare or steal on the tracks of this grand
+old glacier, charmed and enchanted by its magnificent canyon, lakes and
+cascades and resplendent glacier pavements.
+
+The Nevada Glacier was longer and more symmetrical than the last, and
+the only one of the Merced system whose sources extended directly back
+to the main summits on the axis of the Range. Its numerous fountains
+were ranged side by side in three series, at an elevation of from 10,000
+to 12,000 feet above the sea. The first, on the right side of the basin,
+extended from the Matterhorn to Cathedral Peak; that on the left through
+the Merced group, and these two parallel series were united by a third
+that extended around the head of the basin in a direction at right
+angles to the others.
+
+The three ranges of high peaks and ridges that supplied the snow for
+these fountains, together with the Clouds' Rest Ridge, nearly inclose a
+rectangular basin, that was filled with a massive sea of ice, leaving
+an outlet toward the west through which flowed the main trunk glacier,
+three-fourths of a mile to a mile and a half wide, fifteen miles long,
+and from 1000 to 1500 feet deep, and entered Yosemite between the Half
+Dome and Mount Starr King.
+
+Could we have visited Yosemite Valley at this period of its history, we
+should have found its ice cascades vastly more glorious than their tiny
+water representatives of the present day. One of the grandest of these
+was formed by that portion of the Nevada Glacier that poured over the
+shoulder of the Half Dome.
+
+This glacier, as a whole, resembled an oak, with a gnarled swelling base
+and wide-spreading branches. Picturesque rocks of every conceivable form
+adorned its banks, among which glided the numerous tributaries, mottled
+with black and red and gray boulders, from the fountain peaks, while
+ever and anon, as the deliberate centuries passed away, dome after dome
+raised its burnished crown above the ice-flood to enrich the slowly
+opening landscapes.
+
+The principal moraines occur in short irregular sections along the sides
+of the canyons, their fragmentary condition being due to interruptions
+caused by portions of the sides of the canyon 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 Canyon. 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 canyon. A short
+side-glacier came in against it from the slopes of Clouds' Rest; but
+being fully exposed to the sun, it was melted long before the main
+trunk, allowing the latter to deposit this portion of its moraine
+undisturbed. Some conception of the size and appearance of this fine
+moraine may be gained by following the Clouds' Rest trail from Yosemite,
+which crosses it obliquely and conducts past several sections made by
+streams. Slate boulders may be seen that must have come from the Lyell
+group, twelve miles distant. But the bulk of the moraine is composed
+of porphyritic granite derived from Feldspar and Cathedral Valleys.
+
+On the sides of the moraines we find a series of terraces, indicating
+fluctuations in the level of the glacier, caused by variations of
+snow-fall, temperature, etc., showing that the climate of the glacial
+period was diversified by cycles of milder or stormier seasons similar
+to those of post-glacial time.
+
+After the depth of the main trunk diminished to about five hundred feet,
+the greater portion became torpid, as is shown by the moraines, and
+lay dying in its crooked channel like a wounded snake, maintaining for
+a time a feeble squirming motion in places of exceptional depth, or
+where the bottom of the canyon was more steeply inclined. The numerous
+fountain-wombs, however, continued fruitful long after the trunk had
+vanished, giving rise to an imposing array of short residual glaciers,
+extending around the rim of the general basin a distance of nearly
+twenty-four miles. Most of these have but recently succumbed to the new
+climate, dying in turn as determined by elevation, size, and exposure,
+leaving only a few feeble survivors beneath the coolest shadows, which
+are now slowly completing the sculpture of one of the noblest of the
+Yosemite basins.
+
+The comparatively shallow glacier that at this time filled the
+Illilouette Basin, though once far from shallow, more resembled a lake
+than a river of ice, being nearly half as wide as it was long. Its
+greatest length was about ten miles, and its depth perhaps nowhere much
+exceeded 1000 feet. Its chief fountains, ranged along the west side of
+the Merced group, at an elevation of about 10,000 feet, gave birth to
+fine tributaries that flowed in a westerly direction, and united in the
+center of the basin. The broad trunk at first poured northwestward, then
+curved to the northward, deflected by the lofty wall forming its western
+bank, and finally united with the grand Yosemite trunk, opposite Glacier
+Point.
+
+All the phenomena relating to glacial action in this basin are
+remarkably simple and orderly, on account of the sheltered positions
+occupied by its ice-fountains, with reference to the disturbing effects
+of larger glaciers from the axis of the main Range earlier in the
+period. From the eastern base of the Starr King cone you may obtain
+a fine view of the principal moraines sweeping grandly out into the
+middle of the basin from the shoulders of the peaks, between which the
+ice-fountains lay. The right lateral of the tributary, which took its
+rise between Red and Merced Mountains, measures two hundred and fifty
+feet in height at its upper extremity, and displays three well-defined
+terraces, similar to those of the south Lyell Glacier. The comparative
+smoothness of the upper-most terrace shows that it is considerably more
+ancient than the others, many of the boulders of which it is composed
+having crumbled. A few miles to the westward, this moraine has an
+average slope of twenty-seven degrees, and an elevation above the bottom
+of the channel of six hundred and sixty feet. Near the middle of the
+main basin, just where the regularly formed medial and lateral moraines
+flatten out and disappear, there is a remarkably smooth field of gravel,
+planted with arctostaphylos, that looks at the distance of a mile like
+a delightful meadow. Stream sections show the gravel deposit to be
+composed of the same material as the moraines, but finer, and more
+water-worn from the action of converging torrents issuing from the
+tributary glaciers after the trunk was melted. The southern boundary of
+the basin is a strikingly perfect wall, gray on the top, and white down
+the sides and at the base with snow, in which many a crystal brook takes
+rise. The northern boundary is made up of smooth undulating masses of
+gray granite, that lift here and there into beautiful domes of which
+the Starr King cluster is the finest, while on the east tower of the
+majestic fountain-peaks with wide canyons and neve amphitheaters between
+them, whose variegated rocks show out gloriously against the sky.
+
+The ice-plows of this charming basin, ranged side by side in orderly
+gangs, furrowed the rocks with admirable uniformity, producing
+irrigating channels for a brood of wild streams, and abundance of rich
+soil adapted to every requirement of garden and grove. No other section
+of the Yosemite uplands is in so perfect a state of glacial cultivation.
+Its domes and peaks, and swelling rock-waves, however majestic in
+themselves, and yet submissively subordinate to the garden center. The
+other basins we have been describing are combinations of sculptured
+rocks, embellished with gardens and groves; the Illilouette is one grand
+garden and forest, embellished with rocks, each of the five beautiful
+in its own way, and all as harmoniously related as are the five petals
+of a flower. After uniting in the Yosemite Valley, and expending the
+down-thrusting energy derived from their combined weight and the
+declivity of their channels, the grand trunk flowed on through and out
+of the Valley. In effecting its exit a considerable ascent was made,
+traces of which may still be seen on the abraded rocks at the lower end
+of the Valley, while the direction pursued after leaving the Valley is
+surely indicated by the immense lateral moraines extending from the
+ends of the walls at an elevation of from 1500 to 1800 feet. The right
+lateral moraine was disturbed by a large tributary glacier that occupied
+the basin of Cascade Creek, causing considerable complication in its
+structure. The left is simple in form for several miles of its length,
+or to the point where a tributary came in from the southeast. But both
+are greatly obscured by the forests and underbrush growing upon them,
+and by the denuding action of rains and melting snows, etc. It is,
+therefore, the less to be wondered at that these moraines, made up of
+material derived from the distant fountain-mountains, and from the
+Valley itself, were not sooner recognized.
+
+The ancient glacier systems of the Tuolumne, San Joaquin, Kern, and
+Kings River Basins were developed on a still grander scale and are so
+replete with interest that the most sketchy outline descriptions of
+each, with the works they have accomplished would fill many a volume.
+Therefore I can do but little more than invite everybody who is free
+to go and see for himself.
+
+The action of flowing ice, whether in the form of river-like glaciers or
+broad mantles, especially the part it played in sculpturing the earth,
+is as yet but little understood. Water rivers work openly where people
+dwell, and so does the rain, and the sea, thundering on all the shores
+of the world; and the universal ocean of air, though invisible, speaks
+aloud in a thousand voices, and explains its modes of working and its
+power. But glaciers, back in their white solitudes, work apart from men,
+exerting their tremendous energies in silence and darkness. Outspread,
+spirit-like, they brood above the predestined landscapes, work on
+unwearied through immeasurable ages, until, in the fullness of time, the
+mountains and valleys are brought forth, channels furrowed for rivers,
+basins made for lakes and meadows, and arms of the sea, soils spread for
+forests and fields; then they shrink and vanish like summer clouds.
+
+
+
+Chapter 12
+
+How Best to Spend One's Yosemite Time
+
+
+One-Day Excursions
+
+No. 1.
+
+If I were so time-poor as to have only one day to spend in Yosemite I
+should start at daybreak, say at three o'clock in midsummer, with a
+pocketful of any sort of dry breakfast stuff, for Glacier Point,
+Sentinel Dome, the head of Illilouette Fall, Nevada Fall, the top of
+Liberty Cap, Vernal Fall and the wild boulder-choked River Canyon. 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 Canyon, Three Brothers and El
+Capitan, with the dome-paved basin of Yosemite Creek and Mount Hoffman
+in the background. To the eastward, the Half Dome close beside you
+looking higher and more wonderful than ever; southeastward the Starr
+King, girdled with silver firs, and the spacious garden-like basin of
+the Illilouette and its deeply sculptured fountain-peaks, called "The
+Merced Group"; and beyond all, marshaled along the eastern horizon, the
+icy summits on the axis of the Range and broad swaths of forests growing
+on ancient moraines, while the Nevada, Vernal and Yosemite Falls are
+not only full in sight but are distinctly heard as if one were standing
+beside them in their spray.
+
+The views from the summit of Sentinel Dome are still more extensive
+and telling. Eastward the crowds of peaks at the head of the Merced,
+Tuolumne and San Joaquin Rivers are presented in bewildering array;
+westward, the vast forests, yellow foothills and the broad San Joaquin
+plains and the Coast Ranges, hazy and dim in the distance.
+
+From Glacier Point go down the trail into the lower end of the
+Illilouette basin, cross Illilouette Creek and follow it to the Fall
+where from an outjutting rock at its head you will get a fine view of
+its rejoicing waters and wild canyon 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
+canyon of the river from the head of the Nevada Fall to the head of
+the Valley.
+
+Returning to the trail you descend between the Nevada Fall and the
+Liberty Cap with fine side views of both the fall and the rock, pass
+on through clouds of spray and along the rapids to the head of the
+Vernal Fall, about a mile below the Nevada. Linger here if night is
+still distant, for views of this favorite fall and the stupendous rock
+scenery about it. Then descend a stairway by its side, follow a dim
+trail through its spray, and a plain one along the border of the
+boulder-dashed rapids and so back to the wide, tranquil Valley.
+
+
+One-Day Excursions
+
+No. 2.
+
+Another grand one-day excursion is to the Upper Yosemite Fall, the
+top of the highest of the Three Brothers, called Eagle Peak on the
+Geological Survey maps; the brow of El Capitan; the head of the Ribbon
+Fall; across the beautiful Ribbon Creek Basin; and back to the Valley
+by the Big Oak Flat wagon-road.
+
+The trail leaves the Valley on the east side of the largest of the
+earthquake taluses immediately opposite the Sentinel Rock and as it
+passes within a few rods of the foot of the great fall, magnificent
+views are obtained as you approach it and pass through its spray, though
+when the snow is melting fast you will be well drenched. From the foot
+of the Fall the trail zigzags up a narrow canyon between the fall and a
+plain mural cliff that is burnished here and there by glacial action.
+
+You should stop a while on a flat iron-fenced rock a little below the
+head of the fall beside the enthusiastic throng of starry comet-like
+waters to learn something of their strength, their marvelous variety of
+forms, and above all, their glorious music, gathered and composed from
+the snow-storms, hail-, rain- and wind-storms that have fallen on their
+glacier-sculptured, domey, ridgy basin. Refreshed and exhilarated,
+you follow your trail-way through silver fir and pine woods to Eagle
+Peak, where the most comprehensive of all the views to be had on the
+north-wall heights are displayed. After an hour or two of gazing,
+dreaming, studying the tremendous topography, etc., trace the rim of
+the Valley to the grand El Capitan ridge and go down to its brow, where
+you will gain everlasting impressions of Nature's steadfastness and
+power combined with ineffable fineness of beauty.
+
+Dragging yourself away, go to the head of the Ribbon Fall, thence across
+the beautiful Ribbon Creek Basin to the Big Oak Flat stage-road, and
+down its fine grades to the Valley, enjoying glorious Yosemite scenery
+all the way to the foot of El Capitan and your camp.
+
+
+Two-Day Excursions
+
+No. 1.
+
+For a two-day trip I would go straight to Mount Hoffman, spend the night
+on the summit, next morning go down by May Lake to Tenaya Lake and
+return to the Valley by Cloud's Rest and the Nevada and Vernal Falls. As
+on the foregoing excursion, you leave the Valley by the Yosemite Falls
+trail and follow it to the Tioga wagon-road, a short distance east of
+Porcupine Flat. From that point push straight up to the summit. Mount
+Hoffman is a mass of gray granite that rises almost in the center of the
+Yosemite Park, about eight or ten miles in a straight line from the
+Valley. Its southern slopes are low and easily climbed, and adorned here
+and there with castle-like crumbling piles and long jagged crests that
+look like artificial masonry; but on the north side it is abruptly
+precipitous and banked with lasting snow. Most of the broad summit
+is comparatively level and thick sown with crystals, quartz, mica,
+hornblende, feldspar, granite, zircon, tourmaline, etc., weathered out
+and strewn closely and loosely as if they had been sown broadcast. Their
+radiance is fairly dazzling in sunlight, almost hiding the multitude of
+small flowers that grow among them. At first sight only these radiant
+crystals are likely to be noticed, but looking closely you discover a
+multitude of very small gilias, phloxes, mimulus, etc., many of them
+with more petals than leaves. On the borders of little streams larger
+plants flourish--lupines, daisies, asters, goldenrods, hairbell,
+mountain columbine, potentilla, astragalus and a few gentians; with
+charming heathworts--bryanthus, cassiope, kalmia, vaccinium in
+boulder-fringing rings or bank covers. You saunter among the crystals
+and flowers as if you were walking among stars. From the summit nearly
+all the Yosemite Park is displayed like a map: forests, lakes, meadows,
+and snowy peaks. Northward lies Yosemite's wide basin with its domes and
+small lakes, shining like larger crystals; eastward the rocky, meadowy
+Tuolumne region, bounded by its snowy peaks in glorious array; southward
+Yosemite and westward the vast forest. On no other Yosemite Park
+mountain are you more likely to linger. You will find it a magnificent
+sky camp. Clumps of dwarf pine and mountain hemlock will furnish resin
+roots and branches for fuel and light, and the rills, sparkling water.
+Thousands of the little plant people will gaze at your camp-fire with
+the crystals and stars, companions and guardians as you lie at rest in
+the heart of the vast serene night.
+
+The most telling of all the wide Hoffman views is the basin of the
+Tuolumne with its meadows, forests and hundreds of smooth rock-waves
+that appear to be coming rolling on towards you like high heaving waves
+ready to break, and beyond these the great mountains. But best of all
+are the dawn and the sunrise. No mountain top could be better placed for
+this most glorious of mountain views--to watch and see the deepening
+colors of the dawn and the sunbeams streaming through the snowy High
+Sierra passes, awakening the lakes and crystals, the chilled plant
+people and winged people, and making everything shine and sing in
+pure glory.
+
+With your heart aglow, spangling Lake Tenaya and Lake May will beckon
+you away for walks on their ice-burnished shores. Leave Tenaya at the
+west end, cross to the south side of the outlet, and gradually work
+your way up in an almost straight south direction to the summit of the
+divide between Tenaya Creek and the main upper Merced River or Nevada
+Creek and follow the divide to Clouds Rest. After a glorious view from
+the crest of this lofty granite wave you will find a trail on its
+western end that will lead you down past Nevada and Vernal Falls to the
+Valley in good time, provided you left your Hoffman sky camp early.
+
+
+Two-Day Excursions
+
+No. 2.
+
+Another grand two-day excursion is the same as the first of the one-day
+trips, as far as the head of Illilouette Fall. From there trace the
+beautiful stream up through the heart of its magnificent forests and
+gardens to the canyons between the Red and Merced Peaks, and pass the
+night where I camped forty-one years ago. Early next morning visit
+the small glacier on the north side of Merced Peak, the first of the
+sixty-five that I discovered in the Sierra.
+
+Glacial phenomena in the Illilouette Basin are on the grandest scale,
+and in the course of my explorations I found that the canyon 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 canyon on this bright road
+I passed lake after lake in solid basins of granite and many a meadow
+along the canyon stream that links them together. The main lateral
+moraines that bound the view below the canyon 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
+canyon. 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
+canyon are continued in straggling masses along the walls. Tracing the
+streams back to the highest of its little lakes, I noticed a deposit of
+fine gray mud, something like the mud corn from a grindstone. This
+suggested its glacial origin, for the stream that was carrying it issued
+from a raw-looking moraine that seemed to be in process of formation.
+It is from sixty to over a hundred feet high in front, with a slope of
+about thirty-eight degrees. Climbing to the top of it, I discovered a
+very small but well-characterized glacier swooping down from the shadowy
+cliffs of the mountain to its terminal moraine. The ice appeared on all
+the lower portion of the glacier; farther up it was covered with snow.
+The uppermost crevasse or "bergeschrund" was from twelve to fourteen
+feet wide. The melting snow and ice formed a network of rills that ran
+gracefully down the surface of the glacier, merrily singing in their
+shining channels. After this discovery I made excursions over all the
+High Sierra and discovered that what at first sight looked like
+snowfields were in great part glaciers which were completing the
+sculpture of the summit peaks.
+
+Rising early,--which will be easy, as your bed will be rather cold and
+you will not be able to sleep much anyhow,--after visiting the glacier,
+climb the Red Mountain and enjoy the magnificent views from the summit.
+I counted forty lakes from one standpoint an this mountain, and the
+views to the westward over the Illilouette Basin, the most superbly
+forested of all the basins whose waters rain into Yosemite, and those of
+the Yosemite rocks, especially the Half Dome and the upper part of the
+north wall, are very fine. But, of course, far the most imposing view is
+the vast array of snowy peaks along the axis of the Range. Then from the
+top of this peak, light and free and exhilarated with mountain air and
+mountain beauty, you should run lightly down the northern slope of the
+mountain, descend the canyon between Red and Gray Mountains, thence
+northward along the bases of Gray Mountain and Mount Clark and go down
+into the head of Little Yosemite, and thence down past the Nevada and
+Vernal Falls to the Valley, a truly glorious two-day trip!
+
+
+A Three-Day Excursion
+
+The best three-day excursion, as far as I can see, is the same as the
+first of the two-day trips until you reach Lake Tenaya. There instead of
+returning to the Valley, follow the Tioga road around the northwest side
+of the lake, over to the Tuolumne Meadows and up to the west base of
+Mount Dana. Leave the road there and make straight for the highest point
+on the timber line between Mounts Dana and Gibbs and camp there.
+
+On the morning of the third day go to the top of Mount Dana in time for
+the glory of the dawn and the sunrise over the gray Mono Desert and the
+sublime forest of High Sierra peaks. When you leave the mountain go far
+enough down the north side for a view of the Dana Glacier, then make
+your way back to the Tioga road, follow it along the Tuolumne Meadows
+to the crossing of Budd Creek where you will find the Sunrise trail
+branching off up the mountain-side through the forest in a southwesterly
+direction past the west side of Cathedral Peak, which will lead you down
+to the Valley by the Vernal and Nevada Falls. If you are a good walker
+you can leave the trail where it begins to descend a steep slope in the
+silver fir woods, and bear off to the right and make straight for the
+top of Clouds' Rest. The walking is good and almost level and from the
+west end of Clouds' Rest take the Clouds' Rest Trail which will lead
+direct to the Valley by the Nevada and Vernal Falls. To any one not
+desperately time-poor this trip should have four days instead of three;
+camping the second night at the Soda Springs; thence to Mount Dana and
+return to the Soda Springs, camping the third night there; thence by
+the Sunrise trail to Cathedral Peak, visiting the beautiful Cathedral
+lake which lies about a mile to the west of Cathedral Peak, eating your
+luncheon, and thence to Clouds' Rest and the Valley as above. This is one
+of the most interesting of all the comparatively short trips that can be
+made in the whole Yosemite region. Not only do you see all the grandest
+of the Yosemite rocks and waterfalls and the High Sierra with their
+glaciers, glacier lakes and glacier meadows, etc., but sections of the
+magnificent silver fir, two-leaved pine, and dwarf pine zones; with the
+principal alpine flowers and shrubs, especially sods of dwarf vaccinium
+covered with flowers and fruit though less than an inch high, broad mats
+of dwarf willow scarce an inch high with catkins that rise straight from
+the ground, and glorious beds of blue gentians,--grandeur enough and
+beauty enough for a lifetime.
+
+
+The Upper Tuolumne Excursion
+
+We come now to the grandest of all the Yosemite excursions, one that
+requires at least two or three weeks. The best time to make it is from
+about the middle of July. The visitor entering the Yosemite in July has
+the advantage of seeing the falls not, perhaps, in their very flood
+prime but next thing to it; while the glacier-meadows will be in their
+glory and the snow on the mountains will be firm enough to make climbing
+safe. Long ago I made these Sierra trips, carrying only a sackful of
+bread with a little tea and sugar and was thus independent and free, but
+now that trails or carriage roads lead out of the Valley in almost every
+direction it is easy to take a pack animal, so that the luxury of a
+blanket and a supply of food can easily be had.
+
+The best way to leave the Valley will be by the Yosemite Fall trail,
+camping the first night on the Tioga road opposite the east end of the
+Hoffman Range. Next morning climb Mount Hoffman; thence push on past
+Tenaya Lake into the Tuolumne Meadows and establish a central camp
+near the Soda Springs, from which glorious excursions can be made at
+your leisure. For here in this upper Tuolumne Valley is the widest,
+smoothest, most serenely spacious, and in every way the most delightful
+summer pleasure-park in all the High Sierra. And since it is connected
+with Yosemite by two good trails, and a fairly good carriage road
+that passes between Yosemite and Mount Hoffman, it is also the most
+accessible. It is in the heart of the High Sierra east of Yosemite, 8500
+to 9000 feet above the level of the sea. The gray, picturesque Cathedral
+Range bounds it on the south; a similar range or spur, the highest peak
+of which is Mount Conness, on the north; the noble Mounts Dana, Gibbs,
+Mammoth, Lyell, McClure and others on the axis of the Range on the east;
+a heaving, billowing crowd of glacier-polished rocks and Mount Hoffman
+on the west. Down through the open sunny meadow-levels of the Valley
+flows the Tuolumne River, fresh and cool from its many glacial
+fountains, the highest of which are the glaciers that lie on the north
+sides of Mount Lyell and Mount McClure.
+
+Along the river a series of beautiful glacier-meadows extend with but
+little interruption, from the lower end of the Valley to its head, a
+distance of about twelve miles, forming charming sauntering-grounds from
+which the glorious mountains may be enjoyed as they look down in divine
+serenity over the dark forests that clothe their bases. Narrow strips of
+pine woods cross the meadow-carpet from side to side, and it is somewhat
+roughened here and there by moraine boulders and dead trees brought down
+from the heights by snow avalanches; but for miles and miles it is so
+smooth and level that a hundred horsemen may ride abreast over it.
+
+The main lower portion of the meadows is about four miles long and from
+a quarter to half a mile wide, but the width of the Valley is, on an
+average, about eight miles. Tracing the river, we find that it forks a
+mile above the Soda Springs, the main fork turning southward to Mount
+Lyell, the other eastward to Mount Dana and Mount Gibbs. Along both
+forks strips of meadow extend almost to their heads. The most beautiful
+portions of the meadows are spread over lake basins, which have been
+filled up by deposits from the river. A few of these river-lakes still
+exist, but they are now shallow and are rapidly approaching extinction.
+The sod in most places is exceedingly fine and silky and free from weeds
+and bushes; while charming flowers abound, especially gentians, dwarf
+daisies, potentillas, and the pink bells of dwarf vaccinium. On the
+banks of the river and its tributaries cassiope and bryanthus may be
+found, where the sod curls over stream banks and around boulders. The
+principal grass of these meadows is a delicate calamagrostis with very
+slender filiform leaves, and when it is in flower the ground seems to
+be covered with a faint purple mist, the stems of the panicles being so
+fine that they are almost invisible, and offer no appreciable resistance
+in walking through them. Along the edges of the meadows beneath the
+pines and throughout the greater part of the Valley tall ribbon-leaved
+grasses grow in abundance, chiefly bromus, triticum and agrostis.
+
+In October the nights are frosty, and then the meadows at sunrise, when
+every leaf is laden with crystals, are a fine sight. The days are still
+warm and calm, and bees and butterflies continue to waver and hum about
+the late-blooming flowers until the coming of the snow, usually in
+November. Storm then follows storm in quick succession, burying the
+meadows to a depth of from ten to twenty feet, while magnificent
+avalanches descend through the forests from the laden heights,
+depositing huge piles of snow mixed with uprooted trees and boulders. In
+the open sunshine the snow usually lasts until the end of June but the
+new season's vegetation is not generally in bloom until late in July.
+Perhaps the best all round excursion-time after winters of average
+snowfall is from the middle of July to the middle or end of August. The
+snow is then melted from the woods and southern slopes of the mountains
+and the meadows and gardens are in their glory, while the weather is
+mostly all-reviving, exhilarating sunshine. The few clouds that rise now
+and then and the showers they yield are only enough to keep everything
+fresh and fragrant.
+
+The groves about the Soda Springs are favorite camping-grounds on
+account of the cold, pleasant-tasting water charged with carbonic acid,
+and because of the views of the mountains across the meadow--the Glacier
+Monument, Cathedral Peak, Cathedral Spires, Unicorn Peak and a series of
+ornamental nameless companions, rising in striking forms and nearness
+above a dense forest growing on the left lateral moraine of the ancient
+Tuolumne glacier, which, broad, deep, and far-reaching, exerted vast
+influence on the scenery of this portion of the Sierra. But there are
+fine camping-grounds all along the meadows, and one may move from grove
+to grove every day all summer, enjoying new homes and new beauty to
+satisfy every roving desire for change.
+
+There are five main capital excursions to be made from here--to the
+summits of Mounts Dana, Lyell and Conness, and through the Bloody Canyon
+Pass to Mono Lake and the volcanoes, and down the Tuolumne Canyon, at
+least as far as the foot of the wonderful series of river cataracts.
+All of these excursions are sure to be made memorable with joyful
+health-giving experiences; but perhaps none of them will be remembered
+with keener delight than the days spent in sauntering on the broad
+velvet lawns by the river, sharing the sky with the mountains and trees,
+gaining something of their strength and peace.
+
+The excursion to the top of Mount Dana is a very easy one; for though
+the mountain is 13,000 feet high, the ascent from the west side is so
+gentle and smooth that one may ride a mule to the very summit. Across
+many a busy stream, from meadow to meadow, lies your flowery way;
+mountains all about you, few of them hidden by irregular foregrounds.
+Gradually ascending, other mountains come in sight, peak rising above
+peak with their snow and ice in endless variety of grouping and
+sculpture. Now your attention is turned to the moraines, sweeping in
+beautiful curves from the hollows and canyons, now to the granite waves
+and pavements rising here and there above the heathy sod, polished a
+thousand years ago and still shining. Towards the base of the mountain
+you note the dwarfing of the trees, until at a height of about 11,000
+feet you find patches of the tough, white-barked pine, pressed so flat
+by the ten or twenty feet of snow piled upon them every winter for
+centuries that you may walk over them as if walking on a shaggy rug.
+And, if curious about such things, you may discover specimens of this
+hardy tree-mountaineer not more than four feet high and about as many
+inches in diameter at the ground, that are from two hundred to four
+hundred years old, still holding bravely to life, making the most of
+their slender summers, shaking their tasseled needles in the breeze
+right cheerily, drinking the thin sunshine and maturing their fine
+purple cones as if they meant to live forever. The general view from the
+summit is one of the most extensive and sublime to be found in all the
+Range. To the eastward you gaze far out over the desert plains and
+mountains of the "Great Basin," range beyond range extending with soft
+outlines, blue and purple in the distance. More than six thousand feet
+below you lies Lake Mono, ten miles in diameter from north to south, and
+fourteen from west to east, lying bare in the treeless desert like a
+disk of burnished metal, though at times it is swept by mountain storm
+winds and streaked with foam. To the southward there is a well defined
+range of pale-gray extinct volcanoes, and though the highest of them
+rises nearly two thousand feet above the lake, you can look down from
+here into their circular, cup-like craters, from which a comparatively
+short time ago ashes and cinders were showered over the surrounding sage
+plains and glacier-laden mountains.
+
+To the westward the landscape is made up of exceedingly strong, gray,
+glaciated domes and ridge waves, most of them comparatively low, but
+the largest high enough to be called mountains; separated by canyons
+and darkened with lines and fields of forest, Cathedral Peak and Mount
+Hoffman in the distance; small lakes and innumerable meadows in the
+foreground. Northward and southward the great snowy mountains, marshaled
+along the axis of the Range, are seen in all their glory, crowded
+together in some places like trees in groves, making landscapes of wild,
+extravagant, bewildering magnificence, yet calm and silent as the sky.
+
+Some eight glaciers are in sight. One of these is the Dana Glacier on
+the north side of the mountain, lying at the foot of a precipice about
+a thousand feet high, with a lovely pale-green lake a little below it.
+This is one of the many, small, shrunken remnants of the vast glacial
+system of the Sierra that once filled the hollows and valleys of
+the mountains and covered all the lower ridges below the immediate
+summit-fountains, flowing to right and left away from the axis of the
+Range, lavishly fed by the snows of the glacial period.
+
+In the excursion to Mount Lyell the immediate base of the mountain is
+easily reached on meadow walks along the river. Turning to the southward
+above the forks of the river, you enter the narrow Lyell branch of the
+Valley, narrow enough and deep enough to be called a canyon. 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 canyon the Sierra crown
+comes in sight, forming a finely balanced picture framed by the massive
+canyon walls. In the foreground, when the grass is in flower, you have
+the purple meadow willow-thickets on the river banks; in the middle
+distance huge swelling bosses of granite that form the base of the
+general mass of the mountain, with fringing lines of dark woods marking
+the lower curves, smoothly snow-clad except in the autumn.
+
+If you wish to spend two days on the Lyell trip you will find a good
+camp-ground on the east side of the river, about a mile above a fine
+cascade that comes down over the canyon 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, canyons
+and subordinate ridges with their wealth of lakes, glaciers, and
+snow-fields, maze and cluster between them. In making the ascent in
+June or October the glacier is easily crossed, for then its snow mantle
+is smooth or mostly melted off. But in midsummer the climbing is
+exceedingly tedious because the snow is then weathered into curious
+and beautiful blades, sharp and slender, and set on edge in a leaning
+position. They lean towards the head of the glacier and extend across
+from side to side in regular order in a direction at right angles to the
+direction of greatest declivity, the distance between the crests being
+about two or three feet, and the depth of the troughs between them about
+three feet. A more interesting problem than a walk over a glacier thus
+sculptured and adorned is seldom presented to the mountaineer.
+
+The Lyell Glacier is about a mile wide and less than a mile long,
+but presents, nevertheless, all the essential characters of large,
+river-like glaciers--moraines, earth-bands, blue veins, crevasses,
+etc., while the streams that issue from it are, of course, turbid with
+rock-mud, showing its grinding action on its bed. And it is all the
+more interesting since it is the highest and most enduring remnant of
+the great Tuolumne Glacier, whose traces are still distinct fifty miles
+away, and whose influence on the landscape was so profound. The McClure
+Glacier, once a tributary of the Lyell, is smaller. Thirty-eight years
+ago I set a series of stakes in it to determine its rate of motion.
+Towards the end of summer in the middle of the glacier it was only a
+little over an inch in twenty-four hours.
+
+The trip to Mono from the Soda Springs can be made in a day, but many
+days may profitably be spent near the shores of the lake, out on its
+islands and about the volcanoes.
+
+In making the trip down the Big Tuolumne Canyon, 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 canyon chaparral, can
+easily go down as far as the big cascades and return to camp in one day.
+Many, however, are not able to do his, and it is better to go leisurely,
+prepared to camp anywhere, and enjoy the marvelous grandeur of the
+place.
+
+The canyon 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
+canyon, and these in volume, extent and variety surpass those of any
+other canyon in the Sierra. The most showy and interesting of them are
+mostly in the upper part of the canyon, above the point of entrance of
+Cathedral Creek and Hoffman Creek. For miles the river is one wild,
+exulting, on-rushing mass of snowy purple bloom, spreading over glacial
+waves of granite without any definite channel, gliding in magnificent
+silver plumes, dashing and foaming through huge boulder-dams, leaping
+high into the air in wheel-like whirls, displaying glorious enthusiasm,
+tossing from side to side, doubling, glinting, singing in exuberance of
+mountain energy.
+
+Every one who is anything of a mountaineer should go on through the
+entire length of the canyon, coming out by Hetch Hetchy. There is not
+a dull step all the way. With wide variations, it is a Yosemite Valley
+from end to end.
+
+Besides these main, far-reaching, much-seeing excursions from the main
+central camp, there are numberless, lovely little saunters and scrambles
+and a dozen or so not so very little. Among the best of these are to
+Lambert and Fair View Domes; to the topmost spires of Cathedral Peak,
+and to those of the North Church, around the base of which you pass
+on your way to Mount Conness; to one of the very loveliest of the
+glacier-meadows imbedded in the pine woods about three miles north of
+the Soda Springs, where forty-two years ago I spent six weeks. It trends
+east and west, and you can find it easily by going past the base of
+Lambert's Dome to Dog Lake and thence up northward through the woods
+about a mile or so; to the shining rock-waves full of ice-burnished,
+feldspar crystals at the foot of the meadows; to Lake Tenaya; and, last
+but not least, a rather long and very hearty scramble down by the end of
+the meadow along the Tioga road toward Lake Tenaya to the crossing of
+Cathedral Creek, where you turn off and trace the creek down to its
+confluence with the Tuolumne. This is a genuine scramble much of the way
+but one of the most wonderfully telling in its glacial rock-forms and
+inscriptions.
+
+If you stop and fish at every tempting lake and stream you come to, a
+whole month, or even two months, will not be too long for this grand
+High Sierra excursion. My own Sierra trip was ten years long.
+
+
+Other Trips From The Valley
+
+Short carriage trips are usually made in the early morning to Mirror
+Lake to see its wonderful reflections of the Half Dome and Mount
+Watkins; and in the afternoon many ride down the Valley to see the
+Bridal Veil rainbows or up the river canyon to see those of the Vernal
+Fall; where, standing in the spray, not minding getting drenched,
+you may see what are called round rainbows, when the two ends of the
+ordinary bow are lengthened and meet at your feet, forming a complete
+circle which is broken and united again and again as determined by the
+varying wafts of spray. A few ambitious scramblers climb to the top of
+the Sentinel Rock, others walk or ride down the Valley and up to the
+once-famous Inspiration Point for a last grand view; while a good many
+appreciative tourists, who slave only day or two, do no climbing or
+riding but spend their time sauntering on the meadows by the river,
+watching the falls, and the relay of light and shade among the rocks
+from morning to night, perhaps gaining more than those who make haste up
+the trails in large noisy parties. Those who have unlimited time find
+something worth while all the year round on every accessible part of the
+vast deeply sculptured walls. At least so I have found it after making
+the Valley my home for years.
+
+Here are a few specimens selected from my own short trips which walkers
+may find useful.
+
+One, up the river canyon, 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 canyon 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 canyon, through the pines of the Valley, dreamily murmuring in
+their calm, breezy sleep--a fine wild little excursion for good legs
+and good eyes--so much sun-, moon- and star-shine in it, and sublime,
+up-and-down rhythmical, glacial topography.
+
+Another, to the head of Yosemite Fall by Indian Canyon; 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 Canyon. This was one of
+my Sabbath walk, run-and-slide excursions long ago before any trail had
+been made on the north side of the Valley.
+
+Another fine trip was up, bright and early, by Avalanche Canyon to
+Glacier Point, along the rugged south wall, tracing all its far outs and
+ins to the head of the Bridal Veil Fall, thence back home, bright and
+late, by a brushy, bouldery slope between Cathedral rocks and Cathedral
+spires and along the level Valley floor. This was one of my long,
+bright-day and bright-night walks thirty or forty years ago when, like
+river and ocean currents, time flowed undivided, uncounted--a fine free,
+sauntery, scrambly, botanical, beauty-filled ramble. The walk up the
+Valley was made glorious by the marvelous brightness of the morning
+star. So great was her light, she made every tree cast a well-defined
+shadow on the smooth sandy ground.
+
+Everybody who visits Yosemite wants to see the famous Big Trees. Before
+the railroad was constructed, all three of the stage-roads that entered
+the Valley passed through a grove of these trees by the way; namely, the
+Tuolumne, Merced and Mariposa groves. The Tuolumne grove was passed on
+the Big Oak Flat road, the Merced grove by the Coulterville road and the
+Mariposa grove by the Raymond and Wawona road. Now, to see any one of
+these groves, a special trip has to be made. Most visitors go to the
+Mariposa grove, the largest of the three. On this Sequoia trip you see
+not only the giant Big Trees but magnificent forests of silver fir,
+sugar pine, yellow pine, libocedrus and Douglas spruce. The trip need
+not require more than two days, spending a night in a good hotel at
+Wawona, a beautiful place on the south fork of the Merced River, and
+returning to the Valley or to El Portal, the terminus of the railroad.
+This extra trip by stage costs fifteen dollars. All the High Sierra
+excursions that I have sketched cost from a dollar a week to anything
+you like. None of mine when I was exploring the Sierra cost over a
+dollar a week, most of them less.
+
+
+
+Chapter 13
+
+Early History Of The Valley
+
+
+In the wild gold years of 1849 and '50, the Indian tribes along thus
+western Sierra foothills became alarmed at the sudden invasion of their
+acorn orchard and game fields by miners, and soon began to make war upon
+them, in their usual murdering, plundering style. This continued until
+the United States Indian Commissioners succeeded in gathering them into
+reservations, some peacefully, others by burning their villages and
+stores of food. The Yosemite or Grizzly Bear tribe, fancying themselves
+secure in their deep mountain stronghold, were the most troublesome and
+defiant of all, and it was while the Mariposa battalion, under command
+of Major Savage, was trying to capture this warlike tribe and conduct
+them to the Fresno reservation that their deep mountain home, the
+Yosemite Valley, was discovered. From a camp on the south fork of the
+Merced, Major Savage sent Indian runners to the bands who were supposed
+to be hiding in the mountains, instructing them to tell the Indians that
+if they would come in and make treaty with the Commissioners they would
+be furnished with food and clothing and be protected, but if they did
+not come in he would make war upon them and kill them all. None of the
+Yosemite Indians responded to this general message, but when a special
+messenger was sent to the chief he appeared the next day. He came
+entirely alone and stood in dignified silence before one of the guards
+until invited to enter the camp. He was recognized by one of the
+friendly Indians as Tenaya, the old chief of the Grizzlies, and, after
+he had been supplied with food, Major Savage, with the aid of Indian
+interpreters, informed him of the wishes of the Commissioners. But the
+old chief was very suspicious of Savage and feared that he was taking
+this method of getting the tribe into his power for the purpose of
+revenging his personal wrong. Savage told him if he would go to the
+Commissioners and make peace with them as the other tribes had done
+there would be no more war. Tenaya inquired what was the object of
+taking all the Indians to the San Joaquin plain. "My people," said he,
+"do not want anything from the Great Father you tell me about. The Great
+Spirit is our father and he has always supplied us with all we need. We
+do not want anything from white men. Our women are able to do our work.
+Go, then. Let us remain in the mountains where we were born, where the
+ashes of our fathers have been given to the wind. I have said enough."
+
+To this the Major answered abruptly in Indian style: "If you and your
+people have all you desire, why do you steal our horses and mules? Why
+do you rob the miners' camps? Why do you murder the white men and
+plunder and burn their houses?"
+
+Tenaya was silent for some time. He evidently understood what the Major
+had said, for he replied, "My young men have sometimes taken horses
+and mules from the whites. This was wrong. It is not wrong to take the
+property of enemies who have wronged my people. My young men believed
+that the gold diggers were our enemies. We now know they are not and
+we shall be glad to live in peace with them. We will stay here and be
+friends. My people do not want to go to the plains. Some of the tribes
+who have gone there are very bad. We cannot live with them. Here we
+can defend ourselves."
+
+To the Major Savage firmly said, "Your people must go to the
+Commissioners. If they do not your young men will again steal horses and
+kill and plunder the whites. It was your people who robbed my stores,
+burned my houses and murdered my men. It they do not make a treaty, your
+whole tribe will be destroyed. Not one of them will be left alive."
+
+To this the old chief replied, "It is useless to talk to you about who
+destroyed your property and killed your people. I am old and you can
+kill me if you will, but it is useless to lie to you who know more than
+all the Indians. Therefore I will not lie to you but if you will let me
+return to my people I will bring them in." He was allowed to go. The
+next day he came back and said his people were on the way to our camp to
+go with the men sent by the Great Father, who was so good and rich.
+
+Another day passed but no Indians from the deep Valley appeared. The old
+chief said that the snow was so deep and his village was so far down
+that it took a long time to climb out of it. After waiting still another
+day the expedition started for the Valley. When Tenaya was questioned
+as to the route and distance he said that the snow was so deep that the
+horses could not go through it. Old Tenaya was taken along as guide.
+When the party had gone about half-way to the Valley they met the
+Yosemites on their way to the camp on the south fork. There were only
+seventy-two of them and when the old chief was asked what had become of
+the rest of his band, he replied, "This is all of my people that are
+willing to go with me to the plains. All the rest have gone with their
+wives end children over the mountains to the Mono and Tuolumne tribes."
+Savage told Tenaya that he was not telling the truth, for Indians could
+not cross the mountains in the deep snow, and that he knew they must
+still be at his village or hiding somewhere near it. The tribe had been
+estimated to number over two hundred. Major Savage then said to him,
+"You may return to camp with your people and I will take one of your
+young men with me to your village to see your people who will not come.
+They will come if I find them." "You will not find any of my people
+there," said Tenaya; "I do not know where they are. My tribe is small.
+Many of the people of my tribe have come from other tribes and if they
+go to the plains and are seen they will be killed by the friends of
+those with whom they have quarreled. I was told that I was growing old
+and it was well that I should go, but that young and strong men can find
+plenty in the mountains: therefore, why should they go to the hot plains
+to be penned up like horses and cattle? My heart has been sore since
+that talk but I am now willing to go, for it is best for my people."
+
+Pushing ahead, taking turns in breaking a way through the snow, they
+arrived in sight of the great Valley early in the afternoon and, guided
+by one of Tenaya's Indians, descended by the same route as that followed
+by the Mariposa trail, and the weary party went into camp on the river
+bank opposite El Capitan. After supper, seated around a big fire,
+the wonderful Valley became the topic of conversation and Dr. Bunell
+suggested giving it a name. Many were proposed, but after a vote had
+been taken the name Yosemite, proposed by Dr. Bunell, was adopted almost
+unanimously to perpetuate the name of the tribe who so long had made
+their home there. The Indian name of the Valley, however, is Ahwahnee.
+The Indians had names for all the different rocks and streams of the
+Valley, but very few of them are now in use by the whites, Pohono, the
+Bridal Veil, being the principal one. The expedition remained only one
+day and two nights in the Valley, hurrying out on the approach of a
+storm and reached the south-fork headquarters on the evening of the
+third day after starting out. Thus, in three days the round trip had
+been made to the Valley, most of it had been explored in a general way
+and some of its principal features had been named. But the Indians had
+fled up the Tenaya Canyon trail and none of them were seen, except an
+old woman unable to follow the fugitives.
+
+A second expedition was made in the same year under command of Major
+Boling. When the Valley was entered no Indians were seen, but the many
+wigwams with smoldering fires showed that they had been hurriedly
+abandoned that very day. Later, five young Indians who had been left to
+watch the movements of the expedition were captured at the foot of the
+Three Brothers after a lively chase. Three of the five were sons of the
+old chief and the rock was named for them. All of these captives made
+good their escape within a few days, except the youngest son of Tenaya,
+who was shot by his guard while trying to escape. That same day the old
+chief was captured on the cliff on the east side of Indian Canyon by
+some of Boling's scouts. As Tenaya walked toward the camp his eye fell
+upon the dead body of his favorite son. Captain Boling through an
+interpreter, expressed his regret at the occurrence, but not a word
+did Tenaya utter in reply. Later, he made an attempt to escape but was
+caught as he was about to swim across the river. Tenaya expected to be
+shot for this attempt and when brought into the presence of Captain
+Boling he said in great emotion, "Kill me, Sir Captain, yes, kill me as
+you killed my son, as you would kill my people if they were to come to
+you. You would kill all my tribe if you had the power. Yes, Sir America,
+you can now tell your warriors to kill the old chief. You have made my
+life dark with sorrow. You killed the child of my heart. Why not kill
+the father? But wait a little and when I am dead I will call my people
+to come and they shall hear me in their sleep and come to avenge the
+death of their chief and his son. Yes, Sir America, my spirit will make
+trouble for you and your people, as you have made trouble to me and my
+people. With the wizards I will follow the white people and make them
+fear me. You may kill me, Sir Captain, but you shall not live in peace.
+I will follow in your footsteps. I will not leave my home, but be with
+the spirits among the rocks, the waterfalls, in the rivers and in the
+winds; wherever you go I will be with you. You will not see me but you
+will fear the spirit of the old chief and grow cold. The Great Spirit
+has spoken. I am done."
+
+This expedition finally captured the remnants of the tribes at the head
+of Lake Tenaya and took them to the Fresno reservation, together with
+their chief, Tenaya. But after a short stay they were allowed to return
+to the Valley under restrictions. Tenaya promised faithfully to conform
+to everything required, joyfully left the hot and dry reservation, and
+with his family returned to his Yosemite home.
+
+The following year a party of miners was attacked by the Indians in
+the Valley and two of them were killed. This led to another Yosemite
+expedition. A detachment of regular soldiers from Fort Miller under
+Lieutenant Moore, U.S.A., was at once dispatched to capture or punish
+the murderers. Lieutenant Moore entered the Valley in the night and
+surprised and captured a party of five Indians, but an alarm was given
+and Tenaya and his people fled from their huts and escaped to the Monos
+on the east side of the Range. On examination of the five prisoners in
+the morning it was discovered that each of them had some article of
+clothing that belonged to the murdered men. The bodies of the two miners
+were found and buried on the edge of the Bridal Veil meadow. When the
+captives were accused of the murder of the two white men they admitted
+that they had killed them to prevent white men from coming to their
+Valley, declaring that it was their home and that white men had no right
+to come there without their consent. Lieutenant Moore told them through
+his interpreter that they had sold their lands to the Government, that
+it belonged to the white men now and that they had agreed to live on
+the reservation provided for them. To this they replied that Tenaya
+had never consented to the sale of their Valley and had never received
+pay for it. The other chief, they said, had no right to sell their
+territory. The lieutenant being fully satisfied that he had captured the
+real murderers, promptly pronounced judgment and had them placed in line
+and shot. Lieutenant Moore pursued the fugitives to Mono but was not
+successful in finding any of them. After being hospitably entertained
+and protected by the Mono and Paute tribes, they stole a number of
+stolen horses from their entertainers and made their way by a long,
+obscure route by the head of the north fork of the San Joaquin, reached
+their Yosemite home once more, but early one morning, after a feast of
+horse-flesh, a band of Monos surprised them in their huts, killing
+Tenaya and nearly all his tribe. Only a small remnant escaped down the
+river canyon. The Tenaya Canyon and Lake were named for the famous old
+chief.
+
+Very few visits were made to the Valley before the summer or 1855, when
+Mr. J. M. Hutchings, having heard of its wonderful scenery, collected a
+party and made the first regular tourist's visit to the Yosemite and in
+his California magazine described it in articles illustrated by a good
+artist, who was taken into the Valley by him for that purpose. This
+first party was followed by another from Mariposa the same year,
+consisting of sixteen or eighteen persons. The next year the regular
+pleasure travel began and a trail on the Mariposa side of the Valley was
+opened by Mann Brothers. This trail was afterwards purchased by the
+citizens of the county and made free to the public. The first house
+built in the Yosemite Valley was erected in the autumn of 1856 and was
+kept as a hotel the next year by G. A. Hite and later by J. H. Neal and
+S. M. Cunningham. It was situated directly opposite the Yosemite Fall.
+A little over half a mile farther up the Valley a canvas house was put
+up in 1858 by G. A. Hite. Next year a frame house was built and kept as
+a hotel by Mr. Peck, afterward by Mr. Longhurst and since 1864 by Mr.
+Hutchings. All these hotels have vanished except the frame house built
+in 1859, which has been changed beyond recognition. A large hotel built
+on the brink of the river in front of the old one is now the only hotel
+in the Valley. A large hotel built by the State and located farther up
+the Valley was burned. To provide for the overflow of visitors there are
+three camps with board floors, wood frame, and covered with canvas, well
+furnished, some of them with electric light. A large first-class hotel
+is very much needed.
+
+Travel of late years has been rapidly increasing, especially after the
+establishment, by Act of Congress in 1890, of the Yosemite National Park
+and the recession in 1905 of the original reservation to the Federal
+Government by the State. The greatest increase, of course, was caused
+by the construction of the Yosemite Valley railroad from Merced to the
+border of the Park, eight miles below the Valley.
+
+It is eighty miles long, and the entire distance, except the first
+twenty-four miles from the town of Merced, is built through the
+precipitous Merced River Canyon. The roadbed was virtually blasted out
+of the solid rock for the entire distance in the canyon. Work was begun
+in September, 1905, and the first train entered El Portal, the terminus,
+April 15, 1907. Many miles of the road cost as much as $100,000 per
+mile. Its business has increased from 4000 tourists in the first year
+it was operated to 15,000 in 1910.
+
+
+
+Chapter 14
+
+Lamon
+
+
+The good old pioneer, Lamon, was the first of all the early Yosemite
+settlers who cordially and unreservedly adopted the Valley as his home.
+
+He was born in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, May 10, 1817, emigrated
+to Illinois with his father, John Lamon, at the age of nineteen;
+afterwards went to Texas and settled on the Brazos, where he raised
+melons and hunted alligators for a living. "Right interestin' business,"
+he said; "especially the alligator part of it." From the Brazos he went
+to the Comanche Indian country between Gonzales and Austin, twenty miles
+from his nearest neighbor. During the first summer, the only bread he
+had was the breast meat of wild turkeys. When the formidable Comanche
+Indians were on the war-path he left his cabin after dark and slept in
+the woods. From Texas he crossed the plains to California and worked In
+the Calaveras and Mariposa gold-fields.
+
+He first heard Yosemite spoken of as a very beautiful mountain valley
+and after making two excursions in the summers of 1857 and 1858 to see
+the wonderful place, he made up his mind to quit roving and make a
+permanent home in it. In April, 1859, he moved into it, located a garden
+opposite the Half Dome, set out a lot of apple, pear and peach trees,
+planted potatoes, etc., that he had packed in on a "contrary old mule,"
+and worked for his board in building a hotel which was afterwards
+purchased by Mr. Hutchings. His neighbors thought he was very foolish in
+attempting to raise crops in so high and cold a valley, and warned him
+that he could raise nothing and sell nothing, and would surely starve.
+
+For the first year or two lack of provisions compelled him to move out
+on the approach of winter, but in 1862 after he had succeeded in raising
+some fruit and vegetables he began to winter in the Valley.
+
+The first winter he had no companions, not even a dog or cat, and one
+evening was greatly surprised to see two men coming up the Valley. They
+were very glad to see him, for they had come from Mariposa in search of
+him, a report having been spread that he had been killed by Indians. He
+assured his visitors that he felt safer in his Yosemite home, lying
+snug and squirrel-like in his 10 x 12 cabin, than in Mariposa. When the
+avalanches began to slip, he wondered where all the wild roaring and
+booming came from, the flying snow preventing them from being seen. But,
+upon the whole, he wondered most at the brightness, gentleness, and
+sunniness of the weather, and hopefully employed the calm days in
+tearing ground for an orchard and vegetable garden.
+
+In the second winter he built a winter cabin under the Royal Arches,
+where he enjoyed more sunshine. But no matter how he praised the weather
+he could not induce any one to winter with him until 1864.
+
+He liked to describe the great flood of 1867, the year before I reached
+California, when all the walls were striped with thundering waterfalls.
+
+He was a fine, erect, whole-souled man, between six and seven feet high,
+with a broad, open face, bland and guileless as his pet oxen. No
+stranger to hunger and weariness, he knew well how to appreciate
+suffering of a like kind in others, and many there be, myself among the
+number, who can testify to his simple, unostentatious kindness that
+found expression in a thousand small deeds.
+
+After gaining sufficient means to enjoy a long afternoon of life in
+comparative affluence and ease, he died in the autumn of 1876. He sleeps
+in a beautiful spot near Galen Clark and a monument hewn from a block of
+Yosemite granite marks his grave.
+
+
+
+Chapter 15
+
+Galen Clark
+
+
+Galen Clark was the best mountaineer I ever met, and one of the kindest
+and most amiable of all my mountain friends. I first met him at his
+Wawona ranch forty-three years ago on my first visit to Yosemite. I had
+entered the Valley with one companion by way of Coulterville, and
+returned by what was then known as the Mariposa trail. Both trails were
+buried in deep snow where the elevation was from 5000 to 7000 feet
+above sea level in the sugar pine and silver fir regions. We had no
+great difficulty, however, in finding our way by the trends of the
+main features of the topography. Botanizing by the way, we made slow,
+plodding progress, and were again about out of provisions when we
+reached Clark's hospitable cabin at Wawona. He kindly furnished us with
+flour and a little sugar and tea, and my companion, who complained of
+the be-numbing poverty of a strictly vegetarian diet, gladly accepted
+Mr. Clark's offer of a piece of a bear that had just been killed. After
+a short talk about bears and the forests and the way to the Big Trees,
+we pushed on up through the Wawona firs and sugar pines, and camped in
+the now-famous Mariposa grove.
+
+Later, after making my home in the Yosemite Valley, I became well
+acquainted with Mr. Clark, while he was guardian. He was elected again
+and again to this important office by different Boards of Commissioners
+on account of his efficiency and his real love of the Valley.
+
+Although nearly all my mountaineering has been done without companions,
+I had the pleasure of having Galen Clark with me on three excursions.
+About thirty-five years ago I invited him to accompany me on a trip
+through the Big Tuolumne Canyon from Hetch Hetchy Valley. The canyon up
+to that time had not been explored, and knowing that the difference in
+the elevation of the river at the head of the canyon 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 canyon by way of Hetch Hetchy Valley, each
+carrying his own provisions, and making his own tea, porridge, bed, etc.
+
+In the morning of the second day out from Hetch Hetchy we came to what
+is now known as "Muir Gorge," and Mr. Clark without hesitation prepared
+to force a way through it, wading and jumping from one submerged boulder
+to another through the torrent, bracing and steadying himself with a
+long pole. Though the river was then rather low, the savage, roaring,
+surging song it was ringing was rather nerve-trying, especially to our
+inexperienced companion. With careful assistance, however, I managed to
+get him through, but this hard trial, naturally enough, proved too much
+and he informed us, pale and trembling, that he could go no farther. I
+gathered some wood at the upper throat of the gorge, made a fire for him
+and advised him to feel at home and make himself comfortable, hoped he
+would enjoy the grand scenery and the songs of the water-ouzels which
+haunted the gorge, and assured him that we would return some time in the
+night, though it might be late, as we wished to go on through the entire
+canyon if possible. We pushed our way through the dense chaparral and
+over the earthquake taluses with such speed that we reached the foot of
+the upper cataract while we had still an hour or so of daylight for the
+return trip. It was long after dark when we reached our adventurous, but
+nerve-shaken companion who, of course, was anxious and lonely, not being
+accustomed to solitude, however kindly and flowery and full of sweet
+bird-song and stream-song. Being tired we simply lay down in restful
+comfort on the river bank beside a good fire, instead of trying to
+go down the gorge in the dark or climb over its high shoulder to our
+blankets and provisions, which we had left in the morning in a tree at
+the foot of the gorge. I remember Mr. Clark remarking that if he had
+his choice that night between provisions and blankets he would choose
+his blankets.
+
+The next morning in about an hour we had crossed over the ridge through
+which the gorge is cut, reached our provisions, made tea, and had a good
+breakfast. As soon as we had returned to Yosemite I obtained fresh
+provisions, pushed off alone up to the head of Yosemite Creek basin,
+entered the canyon by a side canyon, and completed the exploration up to
+the Tuolumne Meadows.
+
+It was on this first trip from Hetch Hetchy to the upper cataracts that
+I had convincing proofs of Mr. Clark's daring and skill as mountaineer,
+particularly in fording torrents, and in forcing his way through thick
+chaparral. I found it somewhat difficult to keep up with him in dense,
+tangled brush, though in jumping on boulder taluses and slippery
+cobble-beds I had no difficulty in leaving him behind.
+
+After I had discovered the glaciers on Mount Lyell and Mount McClure,
+Mr. Clark kindly made a second excursion with me to assist in
+establishing a line of stakes across the McClure glacier to measure its
+rate of flow. On this trip we also climbed Mount Lyell together, when
+the snow which covered the glacier was melted into upleaning, icy blades
+which were extremely difficult to cross, not being strong enough to
+support our weight, nor wide enough apart to enable us to stride across
+each blade as it was met. Here again I, being lighter, had no difficulty
+in keeping ahead of him. While resting after wearisome staggering and
+falling he stared at the marvelous ranks of leaning blades, and said, "I
+think I have traveled all sorts of trails and canyons, through all kinds
+of brush and snow, but this gets me."
+
+Mr. Clark at my urgent request joined my small party on a trip to the
+Kings River yosemite by way of the high mountains, most of the way
+without a trail. He joined us at the Mariposa Big Tree grove and
+intended to go all the way, but finding that, on account of the
+difficulties encountered, the time required was much greater than he
+expected, he turned back near the head of the north fork of the Kings
+River.
+
+In cooking his mess of oatmeal porridge and making tea, his pot was
+always the first to boil, and I used to wonder why, with all his skill
+in scrambling through brush in the easiest way, and preparing his meals,
+he was so utterly careless about his beds. He would lie down anywhere on
+any ground, rough or smooth, without taking pains even to remove cobbles
+or sharp-angled rocks protruding through the grass or gravel, saying
+that his own bones were as hard as any stones and could do him no harm.
+
+His kindness to all Yosemite visitors and mountaineers was marvelously
+constant and uniform. He was not a good business man, and in building an
+extensive hotel and barns at Wawona, before the travel to Yosemite had
+been greatly developed, he borrowed money, mortgaged his property and
+lost it all.
+
+Though not the first to see the Mariposa Big Tree grove, he was the
+first to explore it, after he had heard from a prospector, who had
+passed through the grove and who gave him the indefinite information,
+that there were some wonderful big trees up there on the top of the
+Wawona hill and that he believed they must be of the same kind that had
+become so famous and well-known in the Calaveras grove farther north.
+On this information, Galen Clark told me, he went up and thoroughly
+explored the grove, counting the trees and measuring the largest, and
+becoming familiar with it. He stated also that he had explored the
+forest to the southward and had discovered the much larger Fresno grove
+of about two square miles, six or seven miles distant from the Mariposa
+grove. Unfortunately most of the Fresno grove has been cut and flumed
+down to the railroad near Madera.
+
+Mr. Clark was truly and literally a gentle-man. I never heard him utter
+a hasty, angry, fault-finding word. His voice was uniformly pitched at a
+rather low tone, perfectly even, although lances of his eyes and slight
+intonations of his voice often indicated that something funny or mildly
+sarcastic was coming, but upon the whole he was serious and industrious,
+and, however deep and fun-provoking a story might be, he never indulged
+in boisterous laughter.
+
+He was very fond of scenery and once told me after I became acquainted
+with him that he liked "nothing in the world better than climbing to the
+top of a high ridge or mountain and looking off." He preferred the
+mountain ridges and domes in the Yosemite regions on account of the
+wealth and beauty of the forests. Often times he would take his rifle, a
+few pounds of bacon, a few pound of flour, and a single blanket and go
+off hunting, for no other reason than to explore and get acquainted with
+the most beautiful points of view within a journey of a week or two from
+his Wawona home. On these trips he was always alone and could indulge
+in tranquil enjoyment of Nature to his heart's content. He said that
+on those trips, when he was a sufficient distance from home in a
+neighborhood where he wished to linger, he always shot a deer, sometimes
+a grouse, and occasionally a bear. After diminishing the weight of a
+deer or bear by eating part of it, he carried as much as possible of the
+best of the meat to Wawona, and from his hospitable well-supplied cabin
+no weary wanderer ever went away hungry or unrested.
+
+The value of the mountain air in prolonging life is well examplified in
+Mr. Clark's case. While working in the mines he contracted a severe cold
+that settled on his lungs and finally caused severe inflammation and
+bleeding, and none of his friends thought he would ever recover. The
+physicians told him he had but a short time to live. It was then that
+he repaired to the beautiful sugar pine woods at Wawona and took up a
+claim, including the fine meadows there, and building his cabin, began
+his life of wandering and exploring in the glorious mountains about him,
+usually going bare-headed. In a remarkably short time his lungs were
+healed.
+
+He was one of the most sincere tree-lovers I ever knew. About twenty
+years before his death he made choice of a plot in the Yosemite cemetery
+on the north side of the Valley, not far from the Yosemite Fall, and
+selecting a dozen or so of seedling sequoias in the Mariposa grove he
+brought them to the Valley and planted them around the spot he had
+chosen for his last rest. The ground there is gravelly and dry; by
+careful watering he finally nursed most of the seedlings into good,
+thrifty trees, and doubtless they will long shade the grave of their
+blessed lover and friend.
+
+
+
+Chapter 16
+
+Hetch Hetchy Valley
+
+
+Yosemite is so wonderful that we are apt to regard it as an exceptional
+creation, the only valley of its kind in the world; but Nature is not
+so poor as to have only one of anything. Several other yosemites have
+been discovered in the Sierra that occupy the same relative positions
+on the Range and were formed by the same forces in the same kind of
+granite. One of these, the Hetch Hetchy Valley, is in the Yosemite
+National Park about twenty miles from Yosemite and is easily accessible
+to all sorts of travelers by a road and trail that leaves the Big Oak
+Flat road at Bronson Meadows a few miles below Crane Flat, and to
+mountaineers by way of Yosemite Creek basin and the head of the middle
+fork of the Tuolumne.
+
+It is said to have been discovered by Joseph Screech, a hunter, in 1850,
+a year before the discovery of the great Yosemite. After my first visit
+to it in the autumn of 1871, I have always called it the "Tuolumne
+Yosemite," for it is a wonderfully exact counterpart of the Merced
+Yosemite, not only in its sublime rocks and waterfalls but in the
+gardens, groves and meadows of its flowery park-like floor. The floor of
+Yosemite is about 4000 feet above the sea; the Hetch Hetchy floor about
+3700 feet. And as the Merced River flows through Yosemite, so does the
+Tuolumne through Hetch Hetchy. The walls of both are of gray granite,
+rise abruptly from the floor, are sculptured in the same style and in
+both every rock is a glacier monument.
+
+Standing boldly out from the south wall is a strikingly picturesque rock
+called by the Indians, Kolana, the outermost of a group 2300 feet high,
+corresponding with the Cathedral Rocks of Yosemite both in relative
+position and form. On the opposite side of the Valley, facing Kolana,
+there is a counterpart of the El Capitan that rises sheer and plain to
+a height of 1800 feet, and over its massive brow flows a stream which
+makes the most graceful fall I have ever seen. From the edge of the
+cliff to the top of an earthquake talus it is perfectly free in the air
+for a thousand feet before it is broken into cascades among talus
+boulders. It is in all its glory in June, when the snow is melting fast,
+but fades and vanishes toward the end of summer. The only fall I know
+with which it may fairly be compared is the Yosemite Bridal Veil; but it
+excels even that favorite fall both in height and airy-fairy beauty and
+behavior. Lowlanders are apt to suppose that mountain streams in their
+wild career over cliffs lose control of themselves and tumble in a noisy
+chaos of mist and spray. On the contrary, on no part of their travels
+are they more harmonious and self-controlled. Imagine yourself in Hetch
+Hetchy on a sunny day in June, standing waist-deep in grass and flowers
+(as I have often stood), while the great pines sway dreamily with
+scarcely perceptible motion. Looking northward across the Valley you
+see a plain, gray granite cliff rising abruptly out of the gardens and
+groves to a height of 1800 feet, and in front of it Tueeulala's silvery
+scarf burning with irised sun-fire. In the first white outburst at the
+head there is abundance of visible energy, but it is speedily hushed and
+concealed in divine repose, and its tranquil progress to the base of the
+cliff is like that of a downy feather in a still room. Now observe the
+fineness and marvelous distinctness of the various sun-illumined fabrics
+into which the water is woven; they sift and float from form to form
+down the face of that grand gray rock in so leisurely and unconfused a
+manner that you can examine their texture, and patterns and tones of
+color as you would a piece of embroidery held in the hand. Toward the
+top of the fall you see groups of booming, comet-like masses, their
+solid, white heads separate, their tails like combed silk interlacing
+among delicate gray and purple shadows, ever forming and dissolving,
+worn out by friction in their rush through the air. Most of these vanish
+a few hundred feet below the summit, changing to varied forms of
+cloud-like drapery. Near the bottom the width of the fall has increased
+from about twenty-five feet to a hundred feet. Here it is composed of
+yet finer tissues, and is still without a trace of disorder--air, water
+and sunlight woven into stuff that spirits might wear.
+
+So fine a fall might well seem sufficient to glorify any valley; but
+here, as in Yosemite, Nature seems in nowise moderate, for a short
+distance to the eastward of Tueeulala booms and thunders the great Hetch
+Hetchy Fall, Wapama, so near that you have both of them in full view
+from the same standpoint. It is the counterpart of the Yosemite Fall,
+but has a much greater volume of water, is about 1700 feet in height,
+and appears to be nearly vertical, though considerably inclined, and is
+dashed into huge outbounding bosses of foam on projecting shelves and
+knobs. No two falls could be more unlike--Tueeulala out in the open
+sunshine descending like thistledown; Wapama in a jagged, shadowy gorge
+roaring and plundering, pounding its way like an earthquake avalanche.
+
+Besides this glorious pair there is a broad, massive fall on the main
+river a short distance above the head of the Valley. Its position is
+something like that of the Vernal in Yosemite, and its roar as it
+plunges into a surging trout-pool may be heard a long way, though it
+is only about twenty feet high. On Rancheria Creek, a large stream,
+corresponding in position with the Yosemite Tenaya Creek, there is a
+chain of cascades joined here and there with swift flashing plumes like
+the one between the Vernal and Nevada Falls, making magnificent shows
+as they go their glacier-sculptured way, sliding, leaping, hurrahing,
+covered with crisp clashing spray made glorious with sifting sunshine.
+And besides all these a few small streams come over the walls at wide
+intervals, leaping from ledge to ledge with birdlike song and watering
+many a hidden cliff-garden and fernery, but they are too unshowy to be
+noticed in so grand a place.
+
+The correspondence between the Hetch Hetchy walls in their trends,
+sculpture, physical structure, and general arrangement of the main
+rock-masses and those of the Yosemite Valley has excited the wondering
+admiration of every observer. We have seen that the El Capitan and
+Cathedral rocks occupy the same relative positions In both valleys; so
+also do their Yosemite points and North Domes. Again, that part of the
+Yosemite north wall immediately to the east of the Yosemite Fall has two
+horizontal benches, about 500 and 1500 feet above the floor, timbered
+with golden-cup oak. Two benches similarly situated and timbered occur
+on the same relative portion of the Hetch Hetchy north wall, to the east
+of Wapama Fall, and on no other. The Yosemite is bounded at the head by
+the great Half Dome. Hetch Hetchy is bounded in the same way though its
+head rock is incomparably less wonderful and sublime in form.
+
+The floor of the Valley is about three and a half miles long, and from a
+fourth to half a mile wide. The lower portion is mostly a level meadow
+about a mile long, with the trees restricted to the sides and the river
+banks, and partially separated from the main, upper, forested portion by
+a low bar of glacier-polished granite across which the river breaks in
+rapids.
+
+The principal trees are the yellow and sugar pines, digger pine, incense
+cedar, Douglas spruce, silver fir, the California and golden-cup oaks,
+balsam cottonwood, Nuttall's flowering dogwood, alder, maple, laurel,
+tumion, etc. The most abundant and influential are the great yellow or
+silver pines like those of Yosemite, the tallest over two hundred feet
+in height, and the oaks assembled in magnificent groves with massive
+rugged trunks four to six feet in diameter, and broad, shady,
+wide-spreading heads. The shrubs forming conspicuous flowery clumps and
+tangles are manzanita, azalea, spiraea, brier-rose, several species of
+ceanothus, calycanthus, philadelphus, wild cherry, etc.; with abundance
+of showy and fragrant herbaceous plants growing about them or out in the
+open in beds by themselves--lilies, Mariposa tulips, brodiaeas, orchids,
+iris, spraguea, draperia, collomia, collinsia, castilleja, nemophila,
+larkspur, columbine, goldenrods, sunflowers, mints of many species,
+honeysuckle, etc. Many fine ferns dwell here also, especially the
+beautiful and interesting rock-ferns--pellaea, and cheilanthes of
+several species--fringing and rosetting dry rock-piles and ledges;
+woodwardia and asplenium on damp spots with fronds six or seven feet
+high; the delicate maiden-hair in mossy nooks by the falls, and the
+sturdy, broad-shouldered pteris covering nearly all the dry ground
+beneath the oaks and pines.
+
+It appears, therefore, that Hetch Hetchy Valley, far from being a plain,
+common, rock-bound meadow, as many who have not seen it seem to suppose,
+is a grand landscape garden, one of Nature's rarest and most precious
+mountain temples. As in Yosemite, the sublime rocks of its walls seem
+to glow with life, whether leaning back in repose or standing erect in
+thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, their
+brows in the sky, their feet set in the groves and gay flowery meadows,
+while birds, bees, and butterflies help the river and waterfalls to
+stir all the air into music--things frail and fleeting and types of
+permanence meeting here and blending, just as they do in Yosemite, to
+draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with her.
+
+Sad to say, this most precious and sublime feature of the Yosemite
+National Park, one of the greatest of all our natural resources for the
+uplifting joy and peace and health of the people, is in danger of being
+dammed and made into a reservoir to help supply San Francisco with water
+and light, thus flooding it from wall to wall and burying its gardens
+and groves one or two hundred feet deep. This grossly destructive
+commercial scheme has long been planned and urged (though water as pure
+and abundant can be got from outside of the people's park, in a dozen
+different places), because of the comparative cheapness of the dam and
+of the territory which it is sought to divert from the great uses to
+which it was dedicated in the Act of 1890 establishing the Yosemite
+National Park.
+
+The making of gardens and parks goes on with civilization all over the
+world, and they increase both in size and number as their value is
+recognized. Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in
+and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body
+and soul alike. This natural beauty-hunger is made manifest in the
+little window-sill gardens of the poor, though perhaps only a geranium
+slip in a broken cup, as well as in the carefully tended rose and lily
+gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city parks and botanical
+gardens, and in our magnificent National parks--the Yellowstone,
+Yosemite, Sequoia, etc.--Nature's sublime wonderlands, the admiration
+and joy of the world. Nevertheless, like anything else worth while, from
+the very beginning, however well guarded, they have always been subject
+to attack by despoiling gainseekers and mischief-makers of every degree
+from Satan to Senators, eagerly trying to make everything immediately
+and selfishly commercial, with schemes disguised in smug-smiling
+philanthropy, industriously, shampiously crying, "Conservation,
+conservation, panutilization," that man and beast may be fed and the
+dear Nation made great. Thus long ago a few enterprising merchants
+utilized the Jerusalem temple as a place of business instead of a place
+of prayer, changing money, buying and selling cattle and sheep and
+doves; and earlier still, the first forest reservation, including only
+one tree, was likewise despoiled. Ever since the establishment of the
+Yosemite National Park, strife has been going on around its borders and
+I suppose this will go on as part of the universal battle between right
+and wrong, however much its boundaries may be shorn, or its wild beauty
+destroyed.
+
+The first application to the Government by the San Francisco Supervisors
+for the commercial use of Lake Eleanor and the Hetch Hetchy Valley was
+made in 1903, and on December 22nd of that year it was denied by the
+Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Hitchcock, who truthfully said:
+
+Presumably the Yosemite National Park was created such by law because
+within its boundaries, inclusive alike of its beautiful small lakes,
+like Eleanor, and its majestic wonders, like Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite
+Valley. It is the aggregation of such natural scenic features that makes
+the Yosemite Park a wonderland which the Congress of the United States
+sought by law to reserve for all coming time as nearly as practicable
+in the condition fashioned by the hand of the Creator--a worthy object
+of national pride and a source of healthful pleasure and rest for the
+thousands of people who may annually sojourn there during the heated
+months.
+
+In 1907 when Mr. Garfield became Secretary of the Interior the
+application was renewed and granted; but under his successor, Mr.
+Fisher, the matter has been referred to a Commission, which as this
+volume goes to press still has it under consideration.
+
+The most delightful and wonderful camp grounds in the Park are its three
+great valleys--Yosemite, Hetch Hetchy, and Upper Tuolumne; and they are
+also the most important places with reference to their positions
+relative to the other great features--the Merced and Tuolumne Canyons,
+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
+Canyon to Hetch Hetchy. Should Hetch Hetchy be submerged for a
+reservoir, as proposed, not only would it be utterly destroyed, but the
+sublime canyon way to the heart of the High Sierra would be hopelessly
+blocked and the great camping ground, as the watershed of a city
+drinking system, virtually would be closed to the public. So far as I
+have learned, few of all the thousands who have seen the park and seek
+rest and peace in it are in favor of this outrageous scheme.
+
+One of my later visits to the Valley was made in the autumn of 1907 with
+the late William Keith, the artist. The leaf-colors were then ripe, and
+the great godlike rocks in repose seemed to glow with life. The artist,
+under their spell, wandered day after day along the river and through
+the groves and gardens, studying the wonderful scenery; and, after
+making about forty sketches, declared with enthusiasm that although its
+walls were less sublime in height, in picturesque beauty and charm Hetch
+Hetchy surpassed even Yosemite.
+
+That any one would try to destroy such a place seems incredible; but sad
+experience shows that there are people good enough and bad enough for
+anything. The proponents of the dam scheme bring forward a lot of bad
+arguments to prove that the only righteous thing to do with the people's
+parks is to destroy them bit by bit as they are able. Their arguments
+are curiously like those of the devil, devised for the destruction of
+the first garden--so much of the very best Eden fruit going to waste; so
+much of the best Tuolumne water and Tuolumne scenery going to waste. Few
+of their statements are even partly true, and all are misleading.
+
+Thus, Hetch Hetchy, they say, is a "low-lying meadow." On the contrary,
+it is a high-lying natural landscape garden, as the photographic
+illustrations show.
+
+"It is a common minor feature, like thousands of others." On the
+contrary it is a very uncommon feature; after Yosemite, the rarest and
+in many ways the most important in the National Park.
+
+"Damming and submerging it 175 feet deep would enhance its beauty by
+forming a crystal-clear lake." Landscape gardens, places of recreation
+and worship, are never made beautiful by destroying and burying them.
+The beautiful sham lake, forsooth, should be only an eyesore, a dismal
+blot on the landscape, like many others to be seen in the Sierra. For,
+instead of keeping it at the same level all the year, allowing Nature
+centuries of time to make new shores, it would, of course, be full only
+a month or two in the spring, when the snow is melting fast; then it
+would be gradually drained, exposing the slimy sides of the basin and
+shallower parts of the bottom, with the gathered drift and waste, death
+and decay of the upper basins, caught here instead of being swept on to
+decent natural burial along the banks of the river or in the sea. Thus
+the Hetch Hetchy dam-lake would be only a rough imitation of a natural
+lake for a few of the spring months, an open sepulcher for the others.
+
+"Hetch Hetchy water is the purest of all to be found in the Sierra,
+unpolluted, and forever unpollutable." On the contrary, excepting that
+of the Merced below Yosemite, it is less pure than that of most of the
+other Sierra streams, because of the sewerage of camp grounds draining
+into it, especially of the Big Tuolumne Meadows camp ground, occupied by
+hundreds of tourists and mountaineers, with their animals, for months
+every summer, soon to be followed by thousands from all the world.
+
+These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to
+have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes
+to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar.
+
+Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals
+and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the
+heart of man.
+
+
+
+Appendix A
+
+Legislation About the Yosemite
+
+
+In the year 1864, Congress passed the following act:--
+
+ACT OF JUNE 30, 1864 (13 STAT., 325).
+
+An Act Authorizing a grant to the State of California of the "Yo-Semite
+Valley," and of the land embracing the "Mariposa Big Tree Grove."
+
+"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
+States of America, in Congress assembled, That there shall be, and is
+hereby, granted to the State of California, the 'Cleft' or 'Gorge' in
+the Granite Peak of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, situated in the county
+of Mariposa, in the State aforesaid, and the headwaters of the Merced
+River, and known as the Yosemite Valley, with its branches and spurs, in
+estimated length fifteen miles, and in average width one mile back from
+the main edge of the precipice, on each side of the Valley, with the
+stipulation, nevertheless, that the said State shall accept this grant
+upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public
+use, resort, and recreation; shall be inalienable for all time; but
+leases not exceeding ten years may be granted for portions of said
+premises. All incomes derived from leases of privileges to be expended
+in the preservation and improvement of the property, or the roads
+leading thereto; the boundaries to be established at the cost of said
+State by the United States Surveyor-General of California, whose
+official plat, when affirmed by the Commissioner of the General Land
+Office, shall constitute the evidence of the locus, extent, and limits
+of the said Cleft or Gorge; the premises to be managed by the Governor
+of the State, with eight other Commissioners, to be appointed by the
+Executive of California, and who shall receive no compensation for their
+services.
+
+"Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That there shall likewise be, and
+there is hereby, granted to the said State of California, the tracts
+embracing what is known as the 'Mariposa Big Tree Grove,' not to exceed
+the area of four sections, and to be taken in legal subdivisions of
+one-quarter section each, with the like stipulations as expressed in
+the first section of this Act as to the State's acceptance, with like
+conditions as in the first section of this Act as to inalienability,
+yet with the same lease privileges; the income to be expended in the
+preservation, improvement, and protection of the property, the premises
+to be managed by Commissioners, as stipulated in the first section of
+this Act, and to be taken in legal subdivisions as aforesaid; and the
+official plat of the United States Surveyor-General, when affirmed by
+the Commissioner of the General Land Office, to be the evidence of the
+locus of the said Mariposa Big Tree Grove."
+
+This important act was approved by the President, June 30, 1864,
+and shortly after the Governor of California, F. F. Low, issued a
+proclamation taking possession of the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa
+grove of Big Trees, in the name and on behalf of the State, appointing
+commissioners to manage them, and warning all persons against
+trespassing or settling there without authority, and especially
+forbidding the cutting of timber and other injurious acts.
+
+The first Board of Commissioners were F. Law Olmsted, J. D. Whitney,
+William Ashburner, I. W. Raymond, E. S. Holden, Alexander Deering,
+George W. Coulter, and Galen Clark.
+
+
+ACT OF OCTOBER 1, 1890 (26 STAT., 650).
+
+[Footnote: Sections 1 and 2 of this act pertain to the Yosemite National
+Park, while section 3 sets apart General Grant National Park, and also a
+portion of Sequoia National Park.]
+
+An Act To set apart certain tracts of land in the State of California as
+forest reservations.
+
+"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
+States of America in Congress assembled, That the tracts of land in the
+State of California known as described as follows: Commencing at the
+northwest corner of township two north, range nineteen east Mount Diablo
+meridian, thence eastwardly on the line between townships two and three
+north, ranges twenty-four and twenty-five east; thence southwardly on
+the line between ranges twenty-four and twenty-five east to the Mount
+Diablo base line; thence eastwardly on said base line to the corner
+to township one south, ranges twenty-five and twenty-six east; thence
+southwardly on the line between ranges twenty-five and twenty-six east
+to the southeast corner of township two south, range twenty-five east;
+thence eastwardly on the line between townships two and three south,
+range twenty-six east to the corner to townships two and three south,
+ranges twenty-six and twenty-seven east; thence southwardly on the line
+between ranges twenty-six and twenty-seven east to the first standard
+parallel south; thence westwardly on the first standard parallel south
+to the southwest corner of township four south, range nineteen east;
+thence northwardly on the line between ranges eighteen and nineteen east
+to the northwest corner of township two south, range nineteen east;
+thence westwardly on the line between townships one and two south to
+the southwest corner of township one south, range nineteen east; thence
+northwardly on the line between ranges eighteen and nineteen east to
+the northwest corner of township two north, range nineteen east, the
+place of beginning, are hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement,
+occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and set apart as
+reserved forest lands; and all persons who shall locate or settle upon,
+or occupy the same or any part thereof, except as hereinafter provided,
+shall be considered trespassers and removed therefrom: Provided,
+however, That nothing in this act shall be construed as in anywise
+affecting the grant of lands made to the State of California by virtue
+of the act entitled, 'An act authorizing a grant to the State of
+California of the Yosemite Valley, and of the land embracing the
+Mariposa Big-Tree Grove,' appeared June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and
+sixty-four; or as affecting any bona-fide entry of land made within the
+limits above described under any law of the United States prior to the
+approval of this act.
+
+"Sec. 2. That said reservation shall be under the exclusive control
+of the Secretary of the Interior, whose duty it shall be, as soon as
+practicable, to make and publish such rules and regulations as he may
+deem necessary or proper for the care and management of the same. Such
+regulations shall provide for the preservation from injury of all
+timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders within said
+reservation, and their retention in their natural condition. The
+Secretary may, in his discretion, grant leases for building purposes for
+terms not exceeding ten years of small parcels of ground not exceeding
+five acres; at such places in said reservation as shall require the
+erection of buildings for the accommodation of visitors; all of the
+proceeds of said leases and other revenues that may be derived from
+any source connected with said reservation to be expended under his
+direction in the management of the same and the construction of roads
+and paths therein. He shall provide against the wanton destruction of
+the fish, and game found within said reservation, and against their
+capture or destruction, for the purposes of merchandise or profit. He
+shall also cause all persons trespassing upon the same after the passage
+of this act to be removed therefrom, and, generally, shall be authorized
+to take all such measures as shall be necessary or proper to fully carry
+out the objects and purposes of this act.
+
+"Sec. 3. There shall also be and is hereby reserved and withdrawn from
+settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and
+shall be set apart as reserved forest lands, as herein before provided,
+and subject to all the limitations and provisions herein contained, the
+following additional lands, to wit: Township seventeen south, range
+thirty east of the Mount Diablo meridian, excepting sections thirty-one,
+thirty-two, thirty-three, and thirty-four of said township, included
+in a previous bill. And there is also reserved and withdrawn from
+settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and
+set apart as forest lands, subject to like limitations, conditions,
+and provisions, all of townships fifteen and sixteen south, of ranges
+twenty-nine and thirty east of the Mount Diablo meridian. And there is
+also hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale
+under the laws of the United states, and set apart as reserved forest
+lands under like limitations, restrictions, and provisions, sections
+five and six in township fourteen south, range twenty-eight east of
+Mount Diablo meridian, and also sections thirty-one and thirty-two of
+township thirteen south, range twenty-eight east of the same meridian.
+Nothing in this act shall authorize rules or contracts touching the
+protection and improvement of said reservations, beyond the sums that
+may be received by the Secretary of the Interior under the foregoing
+provisions, or authorize any charge against the Treasury of the United
+States."
+
+
+ACT OF THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, APPROVED
+MARCH 3, 1905.
+
+"Sec. 1. The State of California does hereby recede and regrant unto the
+United States of America the 'cleft' or 'gorge' in the granite peak of
+the Sierra Nevada Mountains, situated in the county of Mariposa, State
+of California, and the headwaters of the Merced River, and known as the
+Yosemite Valley, with its branches and spurs, granted unto the State
+of California in trust for public use, resort, and recreation by the
+act of Congress entitled, 'An act authorizing a grant to the State
+of California of the Yosemite Valley and of the land embracing the
+Mariposa Big Tree Grove,' approved June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and
+sixty-four; and the State of California does hereby relinquish unto the
+United States of America and resign the trusts created and granted by
+the said act of Congress.
+
+"Sec. 2. The State of California does hereby recede and regrant unto
+the United States of America the tracts embracing what is known as the
+'Mariposa Big Tree Grove,' planted unto the State of California in trust
+for public use, resort, and recreation by the act of Congress referred
+to in section one of this act, and the State of California does hereby
+relinquish unto the United States of America and resign the trusts
+created and granted by the said act of Congress.
+
+"Sec. 3. This act shall take effect from and after acceptance by the
+United States of America of the recessions and regrants herein made
+thereby forever releasing the State of California from further cost of
+maintaining the said premises, the same to be held for all time by the
+United States of America for public use, resort, and recreation and
+imposing on the United States of America the cost of maintaining the
+same as a national park: Provided, however, That the recession and
+regrant hereby made shall not affect vested rights and interests of
+third persons."
+
+
+
+Appendix B
+
+Table of Distances
+
+
+From the Guardian's office, in the village, the distances to various
+points are in miles as follows:
+
+                                              Miles.
+
+  Bridal Veil Fall                             4.04
+  Cascade Falls                                7.67
+  Cloud's Rest, Summit                        11.81
+  Columbia Rock, on Eagle Peak Trail           1.98
+  Dana, Mt., Summit                           40.34
+  Eagle Peak                                   6.59
+  El Capitan Bridge                            3.63
+  Glacier Point, direct trail                  4.45
+  Glacier Point, by Nevada Falls              16.98
+  Lyell, Mt., Summit                          38.20
+  Merced Bridge                                2.03
+  Mirror Lake, by Hunt's avenue                2.91
+  Nevada Fall (Hotel)                          4.63
+  Nevada Fall, Bridge above                    5.45
+  Pohono Bridge                                5.29
+  Register Rock                                3.24
+  Ribbon Fall                                  3.99
+  Rocky Point (base of Three Brothers)         1.45
+  Tenayah Creek Bridge                         2.26
+  Tenayah Lake                                16.00
+  Yosemite Falls, foot                         0.90
+  Yosemite Falls, foot Upper Fall              2.67
+  Yosemite Falls, top                          4.33
+  Soda Springs (Eagle Peak Trail)             24.50
+  Sentinel Dome                                5.57
+  Union Point, on Glacier Point Trail          3.13
+  Vernal Fall                                  3.50
+
+
+
+Appendix C
+
+Maximum Rates for Transportation
+
+
+The following rates for transportation in and about the Valley have
+been established by the Board of Commissioners:
+
+
+SADDLE-HORSES
+
+  From              Route to                                       Amount
+
+  Valley          Glacier Point and Sentinel Dome, and return,     $3.00
+                  direct, same day
+  Valley          Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, and Fissures,       3.75
+                  and return, direct, same day
+  Valley          Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, and Fissures,       3.00
+                  passing night at Glacier Point
+  Valley          Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, Nevada Fall,        3.00
+                  and Casa Nevada, passing night at Casa Nevada
+  Valley          Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, Nevada Fall,        4.00
+                  Vernal Fall, and thence to Valley same day
+  Glacier Point   Valley direct                                     2.00
+  Glacier Point   Sentinel Dome, Nevada Fall, and Casa Nevada,      2.00
+                  passing night at Casa Nevada
+  Glacier Point   Sentinel Dome, Nevada Fall, Vernal Fall,          3.00
+                  and thence to Valley same day
+  Valley          Summits, Vernal and Nevada Falls, direct,         3.00
+                  and return to Valley same day
+  Valley          Glacier Point by Casa Nevada, passing night       3.00
+                  at Glacier Point
+  Valley          Summits, Vernal and Nevada Falls, Sentinel Dome,  4.00
+                  Glacier Point, and thence to Valley same day
+  Valley          Cloud's Rest and return to Casa Nevada            3.00
+  Valley          Cloud's Rest and return to Valley same day        5.00
+  Casa Nevada     Cloud's Rest and return to Casa Nevada or         3.00
+                  Valley same day
+  Casa Nevada     Valley direct                                     2.00
+  Casa Nevada     Nevada Fall, Sentinel Dome, and Glacier Point,    2.00
+                  passing night at Glacier Point
+  Valley          Nevada Fall, Sentinel Dome, Glacier Point,        3.00
+                  and Valley same day
+
+               Upper Yosemite Fall, Eagle Peak, and return          3.00
+               Charge for guide (including horse), when furnished   3.00
+               Saddle-horses, on level of Valley, per day           2.50
+
+1. The above charges do not include feed for horses when passing night
+at Casa Nevada or Glacier Point.
+
+2. Where Valley is specified as starting-point, the above rates prevail
+from any hotel in Valley, or from the foot of any trail.
+
+3. Any shortening of above trips, without proportionate reduction of
+rates, shall be at the option of those hiring horses.
+
+4. Trips other than those above specified shall be subject to special
+arrangement between letter and hirer.
+
+
+CARRIAGES
+
+  From              Route to                                      Amount
+
+
+  Hotels    Mirror Lake and return, direct                         $1.00
+  Hotels    Mirror Lake and return by Tissiack Avenue               1.25
+  Hotels    Mirror Lake and return to foot of Trail, to Vernal      1.00
+            and Nevada Falls
+  Hotels    Bridal Veil Falls and return, direct                    1.00
+  Hotels    Pohono Bridge, down either side of Valley, and return   1.50
+            on opposite side, stopping at Yosemite and Bridal
+            Veil Falls
+  Hotels    Cascade Falls, down either side of Valley, and return   2.25
+            on opposite side, stopping at Yosemite and Bridal
+            Veil Falls
+  Hotels    Artist Point and return, direct, stopping at Bridal     2.00
+            Veil Falls
+  Hotels    New Inspiration Point and return, direct, stopping at   2.00
+            Bridal Veil Falls
+            Grand Round Drive, including Yosemite and Bridal Veil   2.50
+            Falls, excluding Lake and Cascades
+            Grand Round Drive, including Yosemite and Bridal Veil   3.50
+            Falls, Lake, and Cascades
+
+1. When the value of the seats hired in any vehicle shall exceed $15
+for a two-horse team, or $25 for a four-horse team, for any trip in the
+above schedule, the persons hiring the seats shall have the privilege
+of paying no more than the aggregate sums of $15 and $25 per trip for a
+two-horse and four-horse team, respectively.
+
+2. If saddle-horses should be substituted for any of the above carriage
+trips, carriage rates will apply to each horse. In no case shall the
+per diem charge of $2.50 for each saddle-horse, on level of Valley, be
+exceeded.
+
+Any excess of the above rates, as well as any extortion, incivility,
+misrepresentation, or the riding of unsafe animals, should be promptly
+reported at the Guardian's office.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE YOSEMITE ***
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Yosemite, by John
+Muir</title>
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+"text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Yosemite, by John
+Muir</h1>
+
+<pre>
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Yosemite
+
+Author: John Muir
+
+Release Date: December, 2004  [EBook #7091]
+[This file was first posted on March 9, 2003]
+[Date last updated: August 28, 2006]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE YOSEMITE ***
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<pre>
+Produced by Dan Anderson and Andrew Sly.
+Thanks to the John Muir Exhibit for making this eBook available.
+http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<h1 align="center">The Yosemite<br>
+by John Muir</h1>
+
+<blockquote>Affectionately dedicated to my friend,<br>
+Robert Underwood Johnson,<br>
+faithful lover and defender of our glorious forests<br>
+and originator of the Yosemite National Park.</blockquote>
+
+<h3 align="center">Acknowledgment</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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."
+</pre>
+
+<h3>Contents</h3>
+
+<pre>
+   1. The Approach to the Valley
+   2. Winter Storms and Spring Floods
+   3. Snow-Storms
+   4. Snow Banners
+   5. The Trees of the Valley
+   6. The Forest Trees in General
+   7. The Big Trees
+   8. The Flowers
+   9. The Birds
+  10. The South Dome
+  11. The Ancient Yosemite Glaciers: How the Valley Was Formed
+  12. How Best to Spend One's Yosemite Time
+  13. Early History of the Valley
+  14. Lamon
+  15. Galen Clark
+  16. Hetch Hetchy Valley
+  Appendix A. Legislation About the Yosemite
+  Appendix B. Table of Distances
+  Appendix C. Maximum Rates for Transportation
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 1<br>
+The Approach to the Valley</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Sierra From The West</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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>Composit&oelig;</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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;ons 2000 to 5000 feet deep, in
+which once flowed majestic glaciers, and in which now flow and sing the
+bright rejoicing rivers.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">Characteristics Of The Ca&ntilde;ons</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+Though of such stupendous depth, these ca&ntilde;ons 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 ca&ntilde;ons
+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 ca&ntilde;ons in falls of every conceivable form, to join the
+river that flow in tranquil, shining beauty down the middle of each
+one of them.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Incomparable Yosemite</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+The most famous and accessible of these ca&ntilde;on 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 ca&ntilde;ons, 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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Approach To The Valley</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The First View: The Bridal Veil</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">General Features Of The Valley</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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 tear with the sentimental onlooker fresh
+from a visit to the Bridal Veil.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Upper Ca&ntilde;ons</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+Here the Valley divides into three branches, the Tenaya, Nevada, and
+Illilouette Ca&ntilde;ons, extending back into the fountains of the High
+Sierra, with scenery every way worthy the relation they bear to
+Yosemite.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on. 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 ca&ntilde;on is
+noted for the beauty of its lakes and forests and magnificent moraines.
+<br>
+Returning to the Valley, and going up the north branch of Tenaya Ca&ntilde;on,
+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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+Just beyond the Dome Cascades, on the shoulder of Mount Watkins, there
+is an old trail once used by Indians on their was across the range to
+Mono, but in the ca&ntilde;on above this point there is no trail of any sort.
+Between Mount Watkins and Clouds' Rest the ca&ntilde;on 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 ca&ntilde;on, 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 ca&ntilde;on having been the channel of one of the main
+tributaries of the ancient Yosemite Glacier.
+<br>
+About ten miles above the Valley we come to the beautiful Tenaya Lake,
+and here the ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on, 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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">Natural Features Near The Valley</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+Beyond this Little Yosemite in the main ca&ntilde;on, 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+The same harmony prevails in all the other features of the adjacent
+landscapes. Climbing out of the Valley by the subordinate ca&ntilde;ons, 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 Ca&ntilde;on and the fountains of the Hoffman Range.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">Down The Yosemite Creek</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Yosemite Fall</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">A Wonderful Ascent</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Grandeur Of The Yosemite Fall</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Nevada Fall</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on 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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Vernal Fall</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;ons 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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Illilouette Fall</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on, 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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Minor Falls</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+For about a mile above Mirror Lake the Tenaya Ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Beauty Of The Rainbows</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">An Unexpected Adventure</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">Climate And Weather</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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&deg; Fahrenheit. The first twenty-four days of January
+had an average temperature at 9 A.M. of 32&deg;, minimum 22&deg;;
+at 3 P.M. the average was 40&deg; 30&prime;, the minimum 32&deg;. 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 is 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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">Winter Beauty Of The Valley</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">Exploring An Ice Cone</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 2<br>
+Winter Storms and Spring Floods</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">An Extraordinary Storm And Flood</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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&deg;, 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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
+Ca&ntilde;on, 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.
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on. 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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;ons, 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 ca&ntilde;on-boulder dens,
+the squirrels in their knot-hole nests, the grouse in close fir groves,
+and the small singers in the Indian Ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on--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 ca&ntilde;ons and valleys from Shasta to the
+southernmost fountains of the Kern, thousands of rejoicing flood
+waterfalls chanting together in jubilee dress.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 3<br>
+Snow-Storms</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;ons of yosemites and in the main ca&ntilde;ons, flowing in
+regular channels and booming like waterfalls, while countless smaller
+ones fall everywhere from laden trees and rocks and lofty ca&ntilde;on 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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">Avalanches</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+Besides these common after-storm avalanches that are to be found not
+only in the Yosemite but in all the deep, sheer-walled ca&ntilde;on 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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">A Ride On An Avalanche</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on 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 ca&ntilde;on 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 ca&ntilde;on head, where the snow was strained,
+started an avalanche, and I was swished down to the foot of the ca&ntilde;on
+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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Streams In Other Seasons</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;ons 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 4<br>
+Snow Banners</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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
+ca&ntilde;ons 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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">A Wonderful Winter Scene</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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, ca&ntilde;on-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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">Earthquake Storms</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on to ca&ntilde;on,
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on-taluses
+throughout the length and breadth of the Range!
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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?"
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 5<br>
+The Trees of the Valley</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+In the main river ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+The broad-leaved maple and mountain maple are found mostly in the cool
+ca&ntilde;ons at the head of the Valley, spreading their branches in beautiful
+arches over the foaming streams.
+<br>
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 6<br>
+The Forest Trees in General</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;ons, 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Sugar Pine, King Of Pine Trees</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Yellow Or Silver Pine</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Douglas Spruce</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Incense Cedar</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Silver Firs</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Two-Leaved Pine</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Mountain Pine</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Western Juniper</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+The Juniper or Red Cedar (<i>Juniperus occidentalis</i>) is pre&euml;minently 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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Mountain Hemlock</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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&deg;, 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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The White-Bark Pine</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Nut Pine</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 7<br>
+The Big Trees</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;ons. 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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 end 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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?
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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?
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 8<br>
+The Flowers</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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-ca&ntilde;ons 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 &oelig;notheras, <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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+Of the lily family, fritillaria, smilacina, chlorogalum and several
+fine species of brodi&aelig;a, 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. c&oelig;ruleus</i> and <i>C. nudus</i>, dwell in springy places on the
+Wawona road a few miles beyond the brink of the walls.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+There are a great many interesting ferns in the Valley and about
+it. Naturally enough the greater number are rock ferns--pell&aelig;a,
+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.
+<br>
+Of the five species of pell&aelig;a, <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.
+<br>
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 9<br>
+The Birds</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on. 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on groves, which
+from their peculiar exposure are the warmest.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 10<br>
+The South Dome</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on 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 Ca&ntilde;on. 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 spir&aelig;a 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 11<br>
+The Ancient Yosemite Glaciers:<br>
+How the Valley Was Formed</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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, ca&ntilde;on, 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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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, ca&ntilde;ons 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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;ons of the eastern flank also
+contain enduring, brilliantly striated and polished rocks, but these are
+less magnificent than those of the broad western flank.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on 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 Ca&ntilde;on and Yosemite.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;ons; 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 ca&ntilde;ons
+toward the head of the Valley.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+Spend all the time you can spare or steal on the tracks of this grand
+old glacier, charmed and enchanted by its magnificent ca&ntilde;on, lakes and
+cascades and resplendent glacier pavements.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+The principal moraines occur in short irregular sections along the sides
+of the ca&ntilde;ons, their fragmentary condition being due to interruptions
+caused by portions of the sides of the ca&ntilde;on 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 Ca&ntilde;on. 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 ca&ntilde;on. 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;ons and neve amphitheaters between
+them, whose variegated rocks show out gloriously against the sky.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 12<br>
+How Best to Spend One's Yosemite Time</h2>
+
+<h3 align="center">One-Day Excursions<br>
+No. 1.</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on. 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 Ca&ntilde;on, 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on 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
+ca&ntilde;on of the river from the head of the Nevada Fall to the head of
+the Valley.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">One-Day Excursions<br>
+No. 2.</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on between the fall and a
+plain mural cliff that is burnished here and there by glacial action.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">Two-Day Excursions<br>
+No. 1.</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">Two-Day Excursions<br>
+No. 2.</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;ons 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.
+<br>
+Glacial phenomena in the Illilouette Basin are on the grandest scale,
+and in the course of my explorations I found that the ca&ntilde;on 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 ca&ntilde;on on this bright road
+I passed lake after lake in solid basins of granite and many a meadow
+along the ca&ntilde;on stream that links them together. The main lateral
+moraines that bound the view below the ca&ntilde;on 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
+ca&ntilde;on. 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
+ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on 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!
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">A Three-Day Excursion</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">The Upper Tuolumne Excursion</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+There are five main capital excursions to be made from here--to the
+summits of Mounts Dana, Lyell and Conness, and through the Bloody Ca&ntilde;on
+Pass to Mono Lake and the volcanoes, and down the Tuolumne Ca&ntilde;on, 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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;ons, 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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;ons
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on. 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 ca&ntilde;on the Sierra crown
+comes in sight, forming a finely balanced picture framed by the massive
+ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on 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, ca&ntilde;ons
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+In making the trip down the Big Tuolumne Ca&ntilde;on, 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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+The ca&ntilde;on 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
+ca&ntilde;on, and these in volume, extent and variety surpass those of any
+other ca&ntilde;on in the Sierra. The most showy and interesting of them are
+mostly in the upper part of the ca&ntilde;on, 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.
+<br>
+Every one who is anything of a mountaineer should go on through the
+entire length of the ca&ntilde;on, 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+</pre>
+
+<h3 align="center">Other Trips From The Valley</h3>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+Here are a few specimens selected from my own short trips which walkers
+may find useful.
+<br>
+One, up the river ca&ntilde;on, 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 ca&ntilde;on 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 ca&ntilde;on, 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.
+<br>
+Another, to the head of Yosemite Fall by Indian Ca&ntilde;on; 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 Ca&ntilde;on. 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.
+<br>
+Another fine trip was up, bright and early, by Avalanche Ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 13<br>
+Early History Of The Valley</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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."
+<br>
+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?"
+<br>
+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."
+<br>
+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."
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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."
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on trail and none of them were seen, except an
+old woman unable to follow the fugitives.
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on 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."
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on. The Tenaya Ca&ntilde;on and Lake were named for the famous old
+chief.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on. The roadbed was virtually blasted out
+of the solid rock for the entire distance in the ca&ntilde;on. 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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 14<br>
+Lamon</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+The good old pioneer, Lamon, was the first of all the early Yosemite
+settlers who cordially and unreservedly adopted the Valley as his home.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+He liked to describe the great flood of 1867, the year before I reached
+California, when all the walls were striped with thundering waterfalls.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 15<br>
+Galen Clark</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;on from Hetch Hetchy Valley. The ca&ntilde;on up
+to that time had not been explored, and knowing that the difference in
+the elevation of the river at the head of the ca&ntilde;on 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 ca&ntilde;on by way of Hetch Hetchy Valley, each
+carrying his own provisions, and making his own tea, porridge, bed, etc.
+<br>
+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
+ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;on by a side ca&ntilde;on, and completed the exploration up to
+the Tuolumne Meadows.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 ca&ntilde;ons, through all kinds
+of brush and snow, but this gets me."
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Chapter 16<br>
+Hetch Hetchy Valley</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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, spir&aelig;a, 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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:
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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 Ca&ntilde;ons,
+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
+Ca&ntilde;on to Hetch Hetchy. Should Hetch Hetchy be submerged for a
+reservoir, as proposed, not only would it be utterly destroyed, but the
+sublime ca&ntilde;on 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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+"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.
+<br>
+"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.
+<br>
+"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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Appendix A<br>
+Legislation About the Yosemite</h2>
+
+<pre>
+
+In the year 1864, Congress passed the following act:--
+
+                ACT OF JUNE 30, 1864 (13 STAT., 325).
+
+An Act Authorizing a grant to the State of California of the "Yo-Semite
+Valley," and of the land embracing the "Mariposa Big Tree Grove."
+<br>
+"<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.
+<br>
+"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."
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+ACT OF OCTOBER 1, 1890 (26 STAT., 650).
+<br>
+[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.]
+<br>
+An Act To set apart certain tracts of land in the State of California as
+forest reservations.
+<br>
+"<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.
+<br>
+"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.
+<br>
+"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."
+<br>
+ACT OF THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, APPROVED
+MARCH 3, 1905.
+<br>
+"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.
+<br>
+"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.
+<br>
+"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."
+</pre>
+
+<h2 align="center">Appendix B<br>
+Table of Distances</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+From the Guardian's office, in the village, the distances to various
+points are in miles as follows:
+</pre>
+
+<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>
+
+<h2 align="center">Appendix C<br>
+Maximum Rates for Transportation</h2>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+The following rates for transportation in and about the Valley have
+been established by the Board of Commissioners:
+<br>
+SADDLE-HORSES
+</pre>
+
+<pre>
+  <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>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+1. The above charges do not include feed for horses when passing night
+at Casa Nevada or Glacier Point.
+<br>
+2. Where Valley is specified as starting-point, the above rates prevail
+from any hotel in Valley, or from the foot of any trail.
+<br>
+3. Any shortening of above trips, without proportionate reduction of
+rates, shall be at the option of those hiring horses.
+<br>
+4. Trips other than those above specified shall be subject to special
+arrangement between letter and hirer.
+<br>
+CARRIAGES
+</pre>
+
+<pre>
+  <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>
+
+<pre>
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+<br>
+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.
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</pre>
+
+<pre>
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