abw i University of California • Berkeley SIDNEY HOWARD COLLECTION Gift of The Family of Sidney Howard THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA BY JOHN MUIR NEW YOKK THE CENTURY CO. 1898 Copyright, 1894, by THE CENTURY Co. THE DEVINNE PRESS. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I THE SIERRA NEVADA 1 II THE GLACIERS 20 III THE SNOW 36 IV A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIERRA 48 V THE PASSES 74 VI THE GLACIER LAKES 98 VII THE GLACIER MEADOWS 125 VIII THE FORESTS 139 IX THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL 226 X A WIND-STORM IN THE FORESTS . 244 XI THE RIVER FLOODS 258 XII SIERRA THUNDER-STORMS 271 XIII THE WATER-OUZEL 276 XIV THE WILD SHEEP 300 XV IN THE SIERRA FOOT-HILLS 325 XVI THE BEE-PASTURES . . 338 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE HOOFED LOCUSTS FRONTISPIECE MOUNT TAMALPAIS — NORTH OP THE GOLDEN GATE . 5 MOUNT SHASTA, LOOKING SOUTHWEST 13 MOUNT HOOD 19 MOUNT RAINIER FROM PARADISE VALLEY — NISQUALLY GLACIER 25 MAP OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 67 MAP OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY, SHOWING PRESENT RESERVATION BOUNDARY 77 VIEW OF THE MONO PLAIN FROM THE FOOT OF BLOODY CANON , 97 LAKE TENAYA, ONE OF THE YOSEMITE FOUNTAINS . . 102 THE DEATH OF A LAKE 107 LAKE STARR KING 119 VIEW IN THE SIERRA FOREST 141 EDGE OF THE TIMBER LINE ON MOUNT SHASTA . . . 143 VIEW IN THE MAIN PINE BELT OF THE SIERRA FOREST 145 NUT PINE 147 THE GROVE FORM 149 LOWER MARGIN OF THE MAIN PINE BELT, SHOWING OPEN CHARACTER OF WOODS 151 xi Xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE SUGAR PINE ON EXPOSED RIDGE 157 YOUNG SUGAR PINE BEGINNING TO BEAR CONES . . . 160 FOREST OF SEQUOIA, SUGAR PINE, AND DOUGLAS SPRUCE 161 PlNUS PONDEROSA , 164 SILVER PINE 210 FEET HIGH 166 INCENSE CEDAR IN ITS PRIME 171 FOREST OF GRAND SILVER FIRS 172 VIEW OF FOREST OF THE MAGNIFICENT SILVER FIR . 175 SILVER-FIR FOREST GROWING ON MORAINES OF THE HOFFMAN AND TENAYA GLACIERS 177 JUNIPER, OR RED CEDAR 205 STORM-BEATEN HEMLOCK SPRUCE, FORTY FEET HIGH 208 GROUP OF ERECT DWARF PINES 212 A DWARF PINE 214 OAK GROWING AMONG YELLOW PINES 217 TRACK OF DOUGLAS SQUIRREL ONCE DOWN AND UP A PINE-TREE WHEN SHOWING OFF TO A SPECTATOR 231 SEEDS, WINGS, AND SCALE OF SUGAR PINE 234 TRYING THE Bow 243 A WIND-STORM IN THE CALIFORNIA FORESTS .... 245 WATER-OUZEL DIVING AND FEEDING 277 ONE OF THE LATE-SUMMER FEEDING-GROUNDS OF THE OUZEL 285 OUZEL ENTERING A WHITE CURRENT 287 THE OUZEL AT HOME 293 YOSEMITE BIRDS, SNOW-BOUND AT THE FOOT OF IN DIAN CANON 297 SNOW-BOUND ON MOUNT SHASTA . 306 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Xlll PAGE HEAD OF THE MERINO RAM * 309 HEAD OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN WILD SHEEP 311 CROSSING A CANON STREAM 314 WILD SHEEP JUMPING OVER A PRECIPICE 319 INDIANS HUNTING WILD SHEEP 321 A BEE-RANCH IN LOWER CALIFORNIA 341 WILD BEE GARDEN . 357 IN THE SAN GABRIEL VALLEY.— WHITE SAGE . . . 365 A BEE-RANCH ON A SPUR OF THE SAN GABRIEL RANGE. — CARDINAL FLOWER 369 WILD BUCKWHEAT. — A BEE-RANCH IN THE WILDER NESS .',... 371 A BEE-PASTURE ON THE MORAINE DESERT. — SPANISH BAYONET 375 A BEE-KEEPER'S CABIN . . 379 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA CHAPTER I THE SIEKRA NEVADA GO ^w here you may within the bounds of Cali fornia, mountains are ever in sight, charming and glorifying every landscape. Yet so simple and massive is the topography of the State in general views, that the main central portion displays only one valley, and two chains of mountains which seem almost perfectly regular in trend and height : the Coast Range on the west side, the Sierra Nevada on the east. These two ranges coming together in curves on the north and south inclose a magnificent basin, with a level floor more than 400 miles long, and from 35 to 60 miles wide. This is the grand' Central Valley of California, the waters of which have only one outlet to the sea through the Grolden Gate. But with this general simplicity of features there is great complexity of hidden detail. The Coast Range, rising as a grand green barrier against the ocean, from 2000 to 8000 feet high, is composed of innumerable forest-crowned spurs, ridges, and rolling hill-waves which inclose a multitude of smaller valleys; some looking out through long, 2 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA forest-lined vistas to the sea ; others, with but few trees, to the Central Valley; while a thousand others yet smaller are embosomed and concealed in mild, round-browed hills, each with its own climate, soil, and productions. Making your way through the mazes of the Coast Eange to the summit of any of the inner peaks or passes opposite San. Francisco, in the clear spring time, the grandest and most telling of all California landscapes is outspread before you. At your feet lies the great Central Valley glowing golden in the sunshine, extending north and south farther than the eye can reach, one smooth, flowery, lake-like bed of fertile soil. Along its eastern margin rises the mighty Sierra, miles in height, reposing like a smooth, cumulous cloud in the sunny sky, and so gloriously colored, and so luminous, it seems to be 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, you see a pale, pearl-gray belt of snow ; and below it a belt of blue and dark purple, marking the extension of the for ests ; and along the base of the range a broad belt of rose-purple and yellow, where lie the miner's gold- fields and the foot-hill gardens. All these colored belts blending smoothly make a wall of light inef fably fine, and as beautiful as a rainbow, yet firm as adamant. When I first enjoyed this superb view, one glow ing April day, from the summit of the Pacheco Pass, the Central Valley, but little trampled or plowed as yet, was one furred, rich sheet of golden com- positae, and the luminous wall of the mountains THE SIERBA NEVADA 3 shone in all its glory. Then it seemed to me the Sierra should be called not the Nevada, or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten years spent in the heart of it, rejoicing and wondering, bathing in its glorious floods of light, seeing the sunbursts of morning among the icy peaks, the noonday radiance on the trees and rocks and snow, the flush of the alpenglow, and a thousand dashing waterfalls with their marvelous abundance of irised spray, it still seems to me above all others the Range of Light, the most divinely beautiful of all the moun tain-chains I have ever seen. The Sierra is about 500 miles long, 70 miles wide, and from 7000 to nearly 15,000 feet high. In general views no mark of man is visible on it, nor anything to suggest the richness of the life it cherishes, or the depth and grandeur of its sculpture. None of its magnificent forest-crowned ridges rises much above the general level to publish its wealth. No great val ley or lake is seen, or river, or group of well-marked features of any kind, standing out in distinct pic tures. Even the summit-peaks, so clear and high in the sky, seem comparatively smooth and feature less. Nevertheless, glaciers are still at work in the shadows of the peaks, and thousands of lakes and meadows shine and bloom beneath them, and the whole range is furrowed with canons to a depth of from 2000 to 5000 feet, in which once flowed ma jestic glaciers, and in which now flow and sing a band of beautiful rivers. Though of such stupendous depth, these famous canons are not raw, gloomy, jagged- walled gorges, savage and inaccessible. With rough passages here 4 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA and there they still make delightful pathways for the mountaineer, conducting from the fertile lowlands to the highest icy fountains, as a kind of mountain streets full of charming life and light, graded and sculptured by the ancient glaciers, and presenting, throughout all their courses, 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 of the range, the main canons widen into spacious valleys or parks, diversified like artificial landscape-gardens, with charming groves and meadows, and thickets of blooming bushes, while the lofty, retiring walls, infinitely varied in form and sculpture, are fringed with ferns, flowering-plants of many species, oaks, and ever greens, which find anchorage on a thousand narrow steps and benches; while the whole is enlivened and made glorious with rejoicing streams that come dancing and foaming over the sunny brows of the cliffs to join the shining river that flows in tranquil beauty down the middle of each one of them. The walls of these park valleys of the Yosemite kind are made up of rocks mountains in size, partly separated from each other by narrow gorges and side-canons; and they are so sheer in front, and so compactly built together on a level floor, that, com prehensively seen, the parks they inclose look like immense halls or temples lighted from above. Every rock seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer, 6 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA or nearly so, for thousands of feet, advance their brows in thoughtful attitudes beyond their com panions, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly conscious yet heedless of everything go ing on about them, awful in stern majesty, types of permanence, yet associated with beauty of the frailest and most fleeting forms ; their feet set in pine-groves and gay emerald meadows, their brows in the sky; bathed in light, bathed in floods of singing water, while snow-clouds, avalanches, and the winds shine and surge and wreathe about them as the years go by, as if into these mountain man sions Nature had taken pains to gather her choicest treasures to draw her lovers into close and confid ing communion with her. Here, too, in the middle region of deepest canons are the grandest forest- trees, the Sequoia, king of conifers, the noble Sugar and Yellow Pines, Doug las Spruce, Libocedrus, and the Silver Firs, each a giant of its kind, assembled together in one and the same forest, surpassing all other coniferous forests in the world, both in the number of its species and in the size and beauty of its trees. The winds flow in melody through their colossal spires, and they are vocal everywhere with the songs of birds and run ning water. Miles of fragrant ceanothus and man- zanita bushes bloom beneath them, and lily gardens and meadows, and damp, ferny glens in endless variety of fragrance and color, compelling the ad miration of every observer. Sweeping on over ridge and valley, these noble trees extend a con tinuous belt from end to end of the range, only slightly interrupted by sheer-walled canons at in- THE SIEKKA NEVADA 7 tervals of about fifteen and twenty miles. Here the great burly brown bears delight to roam, har monizing with the brown boles of the trees be neath which they feed. Deer, also, dwell here, and find food and shelter in the ceanothus tangles, with a multitude of smaller people. Above this region of giants, the trees grow smaller until the utmost limit of the timber line is reached on the stormy mountain-slopes at a height of from ten to twelve thousand feet above the sea, where the Dwarf Pine is so lowly and hard beset by storms and heavy snow, it is pressed into flat tangles, over the tops of which we may easily walk. Below the main forest belt the trees likewise diminish in size, frost and burning drouth repressing and blasting alike. The rose-purple zone along the base of the range comprehends nearly all the famous gold region of California. And here it was that miners from every country under the sun assembled in a wild, torrent- like rush to seek their fortunes. On the banks of every river, ravine, and gully they have left their marks. Every gravel- and boulder-bed has been desperately riddled over and over again. But in this region the pick and shovel, once wielded with savage enthusiasm, have been laid away, and only quartz-mining is now being carried on to any con siderable extent. The zone in general is made up of low, tawny, waving foot-hills, roughened here and there with brush and trees, and outcropping masses of slate, colored gray and red with lichens. The smaller masses of slate, rising abruptly from the dry, grassy sod in leaning slabs, look like ancient tombstones in a deserted burying-ground. In early 8 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA spring, say from February to April, the whole of this foot-hill belt is a paradise of bees and flowers. Refreshing rains then fall freely, birds are busy building their nests, and the sunshine is balmy and delightful. But by the end of May the soil, plants, and sky seem to have been baked in an oven. Most of the plants crumble to dust beneath the foot, and the ground is full of cracks ; while the thirsty traveler gazes with eager longing through the burn ing glare to the snowy summits looming like hazy clouds in the distance. The trees, mostly Quercus Douglasii and Pinus Sabiniana, thirty to forty feet high, with thin, pale- green foliage, stand far apart and cast but little shade. Lizards glide about on the rocks enjoying a constitution that no drouth can dry, and ants in amazing numbers, whose tiny sparks of life seem to burn the brighter with the increasing heat, ramble industriously in long trains in search of food. Crows, ravens, magpies — friends in distress — gather on the ground beneath the best shade- trees, panting with drooping wings and bills wide open, scarce a note from any of them during the midday hours. Quails, too, seek the shade during the heat of the day about tepid pools in the chan nels of the larger mid-river streams. Rabbits scurry from thicket to thicket among the ceanothus bushes, and occasionally a long-eared hare is seen cantering gracefully across the wider openings. The nights are calm and dewless during the summer, and a thousand voices proclaim the abundance of life, not withstanding the desolating effect of dry sunshine on the plants and larger animals. The hylas make THE SIERRA NEVADA 9 a delightfully pure and tranquil music after sunset ; and coyotes, the little, despised dogs of the wilder ness, brave, hardy fellows, looking like withered wisps of hay, bark in chorus for hours. Mining- towns, most of them dead, and a few living ones with bright bits of cultivation about them, occur at long intervals along the belt, and cottages covered with climbing roses, in the midst of orange and peach orchards, and sweet-scented hay-fields in fer tile flats where water for irrigation may be had. But they are mostly far apart, and make scarce any mark in general views. Every winter the High Sierra and the middle forest region get snow in glorious abundance, and even the foot-hills are at times whitened. Then all the range looks like a vast beveled wall of purest marble. The rough places are then made smooth, the death and decay of the year is covered gently and kindly, and the ground seems as clean as the sky. And though silent in its flight from the clouds, and when it is taking its place on rock, or tree, or grassy meadow, how soon the gentle snow finds a voice ! Slipping from the heights, gather ing in avalanches, it booms and roars like thunder, and makes a glorious show as it sweeps down the mountain-side, arrayed in long, silken streamers and wreathing, swirling films of crystal dust. The north half of the range is mostly covered with floods of lava, and dotted with volcanoes and craters, some of them recent and perfect in form, others in various stages of decay. The south half is composed of granite nearly from base to summit, while a considerable number of peaks, in the middle 10 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA of the range, are capped with, metamorphic slates, among which are Mounts Dana and Gibbs to the east of Yosemite Valley. Mount Whitney, the cul minating point of the range near its southern ex tremity, lifts its helmet-shaped crest to a height of nearly 14,700 feet. Mount Shasta, a colossal vol canic cone, rises to a height of 14,440 feet at the northern extremity, and forms a noble landmark for all the surrounding region within a radius of a hundred miles. Residual masses of volcanic rocks occur throughout most of the granitic southern por tion also, and a considerable number of old volca noes on the flanks, especially along the eastern base of the range near Mono Lake and southward. But it is only to the northward that the entire range, from base to summit, is covered with lava. From the summit of Mount Whitney only granite is seen. Innumerable peaks and spires but little lower than its own storm-beaten crags rise in groups like forest-trees, in full view, segregated by canons of tremendous depth and ruggedness. On Shasta nearly every feature in the vast view speaks of the old volcanic fires. Far to the northward, in Oregon, the icy volcanoes of Mount Pitt and the Three Sisters rise above the dark evergreen woods. Southward innumerable smaller craters and cones are distributed along the axis of the range and on each flank. Of these, Lassen's Butte is the highest, being nearly 11,000 feet above sea-level. Miles of its flanks are reeking and bubbling with hot springs, many of them so boisterous and sulphurous they seem ever ready to become spouting geysers like those of the Yellowstone. THE SIEREA NEVADA 11 The Cinder Cone near marks the most recent vol canic eruption in the Sierra. It is a symmetrical truncated cone about 700 feet high, covered with gray cinders and ashes, and has a regular unchanged crater on its summit, in which a few small Two- leaved Pines are growing. These show that the age of the cone is not less than eighty years. It stands between two lakes, which a short time ago were one. Before the cone was built, a flood of rough vesicular lava was poured into the lake, cutting it in two, and, overflowing its banks, the fiery flood advanced into the pine-woods, overwhelming the trees in its way, the charred ends of some of which may still be seen projecting from beneath the snout of the lava-stream where it came to rest. Later still there was an eruption of ashes and loose ob sidian cinders, probably from the same vent, which, besides forming the Cinder Cone, scattered a heavy shower over the surrounding woods for miles to a depth of from six inches to several feet. The history of this last Sierra eruption is also pre served in the traditions of the Pitt Eiver Indians. They tell of a fearful time of darkness, when the sky was black with ashes and smoke that threatened every living thing with death, and that when at length the sun appeared once more it was red like blood. Less recent craters in great numbers roughen the adjacent region ; some of them with lakes in their throats, others overgrown with trees and flowers, Nature in these old hearths and firesides having literally given beauty for ashes. On the northwest side of Mount Shasta there is a subordinate cone 12 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA about 3000 feet below the summit, which has been active subsequent to the breaking up of the main ice-cap that once covered the mountain, as is shown by its comparatively unwasted crater and the streams of unglaciated lava radiating from it. The main summit is about a mile and a half in diameter, bounded by small crumbling peaks and ridges, among which we seek in vain for the outlines of the ancient crater. These ruinous masses, and the deep glacial grooves that flute the sides of the mountain, show that it has been considerably lowered and wasted by ice ; how much we have no sure means of know ing. Just below the extreme summit hot sulphu rous gases and vapor issue from irregular fissures, mixed with spray derived from melting snow, the last feeble expression of the mighty force that built the mountain. Not in one great convulsion was Shasta given birth. The crags of the summit and the sections exposed by the glaciers down the sides display enough of its internal framework to prove that comparatively long periods of quiescence in tervened between many distinct eruptions, during which the cooling lavas ceased to flow, and became permanent additions to the bulk of the growing mountain. With alternate haste and deliberation eruption succeeded eruption till the old volcano sur passed even its present sublime height. Standing on the icy top of this, the grandest of all the fire-mountains of the Sierra, we can hardly fail to look forward to its next eruption. Gardens, vineyards, homes have been planted confidingly on the flanks of volcanoes which, after remaining stead- 14 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA fast for ages, have suddenly blazed into violent ac tion, and poured forth, overwhelming floods of fire. It is known that more than a thousand years of cool calm have intervened between violent erup tions. Like gigantic geysers spouting molten rock instead of water, volcanoes work and rest, and we have no sure means of knowing whether they are dead when still, or only sleeping. Along the western base of the range a telling series of sedimentary rocks containing the early history of the Sierra are now being studied. But leaving for the present these first chapters, we see that only a very short geological time ago, just be fore the coming on of that winter of winters called the glacial period, a vast deluge of molten rocks poured from many a chasm and crater on the flanks and summit of the range, filling lake basins and river channels, and obliterating nearly every exist ing feature on the northern portion. At length these all-destroying floods ceased to flow. But while the great volcanic cones built up along the axis still burned and smoked, the whole Sierra passed under the domain of ice and snow. Then over the bald, featureless, fire-blackened mountains, glaciers be gan to crawl, covering them from the summits to the sea with a mantle of ice; and then with in finite deliberation the work went on of sculptur ing the range anew. These mighty agents of ero sion, halting never through unnumbered centuries, crushed and ground the flinty lavas and granites beneath their crystal folds, wasting and building until in the fullness of time the Sierra was born again, brought to light nearly as we behold it to- THE SIEKRA NEVADA 15 day, with glaciers and snow-crushed pines at the top of the range, wheat-fields and orange-groves at the foot of it. This change from icy darkness and death to life and beauty was slow, as we count time, and is still going on, north and south, over all the world wher ever glaciers exist, whether in the form of distinct rivers, as in Switzerland, Norway, the mountains of Asia, and the Pacific Coast; or in continuous mant ling folds, as in portions of Alaska, Greenland, Franz- Joseph-Land, Nova Zembla, Spitzbergen, and the lands about the South Pole. But in no country, as far as I know, may these majestic changes be studied to better advantage than in the plains and mountains of California. Toward the close of the glacial period, when the snow-clouds became less fertile and the melting waste of sunshine became greater, the lower folds of the ice-sheet in California, discharging fleets of icebergs into the sea, began to shallow and recede from the lowlands, and then move slowly up the flanks of the Sierra in compliance with the changes of climate. The great white mantle on the moun tains broke up into a series of glaciers more or less distinct and river-like, with many tributaries, and these again were melted and divided into still smaller glaciers, until now only a few of the small est residual topmost branches of the grand system exist on the cool slopes of the summit peaks. Plants and animals, biding their time, closely followed the retiring ice, bestowing quick and joyous animation on the new-born landscapes. Pine-trees marched up the sun-warmed moraines in 16 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA long, hopeful files, taking the ground and establish ing themselves as soon as it was ready for them ; brown-spiked sedges fringed the shores of the new born lakes ; young rivers roared in the abandoned channels of the glaciers; flowers bloomed around the feet of the great burnished domes, — while with quick fertility mellow beds of soil, settling and warming, offered food to multitudes of Nature's waiting children, great and small, animals as well as plants; mice, squirrels, marmots, deer, bears, ele phants, etc. The ground burst into bloom with magical rapidity, and the young forests into bird- song : life in every form warming and sweetening and growing richer as the years passed away over the mighty Sierra so lately suggestive of death and consummate desolation only. It is hard without long and loving study to realize the magnitude of the work done on these mountains during the last glacial period by glaciers, which are only streams of closely compacted snow-crystals. Careful study of the phenomena presented goes to show that the pre-glacial condition of the range was comparatively simple : one vast wave of stone in which a thousand mountains, domes, canons, ridges, etc., lay concealed. And in the development of these Nature chose for a tool not the earthquake or lightning to rend and split asunder, not the stormy torrent or eroding rain, but the tender siiow- flowers noiselessly falling through unnumbered cen turies, the offspring of the sun and sea. Laboring harmoniously in united strength they crushed and ground and wore away the rocks in their march, making vast beds of soil, and at the same time de- THE SIERRA NEVADA 17 veloped and fashioned the landscapes into the de lightful variety of hill and dale and lordly moun tain that mortals call beauty. Perhaps more than a mile in average depth has the range been thus de graded during the last glacial period, — a quantity of mechanical work almost inconceivably great. And oiii- admiration must l>e excited again and again as we toil and study and learn that this vast job of rockwork, so far-reaching in its influences, was done by agents so fragile and small as are these flowers of the mountain clouds. Strong only by force of numbers, they carried away entire mountains, par ticle by particle, block by block, and cast them into the sea; sculptured, fashioned, modeled all the range, and developed its predestined beauty. All these new Sierra landscapes were evidently predes tined, for the physical structure of the rocks on which the features of the scenery depend was ac quired while they lay at least a mile deep below the pre-glacial surface. And it was while these fea tures were taking form in the depths of the range, the particles of the rocks marching to their ap pointed places in the dark with reference to the com ing beauty, that the particles of icy vapor in the sky marching to the same music assembled to bring them to the light. Then, after their grand task was done, these bands of snow-flowers, these mighty glaciers, were melted and removed as if of no more importance than dew destined to last but an hour. Few, however, of Nature's agents have left monu ments so noble and enduring as they. The great granite domes a mile high, the canons as deep, the noble peaks, the Yosemite valleys, those, and indeed 18 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA nearly all other features of the Sierra scenery, are glacier monuments. Contemplating the works of these flowers of the sky, one may easily fancy them endowed with life : messengers sent down to work in the mountain mines on errands of divine love. Silently flying through the darkened air, swirling, glinting, to their appointed places, they seem to have taken counsel together, saying, " Come, we are feeble ; let us help one another. "We are many, and together we will be strong. Marching in close, deep ranks, let us roll away the stones from these mountain sepulchers, and set the landscapes free. Let us uncover these clustering domes. Here let us carve a lake basin ; there, a Yosemite Valley ; here, a channel for a river with fluted steps and brows for the plunge of song ful cataracts. Yonder let us spread broad sheets of soil, that man and beast may be fed; and here pile trains of boulders for pines and giant Sequoias. Here make ground for a meadow; there, for a garden and grove, making it smooth and fine for small daisies and violets and beds of heathy bryanthus, spicing it well with crystals, garnet feldspar, and zircon." Thus and so on it has oftentimes seemed to me sang and planned and labored the hearty snow-flower crusaders ; and nothing that I can write can possibly exaggerate the grandeur and beauty of their work. Like morning mist they have vanished in sunshine, all save the few small com panies that still linger on the coolest mountain sides, and, as residual glaciers, are still busily at work completing the last of the lake basins, the last beds of soil, and the sculpture of some of the highest peaks. CHAPTER II THE GLACIEKS OF the small residual glaciers mentioned in the preceding chapter, I have found sixty-five in that portion of the range lying between latitude 36° 30' and 39°. They occur singly or in small groups on the north sides of the peaks of the High Sierra, sheltered beneath broad frosty shadows, in amphitheaters of their own making, where the snow, shooting down from the surrounding heights in avalanches, is most abundant. Over two thirds of the entire number lie between latitude 37° and 38°, and form the highest fountains of the San Joaquin, Merced, Tuolumne, and Owen's rivers. The glaciers of Switzerland, like those of the Sierra, are mere wasting remnants of mighty ice- floods that once filled the great valleys and poured into the sea. So, also, are those of Norway, Asia, and South America. Even the grand continuous mantles of ice that still cover Greenland, Spitz- bergen, Nova Zembla, Franz-Joseph-Land, parts of Alaska, and the south polar region are shallowing and shrinking. Every glacier in the world is smaller than it once was. All the world is growing warmer, or the crop of snow-flowers is diminishing. But in contemplating the condition of the glaciers of the THE GLACIERS 21 world, we must bear in mind while trying to ac count for the changes going on that the same sun shine that wastes them builds them. Every glacier records the expenditure of an enormous amount of sun-heat in lifting the vapor for the snow of which it is made from the ocean to the mountains, as Tyndall strikingly shows. The number of glaciers in the Alps, according to the Schlagintweit brothers, is 1100, of which 100 may be regarded as primary, and the total area of ice, snow, and neve is estimated at 1177 square miles, or an average for each glacier of little more than one square mile. On the same authority, the average height above sea-level at which they melt is about 7414 feet. The Grindelwald glacier descends below 4000 feet, and one of the Mont Blanc glaciers reaches nearly as low a point. One of the largest of the Himalaya glaciers on the head waters of the Ganges does not, according to Captain Hodgson, descend below 12,914 feet. The largest of the Sierra glaciers on Mount Shasta descends to within 9500 feet of the level of the sea, which, as far as I have observed, is the lowest point reached by any glacier within the bounds of California, the average height of all being not far from 11,000 feet. The changes that have taken place in the glacial conditions of the Sierra from the time of greatest extension is well illustrated by the series of glaciers of every size and form extending along the moun tains of the coast to Alaska. A general explora tion of this instructive region shows that to the north of California, through Oregon and Washing ton, groups of active glaciers still exist on all the 22 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA high volcanic cones of the Cascade Range, — Mount Pitt, the Three Sisters, Mounts Jefferson, Hood, St. Helens, Adams, Rainier, Baker, and others, — some of them of considerable size, though none of them approach the sea. Of these mountains Rainier, in Washington, is the highest, and iciest. Its dome-like summit, between 14,000 and 15,000 feet high, is capped with ice, and eight glaciers, seven to twelve miles long, radiate from it as a center, and form the sources of the principal streams of the State. The lowest-descending of this fine group flows through beautiful forests to within 3500 feet of the sea-level, and sends forth a river laden with glacier mud and sand. On through British Columbia and southeastern Alaska the broad, sustained mountain- chain, extending along the coast, is generally glacier- bearing. The upper branches of nearly all the main canons and fiords are occupied by glaciers, which gradually increase in size, and descend lower until the high region between Mount Fairweather and Mount St. Elias is reached, where a considerable number discharge into the waters of the ocean. This is preeminently the ice-land of Alaska and of the entire Pacific Coast. Northward from here the glaciers gradually di minish in size and thickness, and melt at higher levels. In Prince William Sound and Cook's Inlet many fine glaciers are displayed, pouring from the surrounding mountains ; but to the north of latitude 62° few, if any, glaciers remain, the ground being mostly low and the snowfall light. Between lati tude 56° and 60° there are probably more than 5000 glaciers, not counting the smallest. Hundreds of THE GLACIEKS 23 the largest size descend through the forests to the level of the sea, or near it, though as far as my own observations have reached, after a pretty thorough examination of the region, not more than twenty-five discharge icebergs into the sea. All the long high- walled fiords into which these great glaciers of the first class flow are of course crowded with icebergs of every conceivable form, which are detached with thundering noise at intervals of a few minutes from an imposing ice-wall that is thrust forward into deep water. But these Pacific Coast icebergs are small as compared with those of Greenland and the Antarctic region, and only a few of them escape from the intricate system of chan nels, with which this portion of the coast is fringed, into the open sea. Nearly all of them are swashed and drifted by wind and tide back and forth in the fiords until finally melted by the ocean water, the sunshine, the warm winds, and the copious rains of summer. Only one glacier on the coast, observed by Prof. Russell, discharges its bergs directly into the open sea, at Icy Cape, opposite Mount St. Elias. The southernmost of the glaciers that reach the sea occupies a narrow, picturesque fiord about twenty miles to the northwest of the mouth of the Stikeen River, in latitude 56° 50'. The fiord is called by the natives "Hutli," or Thunder Bay, from the noise made by the discharge of the icebergs. About one degree farther north there are four of these complete glaciers, discharging at the heads of the long arms of Holkam Bay. At the head of the Tahkoo Inlet, still farther north, there is one ; and at the head and around the sides of Glacier Bay, 24 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA trending in a general northerly direction from Cross Sound in latitude 58° to 59°, there are seven of these complete glaciers pouring bergs into the bay and its branches, and keeping up an eternal thundering. The largest of this group, 4he Muir, has upward of 200 tributaries, and a width below the confluence of the main tributaries of about twenty-five miles. Between the west side of this icy bay and the ocean all the ground, high and low, excepting the peaks of the Fairweather Range, is covered with a mantle of ice from 1000 to probably 3000 feet thick, which discharges by many distinct mouths. This fragmentary ice-sheet, and the immense glaciers about Mount St. Elias, together with the multitude of separate river-like glaciers that load the slopes of the coast mountains, evidently once formed part of a continuous ice-sheet that flowed over all the region hereabouts, and only a compara tively short time ago extended as far southward as the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, prob ably farther. All the islands of the Alexander Archipelago, as well as the headlands and prom ontories of the mainland, display telling traces of this great mantle that are still fresh and unmistak able. They all have the forms of the greatest strength with reference to the action of a vast rigid press of oversweeping ice from the north and north west, and their surfaces have a smooth, rounded, overrubbed appearance, generally free from angles. The intricate labyrinth of canals, channels, straits, passages, sounds, narrows, etc., between the islands, and extending into the mainland, of course mani- 26 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOBNIA fest in their forms and trends and general char acteristics the same subordination to the grinding action of universal glaciation as to their origin, and differ from the islands and banks of the fiords only in being portions of the pre-glacial margin of the continent more deeply eroded, and therefore covered by the ocean waters which flowed into them as the ice was melted out of them. The formation and extension of fiords in this manner is still going on, and may be witnessed in many places in Glacier Bay, Yakutat Bay, and adjacent regions. That the domain of the sea is being extended over the land by the wearing away of its shores, is well known, but in these icy regions of Alaska, and even as far south as Vancouver Island, the coast rocks have been so short a time exposed to wave-action they are but little wasted as yet. In these regions the extension of the sea effected by its own action in post-glacial time is scarcely appreciable as compared with that effected by ice-action. Traces of the vanished glaciers made during the period of greater extension abound on the Sierra as far south as latitude 36°. Even the polished rock surfaces, the most evanescent of glacial rec ords, are still found in a wonderfully perfect state of preservation on the upper half of the middle portion of the range, and form the most striking of all the glacial phenomena. They occur in large irregular patches in the summit and middle regions, and though they have been subjected to the action of the weather with its corroding storms for thou sands of years, their mechanical excellence is such that they still reflect the sunbeams like glass, and THE GLACIERS 27 attract the attention of every observer. The at tention of the mountaineer is seldom arrested by moraines, however regular and high they may be, or by canons, however deep, or by rocks, however noble in form and sculpture; but he stoops and rubs his hands admiringly on the shining surfaces and tries hard to account for their mysterious smooth ness. He has seen the snow descending in ava lanches, but concludes this cannot be the work of snow, for he finds it where no avalanches occur. Nor can water have done it, for he sees this smooth ness glowing on the sides and tops of the highest domes. Only the winds of all the agents he knows seem capable of flowing in the directions indicated by the scoring. Indians, usually so little curious about geological phenomena, have come to me oc casionally and asked me, "What makeum the ground so smooth at Lake Tenaya ? " Even horses and dogs gaze wonderingly at the strange brightness of the ground, and smell the polished spaces and place their feet cautiously on them when they come to them for the first time, as if afraid of sinking. The most perfect of the polished pavements and walls lie at an elevation of from 7000 to 9000 feet above the sea, where the rock is compact silicious granite. Small dim patches may be found as low as 3000 feet on the driest and most enduring por tions of sheer walls with a southern exposure, and on compact swelling bosses partially protected from rain by a covering of large boulders. On the north half of the range the striated and polished surfaces are less common, not only because this part of the chain is lower, but because the surface rocks are 28 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOBNIA chiefly porous lavas subject to comparatively rapid waste. The ancient moraines also, though well preserved on most of the south half of the range, are nearly obliterated to the northward, but their material is found scattered and disintegrated. A similar blurred condition of the superficial rec ords of glacial action obtains throughout most of Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska, due in great part to the action of excessive mois ture. Even in southeastern Alaska, where the most extensive glaciers on the continent are, the more evanescent of the traces of their former greater ex tension, though comparatively recent, are more ob scure than those of the ancient California glaciers where the climate is drier and the rocks more re sisting. These general views of the glaciers of the Pacific Coast will enable my readers to see something of the changes that have taken place in California, and will throw light on the residual glaciers of the High Sierra. Prior to the autumn of 1871 the glaciers of the Sierra were unknown. In October of that year I discovered the Black Mountain Glacier in a shadowy amphitheater between Black and Eed Mountains, two of the peaks of the Merced group. This group is the highest portion of a spur that straggles out from the main axis of the range in the direction of Yosemite Valley. At the time of this interesting discovery I was exploring the neve am phitheaters of the group, and tracing the courses of the ancient glaciers that once poured from its ample fountains through the Illilouette Basin and the THE GLACIEKS 29 Yosemite Valley, not expecting to find any active glaciers so far south in the land of sunshine. Beginning on the northwestern extremity of the group, I explored the chief tributary basins in suc cession, their moraines, roches moutonnees, and splendid glacier pavements, taking them in regular succession without any reference to the time con sumed in their study. The monuments of the trib utary that poured its ice from between Eed and Black Mountains I found to be the most interest ing of them all ; and when I saw its magnificent mo raines extending in majestic curves from the spa cious amphitheater between the mountains, I was exhilarated with the work that lay before me. It was one of -the golden days of the Sierra Indian summer, when the rich sunshine glorifies every landscape however rocky and cold, and suggests anything rather than glaciers. The path of the vanished glacier was warm now, and shone in many places as if washed with silver. The tall pines growing on the moraines stood transfigured in the glowing light, the poplar groves on the levels of the basin were masses of orange-yellow, and the late- blooming goldenrods added gold to gold. Pushing on over my rosy glacial highway, I passed lake after lake set in solid basins of granite, and many a thicket and meadow watered by a stream that is sues from the amphitheater and links the lakes to gether; now wading through plushy bogs knee-deep in yellow and purple sphagnum ; now passing over bare rock. The main lateral moraines that bounded the view on either hand are from 100 to nearly 200 feet high, and about as regular as artificial em- 30 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOBNIA bankments, and covered with a superb growth of Silver Fir and Pine. But this garden and forest luxuriance was speedily left behind. The trees were dwarfed as I ascended; patches of the alpine bryanthus and cassiope began to appear, and arctic willows pressed into flat carpets by the winter snow. The lakelets, which a few miles down the valley were so richly embroidered with flowery meadows, had here, at an elevation of 10,000 feet, only small brown mats of carex, leaving bare rocks around more than half their shores. Yet amid this alpine suppression the Mountain Pine bravely tossed his storm-beaten branches on the ledges and buttresses of Eed Mountain, some specimens being over 100 feet high, and 24 feet in circumference, seemingly as fresh and vigorous as the giants of the lower zones. Evening came on just as I got fairly within the portal of the main amphitheater. It is about a mile wide, and a little less than two miles long. The crumbling spurs and battlements of Eed Mountain bound it on the north, the somber, rudely sculptured precipices of Black Mountain on the south, and a hacked, splintery col, curving around from moun tain to mountain, shuts it in on the east. I chose a camping-ground on the brink of one of the lakes where a thicket of Hemlock Spruce sheltered me from the night wind. Then, after mak ing a tin-cupful of tea, I sat by my camp-fire reflect ing on the grandeur and significance of the glacial records I had seen. As the night advanced the mighty rock walls of my mountain mansion seemed to come nearer, while the starry sky in glorious brightness stretched across like a ceiling from wall THE GLACIEKS 31 to wall, and fitted closely down into all the spiky ir regularities of the summits. Then, after a long fire side rest and a glance at my note-book, I cut a few leafy branches for a bed, and fell into the clear, death-like sleep of the tired mountaineer. Early next morning I set out to trace the grand old glacier that had done so much for the beauty of the Yosemite region back to its farthest foun tains, enjoying the charm that every explorer feels in Nature's untrodden wildernesses. The voices of the mountains were still asleep. The wind scarce stirred the pine-needles. The sun was up, but it was yet too cold for the birds and the few burrow ing animals that dwell here. Only the stream, cas cading from pool to pool, seemed to be wholly awake. Yet the spirit of the opening day called to action. The sunbeams came streaming gloriously through the jagged openings of the col, glancing on the burnished pavements and lighting the silvery lakes, while every sun-touched rock burned white on its edges like melting iron in a furnace. Passing round the north shore of my camp lake I followed the cen tral stream past many cascades from lakelet to lakelet. The scenery became more rigidly arctic, the Dwarf Pines and Hemlocks disappeared, and the stream was bordered with icicles. As the sun rose higher rocks were loosened on shattered portions of the cliffs, and came down in rattling avalanches, echoing wildly from crag to crag. The main lateral moraines that extend from the jaws of the amphitheater into the Illilouette Basin are continued in straggling masses along the walls of the amphitheater, while separate boulders, hun- 32 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA dreds of tons in weight, are left stranded here and there out in the middle of the channel. Here, also, I observed a series of small terminal moraines ranged along the south wall of the amphitheater, corresponding in size and form with the shadows cast by the highest portions. The meaning of this correspondence between moraines and shadows was afterward made plain. Tracing the stream back to the last of its chain of lakelets, I noticed a deposit of fine gray mud on the bottom except where the force of the entering current had prevented its set tling. It looked like the mud worn from a grind stone, and I at once suspected its glacial origin, for the stream that was carrying it came gurgling out of the base of a raw moraine that seemed in process of formation. Not a plant or weather-stain was visible on its rough, unsettled surface. It is from 60 to over 100 feet high, and plunges forward at an angle of 38°. Cautiously picking my way, I gained the top of the moraine and was delighted to see a small but well characterized glacier swooping down from the gloomy precipices of Black Moun tain in a finely graduated curve to the moraine on which I stood. The" compact ice appeared on all the lower portions of the glacier, though gray with dirt and stones embedded in it. Farther up the ice disappeared beneath coarse granulated snow. The surface of the glacier was further characterized by dirt bands and the outcropping edges of the blue veins, showing the laminated structure of the ice. The uppermost crevasse, or " bergschrund," where the neve was attached to the mountain, was from 12 to 14 feet wide, and was bridged in a few places THE GLACIERS 33 by the remains of snow avalanches. Creeping along the edge of the schrund, holding on with benumbed fingers, I discovered clear sections where the bedded structure was beautifully revealed. The surface snow, though sprinkled with stones shot down from the cliffs, was in some places almost pure, grad ually becoming crystalline and changing to whitish porous ice of different shades of color, and this again changing at a depth of 20 or 30 feet to blue ice, some of the ribbon-like bands of which were nearly pure, and blended with the paler bands in the most gradual and delicate manner imaginable. A series of rugged zigzags enabled me to make my way down into the weird under-world of the crevasse. Its chambered hollows were hung with a multitude of clustered icicles, amid which pale, subdued light pulsed and shimmered with indescribable loveliness. Water dripped and tinkled overhead, and from far below came strange, solemn murmur ings from cur rents that were feeling their way through veins and fissures in the dark. The chambers of a glacier are perfectly enchanting, notwithstanding one feels out of place in their frosty beauty. I was soon cold in my shirt-sleeves, and the leaning wall threatened to engulf me ; yet it was hard to leave the delicious music of the water and the lovely light. Coming again to the surface, I noticed boulders of every size on their journeys to the terminal moraine — journeys of more than a hundred years, without a single stop, night or day, winter or summer. The sun gave birth to a network of sweet- voiced rills that ran gracefully down the glacier, curling and swirling in their shining channels, and cut- 34 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA ting clear sections through the porous surface-ice into the solid blue, where the structure of the glacier was beautifully illustrated. The series of small terminal moraines which I had observed in the morning, along the south wall of the amphitheater, correspond in every way with the moraine of this glacier, and their distribution with reference to shadows was now understood. When the climatic changes came on that caused the melt ing and retreat of the main glacier that filled the amphitheater, a series of residual glaciers were left in the cliff shadows, under the protection of which they lingered, until they formed the moraines we are studying. Then, as the snow became still less abundant, all of them vanished in succession, except the one just described ; and the cause of its longer life is sufficiently apparent in the greater area of snow-basin it drains, and its more perfect protection from wasting sunshine. How much longer this little glacier will last depends, of course, on the amount of snow it receives from year to year, as compared with melting waste. After this discovery, I made excursions over all the High Sierra, pushing my explorations summer after summer, and discovered that what at first sight in the distance looked like extensive snow- fields, were in great part glaciers, busily at work completing the sculpture of the summit-peaks so grandly blocked out by their giant predecessors. On August 21, I set a series of stakes in the Maclure Glacier, near Mount Lyell, and found its rate of motion to be little more than an inch a day in the middle, showing a great contrast to the Muir THE GLACIERS 35 Glacier in Alaska, which, near the front, flows at a rate of from five to ten feet in twenty-four hours. Mount Shasta has three glaciers, but Mount Whitney, although it is the highest mountain in the range, does not now cherish a single glacier. Small patches of lasting snow and ice occur on its northern slopes, but they are shallow, and present no well marked evidence of glacial motion. Its sides, how ever, are scored and polished in many places by the action of its ancient glaciers that flowed east and west as tributaries of the great glaciers that once filled the valleys of the Kern and Owen's rivers. CHAPTER III THE SNOW THE first snow that whitens the Sierra, usually falls about the end of October or early in No vember, to a depth of a few inches, after months of the most charming Indian summer weather im aginable. But in a few days, this light covering mostly melts from the slopes exposed to the sun and causes but little apprehension on the part of mountaineers who may be lingering among the high peaks at this time. The first general winter storm that yields snow that is to form a lasting portion of the season's supply, seldom breaks on the mountains before the end of November. Then, warned by the sky, cautious mountaineers, together with the wild sheep, deer, and most of the birds and bears, make haste to the lowlands or foot-hills ; and burrowing marmots, mountain beavers, wood- rats, and such 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 first heavy fall is usually from about two to four feet in depth. Then, with inter vals of splendid sunshine, storm succeeds stornij heaping snow on snow, until thirty to fifty feet has fallen. But on account of its settling and compact- THE SNOW 37 ing, and the almost constant waste from melting and evaporation, the average depth actually found at any time seldom exceeds ten feet in the forest region, or fifteen feet along the slopes of the sum mit peaks. Even during the coldest weather evaporation never wholly ceases, and the sunshine that abounds between the storms is sufficiently powerful to melt the surface more or less through all the winter months. Waste from melting also goes on to some extent on the bottom from heat stored up in the rocks, and given off slowly to the snow in contact with them, as is shown by the rising of the streams on all the higher regions after the first snowfall, and their steady sustained flow all winter. The greater portion of the snow deposited around the lofty summits of the range falls in small crisp flakes and broken crystals, or, when accompanied by strong winds and low temperature, the crystals, instead of being locked together in their fall to form tufted flakes, are beaten and broken into meal and fine dust. But down in the forest region the greater portion comes gently to the ground, light and feathery, some of the flakes in mild weather being nearly an inch in diameter, and it is evenly distributed and kept from drifting to any great ex tent by the shelter afforded by the large trees. Every tree during the progress of gentle storms is loaded with fairy bloom at the coldest and darkest time of year, bending the branches, and hushing every singing needle. But as soon as the storm is over, and the sun shines, the snow at once begins to shift and settle and fall from the branches in 38 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA miniature avalanches, and the white forest soon be comes green again. The snow on the ground also settles and thaws every bright day, and freezes at night, until it becomes coarsely granulated, and loses every trace of its rayed crystalline structure, and then a man may walk firmly over its frozen surface as if on ice. The forest region up to an elevation of 7000 feet is usually in great part free from snow in June, but at this time the higher regions are still heavy-laden, and are not touched by spring weather to any considerable extent before the middle or end of July. One of the most striking effects of the snow on the mountains is the burial of the rivers and small lakes. As the gnaw fa's in the river A moment white, then lost forever, sang Burns, in illustrating the fleeting character of human pleasure. The first snowflakes that fall into the Sierra rivers vanish thus suddenly; but in great storms, when the temperature is low, the abundance of the snow at length chills the water nearly to the freezing-point, and then, of course, it ceases to melt and consume the snow so suddenly. The falling flakes and crystals form cloud-like masses of blue sludge, which are swept forward with the current and carried down to warmer cli mates many miles distant, while some are lodged against logs and rocks and projecting points of the banks, and last for days, piled high above the level of the water, and show white again, instead of being at once " lost forever," while the rivers themselves THE SNOW 39 are at length lost for months during the snowy period. The snow is first built out from the banks in bossy, over-curling drifts, compacting and ce menting until the streams are spanned. They then flow in the dark beneath a continuous covering across the snowy zone, which is about thirty miles wide. All the Sierra rivers and their tributaries in these high regions are thus lost every winter, as if another glacial period had come on. Not a drop of running water is to be seen excepting at a few points where large falls occur, though the rush and rumble of the heavier currents may still be heard. Toward spring, when the weather is warm during the day and frosty at night, repeated thawing and freezing and new layers of snow render the bridg ing-masses dense and firm, so that one may safely walk across the streams, or even lead a horse across them without danger of falling through. In June the thinnest parts of the winter ceiling, and those most exposed to sunshine, begin to give way, form ing dark, rugged-edged, pit-like sinks, at the bottom of which the rushing water may be seen. At the end of June only here and there may the moun taineer find a secure snow-bridge. The most last ing of the winter bridges, thawing from below as well as from above, because of warm currents of air passing through the tunnels, are strikingly arched and sculptured; and by the occasional freezing of the oozing, dripping water of the ceiling they be come brightly and picturesquely icy. In some of the reaches, where there is a free margin, we may walk through them. Small skylights appearing here and there, these tunnels are not very dark. The 40 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA roaring river fills all the arching way with impress ively loud reverberating music, which is sweetened at times by the ouzel, a bird that is not afraid to go wherever a stream may go, and to sing wherever a stream sings. All the small alpine pools and lakelets are in like manner obliterated from the winter landscapes, either by being first frozen and then covered by snow, or by being filled in by avalanches. The first avalanche of the season shot into a lake basin may perhaps find the surface frozen. Then there is a grand crashing of breaking ice and dashing of waves mingled with the low, deep booming of the ava lanche. Detached masses of the invading snow, mixed with fragments of ice, drift about in sludgy, island-like heaps, while the main body of it forms a talus with its base wholly or in part resting on the bottom of the basin, as controlled by its depth and the size of the avalanche. The next avalanche, of course, encroaches still farther, and so on with each in succession until the entire basin may be filled and its water sponged up or displaced. This huge mass of sludge, more or less mixed with sand, stones, and perhaps timber, is frozen to a consider able depth, and much sun-heat is required to thaw it. Some of these unfortunate lakelets are not clear of ice and snow until near the end of summer. Others are never quite free, opening only on the side opposite the entrance of the avalanches. Some show only a narrow crescent of water lying between the shore and sheer bluffs of icy compacted snow, masses of which breaking off float in front like ice bergs in a miniature Arctic Ocean, while the ava- THE SNOW 41 lanche heaps leaning back against the mountains look like small glaciers. The frontal cliffs are in some instances quite picturesque, and with the berg- dotted waters in front of them lighted with sun shine are exceedingly beautiful. It often happens that while one side of a lake basin is hopelessly snow-buried and frozen, the other, enjoying sun shine, is adorned with beautiful flower-gardens. Some of the smaller lakes are extinguished in an in stant by a heavy avalanche either of rocks or snow. The rolling, sliding, ponderous mass entering on one side sweeps across the bottom and up the op posite side, displacing the water and even scraping the basin clean, and shoving the accumulated rocks and sediments up the farther bank and taking full possession. The dislodged water is in part ab sorbed, but most of it is sent around the front of the avalanche and down the channel of the outlet, roaring and hurrying as if frightened and glad to escape. SNOW-BANNERS THE most magnificent storm phenomenon I ever saw, surpassing in showy grandeur the most im posing effects of clouds, floods, or avalanches, was the peaks of the High Sierra, back of Yosemite. Valley, decorated with snow-banners. Many of the starry snow-flowers, out of which these banners are made, fall before they are ripe, while most of those that do attain perfect development as six-rayed crystals glint and chafe against one another in their fall through the frosty air, and are broken into 42 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA fragments. This dry fragmentary snow is still further prepared for the formation of banners by the action of the wind. For, instead of finding rest at once, like the snow which falls into the tranquil depths of the forests, it is rolled over and over, beaten against rock-ridges, and swirled in pits and hollows, like boulders, pebbles, and sand in the pot-holes of a river, until finally the delicate angles of the crystals are worn off, and the whole mass is reduced to dust. And whenever storm- winds find this prepared snow-dust in a loose condition on ex posed slopes, where there is a free upward sweep to leeward, it is tossed back into the sky, and borne onward from peak to peak in the form of banners or cloudy drifts, according to the velocity of the wind and the conformation of the slopes up or around which it is driven. While thus flying through the air, a small portion makes good its es cape, and remains in the sky as vapor. But far the greater part, after being driven into the sky again and again, is at length locked fast in bossy drifts, or in the wombs of glaciers, some of it to remain silent and rigid for centuries before it is finally melted and sent singing down the mountain sides to the sea. Yet, notwithstanding the abundance of winter snow-dust in the mountains, and the frequency of high winds, and the length of time the dust remains loose and exposed to their action, the occurrence of well-formed banners is, for causes we shall here after note, comparatively rare. I have seen only one display of this kind that seemed in every way perfect. This was in the winter of 1873, when the THE SNOW 43 snow-laden summits were swept by a wild " norther." I happened at the time to be wintering in Yosernite Valley, that sublime Sierra temple where every day one may see the grandest sights. Yet even here the wild gala-day of the north wind seemed sur passingly glorious. I was awakened in the morn ing by the rocking of my cabin and the beating of pine-burs on the roof. Detached torrents and ava lanches from the main wind-flood overhead were rushing wildly down the narrow side canons, and over the precipitous walls, with loud resounding roar, rousing the pines to enthusiastic action, and making the whole valley vibrate as though it were an instrument being played. But afar on the lofty exposed peaks of the range standing so high in the sky, the storm was express ing itself in still grander characters, which I was soon to see in all their glory. I had long been anxious to study some points in the structure of the ice-cone that is formed every winter at the foot of the upper Yosemite fall, but the blinding spray by which it is invested had hitherto prevented me from making a sufficiently near approach. This morning the entire body of the fall was torn into gauzy shreds, and blown horizontally along the face of the cliff, leaving the cone dry; and while making my way to the top of an overlooking ledge to seize so favorable an opportunity to examine the interior of the cone, the peaks of the Merced group came in sight over the shoulder of the South Dome, each waving a resplendent banner against the blue sky, as regular in form, and as firm in texture, as if woven of fine silk. So rare and splendid a phenom- 44 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA enon, of course, overbore all other considerations, and I at once let the ice-cone go, and began to force my way out of the valley to some dome or ridge sufficiently lofty to command a general view of the main summits, feeling assured that I should find them bannered still more gloriously ; nor was I in the least disappointed. Indian Canon, through which I climbed, was choked with snow that had been shot down in avalanches from the high cliffs on either side, rendering the ascent difficult; but inspired by the roaring storm, the tedious wallow ing brought no fatigue, and in four hours I gained the top of a ridge above the valley, 8000 feet high. And there in bold relief, like a clear painting, ap peared a most imposing scene. Innumerable peaks, black and sharp, rose grandly into the dark blue sky, their bases set in solid white, their sides streaked and splashed with snow, like ocean rocks with foam ; and from every summit, all free and unconfused, was streaming a beautiful silky silvery banner, from half a mile to a mile in length, slender at the point of attachment, then widening gradually as it extended from the peak until it was about 1000 or 1500 feet in breadth, as near as I could estimate. The cluster of peaks called the " Crown of the Sierra," at the head of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers, — Mounts Dana, Gibbs, Conness, Lyell, Maclure, Hitter, with their nameless compeers, — each had its own refulgent banner, waving with a clearly visible motion in the sunglow, and there was not a single cloud in the sky to mar their simple grandeur. Fancy yourself standing on this Yosem- ite ridge looking eastward. You notice a strange THE SNOW 45 garish glitter in the air. The gale drives wildly overhead with a fierce, tempestuous roar, but its violence is not felt, for you are looking through a sheltered opening in the woods as through a win dow. There, in the immediate foreground of your picture, rises a majestic forest of Silver Fir bloom ing in eternal freshness, the foliage yellow-green, and the snow beneath the trees strewn with their beautiful plumes, plucked off by the wind. Beyond, and extending over all the middle ground, are somber swaths of pine, interrupted by huge swell ing ridges and domes; and just beyond the dark forest you see the monarchs of the High Sierra waving their magnificent banners. They are twenty miles away, but you would not wish them nearer, for every feature is distinct, and the whole glorious show is seen in its right proportions. After this general view, mark how sharply the dark snowless ribs and buttresses and summits of the peaks are defined, excepting the portions veiled by the ban ners, and how delicately their sides are streaked with snow, where it has come to rest in narrow flutings and gorges. Mark, too, how grandly the banners wave as the wind is deflected against their sides, and how trimly each is attached to the very summit of its peak, like a streamer at a masthead ; how smooth and silky they are in texture, and how finely their fading fringes are penciled on the azure sky. See how dense and opaque they are at the point of attachment, and how filmy and translucent toward the end, so that the peaks back of them are seen dimly, as though you were looking through ground glass. Yet again observe how some of the 46 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA longest, belonging to the loftiest summits, stream perfectly free all the way across intervening notches and passes from peak to peak, while others overlap and partly hide each other. And consider how keenly every particle of this wondrous cloth of snow is flashing out jets of light. These are the main features of the beautiful and terrible picture as seen from the forest window ; and it would still be surpassingly glorious were the fore- and middle- grounds obliterated altogether, leaving only the black peaks, the white banners, and the blue sky. Glancing now in a general way at the formation of snow-banners, we find that the main causes of the wondrous beauty and perfection of those we have been contemplating were the favorable direc tion and great force of the wind, the abundance of snow-dust, and the peculiar conformation of the slopes of the peaks. It is essential not only that the wind should move with great velocity and steadiness to supply a sufficiently copious and con tinuous stream of snow-dust, but that it should come from the north. No perfect banner is ever hung on the Sierra peaks by a south wind. Had the gale that day blown from the south, leaving other conditions unchanged, only a dull, confused, fog-like drift would have been produced; for the snow, instead of being spouted up over the tops of the peaks in concentrated currents to be drawn out as streamers, would have been shed off around the sides, and piled down into the glacier wombs. The cause of the concentrated action of the north wind is found in the peculiar form of the north sides of the peaks, where the amphitheaters of the THE SNOW 47 residual glaciers are. In general the south sides are convex and irregular, while the north sides are con cave both in their vertical and horizontal sections; the wind in ascending these curves converges to ward the summits, carrying the snow in concentrat ing currents with it, shooting it almost straight up into the air above the peaks, from which it is then carried away in a horizontal direction. This difference in form between the north and south sides of the peaks was almost wholly pro duced by the difference in the kind and quantity of the glaciation to which they have been sub jected, the north sides having been hollowed by residual shadow-glaciers of a form that never existed on the sun-beaten sides. It appears, therefore, that shadows in great part determine not only the forms of lofty icy moun tains, but also those of the snow-banners that the wild winds hang on them. CHAPTER IV A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIEEKA EARLY one bright morning in the middle of Indian summer, while the glacier meadows were still crisp with frost crystals, I set out from the foot of Mount Lyell, on my way down to Yosemite Valley, to replenish my exhausted store of bread and tea. I had spent the past summer, as many preceding ones, exploring the glaciers that lie on the head waters of the San Joaquin, Tuolumne, Merced, and Owen's rivers; measuring and study ing their movements, trends, crevasses, moraines, etc., and the part they had played during the period of their greater extension in the creation and de velopment of the landscapes of this alpine wonder land. The time for this kind of work was nearly over for the year, and I began to look forward with delight to the approaching winter with its wondrous storms, when I would be warmly snow-bound in my Yosemite cabin with plenty of bread and books; but a tinge of regret came on when I considered that possibly I might not see this favorite region again until the next summer, excepting distant views from the heights about the Yosemite walls. To artists, few portions of the High Sierra are, strictly speaking, picturesque. The whole massive A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIERRA 49 uplift of the range is one great picture, not clearly divisible into smaller ones ; differing much in this respect from the older, and what may be called, riper mountains of the Coast Eange. All the landscapes of the Sierra, as we have seen, were born again, re modeled from base to summit by the developing ice- floods of the last glacial winter. But all these new landscapes were not brought forth simultaneously ; some of the highest, where the ice lingered longest, are tens of centuries younger than those of the warmer regions below them. In general, the younger the mountain-landscapes, — -younger, I mean, with reference to the time of their emergence from the ice of the glacial period, — the less sepa rable are they into artistic bits capable of being made into warm, sympathetic, lovable pictures with appreciable humanity in them. Here, however, on the head waters of the Tuol- umne, is a group of wild peaks on which the geol ogist may say that the sun has but just begun to shine, which is yet in a high degree picturesque, and in its main features so regular and evenly balanced as almost to appear conventional — one somber cluster of snow-laden peaks with gray pine- fringed granite bosses braided around its base, the whole surging free into the sky from the head of a magnificent valley, whose lofty walls are beveled away on both sides so as to embrace it all without admitting anything not strictly belonging to it. The foreground was now aflame with autumn col ors, brown and purple and gold, ripe in the mellow sunshine ; contrasting brightly with the deep, cobalt blue of the sky, and the black and gray, and pure, 50 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA spiritual white of the rocks and glaciers. Down through the midst, the young Tuolumne was seen pouring from its crystal fountains, now resting in glassy pools as if changing back again into ice, now leaping in white cascades as if turning to snow; gliding right and left between granite bosses, then sweeping on through the smooth, meadowy levels of the valley, swaying pensively from side to side with calm, stately gestures past dipping willows and sedges, and around groves of arrowy pine; and throughout its whole eventful course, whether flow ing fast or slow, singing loud or low, ever filling the landscape with spiritual animation, and manifesting the grandeur of its sources in every movement and tone. Pursuing my lonely way down the valley, I turned again and again to gaze on the glorious picture, throwing up my arms to inclose it as in a frame. After long ages of growth" in the darkness beneath the glaciers, through sunshine and storms, it seemed now to be ready and waiting for the elected artist, like yellow wheat for the reaper; and I could not help wishing that I might carry colors and brushes with me on my travels, and learn to paint. In the mean time I had to be content with photographs on my mind and sketches in my note-books. At length, after I had rounded a precipitous headland that puts out from the west wall of the valley, every peak vanished from sight, and I pushed rapidly along the frozen meadows, over the divide between the waters of the Merced and Tuolumne, and down through the forests that clothe the slopes of Cloud's Eest, arriving in Yosemite in due time — which, A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIERRA 51 with me, is any time. And, strange to say, among the first people I met here were two artists who, with letters of introduction, were awaiting my re turn. They inquired whether in the course of my explorations in the adjacent mountains I had ever come upon a landscape suitable for a large paint ing; whereupon I began a description of the one that had so lately excited my admiration. Then, as I went on further and further into details, their faces began to glow, and I offered to guide them to it, while they declared that they would gladly follow, far or near, whithersoever I could spare the time to lead them. Since storms might come breaking down through the fine weather at any time, burying the colors in snow, and cutting off the artists' retreat, I advised getting ready at once. I led them out of the valley by the Vernal and Nevada Falls, thence over the main dividing ridge to the Big Tuolumne Meadows, by the old Mono trail, and thence along the upper Tuolumne River to its head. This was my companions' first excur sion into the High Sierra, and as I was almost al ways alone in my mountaineering, the way that the fresh beauty was reflected in their faces made for me a novel and interesting study. They naturally were affected most of all by the colors — the in tense azure of the sky, the purplish grays of the granite, the red and browns of dry meadows, and the translucent purple and crimson of huckleberry bogs; the flaming yellow of aspen groves, the silvery flashing of the streams, and the bright green and blue of the glacier lakes. But the general expres- 52 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA sion of the scenery — rocky and savage — seemed sadly disappointing ; and as they threaded the for est from ridge to ridge, eagerly scanning the land scapes as they were unfolded, they said: "All this is huge and sublime, but we see nothing as yet at all available for effective pictures. Art is long, and art is limited, you know ; and here are fore grounds, middle-grounds, backgrounds, all alike; bare rock-waves, woods, groves, diminutive flecks of meadow, and strips .of glittering water." " Never mind," I replied, "only bide a wee, and I will show you something you will like." At length, toward the end of the second day, the Sierra Crown began to come into view, and when we had fairly rounded the projecting headland before mentioned, the whole picture stood revealed in the flush of the alpenglow. Their enthusiasm was ex cited beyond bounds, and the more impulsive of the two, a young Scotchman, dashed ahead, shout ing and gesticulating and tossing his arms in the air like a madman. Here, at last, was a typical alpine landscape. After feasting awhile on the view, I proceeded to make camp in a sheltered grove a little way back from the meadow, where pine-boughs could be ob tained for beds, and where there was plenty of dry wood for fires, while the artists ran here and there, along the river-bends and up the sides of the canon, choosing foregrounds for sketches. After dark, when our tea was made and a rousing fire had been built, we began to make our plans. They decided to remain several days, at the least, while I con- A NEAK VIEW OF THE HIGH SIEEBA 53 eluded to make an excursion in the mean time to the untouched summit of Ritter. It was now about the middle of October, the springtime of snow- flowers. The first winter-clouds had already bloomed, and the peaks were strewn with fresh crystals, without, however, affecting the climbing to any dangerous extent. And as the weather was still profoundly calm, and the distance to the foot of the mountain only a little more than a day, I felt that I was running no great risk of being storm-bound. Mount Ritter is king of the mountains of the middle portion of the High Sierra, as Shasta of the north and Whitney of the south sections. More over, as far as I know, it had never been climbed. I had explored the adjacent wilderness summer after summer, but my studies thus far had never drawn me to the top of it. Its height above sea-level is about 13,300 feet, and it is fenced round by steeply inclined glaciers, and canons of tremendous depth and ruggedness, which render it almost inaccessi ble. But difficulties of this kind only exhilarate the mountaineer. Next morning, the artists went heartily to their work and I to mine. Former experiences had given good reason to know that passionate storms, invisi ble as yet, might be brooding in the calm sun- gold ; therefore, before bidding farewell, I warned the artists not to be alarmed should I fail to appear before a week or ten days, and advised them, in case a snow-storm should set in, to keep up big fires and shelter themselves as best they could, and 54 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA on no account to become frightened and attempt to seek their way back to Yosemite alone through the drifts. My general plan was simply this: to scale the canon wall, cross over to the eastern flank of the range, and then make my way southward to the northern spurs of Mount Eitter in compliance with the intervening topography ; for to push on directly southward from camp through the innumerable peaks and pinnacles that adorn this portion of the axis of the range, however interesting, would take too much time, besides being extremely difficult and dangerous at this time of year. All my first day was pure pleasure; simply mountaineering indulgence, crossing the dry path ways of the ancient glaciers, tracing happy streams, and learning the habits of the birds and marmots in the groves and rocks. Before I had gone a mile from camp, I came to the foot of a white cascade that beats its way down a rugged gorge in the canon wall, from a height of about nine hundred feet, and pours its throbbing waters into the Tuol- umne. I was acquainted with its fountains, which, fortunately, lay in my course. What a fine travel ing companion it proved to be, what songs it sang, and how passionately it told the mountain's own joy! Gladly I climbed along its dashing border, absorbing its divine music, and bathing from time to time in waftings of irised spray. Climbing higher, higher, new beauty came streaming on the sight: painted meadows, late-blooming gardens, peaks of rare architecture, lakes here and there, shining like silver, and glimpses of the forested A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIERRA 55 middle region and the yellow lowlands far in the west. Beyond the range I saw the so-called Mono Desert, lying dreamily silent in thick purple light — a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite. Here the waters divide, shouting in glorious enthusiasm, and falling east ward to vanish in the volcanic sands and dry sky of the Great Basin, or westward to the Great Val ley of California, and thence through the Bay of San Francisco and the Golden Gate to the sea. Passing a little way down over the summit until I had reached an elevation of about 10,000 feet, I pushed on southward toward a group of savage peaks that stand guard about Bitter on the north and west, groping my way, and dealing instinctively with every obstacle as it presented itself. Here a huge gorge would be found cutting across my path, along the dizzy edge of which I scrambled until some less precipitous point was discovered where I might safely venture to the bottom and then, se lecting some feasible portion of the opposite wall, reascend with the same slow caution. Massive, flat-topped spurs alternate with the gorges, plunging abruptly from the shoulders of the snowy peaks, and planting their feet in the warm desert. These were everywhere marked and adorned with charac teristic sculptures of the ancient glaciers that swept over this entire region like one vast ice- wind, and the polished surfaces produced by the ponderous flood are still so perfectly preserved that in many places the sunlight reflected from them is about as trying to the eyes as sheets of snow. God's glacial-mills grind slowly, but they have 56 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA been kept in motion long enough in California to grind sufficient soil for a glorious abundance of life, though most of the grist has been carried to the lowlands, leaving these high regions comparatively lean and bare; while the post-glacial agents of erosion have not yet furnished sufficient available food over the general surface for more than a few tufts of the hardiest plants, chiefly carices and eri- ogona?. And it is interesting to learn in this con nection that the sparseness and repressed character of the vegetation at this height is caused more by want of soil than by harshness of climate ; for, here and there, in sheltered hollows (countersunk beneath the general surface) into which a few rods of well- ground moraine chips have been dumped, we find groves of spruce and pine thirty to forty feet high, trimmed around the edges with willow and huckle berry bushes, and oftentimes still further by an outer ring of tall grasses, bright with lupines, lark spurs, and showy columbines, suggesting a climate by no means repressingly severe. All the streams, too, and the pools at this elevation are furnished with little gardens wherever soil can be made to lie, which, though making scarce any show at a dis tance, constitute charming surprises to the appreci ative observer. In these bits of leanness a few birds find grateful homes. Having no acquaintance with man, they fear no ill, and flock curiously about the stranger, almost allowing themselves to be taken in the hand. In so wild and so beautiful a region was spent my first day, every sight and sound inspiring, leading one far out of himself, yet feeding and building up his individuality. A NEAK VIEW OF THE HIGH SIEKKA , 57 Now came the solemn, silent evening. Long, blue, spiky shadows crept out across the snow-fields, while a rosy glow, at first scarce discernible, gradu ally deepened and suffused every mountain-top, flushing the glaciers and the harsh crags above them. This was the alpenglow, to me one of the most im pressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed and waiting like devout wor shipers. Just before the alpenglow began to fade, two crimson clouds came streaming across the sum mit like wings of flame, rendering the sublime scene yet more impressive ; then came darkness and the stars. Icy Bitter was still miles away, but I could pro ceed no farther that night. I found a good camp ground on the rim of a glacier basin about 11,000 feet above the sea. A small lake nestles in the bottom of it, from which I got water for my tea, and a stormbeaten thicket near by furnished abundance of resiny fire-wood. Somber peaks, hacked and shattered, circled half-way around the horizon, wearing a savage aspect in the gloaming, and a waterfall chanted solemnly across the lake on its way down from the foot of a glacier. The fall and the lake and the glacier were almost equally bare ; while the scraggy pines anchored in the rock- fissures were so dwarfed and shorn by storm- winds that you might walk over their tops. In tone and aspect the scene was one of the most desolate I ever beheld. But the darkest scriptures of the moun tains are illumined with bright passages of love 58 , THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA that never fail to make themselves felt when one is alone. I made my bed in a nook of the pine-thicket, where the branches were pressed and crinkled over head like a roof, and bent down around the sides. These are the best bedchambers the high moun tains afford — snug as squirrel-nests, well ventilated, full of spicy odors, and with plenty of wind-played needles to sing one asleep. I little expected com pany, but, creeping in through a low side-door, I found five or six birds nestling among the tassels. The night- wind began to blow soon after dark ; at first only a gentle breathing, but increasing toward midnight to a rough gale that fell upon my leafy roof in ragged surges like a cascade, bearing wild sounds from the crags overhead. The waterfall sang in chorus, filling the old ice-fountain with its solemn roar, and seeming to increase in power as the night advanced — fit voice for such a landscape. I had to creep out many times to the fire during the night, for it was biting cold and I had no blankets. Gladly I welcomed the morning star. The dawn in the dry, wavering air of the desert was glorious. Everything encouraged my under taking and betokened success. There was no cloud in the sky, no storm-tone in the wind. Breakfast of bread and tea was soon made. I fastened a hard, durable crust to my belt by way of provision, in case I should be compelled to pass a night on the moun tain-top ; then, securing the remainder of my little stock against wolves and wood-rats, I set forth free and hopeful. How glorious a greeting the sun gives the moun- A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIERRA 59 tains ! To behold this alone is worth the pains of any excursion a thousand times over. The highest peaks burned like islands in a sea of liquid shade. Then the lower peaks and spires caught the glow, and long lances of light, streaming through many a notch and pass, fell thick on the frozen meadows. The majestic form of Ritter was full in sight, and I pushed rapidly on over rounded rock-bosses and pavements, my iron-shod shoes making a clanking sound, suddenly hushed now and then in rugs of bryanthus, and sedgy lake-margins soft as moss. Here, too, in this so-called " land of desolation," I met cassiope, growing in fringes among the bat tered rocks. Her blossoms had faded long ago, but they were still clinging with happy memories to the evergreen sprays, and still so beautiful as to thrill every fiber of one's being. "Winter and summer, you may hear her voice, the low, sweet melody of her purple bells. No evangel among all the mountain plants speaks Nature's love more plainly than cassiope. Where she dwells, the redemption of the coldest solitude is complete. The very rocks and glaciers seem to feel her presence, and become im bued with her own fountain sweetness. All things were warming and awakening. Frozen rills began to flow, the marmots came out of their nests in boulder-piles and climbed sunny rocks to bask, and the dun-headed sparrows were flitting about seek ing their breakfasts. The lakes seen from every ridge-top were brilliantly rippled and spangled, shimmering like the thickets of the low Dwarf Pines. The rocks, too, seemed responsive to the vital heat — rock-crystals and snow-crystals thrill- 60 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA ing alike. I strode on exhilarated, as if never more to feel fatigue, limbs moving of themselves, every sense unfolding like the thawing flowers, to take part in the new day harmony. All along my course thus far, excepting when down in the canons, the landscapes were mostly open to me, and expansive, at least on one side. On the left were the purple plains of Mono, repos ing dreamily and warm; on the right, the near peaks springing keenly into the thin sky with more and more impressive sublimity. But these larger views were at length lost. Bugged spurs, and moraines, and huge, projecting buttresses began to shut me in. Every feature became more rigidly alpine, without, however, producing any chilling effect; for going to the mountains is like going home. We always find that the strangest objects in these fountain wilds are in some degree familiar, and we look upon them with a vague sense of having seen them before. On the southern shore of a frozen lake, I en countered an extensive field of hard, granular snow, up which I scampered in fine tone, intend ing to follow it to its head, and cross the rocky spur against which it leans, hoping thus to come direct upon the base of the main Bitter peak. The surface was pitted with oval hollows, made by stones and drifted pine-needles that had melted themselves into the mass by the radiation of ab sorbed sun-heat. These afforded good footholds, but the surface curved more and more steeply at the head, and the pits became shallower and less abundant, until I found myself in danger of being A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIEBBA 61 shed off like avalanching snow. I persisted, how ever, creeping on all fours, and shuffling up the smoothest places on my back, as I had often done on burnished granite, until, after slipping several times, I was compelled to retrace my course to the bottom, and make my way around the west end of the lake, and thence up to the summit of the divide between the head waters of Eush Creek and the northernmost tributaries of the San Joaquin. Arriving on the summit of this dividing crest, one of the most exciting pieces of pure wilderness was disclosed that I ever discovered in all my mountaineering. There, immediately in front, loomed the majestic mass of Mount Eitter, with a glacier swooping down its face nearly to my feet, then curving westward and pouring its frozen flood into a dark blue lake, whose shores were bound with precipices of crystalline snow; while a deep chasm drawn between the divide and the glacier separated the massive picture from everything else. I could see only the one sublime mountain, the one glacier, the one lake ; the whole veiled with one blue shadow— -rock, ice, and water close together without a single leaf or sign of life. After gazing spellbound, I began instinctively to scrutinize every notch and gorge and weathered buttress of the mountain, with reference to making the ascent. The entire front above the glacier appeared as one tremendous precipice, slightly receding at the top, and bristling with spires and pinnacles set above one another in formidable array. Massive lichen- stained battlements stood forward here and there, 62 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA hacked at the top with angular notches, and sepa rated by frosty gullies and recesses that have been veiled in shadow ever since their creation; while to right and left, as far as I could see, were huge, crumbling buttresses, offering no hope to the climber. The head of the glacier sends up a few finger-like branches through narrow couloirs; but these seemed too steep and short to be available, especially as I had no ax with which to cut steps, and the numerous narrow-throated gullies down which stones and snow are avalanched seemed hope lessly steep, besides being interrupted by vertical cliffs ; while the whole front was rendered still more terribly forbidding by the chill shadow and the gloomy blackness of the rocks. Descending the divide in a hesitating mood, I picked my way across the yawning chasm at the foot, and climbed out upon the glacier. There were no meadows now to cheer with their brave colors, nor could I hear the dun-headed sparrows, whose cheery notes so often relieve the silence of our highest mountains. The only sounds were the gurgling of small rills down in the veins and cre vasses of the glacier, and now and then the rattling report of falling stones, with the echoes they shot out into the crisp air0 I could not distinctly hope to reach the summit from this side, yet I moved on across the glacier as if driven by fate. Contending with myself, the season is too far spent, I said, and even should I be successful, I might be storm-bound on the moun tain ; and in the cloud-darkness, with the cliffs and crevasses covered with snow, how could I escape ? A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIERRA 63 No; I must wait till next summer. I would only approach the mountain now, and inspect it, creep about its flanks, learn what I could of its history, holding myself ready to flee on the approach of the first storm-cloud. But we little know until tried how much of the uncontrollable there is in us, urg ing across glaciers and torrents, and up dangerous heights, let the judgment forbid as it may. I succeeded in gaining the foot of the cliff on the eastern extremity of the glacier, and there dis covered the mouth of a narrow avalanche gully, through which I began to climb, intending to follow it as far as possible, and at least obtain some fine wild views for my pains. Its general course is oblique to the plane of the mountain-face, and the metamorphic slates of which the mountain is built are cut by cleavage planes in such a way that they weather off in angular blocks, giving rise to irregu lar steps that greatly facilitate climbing on the sheer places. I thus made my way into a wilder ness of crumbling spires and battlements, built to gether in bewildering combinations, and glazed in many places with a thin coating of ice, which I had to hammer off with stones. The situation was becoming gradually more perilous; but, having passed several dangerous spots, I dared not think of descending ; for, so steep was the entire ascent, one would inevitably fall to the glacier in case a single misstep were made. Knowing, therefore, the tried danger beneath, I became all the more anxious concerning the developments to be made above, and began to be conscious of a vague foreboding of what actually befell; not that I was given to fear, 64 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA but rather because my instincts, usually so posi tive and true, seemed vitiated in some way, and were leading me astray. At length, after attaining an elevation of about 12,800 feet, I found myself at the foot of a sheer drop in the bed of the avalanche channel I was tracing, which seemed absolutely to bar further progress. It was only about forty-five or fifty feet high, and somewhat roughened by fissures and projections; but these seemed so slight and insecure, as footholds, that I tried hard to avoid the precipice altogether, by scaling the wall of the channel on either side. But, though less steep, the walls were smoother than the obstructing rock, and repeated efforts only showed that I must either go right ahead or turn back. The tried dangers be neath seemed even greater than that of the cliff in front ; therefore, after scanning its face again and again, I began to scale it, picking my holds with intense caution. After gaining a point about half way to the top, I was suddenly brought to a dead stop, with arms outspread, clinging close to the face of the rock, unable to move hand or foot either up or down. My doom appeared fixed. I must fall. There would be a moment of bewilderment, and then a lifeless rumble down the one general pre cipice to the glacier below. When this final danger flashed upon me, I became nerve-shaken for the first time since setting foot on the mountains, and my mind seemed to fill with a stifling smoke. But this terrible eclipse lasted only a moment, when life blazed forth again with pre ternatural clearness. I seemed suddenly to become possessed of a new sense. The other self, bygone A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIERRA 65 experiences, Instinct, or Guardian Angel, — call it what you will, — came forward and assumed control. Then my trembling muscles became firm again, every rift and flaw in the rock was seen as through a microscope, and my limbs moved with a posi- tiveness and precision with which I seemed to have nothing at all to do. Had I been borne aloft upon wings, my deliverance could not have been more complete. Above this memorable spot, the face of the mountain is still more savagely hacked and torn. It is a maze of yawning chasms and gullies, in the angles of which rise beetling crags and piles of detached boulders that seem to have been gotten ready to be launched below. But the strange in flux of strength I had received seemed inexhaus tible. I found a way without effort, and soon stood upon the topmost crag in the blessed light. How truly glorious the landscape circled around this noble summit ! — giant mountains, valleys in numerable, glaciers and meadows, rivers and lakes, with the wide blue sky bent tenderly over them all. But in my first hour of freedom from that terrible shadow, the sunlight in which I was laving seemed all in all. Looking southward along the axis of the range, the eye is first caught by a row of exceedingly sharp and slender spires, which rise openly to a height of about a thousand feet, above a series of short, residual glaciers that lean back against their bases ; their fantastic sculpture and the unrelieved sharpness with which they spring out of the ice rendering them peculiarly wild and striking. These 66 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA are " The Minarets." Beyond them you behold a sublime wilderness of mountains, their snowy sum mits towering together in crowded abundance, peak beyond peak, swelling higher, higher as they sweep on southward, until the culminating point of the range is reached on Mount Whitney, near the head of the Kern Eiver, at an elevation of nearly 14,700 feet above the level of the sea. Westward, the general flank of the range is seen flowing sublimely away from the sharp summits, in smooth undulations; a sea of huge gray granite waves dotted with lakes and meadows, and fluted with stupendous canons that grow steadily deeper as they recede in the distance. Below this gray region lies the dark forest zone, broken here and there by upswelling ridges and domes; and yet beyond lies a yellow, hazy belt, marking the broad plain of the San Joaquin, bounded on its farther side by the blue mountains of the coast. Turning now to the northward, there in the im mediate foreground is the glorious Sierra Crown, with Cathedral Peak, a temple of marvelous archi tecture, a few degrees to the left of it ; the gray, massive form of Mammoth Mountain to the right ; while Mounts Ord, Gibbs, Dana, Conness, Tower Peak, Castle Peak, Silver Mountain, and a host of noble companions, as yet nameless, make a sub lime show along the axis of the range. Eastward, the whole region seems a land of deso lation covered with beautiful light. The torrid volcanic basin of Mono, with its one bare lake fourteen miles long ; Owen's Valley and the broad lava table-land at its head, dotted with craters, and M :¥7&£f *VN$ ^— » I ^& 5 i -^5>«sJ *J-r.i "'(^t* ^~X -;>-^-^.^ >.-/ >^>^- JJi -w^-^Vf* ^^- kV- xT(* X ** V2vC ^'.A'* • £/