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EARLY one bright morning in
the middle of Indian summer, while the glacier meadows were still crisp with
frost crystals, I set out from the foot of Mount Lyell, on my way down to
Yosemite Valley, to replenish my exhausted store of bread and tea. I had
spent the past summer, as many preceding ones, exploring the glaciers that
lie on the head waters of the San Joaquin, Tuolumne, Merced, and Owen's
Rivers; measuring and 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 snow-bound in my Yosemite
cabin with plenty of bread and books; but a tinge of regret came on when I
considered that possibly I might not see this favorite region again until
the next summer, excepting distant views from the heights about the Yosemite
walls.
To artists, few portions of
the High Sierra are, strictly speaking, picturesque. The whole massive
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 these new landscapes were not
brought forth simultaneously; some of the highest, where the ice lingered
longest, are tens of centuries younger than those of the warmer regions
below them. In general, the younger the mountain landscapes,—younger, I
mean, with reference to the time of their emergence from the ice of the
glacial period, — the less separable are they into artistic bits capable of
being made into warm, sympathetic, lovable pictures with appreciable
humanity in them.
Here, however, on the head
waters of the 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 into the sky from the head of a magnificent valley, whose lofty
walls are beveled away on both sides so as to embrace it all without
admitting anything not strictly belonging to it. The foreground was now
aflame with autumn 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, meadowy levels
of the valley, swaying pensively from side to side with calm, stately
gestures past dipping willows and sedges, and around groves of arrowy pine;
and throughout its whole eventful course, whether flowing fast or slow,
singing loud or low, ever filling the landscape with spiritual animation,
and manifesting the grandeur of its sources in every movement and tone.
Pursuing my lonely way down
the valley, I turned again and again to gaze on the glorious picture,
throwing up my arms to inclose it as in a frame. After long ages of growth
in the darkness beneath the glaciers, through sunshine and storms, it seemed
now to be ready and waiting for the elected artist, like yellow wheat for
the reaper; and I could not help wishing that I might carry colors and
brushes with me on my travels, and learn to paint. In the mean time I had to
be content with photographs on my mind and sketches in my 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
Cloud's 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, whithersoever I could spare the time to lead them.
Since storms might come
breaking down through the fine weather at any time, burying the colors in
snow, and cutting off the artists' retreat, I advised getting ready at once.
I led them out of the valley
by the Vernal and Nevada Falls, thence over the main dividing ridge to the
Big Tuolumne Meadows, by the old Mono Trail, and thence along the Upper
Tuolumne River to its head. This was my companions' first 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 ever
mind," I replied, "only bide a wee, and I will show you something you will
like."
At length, toward the end of
the second day, the Sierra Crown began to come into view, and when we had
fairly rounded the projecting headland before mentioned, the whole picture
stood revealed in the flush of the alpenglow. Their enthusiasm was 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 canon, choosing foregrounds
for sketches. After dark, when our tea was made and a rousing fire had been
built, we began to make our plans. They decided to remain several days, at
the least, while I concluded to make an excursion in the mean time to the
untouched summit of Ritter.
It was now about the middle
of October, the springtime of snow-flowers. The first winter clouds had
already bloomed, and the peaks were strewn with fresh crystals, without,
however, affecting the climbing to any dangerous extent. And as the weather
was still profoundly calm, and the distance to the foot of the mountain only
a little more than a day, I felt that I was running no great risk of being
storm-bound.
Mount Ritter is king of the
mountains of the middle portion of the High Sierra, as Shasta of the north
and Whitney of the south sections. 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 it is fenced round by steeply
inclined glaciers, and canons 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 sungold; therefore, before bidding farewell, I warned the
artists not to be alarmed should I fail to appear before a week or ten days,
and advised them, in case a 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 canon 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 in the groves and rocks. Before I had gone a mile from
camp, I came to the foot of a white cascade that beats its way down a rugged
gorge in the canon wall, from a height of about nine hundred feet, and pours
its throbbing waters into the Tuolumne. I was acquainted with its fountains,
which, fortunately, lay in my course. "'hat a fine traveling companion it
proved to be, what songs it sang, and how passionately it told the
mountain's own joy! Gladly I climbed along its dashing border, absorbing its
divine music, and bathing from time to time in waftings of irised spray.
Climbing higher, higher, new beauty came streaming on the sight: painted
meadows, late-blooming gardens, peaks of rare architecture, lakes here and
there, shining like silver, and glimpses of the forested 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
Ritter 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-topped spurs alternate
with the gorges, plunging abruptly from the shoulders of the snowy peaks,
and planting their feet in the warm desert. These were everywhere marked and
adorned with 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 carices and eriogonae. 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; for, here and there, in sheltered hollows
(countersunk beneath the general surface) into which a few rods of
well-ground moraine chips have been dumped, we find groves of spruce and
pine thirty to forty feet high, trimmed around the edges with willow and
huckleberry bushes, and oftentimes still further by an outer ring of tall
grasses, bright with lupines, larkspurs, 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 leafiness
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 mountain-top, flushing the glaciers and the harsh crags above them.
This was the alpenglow, 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 worshipers. Just before the alpenglow 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.
Icy Ritter was still miles
away, but I could proceed no farther that night. I found a good camp-ground
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 near by 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 scraggy pines
anchored in the rock-fissures were so dwarfed and shorn by storm-winds that
you might walk over their tops. In tone and aspect the scene was one of the
most desolate I ever beheld. But the darkest scriptures of the 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 bedchambers the
high mountains afford — snug as squirrel nests, well-ventilated, full of
spicy odors, and with plenty of wind-played needles to sing one asleep. I
little expected 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 stock
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 Ritter was full in sight, and I
pushed rapidly on over rounded rock bosses and pavements, my iron-shod shoes
making a clanking sound, suddenly hushed now and then in rugs of bryanthus,
and sedgy lake margins soft as moss. Here, too, in this so-called "land of
desolation," I met cassiope, growing in fringes among the 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 dun-headed sparrows were flitting about seeking their
breakfasts. The lakes seen from every ridge-top were brilliantly rippled and
spangled, shimmering like the thickets of the low dwarf pines. The rocks,
too, seemed responsive to the vital heat — rock crystals and snow crystals
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 canons, 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 Ritter 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 made my way around the west end of the
lake, and thence up to the summit of the divide between the head waters 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 lichen-stained 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 couloirs; 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 dun-headed sparrows, whose cheery notes
so often relieve the silence of our highest mountains. The only sounds were
the gurgling of small rills down in the veins and 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 distinctly hope
to reach the summit from this side, yet I moved on across the glacier as if
driven by fate. Contending with myself, the season is too far spent, I said,
and even should I be successful, I might be 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 over glaciers and torrents, and up perilous 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 plane of
the mountain-face, and the metamorphic slates of which the mountain is built
are cut by cleavage planes in such a way that they weather off in angular
blocks, giving rise to 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 forty-five or fifty feet high, and somewhat roughened by fissures and
projections; but these seemed so slight and insecure, as footholds, that I
tried hard to avoid the precipice altogether, by scaling the wall of the
channel on either side. But, though less steep, the walls were smoother than
the obstructing rock, and repeated efforts only showed that I must either go
right ahead or turn back. The tried dangers 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 borne aloft
upon wings, my deliverance could not have been more complete.
Above this memorable spot,
the face of the mountain is still more savagely hacked and torn. It is a
maze of yawning chasms and gullies, in the angles of which rise beetling
crags and piles of detached boulders that seem to have been gotten ready to
be launched below. But the strange 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 around this noble summit! — giant mountains, valleys
innumerable, glaciers and meadows, rivers and lakes, with the wide blue sky
bent tenderly over them all. But in my first hour of freedom from that
terrible shadow, the sunlight in which I was laving seemed all in all.
Looking southward along the
axis of the range, the eye is first caught by a row of exceedingly sharp and
slender spires, which rise openly to a height of about a thousand feet,
above a series of short, residual glaciers that lean back against their
bases; their fantastic sculpture and the unrelieved sharpness with which
they spring out of the ice rendering them peculiarly wild and striking.
These 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 Kern River, at an elevation of nearly 14,700 feet above the level of the
sea.
Westward, the general flank
of the range is seen flowing sublimely away from the sharp summits, in
smooth undulations; a sea of huge gray granite waves dotted with lakes and
meadows, and fluted with stupendous canons that grow steadily deeper as they
recede in the distance. Below this gray region lies the dark forest zone,
broken here and there by upswelling ridges and domes; and yet beyond lies a
yellow, hazy belt, marking the broad plain of the San Joaquin, bounded on
its farther side by the blue mountains of the coast.
Turning now to the northward,
there in the 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, Conness, 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 fourteen miles long; Owen's Valley and
the broad lava tableland 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
three thousand feet below the summit of Mount Ritter you may find
tributaries of the San Joaquin and Owen's 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 affluents 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 marked 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 canons, 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 -- 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 canon with only the tops of the fountain peaks
rising darkly above the rock-encumbered ice waves like islets in a stormy
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 anon, 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 it
were 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, and descended 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
thence across the intervening canons 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
outlook 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 crevassed 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 all were
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 marshaled along the
summit were in shadow, but through every notch and pass streamed vivid
surefire, 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 canons 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 none the less 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 hold 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 camp-fire 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 Canon. |
