 CHAPTER IV A PARALYST NIGHT ON SHASTA'S SUMIT Toward the end of summer, after a light, open winter, one may reach the summit of Mount Shasta without passing over much snow, by keeping on the crest of a long, narrow ridge, mostly bare, that extends from near the campground at the Timberline. But on my first excursion to the summit, the whole mountain, down to its low-swelling base, was smoothly laden with loose, fresh snow, presenting a most glorious mass of winter mountain scenery, in the midst of which I scrambled and reveled, or lay snugly snowbound, enjoying the fertile clouds and the snow bloom and all their growing, drifting grandeur. I had walked from Redding, sauntering leisurely from station to station, along the old Oregon stage road, the better to see the rocks and plants, birds and people, by the way tracing the rushing Sacramento to its fountains around icy Shasta. The first rains had fallen on the lowlands, and the first snows on the mountains, and everything was fresh embracing, while an abundance of balmy sunshine filled all the noonday hours. It was the calm afterglow that usually succeeds the first storm of the winter. I met many of the birds that had reared their young and spent their summer in the Shasta Woods in Chaparral. They were then on their way south to their winter homes, leading their young full-fledged and about as large and strong as the parents. Squirrels, dry and elastic after the storms, were busy about their stores of pine nuts, and the latest goldenrods were still in bloom, though it was now past the middle of October. The grand color glow, the autumnal jubilee of ripe leaves, was past prime, but freshened by the rain was still making a fine show along the banks of the river and in the ravines and the dels of the smaller streams. At the salmon-hatching establishment on the McLeod River, I halted a week to examine the limestone belt grandly developed there, to learn what I could of the inhabitants of the river and its banks, and to give time for the fresh snow that I knew had fallen on the mountain to settle somewhat, with a view to making the ascent. A pedestrian on these mountain roads, especially so late in the year, is sure to excite curiosity, and many worthy interrogations concerning my ramble. When I said that I was simply taking a walk and that icy Shasta was my mark, I was invariably admonished that I had come on a dangerous quest. The time was far too late, the snow was too loose and deep to climb, and I should be lost in drifts and slides. When I hinted that new snow was beautiful and storms not so bad as they were called, my advisors shook their heads in token of superior knowledge and declared the ascent of Shasta Butte through loose snow impossible. Nevertheless, before noon of the second of November, I was in the frosty azure of the utmost summit. When I arrived at Sissons, everything was quiet. The last of the summer visitors had flitted long before, and the deer and bears also were beginning to seek their winter homes. My barometer and the sighing winds and filmy, half-transparent clouds that dimmed the sunshine gave notice of the approach of another storm, and I was in haste to be off and get myself established somewhere in the midst of it, whether the summit was to be attained or not. Sissons, who was a mountaineer, speedily fitted me out for storm or calm as only a mountaineer could, with warm blankets and a week's provisions so generous and quantity and kind that they easily might have been made to last a month in case of my being closely snowbound. Well I knew the weariness of snow climbing and the frosts and the dangers of mountaineering so late in the year, therefore I could not ask a guide to go with me, even had one been willing. All I wanted was to have blankets and provisions deposited as far up in the timber as the snow would permit a pack animal to go. There I could build a storm nest and lie warm and make raids up and around the mountain in accordance with the weather. Setting out on the afternoon of November 1st with Jerome Fay, mountaineer and guide in charge of the animals, I was soon plodding wearily up through the muffled winter woods, the snow of course growing steadily deeper and looser, so that we had to break a trail. The animals began to get discouraged, and after night and darkness came on they became entangled in a bed of rough lava where, breaking through four or five feet of mealy snow, their feet were caught between angular boulders. Here they were in danger of being lost, but after we had removed packs and saddles and assisted their efforts with ropes they all escaped to the side of a ridge about a thousand feet below the timber line. To go farther was out of the question, so we were compelled to camp as best we could. A pitch pine fire speedily changed the temperature and shed a blaze of light on the wild lava slope and the straggling storm-bent pines around us. Melted snow answered for coffee, and we had plenty of venison to roast. Toward midnight I rolled myself in my blankets, slept an hour and a half, arose and ate more venison, tied two days provisions to my belt and set out for the summit, hoping to reach it ere the coming storm should fall. Jerome accompanied me a little distance above camp and indicated the way as well as he could in the darkness. He seemed loath to leave me, but, being reassured that I was at home and required no care, he bade me good-bye and returned to camp, ready to lead his animals down the mountain at daybreak. After I was above the dwarf pines it was fine practice pushing up the unbroken slopes of snow, alone in the solemn silence of the night. Half the sky was clouded. In the other half the stars sparkled icily in the keen frosty air, while everywhere the glorious wealth of snow fell away from the summit of the cone in flowing folds, more extensive and continuous than any I had ever seen before. When day dawned the clouds were crawling slowly and becoming more massive, but gave no intimation of immediate danger, and I pushed on faithfully, though holding myself well in hand, ready to return to the timber. For it was easy to see that the storm was not far off. The mountain rises ten thousand feet above the general level of the country in blank exposure to the deep upper currents of the sky, and no labyrinth of peaks and canyons I had ever been in seemed to me so dangerous as these immense slopes bear against the sky. The frost was intense and drifting snow dust made breathing at times rather difficult. The snow was as dry as meal and the finer particles drifted freely rising high in the air, while the larger portions of the crystals rolled like sand. I frequently sank to my armpits between buried blocks of loose lava, but generally only to my knees. When tired with walking I still wallowed slowly upward on all fours. The steepness of the slope, thirty-five degrees in some places, made any kind of progress fatiguing, while small avalanches were being constantly set in motion in the steepest places. But the bracing air and the sublime beauty of the snowy expanse thrilled every nerve and made absolute exhaustion impossible. I seemed to be walking and wallowing in a cloud, but holding steadily onward by half past ten o'clock I had gained the highest summit. I held my commanding foothold in the sky for two hours, gazing on the glorious landscape's spread map-like around the immense horizon and tracing the outlines of the ancient lava streams extending far into the surrounding plains and the pathways of vanished glaciers of which Shasta had been the center. But as I had left my coat in camp for the sake of having my limbs free and climbing I soon was cold. The wind increased in violence, raising the snow and magnificent drifts that were drawn out in the form of wavering banners blowing in the sun. Toward the end of my stay a succession of small clouds struck against the summit rocks like drifting icebergs, darkening the air as they passed and producing a chill as definite and sudden as if ice-water had been dashed in my face. This is the kind of cloud in which snow-flowers grow and I turned and fled. Finding that I was not closely pursued I ventured to take time on the way down for a visit to the head of the Whitney Glacier in the Crater Butte. After I had reached the end of the main summit ridge the descent was little more than one continuous, soft, mealy muffled slide, most luxurious and rapid, though the hissing, swishing speed attained was obscured in great part by flying snow dust, a marked contrast to the boring, seal-wallowing upward struggle. I reached camp about an hour before dusk, hollowed a strip of loose ground in the lee of a large block of red lava where firewood was abundant, rolled myself in my blankets and went to sleep. Next morning, having slept little the night before the ascent and being weary with climbing after the excitement was over, I slept late. Then awaking suddenly my eyes opened on one of the most beautiful and sublime scenes I ever enjoyed. A boundless wilderness of storm-clouds, of different degrees of ripeness recongregated all over the lower landscape for thousands of square miles, colored gray and purple and pearl and deep glowing white, amid which I seemed to be floating, while the great white cone of the mountain above was all aglow in the free blazing sunshine. It seemed not so much of an ocean as a land of clouds, undulating hill and dale, smooth purple plains and silvery mountains of cumuli, range over range, diversified with peak and dome and hollow, fully brought out in light and shade. I gazed enchanted, but cold gray masses drifting like dust on a windswept plain began to shut out the light. Forerunners of the coming storm I had been so anxiously waiting for them. I made haste to gather as much wood as possible, snugging it as shelter around my bed. The storm side of my blankets was fastened down with stakes to reduce as much as possible the sifting in of drift and the danger of being blown away. The precious bread sack was placed safely as a pillow and when at length the first flakes fell I was exultingly ready to welcome them. Most of my firewood was more than half of them and would blaze in the face of the fiercest drifting. The winds could not demolish my bed and my bread could be made to last indefinitely. While in case of need I had the means of making snowshoes and could retreat or hold my ground as I pleased. Presently the storm broke forth into full snowy bloom and the thronging crystals darkened the air. The windswept past and hissing floods, grinding the snow into meal and sweeping down into the hollows in enormous drifts all the heavier particles while the finer dust was sifted through the sky increasing the icy gloom. But my fire glowed bravely as if in glad defiance of the drift to quench it and not with standing but little trace of my nest could be seen after the snow had leveled and buried it. I was snug and warm and the passionate uproar produced a glad excitement. Day after day the storm continued piling snow on snow in wearless abundance. There were short periods of quiet when the sun would seem to look eagerly down through the rents in the clouds as if to know how the work was advancing. During these calm intervals I replenished my fire, sometimes without leaving the nest, for fire and woodpile were so near this could easily be done. Or busied myself with my notebook, watching the gestures of the trees in taking the snow, examining separate crystals under a lens and learning the methods of their deposition as an enduring fountain for the streams. Several times when the storm ceased for a few minutes a Douglas squirrel came frisking from the foot of a clump of dwarf pines, moving in sudden interrupted spurts over the bossy snow. Then without any apparent guidance he would dig rapidly into the drift where were buried some grains of barley that the horses had left. The Douglas squirrel does not strictly belong to these upper woods, and I was surprised to see him out in such weather. The mountain sheep also, quite a large flock of them, came to my camp and took shelter beside a clump of matted dwarf pines, a little above my nest. The storm lasted about a week, but before it was ended Sisson became alarmed and sent up the guide with animals to see what had become of me and recover the camp outfit. The news spread that there was a man on the mountain, and he must surely have perished, and Sisson was blamed for allowing anyone to attempt climbing in such weather. While I was as safe as anybody in the lowlands, lying like a squirrel in a warm fluffy nest, busyed about my own affairs, and wishing only to be let alone. Later, however, a trail could not have been broken for a horse, and some of the camp furniture would have had to be abandoned. On the fifth day I returned to Sisson's, and from that comfortable base made excursions as the weather permitted, to the Black Butte, to the foot of the Whitney Glacier, around the base of the mountain, to Rhett and Klamath Lakes, to the Modak region and elsewhere, developing many interesting scenes and experiences. But the next spring, on the other side of this eventful winter, I saw and felt still more of the Shasta snow. For then it was my fortune to get into the very heart of the storm and to be held in it for a long time. On the 28th of April, 1875, I led a party up the mountain for the purpose of making a survey of the summit, with reference to the location of the Geodetic Monument. On the 30th, accompanied by Jerome Thay, I made another ascent to make some barometrical observations, the day intervening between the two ascent being devoted to establishing a camp on the extreme edge of the Timberline. Here on our red trachyde bed, we obtained two hours of shallow sleep, broken for occasional glimpses of the keen, starry night. At two o'clock we rose, breakfasted on a warmed tin cupful of coffee and a piece of frozen venison broiled on the coals, and started for the summit. Up to this time there was nothing in sight that betokened the approach of the storm, but on gaining the summit, we saw toward Lassen's Butte hundreds of square miles of white cumuli boiling dreamily in the sunshine far beneath us and causing no alarm. The slight weariness of the ascent was soon rested away, and our glorious morning in the sky promised nothing but enjoyment. At nine a.m. the dry thermometer stood at thirty-four degrees in the shade and rose steadily until at one p.m. it stood at fifty degrees, probably influenced somewhat by radiation from the sun-warmed cliffs. A common bumblebee, not at all benumbed, zigzagged vigorously about our heads for a few moments, as if unconscious of the fact that the nearest honey-flower was a mile beneath him. In the meantime clouds were growing down in Shasta Valley, massive, swelling cumuli, displaying delicious tones of purple and gray in the hollows of their sun-beaten bosses. Extending gradually southward around on both sides of Shasta, these at length united with the older field towards Lassen's Butte, thus encircling Mount Shasta in one continuous cloud zone. Rhett and Klamath Lakes were eclipsed beneath clouds scarcely less brilliant than their own silvery desks. The Modak lava beds, many a snow-laden peak far north in Oregon, the Scott and Trinity and Siskiyou mountains, the peaks of the Sierra, the blue coast range, Shasta Valley, the dark forests filling the valley of the Sacramento, all in turn were obscured or buried, leaving the lofty cone on which we stood solitary in the sunshine between two skies, a sky of spotless blue above, a sky of glittering cloud beneath. The creative sun shone glorious on the vast expanse of cloudland, hill and dale, mountain and valley springing into existence responsive to his rays and steadily developing in beauty and individuality. One huge mountain cone of cloud corresponding to Mount Shasta in these newborn cloud ranges rose close alongside with a visible motion, its firm polished bosses seeming so near and substantial that we almost fancied that we might leap down upon them from where we stood and make our way to the lowlands. No hint was given by anything in their appearance of the fleeting character of these most sublime and beautiful cloud mountains. On the contrary, they impressed one as being lasting additions to the landscape. The weather of the springtime and summer throughout the Sierra in general is usually varied by slight local rains and dustings of snow, most of which are obviously far too joyous and life-giving to be regarded as storms, single clouds growing in the sunny sky, ripening in an hour, showering the heated landscape and passing away like a thought, leaving no visible bodily remains to stay in the sky. Snowstorms of the same gentle kind abound among the high peaks, but in spring they not unfrequently attain larger proportions, assuming a violence and energy of expression scarcely surpassed by those bred in the depths of winter. Such was the storm now gathering about us. It began to declare itself shortly afternoon, suggesting to us the idea of at once seeking our safe camp in the timber and abandoning the purpose of making an observation of the barometer at 3 p.m. to having already been made at 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. while simultaneous observations were made at Strawberry Valley. Jerome peered at short intervals over the ridge, contemplating the rising clouds with anxious gestures in the rough wind, and at length declare that if we did not make a speedy escape we should be compelled to pass the rest of the day and night on the summit. But anxiety to complete my observations stifled my own instinctive promptings to retreat and held me to my work. No inexperienced person was depending on me, and I told Jerome that we too mountaineers should be able to make our way down through any storm likely to fall. Presently, thin, fibrous films of cloud began to blow directly over the summit from north to south, drawn out in long fairy webs like carded wool, forming and dissolving as if by magic. The wind twisted them into ringlets and whirled them in a succession of graceful convolutions like the outside sprays of Yosemite Falls in flood time. Then sailing out into the thin azure over the precipitous brink of the ridge, they were drifted together like wreaths of foam on a river. These higher and finer cloud fabrics were evidently produced by the chilling of the air from its own expansion caused by the upward deflection of the wind against the slopes of the mountain. They steadily increased on the north rim of the summit, forming at length a quick, opaque, ill-defined embankment from the icy meshes of which snow-flowers began to fall, alternating with hail. The sky speedily darkened and just as I had completed my last observation and boxed my instruments ready for the descent, the storm began in serious earnest. At first the cliffs were beaten with hail. Every stone of which, as far as I could see, was regular in form, with rounded base, rich and sumptuous looking, and fashioned with loving care, yet seemingly thrown away on those desolate crags down which they went rolling, falling, sliding in a network of curious streams. After we had forced our way down the ridge and passed the group of hissing fumaroles, the storm became inconceivably violent. The thermometer fell twenty-two degrees in a few minutes and soon dropped below zero. The hail gave place to snow and darkness came on like night. The wind, rising to the highest pitch of violence, boomed and surged amid the desolate crags. Lightning flashes and quick succession cut the gloomy darkness and the thunders, the most tremendously loud and appalling I ever heard, made an almost continuous roar, stroke following stroke in quick, passionate succession, as though the mountain were being rent to its foundations and the fires of the old volcano were breaking forth again. Could we at once have begun to descend the snow slopes leading to the timber, we might have made good our escape, however dark and wild the storm. As it was, we had first to make our way along a dangerous ridge, nearly a mile and a half long, flanked in many places by steep ice slopes at the head of the Whitney Glacier on one side and by shattered precipices on the other. Apprehensive of this coming darkness, I had taken the precaution when the storm began to make the most dangerous points clear to my mind and to mark their relations with reference to the direction of the wind. When therefore the darkness came on and the bewildering drift, I felt confident that we could force our way through it with no other guidance. After passing the hot springs I halted in the lee of a lava block to let Jerome, who had fallen a little behind, come up. Here he opened a council in which, under circumstances sufficiently exciting, but without evincing any bewilderment, he maintained in opposition to my views that it was impossible to proceed. He firmly refused to make the venture to find the camp, while I, aware of the dangers that would necessarily attend our efforts and conscious of being the cause of his present peril, decided not to leave him. Our discussions ended. Jerome made a dash from the shelter of the lava block again forcing his way back against the wind to the hot springs, wavering and struggling to resist being carried away as if he were fording a rapid stream. After waiting and watching in vain for some flaw in the storm that might be urged as a new argument in favor of attempting the descent, I was compelled to follow. Here, said Jerome, as we shivered in the midst of the hissing, sputtering fumaroles, we shall be safe from frost. Yes, said I. We can lie in this mud and steam and sludge, warm at least on one side. But how can we protect our lungs from the acid gasses? And how, after our clothing is saturated, shall we be able to reach camp without freezing even after the storm is over? We shall have to wait for sunshine and when will it come? The tempered area to which we had committed ourselves extended over about one-fourth of an acre, but it was only about an eighth of an inch in thickness, for the clouds were shorn off close to the ground by the over-sweeping flood of frosty wind, and how lavishly the snow fell only mountaineers may know. The crisp crystal flowers seemed to touch one another and fairly to thicken the tremendous blast that carried them. This was the bloom time, the summer of the cloud, and never before have I seen even a mountain cloud flowering so profusely. When the bloom of the Shasta Chaparral is falling, the ground is sometimes covered for hundreds of square miles to a depth of half an inch, but the bloom of this fertile snow cloud grew and matured and fell to a depth of two feet in a few hours. Some crystals landed with their rays almost perfect, but most of them were worn and broken by striking against one another or by rolling on the ground. The touch of these snow flowers in calm weather is infinitely gentle, glinting, swaying, settling silently in the dry mountain air, or masked in flakes soft and downy. To lie out alone in the mountains of a still night and be touched by the first of these small silent messengers from the sky is a memorable experience and the finest of that touch none will forget. But the storm blast laden with crisp sharp snow seems to crush and bruise and stupefy with its multitude of stings and compels the bravest to turn and flee. The snow fell without abatement until an hour or two after what seemed to be the natural darkness of the night. Up to the time the storm first broke on the summit its development was remarkably gentle. There was a deliberate growth of clouds, a weaving of translucent tissue above, then the roar of the wind and the thunder and the darkening flight of snow. Its subsidence was not less sudden. The clouds broke and vanished, not a crystal was left in the sky and the stars shone out with pure and tranquil radiance. During the storm we lay on our backs so as to present as little surface as possible to the wind and to let the drift pass over us. The mealy snow sifted into the folds of our clothing and in many places reached the skin. We were glad at first to see the snow packing about us hoping it would deaden the force of the wind but it soon froze into a stiff crusty heap as the temperature fell, rather augmenting our novel misery. When the heat became unendurable on some spot where steam was escaping through the sludge we tried to stop it with snow and mud or shifted a little at a time by shoving with our heels for to stand in blank exposure to the fearful wind in our frozen and broiled condition seemed certain death. The accurate incrustations sublimed from the vaping gases frequently gave way opening new vents to scald us and fearing that if at any time the wind should fall carbonic acid which often formed a considerable portion of the gaseous exhalations of volcanoes might collect in sufficient quantities to cause sleep and death. I warned Jerome against forgetting himself for a single moment even should his sufferings admit of such a thing. Accordingly when during the long dreary watches of the night we roused from a state of half-consciousness we called each other by name in a frightened startled way each fearing the other might be benumbed or dead. The ordinary sensations of cold give but a faint conception of that which comes on after hard climbing with want of food and sleep and such exposure as this. Life is then seen to be a fire that now smolders now brightens and may be easily quenched. The weary hours wore away like dim half-forgotten years so long and eventful they seemed, though we did nothing but suffer. Still the pain was not always of that bitter, intense kind that precludes thought and takes away all capacity for enjoyment. A sort of dreamy stupor came on at times in which we fancied we saw dry, resinous logs suitable for campfires just as after going days without food men fancy they see bread. Frozen, blistered, famished, benumbed, our bodies seemed lost to us at times all dead but the eyes. For the duller and fainter we became the clearer was our vision though only in momentary glimpses. Then after the sky cleared we gazed at the stars blessed immortals of light shining with marvelous brightness with long, lance rays near looking and new looking as if never seen before. Again they would look familiar and remind us of star-gazing at home. Oftentimes imagination coming into play would present charming pictures of the warm zone below mingled with others near and far. Then the bitter wind and the drift would break the blissful vision and dreary pains cover us like clouds. Are you suffering much? Jerome would inquire with pitiful faintness. Yes, I would say striving to keep my voice brave frozen and burned but never mind, Jerome, the night will wear away at last and tomorrow we go amaying and what campfires we will make and what sunbaths we will take. The frost grew more and more intense and we became icy and covered over with a crust of frozen snow as if we had lain cast away in the drift of all winter. In about thirteen hours every hour like a year day began to dawn but it was long air the summit's rocks were touched by the sun. No clouds were visible from where we lay yet the morning was dull and blue and bitterly frosty and hour after hour passed by while we eagerly watched the pale light stealing down the ridge to the hollow where we lay but there was not a trace of that warm, flushing, sunrise splendor we so long had hoped for. As the time drew near to make an effort to reach camp we became concerned to know what strength was left us and whether or not we could walk for we had lain flat all this time without once rising to our feet. Mountaineers however always find in themselves a reserve of power after great exhaustion. It is a kind of second life available only in emergencies like this and having proved its existence I had no great fear that either of us would fail though one of my arms was already numbed and hung powerless. At length, after the temperature was somewhat mitigated on this memorable first of May we arose and began to struggle homeward. Our frozen trousers could scarcely be made to bend at the knee and we waited the snow with difficulty. The summit ridge was fortunately wind swept and nearly bare so we were not compelled to lift our feet high and on reaching the long homeslopes laden with loose snow we made rapid progress sliding and shuffling and pitching headlong our feebleness accelerating rather than diminishing our speed. When we had descended some three thousand feet the sunshine warmed our backs and we began to revive. At ten a.m. we reached the timber and were safe. Half an hour later we heard syssen shouting down among the furs coming with horses to take us to the hotel. After breaking a trail through the snow as far as possible he had tied his animals and walked up. We had been so long without food that we cared a little about eating but we eagerly drank the coffee he prepared for us. Our feet were frozen and thawing them was painful and had to be done very slowly by keeping them buried in soft snow for several hours which avoided permanent damage. Five thousand feet below the summit we found only three inches of new snow and at the base of the mountain only a slight shower of rain had fallen showing how local our storm had been notwithstanding its terrific fury. Our feet were wrapped in sacking and we were soon mounted and on our way down into the thick sunshine God's country as syssen calls the chaparral zone in two hours ride the last snowbank was left behind violets appeared along the edges of the trail and the chaparral was coming into bloom with young lilies and lark's birds about the open places in rich profusion how beautiful seemed the golden sunbeams streaming through the woods between the warm brown bowls of the cedars and pines all my friends among the birds and plants seemed like old friends and we felt like speaking to every one of them as we passed as if we had been a long time away in some far strange country in the afternoon we reached strawberry valley and fell asleep next morning we seemed to have risen from the dead my bedroom was flooded with sunshine and from the window I saw the great white chasticone clad in forests and clouds and bearing them loftily in the sky everything seemed full and radiant with the freshness and beauty and enthusiasm of youth syssen's children came in with flowers and covered my bed and the storm on the mountaintop of the stream End of Chapter Recording by Michelle Montano Chapter 5 of Steep Trails This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Brian Von Dedenroth Steep Trails by John Muir Chapter 5 Shasta Rambles and Modoc Memories Arctic beauty and desolation with their blessings and dangers all may be found here to test the endurance and skill of adventurous climbers but far better than climbing the mountain is going around its warm fertile base enjoying its bounties like a bee circling around a bank of flowers The distance is about 100 miles and will take some of the time we hear so much about but the benefits will compensate for any number of weeks Perhaps the profession of doing good may be full but everybody should be kind at least to himself Take a course of good water and air and in the eternal youth of nature you may renew your own Go quietly alone No harm will befall you Some have strange morbid fears as soon as they find themselves with nature even in the kindest and wildest of her solitudes like very sick children afraid of their mother as if God were dead and the devil were king One may make the trip on horseback or in a carriage even for a good level road may be found all the way round by Shasta Valley, Sheeprock Elk Flat, Huckleberry Valley Squaw Valley following for a considerable portion the old emigrant road which lies along the east disk of the mountain and is deeply worn by the wagons of the early gold seekers many of whom chose this northern route as perhaps being safer and easier the pass here being only about 6000 feet above sea level but it is far better to go a foot then you are free to make wide waverings and zigzags away from the roads to visit the mountain streams of the rivers the glaciers also and the wildest retreats in the primeval forests where the best plants and animals dwell and where many a flower bell will ring against your knees and friendly trees will reach out their fronded branches and touch you as you pass one blanket will be enough to carry or you may forgo the pleasure and burden altogether as wood for fires is everywhere abundant food will be required berries and plums abound in season and quail and grouse and deer the magnificent shaggy mule deer as well as the common species as you sweep around so grand a center the mountain itself seems to turn displaying its riches like the revolving pyramids and jeweler's windows one glacier after another comes into view and the outlines of the mountain are ever changing though all the way around from whatever point of view the form is maintained of a grand simple cone with a gently sloping base and rugged crumbling ridges separating the glaciers and the snow fields more or less completely the play of colors from the first touches of the morning sun on the summit down the snow fields in the ice and lava until the forests are aglow is a never ending delight the rosy lava and the fine flushings of the snow being ineffably lovely thus one saunters on and on in the glorious radiance in utter peace and forgetfulness of time yet strange to say there are days even here somewhat dull looking when the mountain seems uncommunicative sending out no appreciable invitation as if not at home at such time its height seems much less as if crouching and weary it were taking rest but Shasta is always at home to those who love her and is ever in a thrill of enthusiastic activity burning fires within grinding glaciers without and fountains ever flowing every crystal dances responsive to the touches of the sun and the currents of sap and the growing cells of all the vegetation are ever in a vital whirl and rush and though many feet and wings are folded how many are a stir and the wandering winds how busy they are and what a breath of sound and motion they make glinting and bubbling about the crags of the summit sifting through the woods feeling their way from grove to grove ruffling the loose hair on the shoulders of the bears fanning and rocking young birds and their cradles of every corolla and carrying their fragrance around the world in unsettled weather when storms are growing the mountain looms immensely higher and its miles of height become apparent to all especially in the gloom of gathering clouds or when the storm is done and they are rolling away torn on the edges and melting while in the sunshine slight rainstorms are likely to be encountered in a trip around the mountain but one may easily find shelter beneath well-fetched trees that shed the rain like a roof then the shining of the wet leaves is delightful and the steamy fragrance and the burst of birdsong from a multitude of thrushes and finches and warblers that have nests in the chaparral the nights too are delightful watching with Shasta beneath the great starry dome and voices are heard but so finely blended they seem a part of the night itself and make a deeper silence and how grandly do the great logs and branches of your campfire give forth the heat and light that during their long century lives they have so slowly gathered from the sun storing it away in beautiful dotted cells and beads of amber gum the neighboring trees look into the charmed circle as if the noon of another day had come familiar flowers and grasses that chance to be near seem far more beautiful and impressive than by day and as the dead trees give forth their light all the other riches of their lives seem to be set free and with the rejoicing flames rise again to the sky and setting out from Stratbury valley by bearing off to the northwestward a few miles you may see beneath dim aisles in odorous beds the slight linea hang its twin-born heads and bless the monument of the man of flowers which breathes his sweet fame through the northern bowers this is one of the few places in California where the charming linea is found though it is common to the northward through Oregon and Washington here too you may find the curious but unlovable a carnivorous plant that devours bumblebees grasshoppers, ants, moths and other insects with insatiable appetite in approaching it its suspicious looking yellow-spotted hood and watchful attitude will be likely to make you go cautiously through the bog where it stands as if you were approaching a dangerous snake it also occurs in a bog near southern station on the stage road by first sight and in other similar bogs throughout the mountains hereabouts the big spring of the Sacramento is about a mile and a half above Sissons issuing from the base of the drift-covered hill it is lined with emerald algae and mosses and shaded with alder willow and thorn bushes which give it a fine setting its waters, apparently unaffected by flood or drought heat or cold fall at once into white rapids with a rush and dash as if glad to escape from their darkness to begin their wild course down the canyon to the plain Mir's Peak, a few miles to the north of the spring, rises about 3,000 feet above the plain on which it stands and is easily climbed the view is very fine and well repays the slight walk to its summit from which much of your way about the mountain is studied and chosen the view obtained of the Whitney Glacier should tempt you to visit it since it is the largest of the Shasta glaciers and its lower portion abounds in beautiful and interesting cascades and crevices it is 3 or 4 miles long and terminates at an elevation of about 9,500 feet above sea level in moraine sprinkled ice cliffs 60 feet high the long grey slopes leading up to the glacier seem remarkably smooth and unbroken they are much interrupted nevertheless with abrupt jagged precipitous gorges which though offering instructive sections of the lavas for examination would better be shunned by most people this may be done by keeping well down on the base until fronting the glacier before beginning the ascent the gorge through which the glacier is drained is raw looking deep and narrow and indescribably jagged the walls in many places overhang in others they are beveled loose and shifting where the channel has been eroded by cinders, ashes strata of firm lavas and glacial drift telling of many a change from frost to fire and their attendant floods of mud and water most of the drainage of the glacier vanishes at once in the porous rocks to appear in springs in the distant valley and it is only in time of flood that the channel carries much water then there are several fine falls in the gorge 600 feet or more in height snow lies in it the year round at an elevation of 8500 feet and in sheltered spots 1000 feet lower tracing this wild changing channel in the gully or canyon the sections will show Mount Shasta as a huge palimpsest containing the records layer upon layer of strangely contrasted events in it's fiery icy history but look well to your footing for the way will test the skill of the most cautious mountaineers regaining the low ground at the base of the mountain and holding on in your grand orbit you pass through a belt of juniper woods called the cedars to sheeprog at the foot of the Shasta pass here you strike the old immigrant road which leads over the low divide to the eastern slopes of the mountain in a north north westerly direction from the foot of the pass you may chance to find Pluto's cave already mentioned but it is not easily found since it's several mouths are on level with the general surface of the ground and have been made simply by the falling in of portions of the roof far the most beautiful and richly furnished of the mountain caves of California occur in a thick belt of metamorphic limestone that is pretty generally developed along the western flank of the Sierra from the McLeod river to the Cuea a distance of nearly 400 miles these volcanic caves are not wanting an interest and it is well to light a pitch pine torch and take a walk in these dark ways of the underworld whenever opportunity offers if for no other reason to see with new appreciation on returning to the sunshine the beauties that lie so thick about us Sheep Rock is about 20 miles from Sissons and is one of the principal winter pasture grounds of the Wild Sheep from which it takes its name it is a massive lava presenting to the grey sage plain of Shasta Valley a bold craggy front 2,000 feet high its summit lies at an elevation of 5,500 feet above the sea and as several square miles of comparatively level surface where bunch grass grows and the snow does not lie deep thus allowing the hardy sheep to pick up a living through the winter months when deep snows have driven them down from the lofty ridges of Shasta from here it might be well to leave the immediate base of the mountain for a few days and visit the lava beds made famous by the Modoc War they lie about 40 miles to the northeastward on the south shore of the Rhett or Tule Lake at an elevation above sea level of about 4,500 feet they are a portion of a flow of dense black vesicular lava dipping northeastward at a low angle but little changed as yet by the weather and about as destitute of soil as a glacial pavement the surface though smooth in a general way as seen from a distance is dotted with hillocks and rough crater-like pits and diverse by a network of yawning fishers forming a combination of topographical conditions of very striking character the way lies by Mount Bremer over structures of grey sage plains interrupted by rough lava slopes timbered with juniper and yellow pine and with here and there a green meadow in a stream this is a famous game region and you will be likely to meet small bands of antelope, mule deer and wild sheep Mount Bremer is the most noted stronghold of the sheep in the whole Shasta region large flocks dwell here from year to year winter and summer descending occasionally into the adjacent sage plains and lava beds to feed but ever ready to take refuge in the jagged crags of their mountain and every alarm while traveling with a company of hunters I saw about 50 in one flock the Van Bremer brothers after whom the mountain is named told me that they once climbed the mountain with their rifles and hounds on a grand hunt but after keeping up the pursuit for a week their boots and clothing gave way and the hounds were lame and worn out without having run down a single sheep not withstanding they ran night and day on smooth spots level or ascending the hounds gained on the sheep but on descending ground and over rough masses of angular rocks they fell hopelessly behind only half a dozen sheep were shot as they passed the hunter station near their paths circling round the rugged summit the full grown bucks weigh nearly 350 pounds the mule deer are nearly as heavy their long massive ears give them a very striking appearance one large buck that I measured stood 3 feet and 7 inches high at the shoulders and when the ears were extended horizontally the distance across from tip to tip was 2 feet and 1 inch from the Van Bremer ranch the way to the lava beds leads down the Bremer meadows past many a smooth grassy knoll and jutting cliff along the shore of the lower Klamath lake and then succross a few miles of sage plain to the brow of the wall like bluff of lava 450 feet above tuli lake here you are looking south eastward and the modak landscape which at once takes possession of you lies revealed in front it is composed of 3 principal parts on your left lies the bright expanse of tuli lake on your right an evergreen forest and in between the two are the black lava beds when I first stood there one bright day before sundown the lake was fairly blooming in purple light and was so responsive to the sky in both calmness and color it seemed itself a sky no mountain shore hides its loveliness it lies wide open for many a mile veiled in no mystery but the mystery of light the forest also was flooded with sun purple not a spire moving and Mount Shasta was seen towering above it rejoicing in the ineffable beauty of the open glow but neither the glorified woods on the one hand nor the lake on the other could it first hold the eye that dark mysterious lava plain between them compelled attention here you trace yawning fissures there are clusters of somber pits now you mark where the lava is bent and corrugated and swelling ridges and domes again where it breaks into a rough mass of loose blocks tufts of grass grow far apart here and there and small bushes of hearty sage but they have a singed appearance and can do little to hide the blackness deserts are charming to those who know how to see them all kinds of bogs, barrens and healthy moors but the mode of lava beds have for me an uncanny look as I gazed the purple deep in over the landscape then fell the gloaming making everything still more forbidding and mysterious then darkness like death next morning the crisp, sunshiney air made even the modak landscape less hopeless and we ventured down the bluff to the edge of the lava beds just at the foot of the bluff we came to a square enclosed by a stone wall the graveyard where lie buried 30 soldiers most of whom met their fate out in the lava beds as we learned by the boards marking the graves a gloomy place to die in and deadly looking even without modaks the poor fellows that lie here deserve far more pity than they have ever received picking our way over the strange lines and hollows of the beds we soon came to a circular flat about 20 yards in diameter on the shore of the lake where the comparative smoothness of the lava and a few handfuls of soil have caused the grass tufts to grow taller this is where general can be with slain while seeking to make peace with the treacherous modaks two or three miles farther on is the main stronghold of the modaks held by them so long and defiantly against all the soldiers that could be brought to the attack Indians usually choose to hide in tall grass and bush and behind trees where they can crouch and glide like panthers without casting up defenses that would betray their positions but the modak castle is in the rock when the Yosemite Indians made raids on the settlers of the Lower Merced they withdrew their spoils into Yosemite Valley and the modaks boasted that in case of war they had a stone house in which no white man could come as long as they cared to defend it Yosemite was not held for a single day against the pursuing troops but the modaks held their fort for months until weary of being hemmed in they chose to withdraw it consists of numerous redouts formed by the unequal subsidence of portions of the lava flow and a complicated network of redans abundantly supplied with salient and reentering angles being united each to the other and to the redouts by a labyrinth of open and covered corridors some of which expanded intervals into spacious caverns forming as a whole the most complete natural Gibraltar I ever saw other castles, scarcely less strong are connected with this by subterranean passages known only to the Indians while the unnatural blackness of the rock out of which nature has constructed these defenses and the weird inhuman physiognomy of the whole region are well calculated to inspire terror deadly was the task of storming such a place the breach loading rifles of the Indians thrust through the chinks between the rocks were ready to pick off every soldier who showed himself for a moment while the Indians lay utterly invisible they were familiar with byways both over and underground and could at any time sink suddenly out of sight like squirrels among the loose boulders our bewildered soldiers heard them shooting now before, now behind them as they glided from place to place through fissures and subterranean passes all the while as invisible as Gaijis wearing his magic ring to judge from the few I have seen Modoks are not very amiable looking people at best when, therefore, they were crawling stealthily in the gloomy caverns unkempt and begrimed and with the glare of war in their eyes they must have seemed very demons of the volcanic pit Captain Jack's Cave is one of the many somber cells of the castle it measures 25 or 30 feet in diameter at the entrance and extends but a short distance in a horizontal direction the floor is littered with the bones of the animal slaughtered for food during the war some eager archaeologists may, hereafter, discover this cabin and startle his world by announcing another of the Stone Age caves the sun shines freely into its mouth and graceful bunches of grass and aerogenomes and sage grow about it doing what they can toward its redemption from degrading associations and making it beautiful where the lava meets the lake there are some fine curving bays beautifully embroidered with rushes and polyagonums a favorite resort of waterfowl on our return, keeping close along shore we caused a noisy plashing and beating of wings among cranes and geese the ducks, less wary kept their places merely swimming in and out through openings in the rushes rippling the glassy water and raising spangles in their wake the countenance of the lava beds became less and less forbidding tufts of pale grasses relieved on the jet rocks looked like ornaments on a mantle thick-furred mats of emerald mosses appeared in damp spots next to the shore and I noticed one tuft of small ferns from year to year in the kindly weather the beds are thus gathering beauty beauty for ashes returning to Sheeprock and following the old immigrant road one is soon back again beneath the snows and shadows of Shasta and the ash creek and McLeod glaciers come into view on the east side of the mountain they are broad, rugged, crevasse, cloud-like masses of down-grinding ice pouring forth streams of muddy water as measures of the work they are doing and sculpturing the rocks beneath them very unlike the long majestic glaciers of Alaska that river-like go winding down the valleys through the forests to the sea these, with a few others as yet nameless are lingering remnants of once great glaciers that occupied the canyons now taken by the rivers and in a few centuries, well under present conditions vanish altogether the rivers of the granite south half of the Sierra are outspread on the peaks in a shining network of small branches that divide again and again into small, dribbling, pearling, oozing threads drawing their sources from the snow and ice of the surface they seldom sink out of sight save here and there in the moraines or glaciers or early in the season beneath the banks and bridges of snow soon to issue again but in the north half laden with rent and porous lava small tributary streams are rare and the rivers flowing for a time beneath the sky of rock at length burst forth into the light generous volume from seams and caverns filtered, cool and sparkling as if their bondage and darkness safe from the vicissitudes of the weather and their youth were only a blessing only a very small portion of the water derived from the melting ice and snow of Shasta flows down its flanks on the surface probably 99% of it is at once absorbed and drained away beneath the porous lava folds of the mountain to gush forth filtered and pure in the form of immense springs so large, some of them that they give birth to rivers that start on their journey beneath the sun full grown and perfect without any childhood thus the Shasta river issues from a large lake like spring in Shasta Valley and about two thirds of the volume of the McLeod gushes forth in a grand spring on the east side of the mountain a few miles back from its immediate base to find the big spring of the McLeod or mud glacier you will know by its size it being the largest on the east side you make your way through sunny park-like woods of yellow pine and a shaggy growth of chaparral and come in a few hours to the river flowing in a gorge of moderate depth cut abruptly down into the lava plain the volume of the stream where you strike it seems small then you will know that you are above the spring if large nearly equal to its volume at its confluence with the Pitt River then you are below it and in either case have only to follow the river up or down until you come to it under certain conditions you may hear the roar of the water rushing from the rock at a distance of half a mile or even more or you may not hear it until within a few rods it comes in a grand eager gush from a horizontal seam in the face of the wall of the river gorge in the form of a partially interrupted sheet nearly 75 yards in width and at a height above the river bed of about 40 feet as nearly as I could make out without the means of exact measurement for about 50 yards this flat current is in one unbroken sheet and flows in a lacework of plashing and up leaping spray over boulders that are clad in green silky algae and water mosses to meet the smaller part of the river which takes its rise farther up joining the river at right angles to its course it at once swells its volume to three times its size above the spring the vivid green of the boulders beneath the water is very striking and colors the entire stream with the exception of the portions broken into foam the color is chiefly due to a species of algae which seems common in springs of this sort that any kind of plant can hold on and grow beneath the wear of so boisterous current seems truly wonderful even after taking into consideration the freedom of the water from cutting drift and the constants of its volume and temperature throughout the year the temperature is about 45 degrees and the height of the river above the sea is here about 3,000 feet a splenium, epilobium, huchera, hazel, dogwood, and alder make a luxurious fringe and setting and the forests of Douglas spruce along the banks are the finest I have ever seen in this year from the spring you may go with the river a fine traveling companion down to the sportsman fishing station where if you are getting hungry you may replenish your stores or bearing off around the mountain by Huckleberry Valley complete your circuit without interruption emerging at length from beneath the outspread arms of the sugar pine at Strawberry Valley with all the new wealth and health gathered in your walk not tired in the least and only eager to repeat the round tracing rivers to their fountains makes the most charming of travels as the lifeblood of the landscapes the best of the wilderness comes to their banks and not one dull passage is found in all their eventful histories tracing the McLeod to its highest springs and over the divide to the fountains of Fall River near Fort Crook vents down that river to its confluence with the pit on from there to the volcanic region about Lassen's Butte through the big meadows among the sources of the Feather River and down through forests of sugar pine to the fertile plains of Chico this is a glorious saunter and imposes no hardship food may be had at moderate intervals and the whole circuit forms one ever deepening broadening stream of enjoyment Fall River is a very remarkable stream it is only about 10 miles long and it's composed of springs, rapids and falls springs beautifully shaded at one end of it a showy fall 180 feet high at the other and a rush of crystal rapids between the banks are fringed with rubus, rose, plum, cherry spiraea, azalea, honeysuckle, hawthorne ash, alder, elder, aster, goldenrod beautiful grasses, sedges, rushes mosses and firms with fronds as large as the leaves of palms all in the midst of a richly forested landscape nowhere within the limits of California are the forests of yellow pine so extensive and exclusive as on the headwaters of the pit they cover the mountains and all the lower slopes that border the wide open valleys which abound there pressing forward in imposing ranks seemingly the hardiest and most firmly established of all the northern caniferae the volcanic region about Lassen's Butte I have already in part described miles of its flanks are dotted with hot springs many of them so sulfurous and boisterous and noisy in their boiling that they seem inclined to become geysers like those of the Yellowstone the ascent of Lassen's Butte is an easy walk the views from the summit are extremely telling innumerable lakes and craters surround the base forests of charming Williams and Spruce fringe lake and crater alike the sun-beaten plains to east and west make a striking show and the wilderness of peaks and ridges stretch indefinitely away on either hand the lofty icy shasta towering high above all seems but an hour's walk from you though the distance in an airline is about 60 miles the big meadows line near the foot of Lassen's Butte a beautiful spacious basin set in the heart of the richly forested mountains scarcely surpassed in the grandeur of its surroundings by Tahoe during the glacial period it was a mer de glas than a lake and now a level meadow shining with bountiful springs in the number and size of its big spring fountains it excels even Shasta one of the largest that I measured forms a lake lit nearly 100 yards in diameter and in the generous flood it sends forth offers one of the most telling symbols of nature's affluence to be found in the mountains the great wilds of our country once held to be boundless and inexhaustible are being rapidly invaded and overrun in every direction and everything destructible in them is being destroyed how far destruction may go it is not easy to guess every landscape low and high seems doomed to be trampled and harried even the sky is not safe from scath blurred and blackened whole summers together with the smoke of fires that devour the woods the Shasta region is still a fresh unspoiled wilderness accessible and available for travelers of every kind and degree would it not then be a fine thing to set it apart like the Yellowstone in Yosemite as a national park for the welfare and benefit of all mankind preserving its fountains and forests and all its glad life and primeval beauty very little of the region can ever be more valuable for any other use certainly not for gold nor for grain no private right or interest need suffer and thousands yet unborn would come from far and near and bless the country for its wise and benevolent forethought End of Chapter 5 Recording by Brian Von Dedenroth www.vonnedenroth.com Chapter 6 of Seep Trails This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Bologna Times Chapter 6 The City of the Sense by John Muir The mountains rise grandly round about this curious city the Zion of the new sense so grandly that the city itself is hardly visible The Wasatch Range, snow laden and adorned with glacier-sculpted peaks stretches continuously along the eastern horizon forming the boundary of the Great Salt Lake Basin while across the valley of the Jordan southwestward from here you behold the awkward range about as snowy and lofty as the Wasatch To the northwest your eye skims the blue levels of the Great Lake out of the midst of which rise island mountains and beyond at a distance of 50 miles is seen the picturesque wall of the lakeside mountains blending with the lake and the sky The glacial developments of these superb ranges are sharply sculptured peaks and crests and the ample wounds between them where the ancient snows of the glacial period were collected and transformed into ice and ranks of profound shadowy canyons while moraines commensurate with the lofty fountains extend into the valleys forming far the grandest series of glacial monuments I have yet seen this side of the Sierra In the beginning, this letter I meant to describe the city but in the company of these noble old mountains it is not easy to bend one's attention upon anything else Salt Lake cannot be called a very beautiful town neither is there anything ugly or repulsive about it from the slopes of the Wasatch foothills or old lake benches toward Fort Douglas it is seen to occupy the sloping gravelly delta of Sedy Creek a fine hardy stream that comes pouring from the snows of the mountains through a majestic glacial canyon and it is just where this stream comes forth into the light on the edge of the valley of the Jordan that the Mormons have built their new Jerusalem At first sight there is nothing very marked in the external appearance of the town accepting its leafiness most of the houses are veiled with trees as if set down in the midst of one grand orchard and seen at a little distance they appear like a field of glacier boulders overgrown with aspens such as one often meets in the upper valleys of the California Sierra for only the angular roofs are clearly visible perhaps 1920's of the houses are built of bluish-gray adobe bricks and are only one or two stories high forming fine cottage homes which promise simple comfort within they are set well back from the street leaving room for a flower garden while almost everyone has a thrifty orchard at the sides and around the back the gardens are laid out with great simplicity indicating love for flowers by people comparatively poor rather than deliberate efforts of the rich for showy artistic effects they are like the pet gardens of children about as artless and humble and harmonize with the low dwellings to which they belong in almost everyone you find daisies and mint and lilac bushes and rows of plain English tulips lilacs and tulips are the most characteristic flowers and nowhere have I seen them in greater perfection as Oakland is preeminently a city of roses so is this Mormon saints rest a city of lilacs and tulips the flowers at least are saintly and they are surely loved scarce at home however obscure is without them and the simple unaustatious manner in which they are planted and gathered in pots and boxes about the windows shows how truly they are prized the surrounding commons the marshy levels of the Jordan and dry gravelly lake benches on the slopes of the wassach foothills are now gay with wild flowers chief among which are a species of flocks with an abundance of rich pink corollas growing among sagebrush in showy tufts and a beautiful papalonaceous plant with soaky leaves and large clusters of purple flowers banner wings and keel exquisitely shaded a martensia hydrophilum white borage wart orthocarpus several species of violets and a tall scarlet gillia it is delightful to see how eagerly all these are sought after by the children both boys and girls every day that I have gone botanizing I have met groups of little latter days with their precious bouquets and at such times it was hard to believe the dark bloody passages of Mormon history but to return to the city as soon as city creek approaches its upper limit its waters are drawn off right and left and distributed in brisk rills one on each side of every street the regular slopes of the delta upon which the city is built being admirably adapted to the system of street irrigation these streams were all pure and sparkling in the upper streets but as they are used to some extent as sewers they soon manifest the consequence of contact with civilization though the speed of their flow prevents their becoming offensive and little saints not over particular may be seen drinking from them everywhere the streets are remarkably wide and the buildings low making them appear yet wider when they really are trees are planted along the sidewalks elms, poplars, maples and a few katalpas and hawthorns yet they are mostly small and irregular and nowhere form avenues half so leafy and imposing as one would be led to expect even in the business streets there is but little regularity in the buildings now a row of plain adobe structures half store half dwelling then a high mercantile block of red brick or sandstone again a row of adobe cottages nestled back among apple trees there is one immense store with its sign upon the roof and letters big enough to be read miles away ZCMI Zion's cooperative mercantile institution while many a small cod fishy corner grocery bears the legend holiness to the lord ZCMI but little evidence will you find in this Zion with its 15,000 souls of great wealth though many a saint is seeking it as keenly as any Yankee Gentile but on the other hand searching throughout all the city you will not find any trace of squalor or extreme poverty most of the women I have chance to meet especially those from the country have a weary repressed look as if for the sake of their religion they were patiently carrying burdens heavier than they were well able to bear but strange as it must seem to Gentiles the many wives of one man instead of being repelled from one another by jealousy appear to be drawn all the closer together as if the real marriage existed between the wives only groups of half a dozen or so may frequently be seen on the streets in a close conversation looking as innocent and unspeculative as a lot of heifers while the masculine saints pass them by as if they belong to a distinct species in the tabernacle last Sunday one of the elders of the church in discoursing upon the good things of life the possessions of latter-day saints enumerated fruitful fields horses cows wives and implements the wives being placed as above between the cows and implements without receiving any superior emphasis polygamy as far as I have observed exerts a more degrading influence upon husbands than upon wives the love of the latter finds expression in flowers and children while the former seem to be rendered incapable of pure love of anything the spirit of Mormonism is intensely exclusive and un-American a more withdrawn, compact, sealed-up body of people could hardly be found on the face of the earth than is gathered here notwithstanding railroads, telegraphs and the penetrating lights that go sifting through society everywhere in this revolutionary question-asking century most of the Mormons I have met seem to be in a state of perpetual apology which can hardly be fully accounted for by gentile attacks at any rate it is unspeakably offensive to any free man we saints, they are continually saying are not as bad as we are called we don't murder those who differ with us but rather treat them with all charity you may go through our town night or day and no harm shall befall you go into our houses and you will be well used we are as glad as you are that Lee was punished et cetera while taking us on to the other evening we were overtaken by a characteristic Mormon an humble man who made us a very deferential salute and then walked on with us about half a mile we discussed whatsoever of Mormon doctrines came to mind with American freedom which he defended as best he could speaking in an excited but deprecating tone when hard-pressed he would say I don't understand these deep things but the elders do I am only an humble tradesman in taking leave he thanked us for the pleasure of our quarelless conversation removed his hat and bowed lowly in a sort of Uriah heap manner and then went to his humble home how many humble wives it contained we did not learn fine specimens of manhood are by no means wanting but the number of people one meets here who have some physical defect or who attract one's attention by some mental peculiarity that manifests itself through the eyes is astonishingly great in so small a city it would evidently be unfair to attribute these defects to Mormonism though Mormonism has undoubtedly been the magnet that elected and drew these strange people together from all parts of the world but however the peculiar doctrines and peculiar practices of Mormonism have affected the bodies and the minds of the old saints the little latter-day boys and girls are as happy and natural as possible running wild with plenty of good hearty parental indulgence playing, fighting, gathering flowers and delightful innocence and when we consider that most of the parents have been drawn from the thickly-settled portion of the old world where they have long suffered the repression of hunger and hard toil the Mormon children, Utah's best crop seem remarkably bright and promising from children one passes naturally into the blooming wilderness to the pure religion of sunshine and snow for all the good and the evil of the strange people lifts and vanishes from the mind like mist from the mountains Trails by John Muir a great storm in Utah Utah has just been blessed with one of the grandest storms I have ever beheld the side of the Sierra the mountains are laden with fresh snow wild streams are swelling and booming down the canyons and out in the valley of the Jordan a thousand rain pools are gleaming in the sun with reference to the development of fertile storms bearing snow and rain the greater portion of the calendar springtime of Utah has been winter in all the upper canyons of the mountains the snow is now from five to ten feet deep or more and most of it has fallen since March almost every other day during the last three weeks small local storms have been falling on the Wasatch and Ochre mountains while the Jordan valley remain dry and sun filled but on the afternoon of Thursday the 17th Ultimo wind, rain and snow filled the whole basin driving wildly over valley and plain from range to range bestowing their benefactions in most cordial and harmonious storm measures the oldest saints say they have never witnessed a more violent storm of this kind since the first settlement of Zion and while the gale from the northwest with which the storm began was rocking their adobe walls uprooting trees and darkening the streets with billows of dust and sand some of them seemed inclined to guess that the terrible phenomena was one of the signs of the times of which their preachers were so constantly reminding them the beginning of the outpouring of the treasured wrath of the Lord upon the Gentiles for the killing of Joseph Smith to me it seemed a cordial outpouring of nature's love but it is easy to differ with salt latter days in everything storms, wives, politics and religion about an hour before the storm reached the city I was so fortunate as to be out with a friend on the banks of the Jordan enjoying the scenery clouds with peculiarly restless and self-conscious gestures were marshalling themselves along the mountaintops and sending out long overlapping wings across the valley and even where no cloud was visible an obscuring film absorbed the sunlight giving rise to a cold bluish darkness nevertheless distant objects along the boundaries of the landscape were revealed distinctness in this weird subdued cloud-shifted light the mountains in particular with the forest on their flanks their mazy lace-like canyons the wombs of the ancient glaciers and their marvelous perfusion of ornate sculpture were most impressively manifest one would fancy that a man might be clearly seen walking on the snow at a distance of twenty or thirty miles while we were reveling in this rare grandeur turning from range to range stunning the darkening sky and listening to the still small voices of the flowers at our feet some of the denser clouds came down crowning and breathing the highest peaks and dropping long gray fringes whose smooth linear structure showed that snow was beginning to fall of these partial storms there were soon ten or twelve arranged in two rows while the main Jordan valley between them lay as yet in profound calm at four thirty p.m. a dark brownish cloud appeared close down on the plane towards the link extending from the northern extremity of the ochre range in a northeasterly direction as far as the eye could reach its peculiar color and structure excited our attention without enabling us to decide certainly as to its character but we were not left long in doubt for in a few minutes it came sweeping over the valley in a wild uproar a torrent of wind thick with sand and dust advancing with a most majestic front rolling and overcoming like a gigantic sea wave scarcely was it in plain sight ere it was upon us racing across the Jordan over the city and up the slopes of the wasatch eclipsing all the landscapes in its course the bending trees the dust streamers and the wild onrush of everything movable giving it an appreciable visibility that rendered it grand and inspiring this gale portion of the storm lasted over an hour then down came the blessed rain and the snow all through the night and the next day the snow and rain alternating and blending in the valley it is long since I've seen snow coming into a city the crystal flakes falling in the foul streets was a pitiful sight notwithstanding the vaunted refining influences of towns purity of all kinds pure hearts pure streams pure snow must here be exposed to terrible trials city creek coming from its high glacial fountains enters the streets of this Mormon Zion pure as an angel but how does it leave it even roses and lilies and gardens most loved are tainted with a thousand impurities as soon as they unfold I heard Brigham Young in the tabernacle the other day warning his people that if they did not mend their manners angels would not come into their houses they might be sauntering by with little else to do than chat with them possibly there may be Salt Lake families sufficiently pure for angel society but I was not pleased with the reception they gave the small snow angels that God sent among them the other night only the children hailed them with delight the old latter days seemed to shun them I should like to see how Mr. Young the lake prophet would meet such messengers but to return to the storm toward the evening of the 18th it began to wither the snowy skirts of the Wasatch mountains appeared beneath the lifting fringes of the clouds and the sun shone out through colored windows producing one of the most glorious after storm effects I ever witnessed looking across the Jordan the gray sagey slopes from the base of the ochre mountains were covered with a thick plushy cloth of gold soft and ethereal as a cloud not merely tinted and gilded like a rock with autumn sunshine but deeply muffled beyond recognition surely nothing in heaven nor any mansion of the lord in all his worlds could be more gloriously carpeted other portions of the plane were flushed with red and purple and all the mountains and the clouds above them were painted in corresponding loveliness earth and sky round and round the entire landscape was one ravishing revelation of color infinitely varied and interblended I have seen many a glorious sunset beneath lifting storm clouds on the mountains but nothing comparable with this I felt as if new arrived in some other far-off world the mountains the planes the sky all seem new other experiences seem but to have prepared me for this as souls are prepared for heaven to describe the colors on a single mountain would if were possible at all require many a volume purples and yellows and delicious pearly greys dividing tone and interblended and so richly put on one seem to be looking down through the ground as through a sky the disbanding clouds lingered lovingly about the mountains filling the canyons like tinted wool rising and drooping around the topmost peaks fondling their rugged bases or sailing alongside trailed their lustrous fringes through the pines as if taking a last view of their accomplished work but then came darkness and the glorious day was done this afternoon the Utah mountains and valleys seem to belong to our very world again they are covered with common sunshine down here on the banks of the Jordan larks and red wings are swinging on the rushes the balmy air is instinct with immortal life the wildflowers the grass and the farmers grain are fresh as if like the snow they had come out of heaven the ancient clouds are fleeing from the mountains end of chapter 7 a great storm in Utah chapter 8 of steep trails this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina steep trails by John Muir chapter 8 bathing in Salt Lake footnote this letter was dated Lake Point, Utah May 20, 1877 when the north wind blows bathing in Salt Lake is a glorious baptism for then it is all wildly awake with waves blooming like a prairie and snowy crystal foam plunging confidently into the midst of the ground uproar you are hugged and welcomed and swim without effort rocking and heaving up and down in a delightful rhythm while the winds singing chorus and the cool fragrant brine searches every fiber of your body and at length you are tossed ashore with a glad godspeed braced and salted and clean as a saint the nearest point on the shoreline is distant about ten miles from Salt Lake City and is almost inaccessible on account of the boggy character of the ground but by taking the western Utah railroad at a distance of twenty miles you reach what is called Lake Point where the shore is gravelly and wholesome and abounds in fine retreating bays that seem to have been made on purpose for bathing here the northern peaks of the aquir range plant their feet in the clear blue brine with fine curbing insteps leaving no space for muddy levels the crystal brightness of the water the flowers and the lovely mountain scenery make this a favorite summer resort for pleasure and health seekers numerous excursion trains are run from the city and parties some of them numbering upwards of a thousand come to bathe and dance and roam the flowery hillsides together but at the time of my first visit in May I fortunately found myself alone the hotel and bath house which formed the chief improvements of the place were sleeping in winter silence notwithstanding the year was in full bloom it was one of those genial sundays when flowers and flies come thronging to the light and birds sing their best the mountain ranges stretching majestically north and south were piled with pearly cumuli and the sky overhead was pure azure and the windswept lake was all a roll and a roar with whitecaps I sauntered along the shore until I came to a sequestered cove where buttercups and wild peas were blooming close down to the limit reached by the waves here I thought is just the place for a bath but the breakers seemed terribly boisterous and forbidding as they came rolling up the beach or dashed white against the rocks that bounded the cove on the east the outer ranks ever broken, ever builded formed a magnificent rampart sculptured in cornice like the hanging wall of a burgschrund and appeared hopelessly insurmountable however easily one might ride the swelling waves beyond I feasted a while on their beauty watching their coming in from afar like faithful messengers to tell their stories one by one then I turned reluctantly away to botanize and wait a calm but the calm did not come that day nor did I wait long in an hour or two I was back again to the same little cove the waves still sang the old storm song and rose in high crystal walls seemingly hard enough to be cut in sections like ice without any definite determination I found myself undressed as if someone else had taken me in hand and while one of the largest waves was ringing out its message and spending itself on the beach I ran out with open arms to the next duck beneath its breaking top and got myself into right lusty relationship with the brave old lake away I sped in free glad motion as if like a fish I had been afloat all my life now low out of sight in the smooth glassy valleys now bounding aloft on firm combing crests while the crystal foam beat against my breast with keen crisp clashing as if composed of pure salt I bowed to every wave and each lifted me right royally to its shoulders almost setting me erect on my feet while they all went speeding by like living creatures blooming and rejoicing in the brightness of the day and chanting the history of their grand mountain home a good deal of nonsense has been written concerning the difficulty of swimming in this heavy water one's head would go down and heels come up and the yackered brine would burn like fire I was conscious only of a joyous exhilaration my limbs seemingly heating their own business without any discomfort or confusion so much so that without previous knowledge my experience on this occasion would not have led me to detect anything peculiar in calm weather, however the sustaining power of the water might probably be more marked this was by far the most exciting and effective wave excursion I ever made this side of the Rocky Mountains and when at its close I was heaved ashore among the sunny grasses and flowers I found myself a new creature indeed and went bounding along the beach with blood all aglow reinforced by the best salts of the mountains and ready for any race since the completion of the transcontinental and Utah railways this magnificent lake in the heart of the continent has become as accessible as any watering place on either coast and I am sure that thousands of travellers sick and well would throng its shores every summer were its merits but half known Lake Point is only an hour or two from the city and is hotel accommodations and a steamboat for excursions and then besides the bracing waters the climate is delightful the mountains rise into the cool sky the road with canyons almost eosemitic and grandeur and filled with a glorious perfusion of flowers and trees lovers of science lovers of wildness lovers of pure rest will find here more than they may hope for as for the Mormons one meets however their doctrines be regarded they will be found as rich in humankindness as any people in all our broad land while the dark memories that cloud their earlier history will vanish from the mind as completely as when we bathe in the fountain azure of the Sierra End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Steep Trails This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by John Denison Steep Trails by John Muir Mormon Lilies Lilies are rare in Utah so also are their companions the firms and orchids chiefly on account of the fiery saltiness of the soil and climate you may walk the deserts of the Great Basin in the bloom time of the year all the way across from the snowy Sierra to the snowy Wasatch and your eyes will be filled with many a gay Malva and Poppy and Ebronia and Cactus but you may not see a single true lily and only a very few lilicious plants of any kind not even in the cool fresh glens of the mountains will you find these favorite flowers though some of these desert ranges almost rival the Sierra in height nevertheless in the building and planting of this grand territory the Lilies were not forgotten far back in the dim geologic ages when the sediments of the old seas were being gathered and outspread in smooth sheets like leaves of a book and when these sediments became dry land and were baked and crumbled into the sky as mountain ranges when the lava floods of the fire period were being lavishly poured forth from innumerable rifts and craters when the ice of the glacial period was laid like a mantle over every mountain and valley throughout all these immensely protracted periods in the throng of these majestic operations nature kept her flower children in mind she considered the Lilies and while planting the plains with sage and the hills with cedar she has covered at least one mountain with golden erythroniums and fritillarias as its crown and glory as if willing to show what she could do in the lily line even here looking southward from the south end of Salt Lake the two northernmost peaks of the ochre range are seen swelling calmly into the cool sky without any marked character accepting only their snow crowns and a few weedy looking patches of spruce and fur the simplicity of their slopes preventing their real loftiness from being appreciated gray sagey plains circle around their bases and up to a height of a thousand feet or more their sides are tinged with purple which I afterwards found is produced by a close growth of dwarf oak just coming into leaf higher you may detect faint tintings of green on a gray ground from young grasses and sedges then come the dark pine woods filling glacial hollows and over all the smooth crown of snow while standing at their feet the other day shortly after my memorable excursion among the salt waves of the lake I said, now I shall have another baptism I will bathe in the high sky among cool wind waves from the snow from the more southerly of the two peaks a long ridge comes down bent like a bow one end in the hot plains the other in the snow of the summit after carefully scanning the jacket towers and battlements with which it is roughened I determined to make it my way though it presented but a feeble advertisement of its floral wealth this apparent barrenness however made no great objection just then for I was scarce hoping for flowers old or new or even for fine scenery I wanted in particular to learn what the ochre rocks were made of what trees composed the curious patches of forest and perhaps more than all I was animated by a mountaineer's eagerness to get my feet into the snow once more and my head into the clear sky after lying dormant all winter at the level of the sea but in every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks I had not gone more than a mile from Lake Point ere I found the way profusely decked with flowers mostly compositeye and purple leguminoseye a hundred corollas or more to the square yard with a corresponding abundance of winged blossoms above them moths and butterflies the leguminoseye of the insect kingdom this floweriness is maintained with delightful variety all the way up through rocks and bushes to the snow violets, lilies, gileas, inothras wallflowers, evasias, saxofrags smilax and miles of blooming bushes chiefly azalea, honeysuckle, bryorose buckthorn and irrigonum all meeting and blending in divine accord two lilicious plants in particular erythronium, grandeflorum and fritillaria pudica are marvelously beautiful and abundant never before in all my walks have I met so glorious a throng of these fine showing lilicious plants the whole mountainside was aglow with them from a height of 5500 feet to the very edge of the snow although remarkably fragile both in form and in substance they're endowed with plenty of deep-seated vitality enabling them to grow in all kinds of places down in leafy glens in the lee of wind-beaten ledges and beneath the bushy tangles of azalea and oak and prickly roses everywhere forming the crowning glory of the flowers if the neighboring mountains are as rich in lilies then this may well be called the lily range after climbing about a thousand feet above the plain I came to a picturesque mass of rock cropping up through the underbrush on one of the steepest slopes of the mountain after examining some tufts of grass and saxofrage that were growing in its fissured surface I was going to pass it up on the upper side where the bushes were more open but a company composed of the two lilies I have mentioned were blooming on the lower side and though they were as yet out of sight I suddenly changed my mind and went down to meet them as if attracted by the ringing of their bells they were growing in a small nest-like opening between the rock and the bushes and both the erythronium and the fritalaria were in full flower these were the first of the species I had seen and I need not try to tell the joy they made they were both lowly plants, lowly as violets the tallest seldom exceeding six inches in height so that the most searching winds that sweep the mountains scarce reach low enough to shake their bells the fritalaria has five or six linear obtuse leaves put on irregularly near the bottom of the stem which is usually terminated by one large bell-shaped flower but its more beautiful companion, the erythronium has two radical leaves only which are large and oval and shine like glass they extend horizontally in opposite directions and form a beautiful glossy ground over which the one large down-looking flower swung from a simple stem the petals being strongly recurved like those of lilyum superbum occasionally a specimen is met which has from two to five flowers hung in a loose pinnacle people oftentimes travel far to see curious plants like the carnivorous starlingtonia the flycatcher the walking firm, etc I hardly know how the little bells I have been describing would be regarded by seekers of this class but every true flower-lover who comes to consider these Utah lilies will surely be well rewarded however long the way pushing on up the rugged slopes I found many delightful seclusions moist nooks at the foot of cliffs and lilies in every one of them not growing close together like daisies but well apart with plenty of room for their bells to swing free and ring I found hundreds of them in full bloom within two feet of the snow in winter only the bulbs are alive sleeping deep beneath the ground like field mice in their nest then the snowflowers fall above them lilies over lilies until the spring winds blow and these winter lilies wither and turn then the hiding erythronium and fritillarius rise again responsive to the first touches of the sun I noticed the tracks of deer in many places among the lily gardens and at the height of about 7000 feet I came upon the fresh trail of a flock of wild sheep showing that these fine mountaineers still flourish here above the range of Mormon rivals in the planting of her wild gardens nature takes the feet and teeth of her flocks into account and makes use of them to trim and cultivate and keep them in order as the bark and buds of the tree are tended by woodpeckers and linets the evergreen woods consist as far as I observed of two species a spruce and a fir standing close together erect an arrowy in a thrifty compact growth but they are quite small say from 6 to 12 for 14 inches in diameter and about 40 feet in height among their giant relatives of the Sierra the very largest would seem mere saplings a considerable portion of the south side of the mountain is planted with a species of aspen called quaking asp by the woodchoppers it seems to be quite abundant on many of the eastern mountains of the basin and forms a market feature of their upper forests wading up the curves of the summit was rather toilsome for the snow which was softened by the blazing sun was from 10 to 20 feet deep but the view was one of the most impressively sublime I have ever beheld snowy ice-cultured ranges bounded the horizon all around while the Great Lake 80 miles long and 50 miles wide lay fully revealed beneath a lily sky the shorelines marked by a ribbon of white sand were seen sweeping around many a bay and promontory in elegant curves and picturesque islands rising to mountain heights and some of them capped with pearly cumuli and the wide prairie of water glowing in the golden purple of evening presented all the colors that tinted the lips of shells and the petals of lilies the most beautiful lake this side of the rocky mountains Utah Lake, lying 35 miles to the south, was in full sight also and the River Jordan which links the two together may be traced in silvery gleams throughout its whole course Descending the mountain I followed the windings of the main central glen on the north gathering specimens of the cones and sprays of the evergreens and most of the other new plants I had met but the lilies formed the crowning glory of my bouquet the grandest I had carried in many a day I reached the hotel on the lake about dusk fresh riches and my first mountain ramble in Utah was accomplished on my way back to the city the next day I met a grave old Mormon with whom I'd previously held some Latter-day discussions I shook my big handful of lilies in his face and shouted here are the true saints ancient and Latter-day enduring forever after he'd recovered from his astonishment he said they are nice the other two lilicious plants I have met in Utah are two species of zygodenias fritillaria atropropuria calicortis nutalii and three or four handsome alliums one of these lilies the calicortis several species of which are well known in California as the Mariposa tulips has received great consideration at the hands of the Mormons for two at hundreds of them owe their lives during the famine years between 1853 and 1858 great destitution prevailed especially in the southern settlements on account of drought and grasshoppers and throughout one hunger winter in particular thousands of the people subsisted chiefly on the bones of the tulips called Sego by the Indians who taught them its use lilicious women and girls are rare among the Mormons they have seen too much hard repressive toil to admit of the development of lily beauty in general they are thick set with large feet and hands and with sun brown faces often curiously freckled like the petals of fritillaria atropropuria they are fruit rather than flour good brown bread but down in the sandpitch valley at Gunnison I discovered a genuine lily happily named lily young she is a granddaughter of Brigham young slender and graceful lily white cheeks tinted with clear rose she was brought up in the old Salt Lake Zion house but by some strange chance has been transplanted to this wilderness where she blooms alone the lily of sandpitch pitch is an old Indian who I suppose pitched into the settlers and thus acquired fame enough to give name to the valley here I feel uneasy about the name of this lily for the compositors have a perverse trick let me say all kinds of absurd things wholly unwarranted by plain copy and I fear that the lily of sandpitch will appear in print as the widow of sandpatch but however this may be among my memories of this strange land that ochre mountain with its golden lilies will ever rise in clear relief and associated with them will always be the Mormon lily of sandpitch End of Chapter 9 Recorded by John Denison