Chapter VI: Part 6

With no difficulty, but some actual danger, I climbed down a smooth granite roof-slope to where the precipice of Royal Arches makes off, and where, lying upon a sharp, neatly fractured edge, I was able to look down and study those purple markings which are vertically striped upon so many of these granite cliffs. I found them to be bands of lichen growth which follow the curves of occasional water-flow. During any great rain-storm, and when snow upon the uplands is suddenly melted, innumerable streams, many of them of considerable volume, find their way to the precipice-edge, and pour down its front. Wherever this is the case, a deep purple lichen spreads itself upon the granite, and forms those dark cloudings which add so greatly to the variety and interest of the cliffs.

I found it extremest pleasure to lie there alone on the dizzy brink, studying the fine sculpture of cliff and crag, overlooking the arrangement of _débris_ piles, and watching that slow, grand growth of afternoon shadows. Sunset found me there, still disinclined to stir, and repaid my laziness by a glorious spectacle of color. At this hour there is no more splendid contrast of light and shade than one sees upon the western gateway itself,--dark-shadowed Capitan upon one side profiled against the sunset sky, and the yellow mass of Cathedral Rocks rising opposite in full light, while the valley is divided equally between sunshine and shade. Pine groves and oaks, almost black in the shadow, are brightened up to clear red-browns where they pass out upon the lighted plain. The Merced, upon its mirror-like expanses, here reflects deep blue from Capitan, and there the warm Cathedral gold. The last sunlight reflected from some curious, smooth surfaces upon rocks east of the Sentinel, and about a thousand feet above the valley. I at once suspected them to be glacier marks, and booked them for further observation.

My next excursion was up to Mount Hoffmann, among a group of snow-fields, whose drainage gathers at last through lakes and brooklets to a single brook (the Yosemite), and flows twelve miles in a broad arc to its plunge over into the valley. From the summit, which is of a remarkably bedded, conoidal mass of granite, sharply cut down in precipices fronting the north, is obtained a broad, commanding view of the Sierras from afar, by the heads of several San Joaquin branches, up to the ragged volcanic piles about Silver Mountain.

From the top I climbed along slopes, and down by a wide _détour_ among frozen snow-banks and many little basins of transparent blue water, amid black shapes of stunted fir, and over the confused wreck of rock and tree-trunk thrown rudely in piles by avalanches whose tracks were fresh enough to be of interest.

Upon reaching the bottom of a broad, open glacier-valley, through whose middle flows the Yosemite Creek and its branches, I was surprised to find the streams nearly all dry; that the snow itself, under influence of cold, was a solid ice mass, and the Yosemite Creek, even after I had followed it down for miles, had entirely ceased to flow. At intervals the course of the stream was carried over slopes of glacier-worn granite, ending almost uniformly in shallow rock basins, where were considerable ponds of water, in one or two instances expanding to the dignity of lakelets.

The valley describes an arc whose convexity is in the main turned to the west, the stream running nearly due west for about four miles, turning gradually to the southward, and, having crossed the Mono trail, bending again to the southeast, after which it discharges over the verge of the cliff. An average breadth of this valley is about half a mile; its form a shallow, elliptical trough, rendered unusually smooth by the erosive action of old glaciers. _Roches moutonnées_ break its surface here and there, but in general the granite has been planed down into remarkable smoothness. All along its course a varying rubbish of angular bowlders has been left by the retiring ice, whose material, like that of the whole country, is of granite; but I recognized prominently black sienitic granite from the summit of Mount Hoffmann, which, from superior hardness, has withstood disintegration, and is perhaps the most frequent material of glacier-blocks. The surface modelling is often of the most finished type; especially is this the case wherever the granite is highly silicious, its polish becoming then as brilliant as a marble mantel. In very feldspathic portions, and particularly where orthoclase predominates, the polished surface becomes a crust, usually about three-quarters of an inch thick, in which the ordinary appearance of the minerals has been somewhat changed, the rock-surface, by long pressure, rendered extremely dense, and in a measure separated from the underlying material. This smooth crust is constantly breaking off in broad flakes. The polishing extended up the valley sides to a height of about seven hundred feet.

The average section of the old glacier was perhaps six hundred feet thick by half a mile in width. I followed its course from Mount Hoffmann down as far as I could ride, and then, tying my horse only a little way from the brink of the cliff, I continued downward on foot, walking upon the dry stream-bed. I found here and there a deep pit-hole, sometimes twenty feet deep, carved in mid-channel, and often full of water. Just before reaching the cliff verge the stream enters a narrow, sharp cut about one hundred and twenty feet in depth, and probably not over thirty feet wide. The bottom and sides of this granite lip, here and there, are evidently glacier-polished, but the greater part of the scorings have been worn away by the attrition of sands. A peculiar, brilliant polish, which may be seen there to-day, is wholly the result of recent sand friction.

It was noon when I reached the actual lip, and crept with extreme caution down over smooth, rounded granite, between towering walls, to where the Yosemite Fall makes its wonderful leap. Polished rock curved over too dangerously for me to lean out and look down over the cliff-front itself. A stone gate dazzlingly gilded with sunlight formed the frame through which I looked down upon that lovely valley.

Contrast with the strength of yellow rock and severe adamantine sculpture threw over the landscape beyond a strange unreality, a soft, aërial depth of purple tone quite as new to me as it was beautiful beyond description. There, twenty-six hundred feet below, lay meadow and river, oak and pine, and a broad shadow-zone cast by the opposite wall. Over it all, even through the dark sky overhead, there seemed to be poured some absolute color, some purple air, hiding details, and veiling with its soft, amethystine obscurity all that hard, broken roughness of the Sentinel cliffs. In this strange, vacant, stone corridor, this pathway for the great Yosemite torrent, this sounding-gallery of thunderous tumult, it was a strange sensation to stand, looking in vain for a drop of water, listening vainly, too, for the faintest whisper of sound, and I found myself constantly expecting some sign of the returning flood.

From the lip I climbed a high point just to the east, getting a grand view down the cliff, where a broad, purple band defined the Yosemite spray line. There, too, I found unmistakable ice-striæ, showing that the glacier of Mount Hoffmann had actually poured over the brink. At the moments of such discovery, one cannot help restoring in imagination pictures of the past. When we stand by river-bank or meadow of that fair valley, looking up at the torrent falling bright under fulness of light, and lovely in its graceful, wind-swayed airiness, we are apt to feel its enchantment; but how immeasurably grander must it have been when the great, living, moving glacier, with slow, invisible motion, crowded its huge body over the brink, and launched blue ice-blocks down through the foam of the cataract into that gulf of wild rocks and eddying mist!

The one-eyed mule, Bonaparte, I found tied where I had left him; and, as usual, I approached him upon his blind side, able thus to get successfully into my saddle, without danger to life or limb. I could never become attached to the creature, although he carried me faithfully many difficult and some dangerous miles, and for the reason that he made a pretext of his half-blindness to commit excesses, such as crowding me against trees and refusing to follow trails. Realizing how terrible under reinforcement of hereditary transmission the peculiarly mulish traits would have become, one is more than thankful to Nature for depriving this singular hybrid of the capacity of handing them down.

Rather tired, and not a little bruised by untimely collision with trees, I succeeded at last in navigating Bonaparte safely to camp, and turning him over to his fellow, Pumpkinseed.

The nights were already very cold, our beds on frozen ground none of the most comfortable; in fact, enthusiasm had quite as much to do with our content as the blankets or Longhurst’s culinary art, which, enclosed now by the narrow limit of bacon, bread, and beans, failed to produce such dainties as thrice-turned slapjacks or plum-duffs of solemnizing memory.

One more geological trip finished my examination of this side of the great valley. It was a two days’ ramble all over the granite ridges, from the North Dome up to Lake Tenaya, during which I gathered ample evidence that a broad sheet of glacier, partly derived from Mount Hoffmann, and in part from the Mount Watkins Ridge and Cathedral Peak, but mainly from the great Tuolumne glacier, gathered and flowed down into the Yosemite Valley. Where it moved over the cliffs there are well-preserved scarrings. The facts which attest this are open to observation, and seem to me important in making up a statement of past conditions.

We were glad to get back at last to our two little cabins in the valley, although our serio-comic hangers-on, the Diggers, were gone, and the great fall was dry.

A rest of one day proved refreshing enough for us to leave camp and ascend by the Mariposa trail to Meadow Brook, where we made a bivouac, from which Gardiner began his southern boundary line, and I renewed my geological studies east of Inspiration Point.

I always go swiftly by this famous point of view now, feeling somehow that I don’t belong to that army of literary travellers who have here planted themselves and burst into rhetoric. Here all who make California books, down to the last and most sentimental specimen who so much as meditates a letter to his or her local paper, dismount and inflate. If those firs could recite half the droll _mots_ they have listened to, or if I dared tell half the delicious points I treasure, it would sound altogether too amusing among these dry-enough chapters.

I had always felt a desire to examine Bridal Veil cañon and the southwest Cathedral slope. Accordingly, one fine morning I set out alone, and descended through chaparral and over rough _débris_ slopes to the stream, which at this time, unlike the other upland brooks, flowed freely, though with far less volume than in summer. At this altitude only such streams as derive their volume wholly from melting snow dry up in the cold autumnal and winter months; spring-fed brooks hold their own, and rather increase as cold weather advances.

It was a wild gorge down which I tramped, following the stream-bed, often jumping from block to block, or letting myself down by the chaparral boughs that overhung my way. Splendid walls on either side rose steep and high, for the most part bare, but here and there on shelf or crevice bearing clusters of fine conifers, their lower slopes one vast wreck of bowlders and thicket of chaparral plants.

Not without some difficulty I at length got to the brink, and sat down to rest, looking over at the valley, whose meadows were only a thousand feet below; a cool, stirring breeze blew up the Merced Cañon, swinging the lace-like scarf of foam which fell from my feet, and, floating now against the purple cliff, again blew out gracefully to the right or left. While I looked, a gust came roaming round the Cathedral Rocks, impinging against our cliff near the fall, and apparently got in between it and the cliff, carrying the whole column of falling water straight out in a streamer through the air.

I went back to camp by way of the Cathedral Rocks, finding much of interest in the conoidal structure, which is yet perfectly apparent, and unobscured by erosion or the terrible splitting asunder they have suffered. Upon a ridge connecting these rocks with the plateaus just south there were many instructive and delightful points of view, especially the crag just above the Cathedral Spires, from which I overlooked a large part of valley and cliff, with the two sharp, slender minarets of granite close beneath me. That great block forming the plateau between the Yosemite and Illilluette cañons afforded a fine field for studying granite, pine, and many remarkably characteristic views of the gorge below and peaks beyond. From our camp I explored every ravine and climbed each eminence, reaching at last, one fine afternoon, the top of that singular, hemispherical mass, the Sentinel Dome. From this point one sweeps the horizon in all directions. You stand upon the crest of half a globe, whose smooth, white sides, bearing here and there stunted pines, slope away regularly in all directions from your feet. Below, granite masses, blackened here and there with densely clustered forest, stretch through varied undulations toward you. At a little distance from the foot of the Half-Dome, trees hold upon sharp brinks, and precipices plunge off into Yosemite upon one side, and the dark, rocky cañon of Illilluette upon the other. Eastward, soaring into clouds, stands the thin, vertical mass of the Half-Dome.

From this view the snowy peak of the Obelisk, flattened into broad, dome-like outline, rises, shutting out the more distant Sierra summits. This peak, from its peculiar position and thin, tower-like form, offers one of the most tempting summits of the region. From that slender top one might look into the Yosemite, and into that basin of ice and granite between the Merced and Mount Lyell groups. I had longed for it through the last month’s campaign, and now made up my mind, with this inspiring view, to attempt it at all hazards.

A little way to the east, and about a thousand feet below the brink of the Glacier Point, the crags appeared to me particularly tempting; so in the late afternoon I descended, walking over a rough, gritty surface of granite, which gave me secure foothold. Upon the very edge the immense, splintered rocks lay piled one upon another; here a mass jutting out and overhanging upon the edge, and here a huge slab pointed out like a barbette gun. I crawled out upon one of these projecting blocks and rested myself, while studying the view.

From here the one very remarkable object is the Half-Dome. You see it now edgewise and in sharp profile, the upper half of the conoid fronting the north with a sharp, sheer, fracture-face of about two thousand feet vertical. From the top of this a most graceful helmet curve sweeps over to the south, and descends almost perpendicularly into the valley of the Little Yosemite; and here from the foot springs up the block of Mount Broderick,--a single, rough-hewn pyramid, three thousand feet from summit to base, trimmed upon its crest with a few pines, and spreading out its southern base into a precipice, over which plunges the white Nevada torrent. Observation had taught me that a glacier flowed over the Yosemite brink. As I looked over now I could see its shallow valley and the ever-rounded rocks over which it crowded itself and tumbled into the icy valley below. Up the Yosemite gorge, which opened straight before me, I knew that another great glacier had flowed; and also that the valley of the Illilluette and the Little Yosemite had been the bed of rivers of ice; a study, too, of the markings upon the glacier cliff above Hutchings’s house had convinced me that a glacier no less than a thousand feet deep had flowed through the valley, occupying its entire bottom.

It was impossible for me, as I sat perched upon this jutting rock mass, in full view of all the cañons which had led into this wonderful converging system of ice-rivers, not to imagine a picture of the glacier period. Bare or snow-laden cliffs overhung the gulf; streams of ice, here smooth and compacted into a white plain, there riven into innumerable crevasses, or tossed into forms like the waves of a tempest-lashed sea, crawled through all the gorges. Torrents of water and avalanches of rock and snow spouted at intervals all along the cliff walls. Not a tree nor a vestige of life was in sight, except far away upon ridges below, or out upon the dimly expanding plain. Granite and ice and snow, silence broken only by the howling tempest and the crash of falling ice or splintered rock, and a sky deep freighted with cloud and storm,--these were the elements of a period which lasted immeasurably long, and only in comparatively the most recent geological times have given way to the present marvellously changed condition. Nature in her present aspects, as well as in the records of her past, here constantly offers the most vivid and terrible contrasts. Can anything be more wonderfully opposite than that period of leaden sky, gray granite, and desolate stretches of white, and the present, when of the old order we have only left the solid framework of granite, and the indelible inscriptions of glacier work? To-day their burnished pathways are legibly traced with the history of the past. Every ice-stream is represented by a feeble river, every great glacier cascade by a torrent of white foam dashing itself down rugged walls, or spouting from the brinks of upright cliffs. The very avalanche tracks are darkened by clustered woods, and over the level pathway of the great Yosemite glacier itself is spread a park of green, a mosaic of forest, a thread of river.

VIII

A SIERRA STORM

From every commanding eminence around the Yosemite no distant object rises with more inspiring greatness than the Obelisk of Mount Clark. Seen from the west it is a high, isolated peak, having a dome-like outline very much flattened upon its west side, the precipice sinking deeply down to an old glacier ravine. From the north this peak is a slender, single needle, jutting two thousand feet from a rough-hewn pedestal of rocks and snow-fields. Forest-covered heights rise to its base from east and west. To the south it falls into a deep saddle, which rises again, after a level outline of a mile, sweeping up in another noble granite peak. On the north the spur drops abruptly down, overhanging an edge of the great Merced gorge, its base buried beneath an accumulation of morainal matter deposited by ancient Merced glaciers. From the region of Mount Hoffmann, looming in most impressive isolation, its slender needle-like summit had long fired us with ambition; and, having finished my agreeable climb round the Yosemite walls, I concluded to visit the mountain with Cotter, and, if the weather should permit, to attempt a climb. We packed our two mules with a week’s provisions and a single blanket each, and on the tenth of November left our friends at the head-quarter’s camp in Yosemite Valley and rode out upon the Mariposa trail, reaching the plateau by noon. Having passed Meadow Brook, we left the path and bore off in the direction of Mount Clark, spending the afternoon in riding over granite ridges and open stretches of frozen meadow, where the ground was all hard, and the grass entirely cropped off by numerous herds of sheep that had ranged here during the summer. The whole earth was bare, and rang under our mules’ hoofs almost as clearly as the granite itself.

We camped for the night on one of the most eastern affluents of Bridal Veil Creek, and were careful to fill our canteens before the bitter night-chill should freeze it over. By our camp was a pile of pine logs swept together by some former tempest; we lighted them, and were quickly saluted by a magnificent bonfire. The animals were tied within its ring of warmth, and our beds laid where the rain of sparks could not reach. As we were just going to sleep, our mules pricked up their ears and looked into the forest. We sprang to our feet, picked up our pistols, expecting an Indian or a grizzly, but were surprised to see, riding out of the darkness, a lonely mountaineer, mounted upon a little mustang, carrying his long rifle across the saddle-bow. He came directly to our camp-fire, and, without uttering a word, slowly and with great effort swung himself out of his saddle and walked close to the flames, leaving his horse, which remained motionless, where he had reined him in. I saw that the man was nearly frozen to death, and immediately threw my blanket over his shoulders. The water in our camp kettle was still hot, and Cotter made haste to draw a pot of tea, while I broiled a slice of beef and pressed him to eat. He, however, shook his head and maintained a persistent silence, until at length, after turning round and round until I could have thought him done to a turn, in a very feeble, broken voice he ejaculated, “I was pretty near gone in, stranger!” Again I pressed him to drink a cup of tea, but he feebly answered, “Not yet.” After roasting for half an hour, in which I fully expected to see his coat-tail smoke, he sat down and drank about two quarts of tea. This had the effect of thawing him out, and he remembered that his horse was still saddled and very hungry. He told us that neither he nor the animal had had anything to eat for three days, and that he was pushing hopelessly westward, expecting either the giving out of his horse, or death by freezing. We took the saddle from his tired little mustang, spread the saddle-blanket over his back, and from the scanty supply of grain we had brought for our own animals gave him a tolerable supper. It is wonderful how in hours of danger and privation the horse clings to his human friend. Perfectly tame, perfectly trusting, he throws the responsibility of his care and life upon his rider; and it is not the least pathetic among our mountain experiences to see this patient confidence continue until death. Observing that the logs were likely to burn freely all night, we divided our blankets with the mountaineer, and Cotter and I turned in together. In the morning our new friend had entirely recovered from his numb, stupid condition. Recognizing at a glance his whereabouts, and thanking us feelingly for our rough hospitality, he headed toward the Mariposa trail, with quite an affecting good-by.

After breakfast we ourselves mounted and rode up a long, forest-covered spur leading to the summit of a granite divide, which we crossed at a narrow pass between two steep cliffs, and descended its eastern slope in full view of the whole Merced group. This long abrupt descent in front of us led to the Illilluette Creek, and directly opposite, on the other side of the trough-like valley, rose the high sharp summit of Mount Clark. We were all day in crossing and riding up the crest of a sharply curved medial moraine which traced itself from the mountain south of Mount Clark in a long, parabolic curve, dying out at last in the bottom of the Illilluette basin. The moraine was one of the most perfect I have ever seen; its smooth, graded summit rose as regularly as a railway embankment, and seemed to be formed altogether of irregular bowlders piled securely together and cemented by a thick deposit of granitic glacier-dust. Late in the afternoon we had reached its head, where the two converging glaciers of Mount Clark and Mount Kyle had joined, clasping a rugged promontory of granite. To our left, in a depression of the forest-covered basin, lay a little patch of meadow wholly surrounded by dense groups of alpine trees, which grew in clusters of five and six, apparently from one root. A little stream from the Obelisk snows fell in a series of shallow cascades by the meadow’s margin. We jumped across the brook and went into camp, tethering the mules close by us. One of the great charms of high mountain camps is their very domestic nature. Your animals are picketed close by the kitchen, your beds are between the two, and the water and the wood are always in most comfortable apposition.

For the first time in many months a mild, moist wind sprang up from the south, and with it came slowly creeping over the sky a dull, leaden bank of ominous-looking cloud. Since April we had had no storm. The perpetually cloudless sky had banished all thought, almost memory, of foul weather; but winter tempests had already held off remarkably, and we knew that at any moment they might set in, and in twenty-four hours render the plateaus impassable. It was with some anxiety that I closed my eyes that night, and, sleeping lightly, often awoke as a freshening wind moved the pines. At dawn we were up, and observed that a dark, heavy mass of storm-cloud covered the whole sky, and had settled down over the Obelisk, wrapping even the snow-fields at its base in gray folds. The entire peak was lost, except now and then, when the torn vapors parted for a few moments and disclosed its sharp summit, whitened by new-fallen snow. A strange moan filled the air. The winds howled pitilessly over the rocks, and swept in deafening blasts through the pines. It was my duty to saddle up directly and flee for the Yosemite; but I am naturally an optimist, a sort of geological Micawber, so I dodged my duty, and determined to give the weather every opportunity for a clear-off. Accordingly, we remained in camp all day, studying the minerals of the granite as the thickly strewn bowlders gave us material. At nightfall I climbed a little rise back of our meadow, and looked out over the basin of Illilluette and up in the direction of the Obelisk. Now and then the parting clouds opened a glimpse of the mountain, and occasionally an unusual blast of wind blew away the deeply settled vapors from the cañon to westward; but each time they closed in more threateningly, and before I descended to camp the whole land was obscured in the cloud which settled densely down.

The mules had made themselves comfortable with a repast of rich mountain-grasses, which, though slightly frosted, still retained much of their original juice and nutriment. We ourselves made a deep inroad on the supply of provisions, and, after chatting awhile by the firelight, went to bed, taking the precaution to pile our effects carefully together, covering them with an india-rubber blanket. Our bivouac was in the middle of a cluster of firs, quite well protected overhead, but open to the sudden gusts which blew roughly hither and thither. By nine o’clock the wind died away altogether, and in a few moments a thick cloud of snow was falling. We had gone to bed together, pulled the blankets as a cover over our heads, and in a few moments fell into a heavy sleep. Once or twice in the night I woke with a slight sense of suffocation, and cautiously lifted the blanket over my head, but each time found it growing heavier and heavier with a freight of snow. In the morning we awoke quite early, and, pushing back the blanket, found that we had been covered by about a foot and a half of snow. The poor mules had approached us to the limit of their rope, and stood within a few feet of our beds, anxiously waiting our first signs of life.

We hurried to breakfast, and hastily putting on the saddles, and wrapping ourselves from head to foot in our blankets, mounted and started for the crest of the moraine. I had taken the precaution to make a little sketch-map in my note-book, with the compass directions of our march from the Yosemite, and we had now the difficult task of retracing our steps in a storm so blinding and fierce that we could never see more than a rod in advance. But for the regular form of the moraine, with whose curve we were already familiar, I fear we must have lost our way in the real labyrinth of glaciated rocks which covered the whole Illilluette basin. Snow blew in every direction, filling our eyes and blinding the poor mules, who often turned quickly from some sudden gust, and refused to go on. It was a cruel necessity, but we spurred them inexorably forward, guiding them to the right and left to avoid rocks and trees which, in their blindness, they were constantly threatening to strike. Warmly rolled in our blankets, we suffered little from cold, but the driving sleet and hail very soon bruised our cheeks and eyelids most painfully. It required real effort of will to face the storm, and we very soon learned to take turns in breaking trail. The snow constantly balled upon our animals’ feet, and they slid in every direction. Now and then, in descending a sharp slope of granite, the poor creatures would get sliding, and rush to the bottom, their legs stiffened out, and their heads thrust forward in fear. After crossing the Illilluette, which we did at our old ford, we found it very difficult to climb the long, steep hillside; for the mules were quite unable to carry us, obliging us to lead them, and to throw ourselves upon the snow-drifts to break a pathway.

This slope almost wore us out, and when at last we reached its summit, we threw ourselves upon the snow for a rest, but were in such a profuse perspiration that I deemed it unsafe to lie there for a moment, and, getting up again, we mounted the mules and rode slowly on toward open plateaus near great meadows. The snow gradually decreased in depth as we descended upon the plain directly south of the Yosemite. The wind abated somewhat, and there were only occasional snow flurries, between half-hours of tolerable comfort. Constant use of the compass and reference to my little map at length brought us to the Mariposa trail, but not until after eight hours of anxious, exhaustive labor--anxious from the constant dread of losing our way in the blinding confusion of storm; exhausting, for we had more than half of the way acted as trail-breakers, dragging our frightened and tired brutes after us. The poor creatures instantly recognized the trail, and started in a brisk trot toward Inspiration Point. Suddenly an icy wind swept up the valley, carrying with it a storm of snow and hail. The wind blew with such violence that the whole freight of sleet and ice was carried horizontally with fearful swiftness, cutting the bruised faces of the mules, and giving our own eyelids exquisite torture. The brutes refused to carry us farther. We were obliged to dismount and drive them before us, beating them constantly with clubs.

Fighting our way against this bitter blast, half-blinded by hard, wind-driven snow-crystals, we at last gave up and took refuge in a dense clump of firs which crown the spur by Inspiration Point. Our poor mules cowered under shelter with us, and turned tail to the storm. The fir-trees were solid cones of snow, which now and then unloaded themselves when severely bent by a sudden gust, half burying us in dry, white powder. Wind roared below us in the Yosemite gorge; it blew from the west, rolling up in waves which smote the cliffs, and surged on up the valley. While we sat still the drifts began to pile up at our backs; the mules were belly-deep, and our situation began to be serious.

Looking over the cliff-brink we saw but the hurrying snow, and only heard a confused tumult of wind. A steady increase in the severity of the gale made us fear that the trees might crash down over us; so we left the mules and crept cautiously over the edge of the cliff, and ensconced ourselves in a sheltered nook, protected by walls of rock which rose at our back.

We were on the brink of the Yosemite, and but for snow might have looked down three thousand feet. The storm eddied below us, sucking down whirlwinds of snow, and sometimes opening deep rifts,--never enough, however, to disclose more than a few hundred feet of cliffs.

We had been in this position about an hour, half frozen and soaked through, when I at length gathered conscience enough to climb back and take a look at our brutes. The forlorn pair were frosted over with a thick coating, their pitiful eyes staring eagerly at me. I had half a mind to turn them loose, but, considering that their obstinate nature might lead them back to our Obelisk camp, I patted their noses, and climbed back to the shelf by Cotter, determined to try it for a quarter of an hour more, when, if the tempest did not lull, I thought we must press on and face the snow for an hour more, while we tramped down to the valley.

Suddenly there came a lull in the storm; its blinding fury of snow and wind ceased. Overhead, still hurrying eastward, the white bank drove on, unveiling, as it fled, the Yosemite walls, plateau, and every object to the eastward as far as Mount Clark. As yet the valley bottom was obscured by a layer of mist and cloud, which rose to the height of about a thousand feet, submerging cliff-foot and _débris_ pile. Between these strata, the cloud above and the cloud below, every object was in clear, distinct view; the sharp, terrible fronts of precipices, capped with a fresh cover of white, plunged down into the still, gray river of cloud below, their stony surfaces clouded with purple, salmon-color, and bandings of brown,--all hues unnoticeable in every-day lights. Forest, and crag, and plateau, and distant mountain were snow-covered to a uniform whiteness; only the dark gorge beneath us showed the least traces of color. There all was rich, deep, gloomy. Even over the snowy surfaces above there prevailed an almost ashen gray, which reflected itself from the dull, drifting sky. A few torn locks of vapor poured over the cliffedge at intervals, and crawled down like wreaths of smoke, floating gracefully and losing themselves at last in the bank of cloud which lay upon the bottom of the valley.

On a sudden the whole gray roof rolled away like a scroll, leaving the heavens from west to far east one expanse of pure, warm blue. Setting sunlight smote full upon the stony walls below, and shot over the plateau country, gilding here a snowy forest group, and there a wave-crest of whitened ridge. The whole air sparkled with diamond particles; red light streamed in through the open Yosemite gateway, brightening those vast, solemn faces of stone, and intensifying the deep neutral blue of shadowed alcoves.

The luminous cloud-bank in the east rolled from the last Sierra summit, leaving the whole chain of peaks in broad light, each rocky crest strongly red, the newly fallen snow marbling it over with a soft, deep rose; and wherever a cañon carved itself down the rocky fronts its course was traceable by a shadowy band of blue. The middle distance glowed with a tint of golden yellow; the broken heights along the cañon-brinks and edges of the cliff in front were of an intense, spotless white. Far below us the cloud stratum melted away, revealing the floor of the valley, whose russet and emerald and brown and red burned in the broad evening sun. It was a marvellous piece of contrasted lights,--the distance so pure, so soft in its rosy warmth, so cool in the depth of its shadowy blue; the foreground strong in fiery orange, or sparkling in absolute whiteness. I enjoyed, too, looking up at the pure, unclouded sky, which now wore an aspect of intense serenity. For half an hour nature seemed in entire repose; not a breath of wind stirred the white, snow-laden shafts of the trees; not a sound of animate creature or the most distant reverberation of waterfall reached us; no film of vapor moved across the tranquil, sapphire sky; absolute quiet reigned until a loud roar proceeding from Capitan turned our eyes in that direction. From the round, dome-like cap of its summit there moved down an avalanche, gathering volume and swiftness as it rushed to the brink, and then, leaping out two or three hundred feet into space, fell, slowly filtering down through the lighted air, like a silver cloud, until within a thousand feet of the earth it floated into the shadow of the cliff and sank to the ground as a faint blue mist. Next the Cathedral snow poured from its lighted summit in resounding avalanches; then the Three Brothers shot off their loads, and afar from the east a deep roar reached us as the whole snow-cover thundered down the flank of Cloud’s Rest.

We were warned by the hour to make all haste, and, driving the poor brutes before us, worked our way down the trail as fast as possible. The light, already pale, left the distant heights in still more glorious contrast. A zone of amber sky rose behind the glowing peaks, and a cold steel-blue plain of snow skirted their bases. Mist slowly gathered again in the gorge below us and overspread the valley floor, shutting it out from our view.

We ran down the zigzag trail until we came to that shelf of bare granite immediately below the final descent into the valley. Here we paused just above the surface of the clouds, which, swept by fitful breezes, rose in swells, floating up and sinking again like waves of the sea. Intense light, more glowing than ever, streamed in upon the upper half of the cliffs, their bases sunken in the purple mist. As the cloud-waves crawled upward in the breeze they here and there touched a red-purple light and fell back again into the shadow.

We watched these effects with greatest interest, and, just as we were about moving on again, a loud burst as of heavy thunder arrested us, sounding as if the very walls were crashing in. We looked, and from the whole brow of Capitan rushed over one huge avalanche, breaking into the finest powder and floating down through orange light, disappearing in the sea of purple cloud beneath us.

We soon mounted and pressed up the valley to our camp, where our anxious friends greeted us with enthusiastic welcome and never-to-be-forgotten beans. We fed our exhausted animals a full ration of barley, and turned them out to shelter themselves as best they might under friendly oaks or among young pines. In anticipation of our return the party had gotten up a capital supper, to which we first administered justice, then punishment, and finally annihilation. Brief starvation and a healthy combat for life with the elements lent a most marvellous zest to the appetite. Under the subtle influences of a free circulation and a stinging cold night, I perceived a region of the taste which answers to those most refined blue waves of the spectrum.

Clouds which had enfolded the heavens rolled off to the east in torn fillets of gold. The stars came out full and flashing in the darkling sky of evening. We left our cabins and grouped ourselves round a loquacious camp-fire, which prattled incessantly and distilled volumes of that mild stimulant, pyroligneous acid--an ill-savored gas which seems to have inspired much domestic poetry, however it may have affected the New England olfactory nerves.

The vast valley-walls, light in contrast with the deep nocturnal violet heavens, rose far into the night, apparently holding up a roof of stars whose brilliancy faded quite rapidly, until finally the last blinking points of light died out, and cold, hard gray stretched from cliff to cliff. Far up cañons and in the heart of the mountains we could hear terrible tempest-gusts crashing among the trees, and breaking in deep, long surges against faces of granite; coming nearer and nearer, they swept down the gorges, with volume increasing every moment, until they poured into the upper end of the valley and fell upon its groves with terrible fury. The wind shrieked wild and high among the summit crags, it tore through the pine-belts, and now and then a sudden, sharp crash resounded through the valley as, one after another, old, infirm pines were hurled down before its blast. The very walls seemed to tremble; the air was thick with flying leaves and dead branches; the snow of the summits, hard frozen by a sudden chill, was blown from the walls, and filled the air with its keen, cutting crystals. At last the very clouds, torn into wild flocks, were swept down into the valley, filling it with opaque, hurrying vapors. Rocks, loosening themselves from the plateau, came thundering down precipice-faces, crashing upon _débris_ piles and forest groups below. Sleet and snow and rain fell fast, and the boom of falling trees and crashing avalanches followed one another in an almost uninterrupted roar. In the Sentinel gorge, back of our camp, an avalanche of rock was suddenly let loose, and came down with a harsh rattle, the bowlders bounding over _débris_ piles and tearing through the trees by our camp. A vivid belt of blue lightning flashed down through the blackness, and for a moment every outline of cliff and forest forms, and the rushing clouds of snow and sleet, were lighted up with a cold, pallid gleam. The burst of thunder which followed rolled but for a moment, and was silenced by the furious storm. In the moment of lightning I saw that the Yosemite Fall, which had been dry for a month, had suddenly sprung into life again. Vast volumes of water and ice were pouring over and beating like sea-waves upon the granite below. Our mules came up to the cabin, and stood on its lee side trembling, and uttering suppressed moans.

After hours the fitfulness of the tempest passed away, leaving a grand, monotonous roar. It had torn off all the rotten branches of the year, and prostrated every decrepit tree, and at last settled down to a continuous gale, laden with torrents of rain. We lay down upon our bunks in our clothes, watching and listening through all the first hours of the night. Sleep was impossible; angry winds and the fury of drifting rain shook our little shelters, and kept us wide awake. Toward morning a second thunderstorm burst, and by the light of its flashes I saw that the river had risen nearly to our cabin door, covering the broad valley in front of us with a sheet of flood. Gradually the sound of Yosemite Fall grew louder and stronger, the throbs, as it beat upon the rocks, rising higher and higher till the whole valley rung with its pulsations. By dawn the storm had spent its fury, rain ceased, and around us the air was perfectly still; but aloft, among cliffs and walls, the gale might still be heard sweeping across the forest and tearing itself among granite needles. Fearing that so continuous a storm might block up our mountain trails, Hyde and Cotter and Wilmer, with instruments and pack-animals, started early and went out to Clark’s Ranch.

So dense and impenetrable a fog overhung us that daylight came with extreme slowness, and it was nine o’clock before we rose for breakfast, and at ten a gloomy sea of mist still hung over the valley. The Merced had overflowed its banks, and ran wild. Toward noon the mist began to draw down the valley, and finally all drifted away, leaving us shut in by a gray canopy of cloud which stretched from wall to wall, hanging down here and there in deep blue sags. In this stratum of gray were lost many higher summits, but the whole form of valley and cliff could be seen with terrible distinctness, the walls apparently drawn together, their bases at one or two points pushed into yellow floods of water which lay like lakes upon the level expanse. The whole lip of Yosemite was filled to the brim, and through it there poured a broad, full torrent of white. Shortly after noon a few rifts opened overhead, showing a far sky, from which poured gushes of strong, yellow sunlight, touching here and there upon sombre faces of cliff, and occasionally gilding the falling torrent. A wind still blew, smiting the Yosemite precipice, and playing strangest games with the fall itself. At one time a gust rushed upon the lip of the fall with such violence as to dam back all its waters. We could see its white pile in the lip mounting higher and higher, still held back by the wind, until there must have been a front of from a hundred and fifty to two hundred feet of boiling white water. For a whole minute not a drop poured down the wall; but, gathering strength, the torrent overcame the wind, rushed out with tremendous violence, leaped one hundred and fifty feet straight out into air, and fell clear to the rocks below, dashing high and white again, and breaking into a cloud of spray that filled the lower air of the valley for a mile.

While the water was held back in the gorge there was a moment of complete silence, but when it finally burst out again a crash as of sudden thunder shook the air. At times gusts of wind would drive upon the Three Brothers cliff, and be deflected toward the Yosemite, swinging the whole mighty cataract like a pendulum; and again, pouring upon the rocks at the bottom of the valley, it would gather up the whole fall in mid-air, whirl it in a festoon, and carry it back over the very summit of the walls. I got out the theodolite to measure the angle of its deflection, and, while watching, it swung over an entire semi-circle, now carried from the cliffs to the right, and then whirled back in a cloud of foam over the head of the Three Brothers. A very frequent prank was to loop the whole twenty-six hundred feet of cataract into a single, semi-circular festoon, which fell in the form of fine fringe.

Throughout the afternoon we did little else than watch these ever-changing forms of falling water, until toward evening, when we walked up to see the Merced. I never beheld such a rapid rise in any river; from a mere brook, hiding itself away under overhanging banks and among shrubby islands, it sprang in one night to the size of a full, large river, flowing with the rapidity of a torrent and whirling in its eddies huge trunks of storm-blown pines. As twilight gathered, the scene deepened into a most indescribable gloom; dark-blue shadows covered half the precipices, and sullen, unvaried sky stretched over us its implacable gray. There was something positively fearful in this color; such an impenetrable sky might overarch the Inferno. As we looked, it slowly sank, creeping down precipices, filling the whole gorge; coming down, down, and fitting the cliffs like the piston of an air-pump, till within a thousand feet of us it became stationary, and then slowly lifted again, clearing the summit and rising to an almost infinite remoteness. Slowly a few hard, sharp crystals of snow floated down.

Later the air became intensely chilly, and by dark was full of slowly falling snow, giving prospect of a great mountain storm which might close the Sierras. On the following morning we determined at all costs to pack our remaining instruments and escape. The ground was covered with snow to the depth of seven or eight inches, and through drifting fog-banks we could occasionally get glimpses and see that every cliff was deeply buried in snow. We had still a few barometrical observations along the Mariposa trail which were necessary to complete our series of altitudes; and I started in advance of Gardiner and Clark to break the trail, expecting that when I stopped to make readings they would easily overtake me. Two hours’ hard work was needed to reach the ascent. It was not until noon that I made Inspiration Point, snow having deepened to eighteen inches, entirely obliterating the trail, and had it not been for the extreme frequency of our journeys I should never have been able to follow it; as it was, with occasional mistakes which were soon remedied, I kept the way very well, and my tracks made it easy for the party behind. Having reached the plateau, I made my two barometrical stations, and then started alone through forests for Westfall’s cabin. Every fir-tree was a solid cone of white, and often clusters of five or six were buried together in one common pile. Now and then a little sunlight broke through the clouds, and in these intervals the scene was one of wonderful beauty. Tall shafts of fir, often one hundred and eighty feet high, trimmed with white branches, cast their blue shadows upon snowy ground.

At about four o’clock, after nine hours of hard tramping, I reached Westfall’s cabin, built a fire, and sat down to warm myself and wait for my friends. In half an hour they made their appearance, looking haggard and weary, declaring they would go no farther that night. They led their mule into the cabin, and unpacked, and began to make themselves comfortably at home.

About five the darkness of night had fairly settled down, and with it came a gentle but dense snow-storm. It seemed to me a terrible risk for us to remain in the mountains, and I felt it to be absolutely necessary that one, at least, should press on to Clark’s, so that, if a really great storm should come, he could bring up aid. Accordingly, I volunteered to go on myself, Clark and Gardiner expressing their determination to remain where they were at all costs.

At this juncture Cotter’s well-known voice sounded through the woods as he approached the cabin. He had been all day climbing from Clark’s, and had come to lend a hand in getting the things down. He was of my opinion that it was absolutely necessary for one of us, at least, to go back to Clark’s, and offered, if I thought best, to try to accompany me. I had come from Yosemite and he from Clark’s, having travelled all day, and it was no slight task for us to face storm and darkness in the forest, and among complicated spurs of the Sierra.

We ate our lunch by the cabin fire, bade our friends good-night, and walked out together into the darkness. For the first mile there was no danger of missing our way,--even in the darkness of night Cotter’s tracks could be seen,--but after about half an hour it began to be very difficult to keep the trail. The storm increased to a tempest, and exhaustion compelled us to travel slower and slower. It was with intense anxiety that we searched for well-known blazed trees along the trail, often thrusting our arms down in the snow to feel for a blaze that we knew of. If it was not there we had for a moment an overpowering sense of being lost; but we were ordinarily rewarded after searching upon a few trees, and the blaze once found animated us with new courage. Hour after hour we travelled down the mountain, falling off high banks now and then, for in the dark all ideas of slope were lost. It must have been about midnight when we reached what seemed to be the verge of a precipice. If our calculations were right, we must have come to the edge of the South Fork Cañon. Here Cotter sank with exhaustion and declared that he must sleep. I rolled him over and implored him to get up and struggle on for a little while longer, when I felt sure that we must get down to the South Fork Cañon. He utterly refused, and lay there in a drowsy condition, fast giving up to the effects of fatigue and cold. I unbound a long scarf which was tied round his neck, put it under his arms like a harness, and, tying it round my body, started on, dragging him through the snow, to see if by that means I might not exasperate him to rise and labor on. In a few minutes it had its effect, and he sprang to his feet and fell upon me in a burst of indignation. A few words were enough to bring him to himself, when the old, calm courage was reasserted, and we started together to make our way down the cliff. Happily we at length found the right ridge, and rapidly descended through forest to the river side.