 CHAPTER IV. A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH STREET. Early one bright morning in the middle of Indian summer, while the glacier meadows were still crisp with frost crystals, I set out from the foot of Mount Lyle, on my way down to Yosemite Valley, to replenish my exhausted store of bread and tea. I had spent the past summer, as many preceding ones, exploring the glaciers that lie on the headwaters of the San Joaquin, Tuolumne, Merced, and Owens rivers, measuring and studying their movements, trends, crevasses, moraines, etc., and the part they had played during the period of their greater extension in the creation and development of the landscapes of this alpine wonderland. The time for this kind of work was nearly over for the year, and I began to look forward with delight to the approaching winter, with its wondrous storms, when I would be warmly snowbound in my Yosemite cabin, with plenty of bread and books. But a tinge of regret came on when I considered that possibly I might not see this favorite region again until the next summer, accepting distant views from the heights about the Yosemite walls. To artists, few portions of the High Sierra are, strictly speaking, picturesque. The whole massive uplift of the range is one great picture, not clearly divisible into smaller ones, differing much in this respect from the older and what may be called riper mountains of the coast range. All the landscapes of the Sierra, as we have seen, were born again, remodeled from base to summit by the developing ice floods of the last glacial winter. But all those new landscapes were not brought forth simultaneously. Some of the highest were the ice-lingered longest are tens of centuries younger than those of the warmer regions below them. In general, the younger the mountain landscapes, younger, I mean, with reference to the time of their emergence from the ice of the glacial period, the less separable are they into artistic bits capable of being made into warm, sympathetic, lovable pictures with appreciable humanity in them. Another, however, on the headwaters of the Tuolumne is a group of wild peaks on which the geologist may say that the sun has but just begun to shine, which is yet in a high degree picturesque, and in its main features so regular and evenly balanced as almost to appear conventional. One somber cluster of snow-laden peaks with gray pine-fringed granite bosses braided around its base, the whole surging free from the sky from the head of a magnificent valley, whose lofty walls are beveled away on both sides so as to embrace it all without admitting anything not strictly belonging to it. The foreground was now aflame with autumn colors, brown and purple and gold, ripe in the mellow sunshine, contrasting brightly with the deep cobalt blue of the sky, and the black and gray and pure spiritual white of the rocks and glaciers. Down through the midst, the young Tuolumne was seen pouring from its crystal fountains, now resting in glassy pools as if changing back again into ice, now leaping in white cascades as if turning to snow, gliding right and left between granite bosses, then sweeping on through the smooth, medwy levels of the valley, swaying pensively from side to side with calm, stately gestures, past dipping willows and sedges, and around groves of airy pine, and throughout its whole eventful course, whether flowing fast or slow, singing loud or low, ever-filling landscape with spiritual animation and manifesting the grandeur of its sources into every movement and tone. Pursuing my lonely way down the valley, I turned again and again to gaze on the glorious picture, throwing up my arms to enclose it as in a frame. After long ages of growth in the darkness beneath the glaciers, through sunshine and storms, it seemed now to be ready and waiting for the elected artist, like yellow wheat for the reaper, and I could not help wishing that I might carry colors and brushes with me on my travels and learn to paint. In the meantime, I had to be content with photographs on my mind and sketches in my notebooks. At length, after I had rounded a precipitous headland that puts out from the west wall of the valley, every peak vanished from sight, and I pushed rapidly along the frozen meadows over the divide between the waters of the Merced and Tuolumne, and down through the forests that clothe the slopes of clouds rest, arriving in Yosemite in due time, which, with me, is any time. And, strange to say, among the first people I met here were two artists who, with letters of introduction, were awaiting my return. They inquired whether, in the course of my explorations in the adjacent mountains, I had ever come upon a landscape suitable for a large painting, whereupon I began a description of the one that had so lately excited my admiration. Then, as I went on further and further into details, their faces began to glow, and I offered to guide them to it, while they declared that they would gladly follow, far or near, with or so ever I could spare the time to lead them. Since storms might come breaking down through the fine weather at any time, burying the colors in snow, and cutting off the artists to retreat, I advised getting ready at once. I led them out of the valley by the vernal and Nevada Falls, thence over the main dividing ridge to the big Tuolumne meadows, by the old mono trail, and thence along the upper Tuolumne river to its head. This was my companion's first excursion into the High Sierra, and as I was almost always alone in my mountaineering, the way that the fresh beauty was reflected in their faces made for me a novel and interesting study. They naturally were affected most of all by the colors, the intense azure of the sky, the purplish grays of the granite, the red and browns of dry meadows, and the translucent purple and crimson of huckleberry bogs, the flaming yellow of aspen groves, the silvery flashing of the streams, and the bright green and blue of the glacier lakes. But the general expression of the scenery, rocky and savage, seemed sadly disappointing, and as they threaded the forest from ridge to ridge, eagerly scanning the landscapes as they were unfolded, they said, all this is huge and sublime, but we see nothing as yet at all available for effective pictures. Art is long, and art is limited, you know. And here are foregrounds, middle grounds, backgrounds, all alike, bare rock waves, woods, groves, diminutive flecks of meadow, and strips of glittering water. Never mind, I replied, only by to we, and I will show you something you will like. At length, toward the end of the second day, the Sierra crown began to come into view, and when we had fairly rounded the projecting headland before mentioned, the whole picture stood revealed in the flush of the alpine glow. Their enthusiasm was excited beyond bounds, and the more impulsive of the two, a young scotchman dashed ahead, shouting and gesticulating and tossing his arms in the air like a madman. Here, at last, was a typical alpine landscape. After feasting a while on the view, I proceeded to make camp in a sheltered grove, a little way back from the meadow, where pine boughs could be obtained for beds, and where there was plenty of dry wood for fires. While the artists ran here and there, along the river bends and up the sides of the canyon, choosing foregrounds for sketches. After dark, when our tea was made and a rousing fire had been built, we began to make our plans. They decided to remain several days, at the least, while I concluded to make an excursion in the meantime to the untouched summit of Ritter. It was now about the middle of October, the springtime of snowflowers. The first winter clouds had already bloomed, and the peaks were strewn with fresh crystals, without, however, affecting the climbing to any dangerous extent. And as the weather was still profoundly calm, and the distance to the foot of the mountain only a little more than a day, I felt that I was running no great risk of being stormbound. Mount Ritter is king of the mountains, of the middle portion of the High Sierra, as Shasta of the North, and Whitney of the South sections. Moreover, as far as I know, it had never been climbed. I had explored the adjacent wilderness, summer after summer, but my studies thus far had never drawn me to the top of it. Its height above sea level is about 13,300 feet, and is fenced round by steeply inclined glaciers, and canyons of tremendous depth and ruggedness, which render it almost inaccessible. But difficulties of this kind only exhilarate the mountaineer. Next morning the artists went heartily to their work, and I to mine. Former experiences had given good reason to know that passionate storms, invisible as yet, might be brooding in the calm sun gold. Therefore, before bidding farewell, I warned the artists not to be alarmed should I fail to appear before a week or ten days, and advise them, in case a snowstorm should set in, to keep up big fires and shelter themselves as best they could, and on no account to become frightened and attempt to seek their way back to Yosemite alone through the drifts. My general plan was simply this. To scale the canyon wall, cross over to the eastern flank of the range, and then make my way southward to the northern spurs of Mount Ritter, in compliance with the intervening topography. For to push on directly southward from camp, through the innumerable peaks and pinnacles that adorn this portion of the axis of the range, however interesting, would take too much time, besides being extremely difficult and dangerous at this time of year. All my first day was pure pleasure, simply mountaineering indulgence, crossing the dry pathways of the ancient glaciers, tracing happy streams, and learning the habits of the birds and marmots and the groves and rocks. Before I had gone a mile from camp I came to the foot of a white cascade that beats its way down a rugged gorge in the canyon wall, from a height of about nine hundred feet, and pours its throbbing waters into the tuolumne. I was acquainted with its fountains, which fortunately lay in my course. What a fine traveling companion had proved to be, what songs it sang, and how passionately it told the mountain's own joy. Gladly I climbed along its dashing border, absorbing its divine music, and bathing from time to time in waftings of iris'd spray. Climbing higher, higher, now beauty came streaming on the site, painted meadows, late blooming gardens, peaks of rare architecture, lakes here and there, shining like silver, and glimpses of the forested middle region, and the yellow lowlands far in the west. Beyond the range I saw the so-called mono desert, lying dreamily silent in thick purple light. A desert of heavy sun glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite. Here the waters divide, shouting in glorious enthusiasm, and falling eastward to vanish in the volcanic sands and dry sky of the great basin, or westward to the great valley of California, and thence through the bay of San Francisco and the Golden Gate to the sea. Passing a little way down over the summit until I had reached an elevation of about ten thousand feet, I pushed on southward toward a group of savage peaks that stand guard about ridder on the north and west, groping my way and dealing instinctively with every obstacle as it presented itself. Here a huge gorge would be found cutting across my path, along the dizzy edge of which I scrambled until some less precipitous point was discovered where I might safely venture to the bottom and then, selecting some feasible portion of the opposite wall, re-ascend with the same slow caution. Massive, flat-talked spurs alternate with the gorges, plunging abruptly from the shoulders of the snowy peaks and planting their feet in the warm desert. These were everywhere marked and adorned with characteristic sculptures of the ancient glaciers that swept over this entire region like one vast ice wind, and the polished surfaces produced by the ponderous flood are still so perfectly preserved that in many places the sunlight reflected from them is about as trying to the eyes as sheets of snow. God's glacial mills grind slowly, but they have been kept in motion long enough in California to grind sufficient soil for a glorious abundance of life, though most of the grist has been carried to the lowlands, leaving these high regions comparatively lean and bare. While the post-glacial agents of erosion have not yet furnished sufficient available food over the general surface for more than a few tufts of the hardiest plants, chiefly carieses and aerogany, and it is interesting to learn in this connection that the sparseness and repressed character of the vegetation at this height is caused more by want of soil than by harshness of climate. Four here and there, in sheltered hollows, countersunk beneath the general surface, into which a few rods of well-ground moraine chips have been dumped, we find groves of spruce and pine 30 to 40 feet high, trimmed around the edges with willow and huckleberry bushes, and oftentimes still further by an outer ring of tall grasses, bright with lupines, lark spurs, and showy columbines, suggesting a climate by no means repressingly severe. All the streams, too, and the pools at this elevation are furnished with little gardens wherever soil can be made to lie, which, though making scarce any show at a distance, constitute charming surprises to the appreciative observer. In these bits of leanness, a few birds find grateful homes. Having no acquaintance with man, they fear no ill, and flock curiously about the stranger, almost allowing themselves to be taken in the hand. In so wild and so beautiful a region was spent my first day, every sight and sound inspiring, leading one far out of himself, yet feeding and building up his individuality. Now came the solemn, silent evening, long, blue, spiky shadows crept out across the snow fields, while a rosy glow at first scarce discernible gradually deepened, and suffused every mountaintop, flushing the glaciers and the harsh crags above them. This was the Alpine Glow, to me one of the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt religious consciousness, and stood hushed and waiting, like devout worshippers. Just before the Alpine Glow began to fade, two crimson clouds came streaming across the summit, like wings of flame, rendering the sublime scene yet more impressive. Then came darkness and the stars. I see Ritter was still miles away, but I could proceed no further that night. I found a good campground on the rim of a glacier basin about eleven thousand feet above the sea, a small lake nestles in the bottom of it, from which I got water for my tea, and a storm-beaten thicket nearby furnished abundance of resiny firewood. Somber peaks, hacked and shattered, circled halfway around the horizon, wearing a savage aspect in the gloaming, and a waterfall chanted solemnly across the lake on its way down from the foot of a glacier. The fall, and the lake, and the glacier were almost equally bare, while the scraggie pines anchored in the rock-fishers were so dwarfed and shorn by storm winds that you might walk over their tops. In tone and aspect the scene was one of the most desolate I ever beheld. But the darkest scriptures of the mountains are illumined with bright passages of love that never fail to make themselves felt when one is alone. I made my bed in a nook of the pine-thicket, where the branches were pressed and crinkled overhead like a roof, and bent down around the sides. These are the best bed-chambers the high mountains afford, snug as squirrel nests, well-ventilated, full of spicy odours, and with plenty of wind-played needles to sing one asleep. I little expected company, but creeping in through a low side door I found five or six birds nestling among the tassels. The night wind began to blow soon after dark, at first only a gentle breathing, but increasing toward midnight to a rough gale that fell upon my leafy roof in ragged surges like a cascade, bearing wild sounds from the crags overhead. The waterfall sang in chorus, filling the old ice fountain with its solemn roar, and seeming to increase in power as the night advanced, fit voice for such a landscape. I had to creep out many times to the fire during the night, for it was biting cold, and I had no blankets. Gladly I welcomed the morning star. The dawn in the dry wavering air of the desert was glorious. Everything encouraged my undertaking and betokened success. There was no cloud in the sky, no storm-tone in the wind. Breakfast of bread and tea was soon made. I fastened a hard, durable crust to my belt by way of provision, in case I should be compelled to pass a night on the mountaintop. Then, securing the remainder of my little stalk against wolves and wood-rats, I set forth, free and hopeful. How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains! To behold this alone is worth the pains of any excursion a thousand times over. The highest peaks burned like islands in a sea of liquid shade. Then the lower peaks and spires caught the glow, and long lances of light, streaming through many a notch and pass, fell thick on the frozen meadows. The majestic form of ridder was full in sight, and I pushed rapidly on over rounded rock bosses and pavements, my iron-shod shoes making a clanking sound, suddenly hushed now and then in rugs of bryanthus and seji lake margins, soft as moss. Here, too, in this so-called land of desolation, I met Cassiope growing in fringes among the battered rocks. Her blossoms had faded long ago, but they were still clinging with happy memories to the evergreen sprays, and still so beautiful as to thrill every fiber of one's being. Winter and summer, you may hear her voice, the low, sweet melody of her purple bells. No evangel, among all the mountain plants, speaks nature's love more plainly than Cassiope. Where she dwells, the redemption of the coldest solitude is complete. The very rocks and glaciers seem to feel her presence, and become imbued with her own fountain sweetness. All things were warming and awakening. Frozen rills began to flow. The marmots came out of their nests in boulder piles and climbed sunny rocks to bask, and the done-headed sparrows were flitting about seeking their breakfasts. The lakes seen from every ridgetop were brilliantly rippled and spangled, shimmering like the thickets of the low dwarf pines. The rocks, too, seemed responsive to the vital heat, rock crystals and snow crystals thrilling alike. I strode on, exhilarated, as if never more to feel fatigue, limbs moving of themselves, every sense unfolding like the thawing flowers, to take part in the new-day harmony. All along my course thus far, excepting when down in the canyons, the landscapes were mostly open to me and expansive, at least on one side. On the left were the purple plains of Mono, reposing dreamily and warm. On the right the near peaks springing keenly into the thin sky with more and more impressive sublimity. But these larger views were at length lost. Rugged spurs and moraines and huge projecting buttresses began to shut me in. Every feature became more rigidly alpine, without, however, producing any chilling effect, for going to the mountains is like going home. We always find that the strangest objects in these fountain wilds are in some degree familiar, and we look upon them with a vague sense of having seen them before. On the southern shore of a frozen lake I encountered an extensive field of hard granular snow, up which I scampered in fine tone, intending to follow it to its head, and cross the rocky spur against which it leans, hoping thus to come direct upon the base of the main ridder peak. The surface was pitted with oval hollows, made by stones, and drifted pine needles that had melted themselves into the mass by the radiation of absorbed sun-heat. These afforded good footholds, but the surface curved more and more steeply at the head, and the pits became shallower and less abundant, until I found myself in danger of being shed off like avalanching snow. I persisted, however, creeping on all fours, and shuffling up the smoothest places on my back, as I had often done on burnished granite, until, after slipping several times, I was compelled to retrace my course to the bottom, and make my way around the west end of the lake, and thence up to the summit of the divide between the headwaters of Rush Creek and the northernmost tributaries of the San Joaquin. Arriving on the summit of this dividing crest, one of the most exciting pieces of pure wilderness was disclosed that I ever discovered in all my mountaineering. There, immediately in front, loomed the majestic mass of Mount Ritter, with a glacier swooping down its face nearly to my feet, then curving westward, and pouring its frozen flood into a dark blue lake, whose shores were bound with precipices of crystalline snow, while a deep chasm drawn between the divide and the glacier separated the massive picture from everything else. I could see only the one sublime mountain, the one glacier, the one lake, the whole veiled with one blue shadow, rock, ice, and water, close together without a single leaf or sign of life. After gazing spellbound, I began instinctively to scrutinize every notch and gorge, and weathered buttress of the mountain, with reference to making the ascent. The entire front above the glacier appeared as one tremendous precipice, slightly receding at the top, and bristling with spires and pinnacles set above one another in formidable array. Massive, like-instained battlements stood forward here and there, hacked at the top with angular notches, and separated by frosty gullies and recesses that have been veiled in shadow ever since their creation, while to right and left, as far as I could see, were huge, crumbling buttresses, offering no hope to the climber. The head of the glacier sends up a few finger-like branches through narrow, cool whars, but these seemed too steep and short to be available, especially as I had no axe with which to cut steps, and the numerous narrow-throated gullies down which stones and snow are avalanched seemed hopelessly steep, besides being interrupted by vertical cliffs, while the whole front was rendered still more terribly forbidding by the chill shadow and the gloomy blackness of the rocks. Descending the divide in a hesitating mood, I picked my way across the yawning chasm at the foot, and climbed out upon the glacier. There were no meadows now to cheer with their brave colors, nor could I hear the done-headed sparrows, whose cheery notes so often relieve the silence of our highest mountains. The only sounds were the gurgling of small rills, down in the veins and crevasses of the glacier, and now and then the rattling report of falling stones, with the echoes they shot out into the crisp air. I could not instinctively hope to reach the summit from this side, yet I moved on across the glacier as if driven by fate. Contending with myself, the season is too far spent, I said, and even should I be successful, I might be stormbound on the mountain, and in the cloud darkness, with the cliffs and crevasses covered with snow, how could I escape? No, I must wait till next summer. I would only approach the mountain now, and inspect it, creep about its flanks, learn what I could of its history, holding myself ready to flee on the approach of the first storm cloud. But we little know until tried how much of the uncontrollable there is in us, urging across glaciers and torrents, and up dangerous heights, let the judgment forbid as it may. I succeeded in gaining the foot of the cliff on the eastern extremity of the glacier, and there discovered the mouth of a narrow avalanche gully through which I began to climb, intending to follow it as far as possible, and at least obtain some fine wild views for my pains. Its general course is oblique to the plain of the mountain face, and the metamorphic slates of which the mountain is built are cut by cleavage planes in such a way that they weather off in angular blocks, giving rise to irregular steps that greatly facilitate climbing on the sheer places. I thus made my way into a wilderness of crumbling spires and battlements, built together in bewildering combinations, and glazed in many places with a thin coating of ice which I had to hammer off with stones. The situation was becoming gradually more perilous, but having passed several dangerous spots, I dared not think of descending. For so steep was the entire ascent, one would inevitably fall to the glacier in case a single misstep were made. Knowing, therefore, the tried danger beneath, I became all the more anxious concerning the developments to be made above, and began to be conscious of a vague foreboding of what actually befell. Not that I was given to fear, but rather because my instincts, usually so positive and true, seemed vitiated in some way, and were leading me astray. At length, after attaining an elevation of about 12,800 feet, I found myself at the foot of a sheer drop in the bed of the avalanche channel I was tracing, which seemed absolutely to bar further progress. It was only about 45 or 50 feet high, and somewhat roughened by fissures and projections, but these seemed so slight and insecure as footholds that I tried hard to avoid the precipice altogether by scaling the wall of the channel on either side. But, though less steep, the walls were smoother than the obstructing rock, and repeated efforts only showed that I must either go right ahead or turn back. The tried dangers beneath seemed even greater than that of the cliff in front. Therefore, after scanning its face again and again, I began to scale it, picking my holds with intense caution. After gaining a point about halfway to the top, I was suddenly brought to a dead stop, with arms outspread, clinging close to the face of the rock, unable to move hand or foot, either up or down. My doom appeared fixed. I must fall. There would be a moment of bewilderment, and then a lifeless rumble down the one general precipice to the glacier below. When this final danger flashed upon me, I became nerve-shaken for the first time since setting foot on the mountains, and my mind seemed to fill with a stifling smoke. But this terrible eclipse lasted only a moment, when life blazed forth again with preternatural clearness. I seemed suddenly to become possessed of a new sense. The other self, bygone experiences, instinct or guardian angel, call it what you will, came forward and assumed control. Then my trembling muscles became firm again. Every rift and flaw in the rock was seen as through a microscope, and my limbs moved with a positiveness and precision with which I seemed to have nothing at all to do. Had I been born aloft upon wings, my deliverance could not have been more complete. Above this memorable spot, the face of the mountain is still more savagely hacked and torn. It is a maze of yawning chasms and gullies, in the angles of which rise beatling crags, and piles of detached boulders that seem to have been gotten ready to be launched below. But the strange influx of strength I had received seemed inexhaustible. I found a way without effort, and soon stood upon the topmost crag in the blessed light. How truly glorious the landscape circled round this noble summit. Giant mountains, valleys innumerable, glaciers and meadows, rivers and lakes, with a wide blue sky bent tenderly over them all. But in my first hour of freedom, from that terrible shadow, the sunlight in which I was laving seemed all in all. Looking southward along the axis of the range, the eye is first caught by a row of exceedingly sharp and slender spires, which rise openly to a height of about a thousand feet above a series of short, residual glaciers that lean back against their bases. Their fantastic sculpture and the unreleaved sharpness with which they spring out of the ice, rendering them peculiarly wild and striking. These are the minarets. Beyond them you behold a sublime wilderness of mountains, their snowy summits towering together in crowded abundance, peak beyond peak, swelling higher, higher as they sweep on southward, until the culminating point of the range is reached on Mount Whitney, near the head of the Curran River, at an elevation of nearly fourteen thousand seven hundred feet above the level of the sea. Westward, the general flank of the range is seen flowing sublimely away from the sharp summits, in smooth undulations, a sea of huge gray granite waves dotted with lakes and meadows, and fluted with stupendous canyons that grow steadily deeper as they recede in the distance. Below this gray region lies the dark forest zone, broken here and there by up-swelling ridges and domes, and yet beyond lies a yellow hazy belt marking the broad plain of the San Joaquin, bounded on its farther side by the blue mountains of the coast. Turning now to the northward, there in the immediate foreground is the glorious Sierra Crown, with Cathedral Peak, a temple of marvelous architecture, a few degrees to the left of it, the gray massive form of Mammoth Mountain to the right, while Mounts Ord, Gibbs, Dana, Conesse, Tower Peak, Castle Peak, Silver Mountain, and a host of noble companions, as yet nameless, make a sublime show along the axis of the range. Eastward, the whole region seems a land of desolation covered with beautiful light, the torrid volcanic basin of Mono, with its one bare lake, 14 miles long, Owens Valley, and the broad lava table-land at its head, dotted with craters, and the massive Inyo range, rivaling even the Sierra in height. These are spread, map-like beneath you, with countless ranges beyond, passing and overlapping one another, and fading on the glowing horizon. At a distance of less than 3,000 feet below the summit of Mount Ritter, you may find tributaries of the San Joaquin and Owens rivers, bursting forth from the ice and snow of the glaciers that load its flanks, while a little to the north of here are found the highest affluence of the Tuolumne and Merced. Thus, the fountains of four of the principal rivers of California are within a radius of four or five miles. Lakes are seen gleaming in all sorts of places, round or oval or square, like very mirrors. Others, narrow and sinuous, drawn close around the peaks like silver zones, the highest reflecting only rocks, snow, and the sky. But neither these nor the glaciers, nor the bits of brown meadow and moorland that occur here and there, are large enough to make any market impression upon the mighty wilderness of mountains. The eye rejoicing in its freedom roves about the vast expanse, yet returns again and again to the fountain peaks. Perhaps some one of the multitude excites special attention, some gigantic castle with turret and battlement, or some gothic cathedral more abundantly spired than Milan's. But generally, when looking for the first time from an all-embracing standpoint like this, the inexperienced observer is oppressed by the incomprehensible grandeur, variety, and abundance of the mountains rising shoulder to shoulder beyond the reach of vision. And it is only after they have been studied one by one long and lovingly that their far-reaching harmonies become manifest. Then penetrate the wilderness where you may, the main telling features to which all the surrounding topography is subordinate are quickly perceived, and the most complicated clusters of peaks stand revealed harmoniously correlated and fashioned like works of art, eloquent monuments of the ancient ice rivers that brought them into relief from the general mass of the range. The canyons too, some of them a mile deep, mazing wildly through the mighty host of mountains, however lawless and ungovernable at first sight they appear, are at length recognized as the necessary effects of causes which followed each other in harmonious sequence. Nature's poems carved on tables of stone, the simplest and most emphatic of her glacial compositions. Could we have been here to observe during the glacial period? We should have overlooked a wrinkled ocean of ice as continuous as that now covering the landscapes of Greenland, filling every valley and canyon with only the tops of the fountain peaks rising darkly above the rocking-cumbered ice waves like islets in a storming sea. Those islets, the only hints of the glorious landscapes, now smiling in the sun. Standing here in the deep, brooding silence, all the wilderness seems motionless, as if the work of creation were done. But in the midst of this outer steadfastness, we know there is incessant motion and change. Ever and non, avalanches are falling from yonder peaks. These cliff-bound glaciers, seemingly wedged and immovable, are flowing like water and grinding the rocks beneath them. The lakes are lapping their granite shores and wearing them away, and every one of these rills and young rivers is fretting the air into music and carrying the mountains to the plains. Here are the roots of all the life of the valleys, and here more simply than elsewhere is the eternal flux of nature manifested. Ice changing to water, lakes to meadows, and mountains to plains. And while we thus contemplate nature's methods of landscape creation and reading the records she has carved on the rocks, reconstruct, however imperfectly, the landscapes of the past. We also learn that as these we now behold have succeeded those of the pre-glacial age, so they in turn are withering and vanishing, to be succeeded by others yet unborn. But in the midst of these fine lessons and landscapes, I had to remember that the sun was wheeling far to the west, while a new way down the mountain had to be discovered to some point on the timber line where I could have a fire, for I had not even burdened myself with a coat. I first scanned the western spurs, hoping some way might appear through which I might reach the northern glacier and cross its snout, or pass around the lake into which it flows and thus strike my morning track. This route was soon sufficiently unfolded to show that if practicable at all it would require so much time that reaching camp that night would be out of the question. I therefore scrambled back eastward, descending the southern slopes obliquely at the same time. Here the crags seemed less formidable, and the head of a glacier that flows northeast came in sight, which I determined to follow as far as possible, hoping thus to make my way to the foot of the peak on the east side, and then to cross the intervening canyons and ridges to camp. The inclination of the glacier is quite moderate at the head, and as the sun had softened the neve, I made safe and rapid progress, running and sliding, and keeping up a sharp lookout for crevasses. About half a mile from the head there is an ice cascade where the glacier pours over a sharp declivity, and is shattered into massive blocks separated by deep blue fissures. To thread my way through the slippery mazes of this crevast portion seemed impossible, and I endeavored to avoid it by climbing off to the shoulder of the mountain. But the slopes rapidly steepened, and at length fell away in sheer precipices, compelling a return to the ice. Fortunately the day had been warm enough to loosen the ice crystals so as to admit of hollows being dug in the rotten portions of the blocks, thus enabling me to pick my way with far less difficulty than I had anticipated. Continuing down over the snout and along the left lateral moraine was only a confident saunter, showing that the ascent of the mountain by way of this glacier is easy, provided one is armed with an axe to cut steps here and there. The lower end of the glacier was beautifully waved and barred by the outcropping edges of the bedded ice layers, which represent the annual snowfalls, and to some extent the irregularities of structure caused by the weathering of the walls of crevasses, and by separate snowfalls, which have been followed by rain, hail, thawing, and freezing, etc. Small rills were gliding and swirling over the melting surface with a smooth, oily appearance in channels of pure ice, their quick, compliant movements contrasting most impressively with the rigid, invisible flow of the glacier itself, on whose back they were all riding. Night drew near, before I reached the eastern base of the mountain, and my camp lay many a rugged mile to the north, but ultimate success was assured. It was now only a matter of endurance and ordinary mountain craft. The sunset was, if possible, yet more beautiful than that of the day before. The mono landscape seemed to be fairly saturated, with warm, purple light. The peaks marshalled along the summit were in shadow, but through every notch and pass streamed vivid sunfire, soothing and irradiating their rough black angles, while companies of small, luminous clouds hovered above them like very angels of light. Darkness came on, but I found my way by the trends of the canyons, and the peaks projected against the sky. All excitement died with the light, and then I was weary. But the joyful sound of the waterfall across the lake was heard at last, and soon the stars were seen reflected in the lake itself. Taking my bearings from these, I discovered the little pine-thicket in which my nest was, and then I had a rest, such as only a tired mountaineer may enjoy. After lying loose and lost for a while, I made a sunrise fire, went down to the lake, dashed water on my head, and dipped a cupful for tea. The revival brought about by bread and tea was as complete as the exhaustion from excessive enjoyment and toil. Then I crept beneath the pine-tassels to bed. The wind was frosty, and the fire burned low, but my sleep was nonetheless sound, and the evening constellations had swept far to the west before I awoke. After thawing and resting in the morning sunshine, I sauntered home, that is, back to the Tuolumne camp, bearing away toward a cluster of peaks that held the fountain snows of one of the north tributaries of Rush Creek. Here I discovered a group of beautiful glacier lakes, nestled together in a grand amphitheater. Toward evening I crossed the divide, separating the mono-waters from those of the Tuolumne, and entered the glacier basin that now holds the fountain snows of the stream that forms the upper Tuolumne cascades. This stream I traced down through its many dells and gorges, meadows and bogs, reaching the brink of the main Tuolumne at dusk. A loud whoop for the artists was answered again and again. Their campfire came in sight, and half an hour afterward I was with them. They seemed unreasonably glad to see me. I had been absent only three days. Nevertheless, though the weather was fine, they had already been weighing chances as to whether I would ever return, and trying to decide whether they should wait longer or begin to seek their way back to the lowlands. Now their curious troubles were over. They packed their precious sketches, and next morning we set out homeward bound, and in two days entered the Yosemite Valley from the north by way of Indian canyon. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of the Mountains of California This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Julian Jameson The Mountains of California by John Muir Chapter 5 The Passes The sustained grandeur of the High Sierra is strikingly illustrated by the great height of the passes. Between latitude 36 degrees, 20 minutes, and 38 degrees, the lowest pass, gap, gorge, or notch of any kind cutting across the axis of the range, as far as I have discovered, exceeds 9,000 feet in height above the level of the sea. While the average height of all that are in use, either by Indians or Whites, is perhaps not less than 11,000 feet, and not one of these is a carriage pass. Farther north, a carriage road has been constructed through what is known as the Sonora Pass, on the headwaters of the Stanislaus and Walker's Rivers, the summit of which is about 10,000 feet above the sea. Substantial wagon roads have also been built through the Carson and Johnson passes near the head of Lake Tahoe, over which immense quantities of freight were hauled from California to the mining regions of Nevada, before the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. Still farther north, a considerable number of comparatively low passes occur, some of which are accessible to wheeled vehicles, and through these rugged defiles, during the exciting years of the gold period, long emigrant drains with foots or cattle wereally toiled. After the toil worn adventurers had escaped a thousand dangers, and had crawled thousands of miles across the plains, the snowy Sierra had last loomed in sight, the eastern wall of the land of gold. And as with shaded eyes, they gazed through the tremulous haze of the desert, with what joy must they have described the pass through which they were to enter the better land of their hopes and dreams. Between the Sonora Pass and the southern extremity of the High Sierra, a distance of nearly 160 miles, there are only five passes through which trails conduct from one side of the range to the other. These are barely practicable for animals, a pass in these regions meaning simply any notch or canyon through which one may, by the exercise of unlimited patience, make out to lead a mule or a sure-footed Mustang, animals that can slide or jump as well as walk. Only three of the five passes may be said to be in use, Viz, the Cursarch, Mono, and Virginia Creek, the tracks leading through the others being only obscure Indian trails, not graded in the least, and scarcely traceable by white men, for much of the ways over solid rock and earthquake avalanche talises, where the unshawed ponies of the Indians leave no appreciable sign. Only skilled mountaineers are able to detect the marks that serve to guide the Indians, such as slight abrasions of the looser rocks, the displacement of stones here and there, and bent bushes and weeds. A general knowledge of the topography is then the main guide, enabling one to determine where the trail ought to go, must go. One of these Indian trails crosses the range by a nameless pass between the headwaters of the south and middle forks of the San Joaquin, the other between the north and middle forks of the same river, just to the south of the Minarets. This last being about 9,000 feet high is the lowest of the five. The Cursarch is the highest, crossing the summit near the head of the south fork of King's River, about eight miles to the north of Mount Tindall, through the midst of the most stupendous rock scenery. The summit of this pass is over 12,000 feet above sea level. Nevertheless, it is one of the safest of the five, and is used every summer from July to October or November by hunters, prospectors, and stock owners, and to some extent by enterprising pleasure seekers also. Four, besides the surpassing grandeur of the scenery about the summit, the trail, in ascending the western flank of the range, conducts through a grove of the giant sequoias, and through the magnificent Yosemite Valley of the south fork of King's River. This is perhaps the highest traveled pass on the North American continent. The mono pass lies to the east of Yosemite Valley, at the head of one of the tributaries of the south fork of the Tuolumne. This is the best known and most extensively traveled of all that exist in the High Sierra. A trail was made through at about the time of the mono gold excitement in the year 1858, by adventurous miners and prospectors, men who would build a trail down the throat of darkest Erebus on the way to gold. Though more than a thousand feet lower than the Cure Sarge, it is scarcely less sublime in rock scenery, while in snowy, falling water it far surpasses it. Being so favorably situated for the stream of Yosemite travel, the more adventurous tourists cross over through this glorious gateway to the volcanic region around Mono Lake. It is therefore gained a name and fame above every other pass in the range. According to the few barometrical observations made upon it, its highest point is 10,765 feet above the sea. The other pass of the five we've been considering is somewhat lower, and crosses the axis of the range a few miles to the north of the mono pass, at the head of the southernmost tributary of Walker's River. It is used chiefly by roaming bands of the Pauta Indians and sheepmen. But, leaving wheels and animals out of the question, the free mountaineer with a sack of bread on his shoulders, and an axe to cut steps in ice and frozen snow, can make his way across the range almost everywhere, and at any time of year when the weather is calm. To him nearly every notch between the peaks is a pass, though much patient step-cutting is at times required up and down steeply inclined glaciers, with cautious climbing over precipices that at first sight would seem hopelessly inaccessible. In pursuing my studies, I have crossed from side to side of the range at intervals of a few miles all along the highest portion of the chain, with far less real danger than one would naturally count on. And what fine wildness was thus revealed, storms and avalanches, lakes and waterfalls, gardens and meadows, and interesting animals, only those will ever know who give the freest and most buoyant portion of their lives to climbing and seeing for themselves. To the timid traveller, fresh from the sedimentary levels of the lowlands, these highways, however picturesque and grand, seem terribly forbidding, cold, dead, gloomy gashes in the bones of the mountains, and of all nature's ways the ones to be most cautiously avoided. Yet they are full of the finest and most telling examples of nature's love, and though hard to travel none are safer, for they lead through regions that lie far above the ordinary haunts of the devil, and of the pestilence that walks in darkness. True, there are innumerable places where the careless step will be the last step, and a rock falling from the cliffs may crush without warning, like lightning from the sky. But what then? Accidents in the mountains are less common than in the lowlands, and these mountain mansions are decent, delightful, even divine places to die in, compared with the doleful chambers of civilization. Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action. Even the sick should try these so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill, they cure a thousand. All the passes make their steepest ascents on the eastern flank. On this side the average rise is not far from a thousand feet to the mile. While on the west it is about two hundred feet. Another marked difference between the eastern and western portions of the passes is that the former begin at the very foot of the range, while the latter can hardly be said to begin lower than an elevation of from seven to ten thousand feet. Approaching the range from the gray levels of Mono and Owens Valley on the east, the traveller sees before him the steep, short passes in full view, fenced in by rugged spurs that come plunging down from the shoulders of the peaks on either side, the courses of the more direct being disclosed from top to bottom without interruption. But from the west once he is nothing of the way he may be seeking until near the summit, after days have been spent in threading the forests growing on the main dividing ridges between the river canyons. It is interesting to observe how surely the alp-crossing animals of every kind fall into the same trails. The more rugged and inaccessible the general character of the topography of any particular region, the more surely will the trails of white men, Indians, bears, wild sheep, etc. be found converging into the best passes. The Indians of the western slope venture cautiously over the passes in settled weather to attend dances, and obtain loads of pine nuts and the larvae of a small fly that breeds in Mono and Owens Lakes, which, when dried, forms an important article of food. While the Pautes cross over from the east to hunt the deer and obtain supplies of acorns, and it is truly astonishing to see what immense loads the haggard old squaws make out to carry barefooted through these rough passes, oftentimes for a distance of sixty or seventy miles. They're always accompanied by the men who stride on, unburdened and erect, a little in advance, kindly stooping at difficult places to pile stepping-stones for their patient pack-animal wives, just as they would prepare the way for their ponies. Bears evince great sagacity as mountaineers, but although they are tireless and enterprising travelers, they seldom cross the range. I have several times tracked them through the monopass, but only in late years after cattle and sheep had passed that way, when they doubtless were following to feed on the stragglers and on those that had been killed by falling over the rocks. Even the wild sheep, the best mountaineers of all, choose regular passes in making journeys across the summits. Deer seldom cross the range in either direction. I have never yet observed a single specimen of the mule deer of the great basin west of the summit, and rarely one of the black-tailed species on the eastern slope, notwithstanding many of the latter ascend the range nearly to the summit every summer, to feed in the wild gardens and bring forth their young. The glaciers are the pass-makers, and it is by them that the courses of all mountaineers are predestined. Without exception, every pass in the Sierra was created by them without the slightest aid or pre-determining guidance from any of the cataclysmic agents. I have seen elaborate statements of the amount of drilling and blasting accomplished in the construction of the railroad across the Sierra, above Donner Lake. But for every pound of rock moved in this way, the glaciers which descended east and west through this same pass crushed and carried away more than a hundred tons. The so-called practicable road passes are simply those portions of the range more degraded by glacial action than the adjacent portions, and degraded in such a way as to leave the summits rounded instead of sharp, while the peaks from the superior strength and hardness of their rocks, or from more favourable position, having suffered less degradation, are left towering above the passes as if they had been heaved into the sky by some force acting from beneath. The scenery of all the passes, especially at the head, is of the wildest and grandest description, lofty peaks massed together and laden around their bases with ice and snow, chains of glacier lakes, cascading streams in endless variety, with glorious views westward over a sea of rocks and woods, and eastward over strange ashy plains, volcanoes, and the dry, dead-looking ranges of the Great Basin. Every pass, however, possesses treasures of beauty all its own. Having us in a general way indicated the height, leading features, and distribution of the principal passes, I will now endeavour to describe the monopass in particular, which may, I think, be regarded as a fair example of the higher alpine passes in general. The main portion of the monopass is formed by bloody canyon, which begins at the summit of the range and runs in a general east-northeasterly direction to the edge of the monoplane. The first white men who forced away through its somber depths were, as we have seen, eager gold seekers, but the canyon was known and travelled as a pass by the Indians and mountain animals, long before its discovery by white men, as is shown by the numerous tributary trails, which come into it from every direction. Its name accords well with the character of the early times in California, and may perhaps have been suggested by the predominant colour of the metamorphic slates in which it is in great part eroded, or more probably by bloodstains, made by the unfortunate animals which were compelled to slip and shuffle awkwardly over its rough, cutting rocks. I have never known an animal, either mule or horse, to make its way through the canyon, either in going up or down, without losing more or less blood from wounds on the legs. Occasionally one is killed outright, falling headlong and rolling over precipices, like a boulder. But such accidents are rarer than from the terrible appearance of the trail one would be led to expect. The more experienced, when driven loose, find their way over the dangerous places, with a caution and sagacity that is truly wonderful. During the gold excitement, it was at times a matter of considerable pecuniary importance to force a way through the canyon with packed trains early in the spring, while it was yet heavily blocked with snow. And then the mules, with their loads, had sometimes to be led down over the steepest drifts and avalanche beds by means of ropes. A good bridal path leads from Yosemite through many a grove and meadow up to the head of the canyon, a distance of about 30 miles. Here the scenery undergoes a sudden and startling condensation. Mountains, red, gray, and black, rise close at hand on the right, whitened around their bases with banks of enduring snow. On the left swells the huge red mass of Mount Gibbs, while in front the eye wanders down the shadowy canyon, and out on the warm plain of Mano, where the lake is seen gleaming like a burnished metallic disk, with clusters of lofty volcanic cones to the south of it. When at length we enter the mountain gateway, the somber rocks seem aware of our presence, and seem to come thronging closer about us. Happily, the Oozle and the old familiar Robin are here to sing us welcome, and Azure Daisy's beam with trustfulness and sympathy, enabling us to feel something of nature's love even here, beneath the gaze of her coldest rocks. The effect of this expressive outspokenness on the part of the canyon rocks is greatly enhanced by the quiet aspect of the Alpine meadows, through which we pass, just before entering the narrow gateway. The forests in which they lie, and the mountaintops rising beyond them, seem quiet and tranquil. We catch their restful spirit, yield to the soothing influences of the sunshine, and saunter dreamily on through flowers and bees, scarce touched by a definite thought. Then suddenly we find ourselves in the shadowy canyon, closeted with nature in one of her wildest strongholds. After the first bewildering impression begins to wear off, we perceive that it is not altogether terrible, for besides the reassuring birds and flowers we discover a chain of shining lakelets, hanging down from the very summit of the pass, and linked together by a silvery stream. The highest are set in bleak, rough bowls, scantily fringed with brown and yellow sedges. Winter storms blow snow through the canyon and blinding drifts, and avalanches shoot from the heights. Then are these sparkling tarns filled and buried, leaving not a hint of their existence. In June and July they begin to blink and thaw out like sleepy eyes. The carousels thrust up their short brown spikes, the daisies bloom and turn, and the most profoundly buried of them all is at length warmed and summered, as if winter were only a dream. Red Lake is the lowest of the chain, and also the largest. It seems rather dull and forbidding at first sight, lying motionless in its deep, dark bed. The canyon wall rises sheer from the water's edge on the south, but on the opposite side there is sufficient space and sunshine for a sedgy daisy garden, the center of which is brilliantly lighted with lilies, castileas, larkspurs, and columbines, sheltered from the wind by leafy willows, and forming a most joyful outburst of plant life, keenly emphasized by the chill baldness of the onlooking cliffs. After indulging here in a dozing, shimmering lake rest, the happy stream sets forth again, warbling and trilling like an oozle, ever delightfully confiding, no matter how dark the way, leaping, gliding, hither, thither, clear or foaming, manifesting the beauty of its wildness in every sound and gesture. One of its most beautiful developments is the Diamond Cascade, situated a short distance below Red Lake. Here the tense crystalline water is first dashed into coarse granular spray mixed with dusty foam, and then divided into a diamond pattern by following the diagonal cleavage joints that intersect the face of the precipice over which it pours. Viewed in front, it resembles a strip of embroidery, of definite pattern, varying through the seasons with the temperature and the volume of water. Scarce of flower may be seen along its snowy border. A few bent pines look on from a distance, and small fringes of cassiope and rock ferns are growing in fissures near the head, but these are so lowly and undemonstrative that only the attentive observer will be likely to notice them. On the north wall of the canyon, a little below the Diamond Cascade, a glittering side stream makes its appearance, seeming to leap directly out of the sky. It first resembles a crinkled ribbon of silver hanging loosely down the wall, but grows wider as it descends and dashes the dull rock with foam. A long, rough talus curves up against this part of the cliff, overgrown with snow-pressed willows, in which the fall disappears with many an eager surge and swirl and plashing leap, finally beating its way down to its confluence with the main canyon stream. Below this point the climate is no longer arctic, butterflies become larger and more abundant, grasses with imposing spread of panicle wave above your shoulders, and the summery drone of the bumblebee thickens the air. The dwarf pine, the tree-mount near the climb's highest and braves the coldest blasts, is found scattered in storm-beaten clumps from the summit of the pass about halfway down the canyon. Here it is succeeded by the hardy two-leaved pine, which is speedily joined by the taller yellow and mountain pines. These, with the burly juniper and shimmering aspen, rapidly grow larger as the sunshine becomes richer, forming groves that block the view, or they stand more apart here and there, in picturesque groups that make beautiful and obvious harmony with the rocks and with one another. Blooming underbrush becomes abundant, azalea, spiraea, and the briar rose weaving fringes for the streams, and shaggy rugs to relieve the stern, unflinching rock bosses. Through this delightful wilderness canyon creek roves without any constraining channel, throbbing and wavering, now in sunshine, now in thoughtful shade, falling, swirling, flashing from side to side in weary-less exuberance of energy. A glorious milky way of cascades is thus developed, of which Bower Cascade, though one of the smallest, is perhaps the most beautiful of them all. It is situated in the lower region of the pass, just where the sunshine begins to mellow between the cold and warm climates. Here the glad creek, grown strong with tribute gathered from many a snowy fountain on the heights, sings richer strains, and becomes more human and lovable at every step. Now you may by its side find the rose and homely arrow, and small meadows full of bees and clover. At the head of a low-browed rock, luxuriant dogwood bushes and willows arch over from bank to bank, embowering the stream with their leafy branches, and drooping plumes, kept in motion by the current, fringe the brow of the cascade in front. From this leafy covert, the stream leaps out into the light in a fluted curve, thick sewn with sparkling crystals, and falls into a pool filled with brown boulders, out of which it creeps gray with foam bells, and disappears in a tangle of verdure, like that from which it came. Hence, to the foot of the canyon, the metamorphic slates give place to granite, whose noblest sculpture calls forth expressions of corresponding beauty from the stream and passing over it, bright trills of rapids becoming notes of falls, solemn hushes of smooth gliding sheets, all chanting and blending in glorious harmony. When at length its impetuous alpine life is done, it slips through the meadow with scarce and audible whisper, and falls asleep in Moraine Lake. This waterbed is one of the finest I ever saw. Evergreens wave soothingly about it, and the breath of flowers floats over it like incense. Here our blessed stream rests from its rocky wanderings, all its mountaineering done, no more foaming rock-leaping, no more wild, exulting sawn. It falls into a smooth, glassy sleep, stirred only by the night wind, which, coming down the canyon, makes it croon and mutter in ripples along its broidered shores. Leaving the lake, it glides quietly through the rushes, destined never more to touch the living rock. Henceforth its path lies through ancient moraines and reaches of ashy sage plain, which nowhere afford rocks suitable for the development of cascades or sheer falls. Yet this beauty of maturity, though less striking, is of a still higher order, enticing us lovingly on through gentian meadows and groves of rustling aspen to Lake Mono, where, spirit-like, our happy stream vanishes in vapor, and floats free again in the sky. Bloody Canyon, like every other in the Sierra, was recently occupied by a glacier which derived its fountain snows from the adjacent summits, and descended into Mono Lake at a time when its waters stood at a much higher level than now. The principal characters in which the history of the ancient glaciers is preserved are displayed here in marvelous freshness and simplicity, furnishing the student with extraordinary advantages for the acquisition of knowledge of this sort. The most striking passages are polished and striated surfaces, which in many places reflect the rays of the sun like smooth water. The dam of Red Lake is an elegantly modelled rib of metamorphic slate, brought into relief because of its superior strength, and because of the greater intensity of the glacial erosion of the rock immediately above it, caused by a steeply inclined tributary glacier, which entered the main trunk with a heavy down thrust at the head of the lake. Moraine Lake furnishes an equally interesting example of a basin formed wholly, or in part, by a terminal moraine dam, curved across the path of a stream between two lateral moraines. At Moraine Lake the canyon proper terminates, although apparently continued by the two lateral moraines of the vanished glacier. These moraines are about 300 feet high and extend unbrokenly from the sides of the canyon into the plain, a distance of about five miles, curving and tapering in beautiful lines. Their sunward sides are gardens, their shady sides are groves, the former devoted chiefly to iriogony, composite and graminé, a square rod containing five or six profusely flowered iriognoms of several species, about the same number of bahia and linoceres, and a few grass tufts, each species being planted trimly apart with bare gravel between, as if cultivated artificially. My first visit to Bloody Canyon was made in the summer of 1869, under circumstances well calculated to heighten the impressions that are the peculiar offspring of mountains. I came from the blooming tangles of Florida and waded out into the plant gold of the great valley of California, when its flora was as yet untrodden. Never before had I beheld congregations of social flowers half so extensive or half so glorious. Golden composite covered all the ground from the coast range to the Sierra like a stratum of curdled sunshine in which I revelled for weeks, watching the rising and setting of their innumerable suns. Then I gave myself up to be born forward on the crest of the summer wave that sweeps annually up the Sierra and spends itself on the snowy summits. At the big twalumny meadows I remained more than a month, sketching, botanizing, and climbing among the surrounding mountains. The Mountaineer, with whom I then happened to be camping, was one of those remarkable men one so frequently meets in California. The hard angles and bosses of whose characters have been brought into relief by the grinding excitement of the gold period, and so they resemble glacial landscapes. But at this late day my friend's activities had subsided, and his craving for rest caused him to become a gentle shepherd, and literally to lie down with the lamb. Recognizing the unsatisfiable longings of my Scotch Highland instincts, he threw out some hints concerning Bloody Canyon, and advised me to explore it. I have never seen it myself, he said, for I never was so unfortunate as to pass that way. But I have heard many a strange story about it, and I warrant you will at least find it wild enough. Then, of course, I made haste to see it. Early next morning I made up a bundle of bread, tied my notebook to my belt, and strode away in the bracing air, full of eager, indefinite hope. The plushy lawns that lay in my path served to soothe my morning haste. The sod in many places was starred with daisies and blue gentians, over which I lingered. I traced the paths of the ancient glaciers over many a shining pavement, and marked the gaps in the upper forests that told the power of the winter avalanches. Climbing higher, I saw for the first time the gradual dwarfing of the pines in compliance with climate, and on the summit discovered creeping mats of the arctic willow overgrown with silky catkins and patches of the dwarf vaccinium, with its round flowers sprinkled in the grass like purple hail, while in every direction the landscape stretched sublimely away in fresh wildness, a manuscript written by the hand of nature alone. At length, as I entered the pass, the huge rocks began to close around in all their wild, mysterious impressiveness, when suddenly, as I was gazing eagerly about me, a drove of gray hairy beings came in sight, lumbering toward me with a kind of boneless, wallowing motion like bears. I never turned back, though often so inclined, and in this particular instance amid such surroundings, everything seemed singularly unfavorable for the calm acceptance of so grim a company. Suppressing my fears, I soon discovered that although as hairy as bears, and as crooked as summit pines, the strange creatures were sufficiently erect to belong to our own species. They proved to be nothing more formidable than mono-Indians, dressed in the skins of sage rabbits. Both the men and the women begged persistently for whiskey and tobacco, and seemed so accustomed to denials that I found it impossible to convince them that I had none to give. Accepting the names of these two products of civilization, they seemed to understand not a word of English, but I afterward learned that they were on their way to Yosemite Valley, to feast awhile on trout, and procure a load of acorns to carry back through the pass to their huts on the shore of Mono Lake. Occasionally a good countenance may be seen among the mono-Indians, but these, the first specimens I had seen, were mostly ugly, and some of them altogether hideous. The dirt on their faces was fairly stratified, and seemed so ancient and so undisturbed it might almost possess a geological significance. The older faces were, moreover, strangely blurred and divided into sections by furrows that looked like the cleavage joints of rocks, suggesting exposure on the mountains in a castaway condition for ages. Somehow they seemed to have no right place in the landscape, and I was glad to see them fading out of sight down the pass. Then came evening, and the somber cliffs were inspired with the ineffable beauty of the alpine glow. A solemn calm fell upon everything. All the lower portion of the canyon was in gloaming shadow, and I crept into a hollow near one of the upper lakelets to smooth the ground in a sheltered nook for a bed. When the short twilight faded, I kindled a sunny fire, made a cup of tea, and laid down to rest and look at the stars. Soon the night wind began to flow and pour and torrents among the jagged peaks, mingling strange tones with those of the waterfall sounding far below, and as I drifted toward sleep I began to experience an uncomfortable feeling of nearness to the furred monos. Then the full moon looked down over the edge of the canyon wall, her countenance seemingly filled with intense concern, and apparently so near as to produce a startling effect as if she'd entered my bedroom, forgetting all the world, to gaze on me alone. The night was full of strange sounds, and I gladly welcomed the morning. Breakfast was soon done, and I set forth in the exhilarating freshness of the new day, rejoicing in the abundance of pure wildness so close about me. The stupendous rocks, hacked and scarred with centuries of storms, stood sharply out in the thin early light, while down in the bottom of the canyon grooved and polished bosses heaved and glistened like swelling sea waves, telling a grand old story of the ancient glacier that poured its crushing floods above them. Here for the first time I met the arctic daisies in all their perfection of purity and spirituality. Gentle mountaineers, face to face with the stormy sky, kept safe and warm by a thousand miracles. I leaped lightly from rock to rock, glorying in the eternal freshness and sufficiency of nature, and in the ineffable tenderness with which she nurtures her mountain darlings at the very fountains of storms. Fresh beauty appeared at every step, delicate rock ferns, and groups of the fairest flowers. Now another lake came to view, now a waterfall. Never fell light in brighter spangles, never fell water in whiter foam. I seemed to float through the canyon enchanted, feeling nothing of its roughness, and was out in the mono levels before I was aware. Looking back from the shore of Moraine Lake, my morning ramble seemed all a dream. There occurred bloody canyon, a mere glacial furrow two thousand feet deep, with smooth rocks projecting from the sides and braided together in the middle, like bulging, swelling muscles. Here the lilies were higher than my head, and the sunshine was warm enough for palms. Yet the snow around the arctic willows was plainly visible only four miles away, and between were narrow specimen zones of all the principal climates of the globe. On the bank of a small brook that comes gurgling down the side of the left lateral moraine I found a campfire still burning, which no doubt belonged to the gray Indians I had met on the summit, and I listened instinctively and moved cautiously forward, half expecting to see some of their grim faces peering out of the bushes. Passing on toward the open plain I noticed three well-defined terminal moraines curved gracefully across the canyon stream, and joined by long splices to the two noble laterals. These marked the halting places of the vanished glacier, when it was retreating into its summit shadows, on the breaking up of the glacial winter. Five miles below the foot of Moraine Lake, just where the lateral moraines lose themselves in the plain, there was a field of wild rye, growing in magnificent waving bunches six to eight feet high, bearing heads from six to twelve inches long. Rubbing out some of the grains, I found them about five-eighths of an inch long, dark-colored and sweet. Indian women were gathering it in baskets, bending down large handfuls, beating it out and fanning it in the wind. There were quite picturesque, coming through the rye, as one caught glimpses of them here and there, in winding lanes and openings, with splendid tufts arching above their heads, while their incessant chat and laughter showed their heedless joy. Like the rye field I found the so-called desert of mono blooming in a high state of natural cultivation, with the wild rose, cherry, aster, and the delicate abronia, also innumerable gillias, floxes, poppies, and bush composite. I observed their gestures and the various expressions of their corollas, inquiring how they could be so fresh and beautiful out in this volcanic desert. They told as happy a life as any plant company I ever met, and seemed to enjoy even the hot sand and the wind. But the vegetation of the pass has been in great part destroyed, and the same may be said of all the more accessible passes throughout the range. Immense numbers of starving sheep and cattle have been driven through them into Nevada, trampling the wild gardens and meadows almost out of existence. The lofty walls are untouched by any foot, and the falls sing on unchanged, but the sight of crushed flowers and stripped, bitten bushes goes far toward destroying the charm of wildness. The canyon should be seen in winter, a good strong traveler who knows the way and the weather might easily make a safe excursion through it from Yosemite Valley on snowshoes during some tranquil time when the storms are hushed. The lakes and falls would be buried then, but so also would be the traces of destructive feet, while the views of the mountains in their winter garb and the ride at lightning speed down the pass between the snowy walls would be truly glorious.