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August 21. Have just returned
from a fine wild excursion across the range to Mono Lake, by way of the Mono
or Bloody Canon Pass. Mr. Delaney has been good to me all summer, lending a
helping, sympathizing hand at every opportunity, as if my wild notions and
rambles and studies were his own. He is one of those remarkable California
men who have been overflowed and denuded and remodeled by the excitements of
the gold fields, like the Sierra landscapes by grinding ice, bringing the
harder bosses and ridges of character into relief, — a tall, lean,
big-boned, big-hearted Irishman, educated for a priest in Maynooth College,
— lots of good in him, shining out now and then in this mountain light.
Recognizing my love of wild places, he told me one evening that I ought to
go through Bloody Canon, for he was sure I should find it wild enough. He
had not been there himself, he said, but had heard many of his mining
friends speak of it as the wildest of all the Sierra passes. Of course I was
glad to go. It lies just to the east of our camp and swoops down from the
summit of the range to the edge of the Mono Desert, making a descent of
about four thousand feet in a distance of about four miles. It was known and
traveled as a pass by wild animals and the Indians long before its discovery
by white men in the gold year of 1858, as is shown by old trails which come
together at the head of it. The name may have been suggested by the red
color of the metamorphic slates in which the canon abounds, or by the blood
stains on the rocks from the unfortunate animals that were compelled to
slide and shuffle over the sharp-angled boulders.
Early in the morning I tied
my notebook and some bread to my belt, and strode away full of eager hope,
feeling that I was going to have a glorious revel. The glacier meadows that
lay along my way served to soothe my morning speed, for the sod was full of
blue gentians and daisies, kalmia and dwarf vaccinium, calling for
recognition as old friends, and I had to stop many times to examine the
shining rocks over which the ancient glacier had passed with tremendous
pressure, polishing them so well that they reflected the sunlight like glass
in some places, while fine striae, seen clearly through a lens, indicated
the direction in which the ice had flowed. On some of the sloping polished
pavements abrupt steps occur, showing that occasionally large masses of the
rock had given way before the glacial pressure, as well as small particles;
moraines, too, some scattered, others regular like long curving embankments
and dams, occur here and there, giving the general surface of the region a
young, new-made appearance. I watched the gradual dwarfing of the pines as I
ascended, and the corresponding dwarfing of nearly all the rest of the
vegetation. On the slopes of Mammoth Mountain, to the south of the pass, I
saw many gaps in the woods reaching from the upper edge of the timberline
down to the level meadows, where avalanches of snow had descended, sweeping
away every tree in their paths as well as the soil they were growing in,
leaving the bedrock bare. The trees are nearly all uprooted, but a few that
had been extremely well anchored in clefts of the rock were broken off near
the ground. It seems strange at first sight that trees that had been allowed
to grow for a century or more undisturbed should in their old age be thus
swished away at a stroke. Such avalanches can only occur under rare
conditions of weather and snowfall. No doubt on some positions of the
mountain slopes the inclination and smoothness of the surface is such that
avalanches must occur every winter, or even after every heavy snowstorm, and
of course no trees or even bushes can grow in their channels. I noticed a
few clean-swept slopes of this kind. The uprooted trees that had grown in
the pathway of what might be called "century avalanches" were piled in
windrows, and tucked snugly against the wall-trees of the gaps, heads
downward, excepting a few that were carried out into the open ground of the
meadows, where the heads of the avalanches had stopped. Young pines, mostly
the two-leaved and the white-barked, are already springing up in these
cleared gaps. It would be interesting to ascertain the age of these
saplings, for thus we should gain a fair approximation to the year that the
great avalanches occurred. Perhaps most or all of them occurred the same
winter. How glad I should be if free to pursue such studies!
Near the summit at the head
of the pass I found a species of dwarf willow lying perfectly flat on the
ground, making a nice, soft, silky gray carpet, not a single stem or branch
more than three inches high; but the catkins, which are now nearly ripe,
stand erect and make a close, nearly regular gray growth, being larger than
all the rest of the plants. Some of these interesting dwarfs have only one
catkin — willow bushes reduced to their lowest terms. I found patches of
dwarf vaccinium also forming smooth carpets, closely pressed to the ground
or against the sides of stones, and covered with round pink flowers in
lavish abundance as if they had fallen from the sky like hail. A little
higher, almost at the very head of the pass, I found the blue arctic daisy
and purple-flowered bryanthus, the mountain's own darlings, gentle
mountaineers face to face with the sky, kept safe and warm by a thousand
miracles, seeming always the finer and purer the wilder and stormier their
homes. The trees, tough and resiny, seem unable to go a step farther; but up
and up, far above the tree-line, these tender plants climb, cheerily
spreading their gray and pink carpets right up to the very edges of the
snow-banks in deep hollows and shadows. Here, too, is the familiar robin,
tripping on the flowery lawns, bravely singing the same cheery song I first
heard when a boy in Wisconsin newly arrived from old Scotland. In this fine
company sauntering enchanted, taking no heed of time, I at length entered
the gate of the pass, and the huge rocks began to close around me in all
their mysterious impressiveness. Just then I was startled by a lot of queer,
hairy, muffled creatures coming shuffling, shambling, wallowing toward me as
if they had no bones in their bodies. Had I discovered them while they were
yet a good way off, I should have tried to avoid them. What a picture they
made contrasted with the others I had just been admiring. When I came up to
them, I found that they were only a band of Indians from Mono on their way
to Yosemite for a load of acorns. They were wrapped in blankets made of the
skins of sage-rabbits. The dirt on some of the faces seemed almost old
enough and thick enough to have a geological significance; some were
strangely blurred and divided into sections by seams and wrinkles that
looked like cleavage joints, and had a worn abraded look as if they had lain
exposed to the weather for ages. I tried to pass them without stopping, but
they would n't let me; forming a dismal circle about me, I was closely
besieged while they begged whiskey or tobacco, and it was hard to convince
them that I had n't any. How glad I was to get away from the gray, grim
crowd and see them vanish down the trail! Yet it seems sad to feel such
desperate repulsion from one's fellow beings, however degraded. To prefer
the society of squirrels and woodchucks to that of our own species must
surely be unnatural. So with a fresh breeze and a hill or mountain between
us I must wish them Godspeed and try to pray and sing with Burns, "It's
coming yet, for a' that, that man to man, the warld o'er, shall brothers be
for a' that."
How the day passed I hardly
know. By the map I have come only about ten or twelve miles, though the sun
is already low in the west, showing how long I must have lingered,
observing, sketching, taking notes among the glaciated rocks and moraines
and Alpine flower-beds.
At sundown the somber crags
and peaks were inspired with the ineffable beauty of the alpenglow, and a
solemn, awful stillness hushed everything in the landscape. Then I crept
into a hollow by the side of a small lake near the head of the canon,
smoothed a sheltered spot, and gathered a few pine tassels for a bed. After
the short twilight began to fade I kindled a sunny fire, made a tin cupful
of tea, and lay down to watch the stars. Soon the night-wind began to flow
from the snowy peaks overhead, at first only a gentle breathing, then
gaining strength, in less than an hour rumbled in massive volume something
like a boisterous stream in a boulder-choked channel, roaring and moaning
down the canon as if the work it had to do was tremendously important and
fateful; and mingled with these storm tones were those of the waterfalls on
the north side of the canon, now sounding distinctly, now smothered by the
heavier cataracts of air, making a glorious psalm of savage wildness. My
fire squirmed and struggled as if ill at ease, for though in a sheltered
nook, detached masses of icy wind often fell like icebergs on top of it,
scattering sparks and coals, so that I had to keep well back to avoid being
burned. But the big resiny roots and knots of the dwarf pine could neither
be beaten out nor blown away, and the flames, now rushing up in long lances,
now flattened and twisted on the rocky ground, roared as if trying to tell
the storm stories of the trees they belonged to, as the light given out was
telling the story of the sunshine they had gathered in centuries of summers.
The stars shone clear in the
strip of sky between the huge dark cliffs; and as I lay recalling the
lessons of the day, suddenly the full moon looked down over the canon wall,
her face apparently filled with eager concern, which had a startling effect,
as if she had left her place in the sky and had come down to gaze on me
alone, like a person entering one's bedroom. It was hard to realize that she
was in her place in the sky, and was looking abroad on half the globe, land
and sea, mountains, plains, lakes, rivers, oceans, ships, cities with their
myriads of inhabitants sleeping and waking, sick and well. No, she seemed to
be just on the rim of Bloody Canon and looking only at me. This was indeed
getting near to Nature. I remember watching the harvest moon rising above
the oak trees in Wisconsin apparently as big as a cart-wheel and not farther
than half a mile distant. With these exceptions I might say I never before
had seen the moon, and this night she seemed so full of life and so near,
the effect was marvelously impressive and made me forget the Indians, the
great black rocks above me, and the wild uproar of the winds and waters
making their way down the huge jagged gorge. Of course I slept but little
and gladly welcomed the dawn over the Mono Desert. By the time I had made a
cupful of tea the sunbeams were pouring through the canon, and I set forth,
gazing eagerly at the tremendous walls of red slates savagely hacked and
scarred and apparently ready to fall in avalanches great enough to choke the
pass and fill up the chain of lake-lets. But soon its beauties came to view,
and I bounded lightly from rock to rock, admiring the polished bosses
shining in the slant sunshine with glorious effect in the general roughness
of moraines and avalanche taluses, even toward the head of the canon near
the highest fountains of the ice. Here, too, are most of the lowly plant
people seen yesterday on the other side of the divide now opening their
beautiful eyes. None could fail to glory in Nature's tender care for them in
so wild a place. The little ouzel is flitting from rock to rock along the
rapid swirling Canon Creek, diving for breakfast in icy pools, and merrily
singing as if the huge rugged avalanche-swept gorge was the most delightful
of all its mountain homes. Besides a high fall on the north wall of the
canon, apparently coming direct from the sky, there are many narrow
cascades, bright silvery ribbons zigzagging down the red cliffs, tracing the
diagonal cleavage joints of the metamorphic slates, now contracted and out
of sight, now leaping from ledge to ledge in filmy sheets through which the
sunbeams sift. And on the main Canon Creek, to which all these are
tributary, is a series of small falls, cascades, and rapids extending all
the way down to the foot of the canon, interrupted only by the lakes in
which the tossed and beaten waters rest. One of the finest of the cascades
is outspread on the face of a precipice, its waters separated into
ribbon-like strips, and woven into a diamond-like pattern by tracing the
cleavage joints of the rock, while tufts of bryanthus, grass, sedge,
saxifrage form beautiful fringes. Who could imagine beauty so fine in so
savage a place? Gardens are blooming in all sorts of nooks and hollows, — at
the head alpine eriogonums, erigerons, saxifrages, gentians, cowania, bush
primula; in the middle region larkspur, columbine, orthocarpus, castilleia,
harebell, epilobium, violets, mints, yarrow; near the foot sunflowers,
lilies, brier rose, iris, lonicera, clematis.
One of the smallest of the
cascades, which I name the Bower Cascade, is in the lower region of the
pass, where the vegetation is snowy and luxuriant. Wild rose and dogwood
form dense masses overarching the stream, and out of this bower the creek,
grown strong with many indashing tributaries, leaps forth into the light,
and descends in a fluted curve thick-sown with crisp flashing spray. At the
foot of the canon there is a lake formed in part at least by the damming of
the stream by a terminal moraine. The three other lakes in the canon are in
basins eroded from the solid rock, where the pressure of the glacier was
greatest, and the most resisting portions of the basin rims are beautifully,
tellingly polished. Below Moraine Lake at the foot of the canon there are
several old lake-basins lying between the large lateral moraines which
extend out into the desert. These basins are now completely filled up by the
material carried in by the streams, and changed to dry sandy flats covered
mostly by grass and artemisia and sun-loving flowers. All these lower
lake-basins were evidently formed by terminal moraine dams deposited where
the receding glacier had lingered during short periods of less waste, or
greater snowfall, or both.
Looking up the canon from the
warm sunny edge of the Mono plain my morning ramble seems a dream, so great
is the change in the vegetation and climate. The lilies on the bank of
Moraine Lake are higher than my head, and the sunshine is hot enough for
palms. Yet the snow round the arctic gardens at the summit of the pass is
plainly visible, only about four miles away, and between he specimen zones
of all the principal climates of the globe. In little more than an hour one
may swoop down from winter to summer, from an Arctic to a torrid region,
through as great changes of climate as one would encounter in traveling from
Labrador to Florida.
The Indians I had met near
the head of the canon had camped at the foot of it the night before they
made the ascent, and I found their fire still smoking on the side of a small
tributary stream near Moraine Lake; and on the edge of what is called the
Mono Desert, four or five miles from the lake, I came to a patch of elymus,
or wild rye, growing in magnificent waving clumps six or eight feet high,
bearing heads six to eight inches long. The crop was ripe, and Indian women
were gathering the grain in baskets by bending down large handfuls, beating
out the seed, and fanning it in the wind. The grains are about five eighths
of an inch long, dark-colored and sweet. I fancy the bread made from it must
be as good as wheat bread. A fine squirrelish employment this wild grain
gathering seems, and the women were evidently enjoying it, laughing and
chattering and looking almost natural, though most Indians I have seen are
not a whit more natural in their lives than we civilized whites. Perhaps if
I knew them better I should like them better. The worst thing about them is
their uncleanliness. Nothing truly wild is unclean. Down on the shore of
Mono Lake I saw a number of their flimsy huts on the banks of streams that
dash swiftly into that dead sea, — mere brush tents where they lie and eat
at their ease. Some of the men were feasting on buffalo berries, lying
beneath the tall bushes now red with fruit. The berries are rather insipid,
but they must needs be wholesome, since for days and weeks the Indians, it
is said, eat nothing else. In the season they in like manner depend chiefly
on the fat larvae of a fly that breeds in the salt water of the lake, or on
the big fat corrugated caterpillars of a species of silkworm that feeds on
the leaves of the yellow pine. Occasionally a grand rabbit-drive is
organized and hundreds are slain with clubs on the lake shore, chased and
frightened into a dense crowd by dogs, boys, girls, men and women, and rings
of sage brush fire, when of course they are quickly killed. The skins are
made into blankets. In the autumn the more enterprising of the hunters bring
in a good many deer, and rarely a wild sheep from the high peaks. Antelopes
used to be abundant on the desert at the base of the interior
mountain-ranges. Sage hens, grouse, and squirrels help to vary their wild
diet of worms; pine nuts also from the small interesting Pinus monophylla,
and good bread and good mush are made from acorns and wild rye. Strange to
say, they seem to like the lake larvae best of all. Long windrows are washed
up on the shore, which they gather, and dry like grain for winter use. It is
said that wars, on account of encroachments on each other's worm-grounds,
are of common occurrence among the various tribes and families. Each claims
a certain marked portion of the shore. The pine nuts are delicious — large
quantities are gathered every autumn. The tribes of the west flank of the
range trade acorns for worms and pine nuts. The squaws carry immense loads
on their backs across the rough passes and down the range, making journeys
of about forty or fifty miles each way.
The desert around the lake is
surprisingly flowery. In many places among the sage bushes I saw mentzelia,
abronia, aster, bigelovia, and gilia, all of which seemed to enjoy the hot
sunshine. The abronia, in particular, is a delicate, fragrant, and most
charming plant.
Opposite the mouth of the
canon a range of volcanic cones extends southward from the lake, rising
abruptly out of the desert like a chain of mountains.' The largest of the
cones are about twenty-five hundred feet high above the lake level, have
well-formed craters, and all of them are evidently comparatively recent
additions to the landscape. At a distance of a few miles they look like
heaps of loose ashes that have never been blest by either rain or snow, but,
for a' that and a' that, yellow pines are climbing their gray slopes, trying
to clothe them and give beauty for ashes. A country of wonderful contrasts.
Hot deserts bounded by snow-laden mountains, — cinders and ashes scattered
on glacier-polished pavements, — frost and fire working together in the
making of beauty. In the lake are several volcanic islands, which show that
the waters were once mingled with fire.
Glad to get back to the green
side of the mountains, though I have greatly enjoyed the gray east side and
hope to see more of it. Reading these grand mountain manuscripts displayed
through every vicissitude of heat and cold, calm and storm, upheaving
volcanoes and down-grinding glaciers, we see that everything in Nature
called destruction must be creation — a change from beauty to beauty.
Our glacier meadow camp north
of the Soda Springs seems more beautiful every day. The grass covers all the
ground though the leaves are thread-like in fineness, and in walking on the
sod it seems like a plush carpet of marvelous richness and softness, and the
purple panicles brushing against one's feet are not felt. This is a typical
glacier meadow, occupying the basin of a vanished lake, very definitely
bounded by walls of the arrowy two-leaved pines drawn up in a handsome
orderly array like soldiers on parade. There are many other meadows of the
same kind hereabouts imbedded in the woods. The main big meadows along the
river are the same in general and extend with but little interruption for
ten or twelve miles, but none I have seen are so finely finished and perfect
as this one. It is richer in flowering plants than the prairies of Wisconsin
and Illinois were when in all their wild glory. The showy flowers are mostly
three species of gentian, a purple and yellow orthocarpus, a golden-rod or
two, a small blue pentstemon almost like a gentian, potentilla, ivesia,
pedicularis, white violet, kalmia, and bryanthus. There are no coarse weedy
plants. Through this flowery lawn flows a stream silently gliding, swirling,
slipping as if careful not to make the slightest noise. It is only about
three feet wide in most places, widening here and there into pools six or
eight feet in diameter with no apparent current, the banks bossily rounded
by the down-curving mossy sod, grass panicles over-leaning like miniature
pine trees, and rugs of bryanthus spreading here and there over sunken
boulders. At the foot of the meadow the stream, rich with the juices of the
plants it has refreshed, sings merrily down over shelving rock ledges on its
way to the Tuolumne River. The sublime, massive Mount Dana and its
companions, green, red, and white, loom impressively above the pines along
the eastern horizon; a range or spur of gray rugged granite crags and
mountains on the north; the curiously crested and battlemented Mount Hoffman
on the west; and the Cathedral Range on the south with its grand Cathedral
Peak, Cathedral Spires, Unicorn Peak, and several others, gray and pointed
or massively rounded. |
