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The Yosemite
by John Muir
Section 1 From Chapter 1
When I set out on the long excursion that finally led to California I
wandered afoot and alone, from Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico, with a
plant-press on my back, holding a generally southward course, like the
birds when they are going from summer to winter. From the west coast
of Florida I crossed the gulf to Cuba, enjoyed the rich tropical flora
there for a few months, intending to go thence to the north end of South
America, make my way through the woods to the headwaters of the Amazon,
and float down that grand river to the ocean. But I was unable to find a
ship bound for South America—fortunately perhaps, for I had incredibly
little money for so long a trip and had not yet fully recovered from
a fever caught in the Florida swamps. Therefore I decided to visit
California for a year or two to see its wonderful flora and the famous
Yosemite Valley. All the world was before me and every day was a
holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of the world's
wildernesses I first should wander.
Arriving by the Panama steamer, I stopped one day in San Francisco and
then inquired for the nearest way out of town. "But where do you want to
go?" asked the man to whom I had applied for this important information.
"To any place that is wild," I said. This reply startled him. He seemed
to fear I might be crazy and therefore the sooner I was out of town the
better, so he directed me to the Oakland ferry.
So on the first of April, 1868, I set out afoot for Yosemite. It was the
bloom-time of the year over the lowlands and coast ranges the landscapes
of the Santa Clara Valley were fairly drenched with sunshine, all the
air was quivering with the songs of the meadow-larks, and the hills were
so covered with flowers that they seemed to be painted. Slow indeed was
my progress through these glorious gardens, the first of the California
flora I had seen. Cattle and cultivation were making few scars as yet,
and I wandered enchanted in long wavering curves, knowing by my pocket
map that Yosemite Valley lay to the east and that I should surely find
it.
The Sierra From The West
Looking eastward from the summit of the Pacheco Pass one shining
morning, a landscape was displayed that after all my wanderings still
appears as the most beautiful I have ever beheld. At my feet lay the
Great Central Valley of California, level and flowery, like a lake of
pure sunshine, forty or fifty miles wide, five hundred miles long, one
rich furred garden of yellow Compositoe. And from the eastern boundary
of this vast golden flower-bed rose the mighty Sierra, miles in height,
and so gloriously colored and so radiant, it seemed not clothed with
light, but wholly composed of it, like the wall of some celestial city.
Along the top and extending a good way down, was a rich pearl-gray belt
of snow; below it a belt of blue and dark purple, marking the extension
of the forests; and stretching along the base of the range a broad belt
of rose-purple; all these colors, from the blue sky to the yellow
valley smoothly blending as they do in a rainbow, making a wall of light
ineffably fine. Then it seemed to me that the Sierra should be called,
not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten
years of wandering and wondering in the heart of it, rejoicing in its
glorious floods of light, the white beams of the morning streaming
through the passes, the noonday radiance on the crystal rocks, the
flush of the alpenglow, and the irised spray of countless waterfalls,
it still seems above all others the Range of Light.
In general views no mark of man is visible upon it, nor any thing to
suggest the wonderful depth and grandeur of its sculpture. None of its
magnificent forest-crowned ridges seems to rise much above the general
level to publish its wealth. No great valley or river is seen, or group
of well-marked features of any kind standing out as distinct pictures.
Even the summit peaks, marshaled in glorious array so high in the sky,
seem comparatively regular in form. Nevertheless the whole range five
hundred miles long is furrowed with canyons 2000 to 5000 feet deep, in
which once flowed majestic glaciers, and in which now flow and sing the
bright rejoicing rivers.
Characteristics Of The Canyons
Though of such stupendous depth, these canyons are not gloom gorges,
savage and inaccessible. With rough passages here and there they are
flowery pathways conducting to the snowy, icy fountains; mountain
streets full of life and light, graded and sculptured by the ancient
glaciers, and presenting throughout all their course a rich variety of
novel and attractive scenery—the most attractive that has yet been
discovered in the mountain ranges of the world. In many places,
especially in the middle region of the western flank, the main canyons
widen into spacious valleys or parks diversified like landscape gardens
with meadows and groves and thickets of blooming bushes, while the lofty
walls, infinitely varied in form are fringed with ferns, flowering
plants, shrubs of many species and tall evergreens and oaks that find
footholds on small benches and tables, all enlivened and made glorious
with rejoicing stream that come chanting in chorus over the cliffs and
through side canyons in falls of every conceivable form, to join the
river that flow in tranquil, shining beauty down the middle of each
one of them.
The Incomparable Yosemite
The most famous and accessible of these canyon valleys, and also the one
that presents their most striking and sublime features on the grandest
scale, is the Yosemite, situated in the basin of the Merced River at an
elevation of 4000 feet above the level of the sea. It is about seven
miles long, half a mile to a mile wide, and nearly a mile deep in the
solid granite flank of the range. The walls are made up of rocks,
mountains in size, partly separated from each other by side canyons, and
they are so sheer in front, and so compactly and harmoniously arranged
on a level floor, that the Valley, comprehensively seen, looks like an
immense hall or temple lighted from above.
But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in
its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose;
others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance
beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to
storms and calms alike, seemingly aware, yet heedless, of everything
going on about them. Awful in stern, immovable majesty, how softly these
rocks are adorned, and how fine and reassuring the company they keep:
their feet among beautiful groves and meadows, their brows in the sky,
a thousand flowers leaning confidingly against their feet, bathed in
floods of water, floods of light, while the snow and waterfalls, the
winds and avalanches and clouds shine and sing and wreathe about them
as the years go by, and myriads of small winged creatures birds, bees,
butterflies—give glad animation and help to make all the air into
music. Down through the middle of the Valley flows the crystal Merced,
River of Mercy, peacefully quiet, reflecting lilies and trees and the
onlooking rocks; things frail and fleeting and types of endurance
meeting here and blending in countless forms, as if into this one
mountain mansion Nature had gathered her choicest treasures, to draw
her lovers into close and confiding communion with her.
The Approach To The Valley
Sauntering up the foothills to Yosemite by any of the old trails or
roads in use before the railway was built from the town of Merced up the
river to the boundary of Yosemite Park, richer and wilder become the
forests and streams. At an elevation of 6000 feet above the level of the
sea the silver firs are 200 feet high, with branches whorled around the
colossal shafts in regular order, and every branch beautifully pinnate
like a fern frond. The Douglas spruce, the yellow and sugar pines and
brown-barked Libocedrus here reach their finest developments of beauty
and grandeur. The majestic Sequoia is here, too, the king of conifers,
the noblest of all the noble race. These colossal trees are as wonderful
in fineness of beauty and proportion as in stature—an assemblage of
conifers surpassing all that have ever yet been discovered in the
forests of the world. Here indeed is the tree-lover's paradise; the
woods, dry and wholesome, letting in the light in shimmering masses of
half sunshine, half shade; the night air as well as the day air
indescribably spicy and exhilarating; plushy fir-boughs for campers'
beds and cascades to sing us to sleep. On the highest ridges, over which
these old Yosemite ways passed, the silver fir (Abies magnifica) forms
the bulk of the woods, pressing forward in glorious array to the very
brink of the Valley walls on both sides, and beyond the Valley to a
height of from 8000 to 9000 feet above the level of the sea. Thus it
appears that Yosemite, presenting such stupendous faces of bare granite,
is nevertheless imbedded in magnificent forests, and the main species of
pine, fir, spruce and libocedrus are also found in the Valley itself,
but there are no "big trees" (Sequoia gigantea) in the Valley or about
the rim of it. The nearest are about ten and twenty miles beyond the
lower end of the valley on small tributaries of the Merced and Tuolumne
Rivers.
End of Section 1
The Yosemite
by John Muir Chapter 1
Part B The First View: The Bridal Veil
From the margin of these glorious forests the first general view of the
Valley used to be gained—a revelation in landscape affairs that
enriches one's life forever. Entering the Valley, gazing overwhelmed
with the multitude of grand objects about us, perhaps the first to fix
our attention will be the Bridal Veil, a beautiful waterfall on our
right. Its brow, where it first leaps free from the cliff, is about 900
feet above us; and as it sways and sings in the wind, clad in gauzy,
sun-sifted spray, half falling, half floating, it seems infinitely
gentle and fine; but the hymns it sings tell the solemn fateful power
hidden beneath its soft clothing.
The Bridal Veil shoots free from the upper edge of the cliff by the
velocity the stream has acquired in descending a long slope above the
head of the fall. Looking from the top of the rock-avalanche talus
on the west side, about one hundred feet above the foot of the fall,
the under surface of the water arch is seen to be finely grooved and
striated; and the sky is seen through the arch between rock and water,
making a novel and beautiful effect.
Under ordinary weather conditions the fall strikes on flat-topped slabs,
forming a kind of ledge about two-thirds of the way down from the top,
and as the fall sways back and forth with great variety of motions
among these flat-topped pillars, kissing and plashing notes as well as
thunder-like detonations are produced, like those of the Yosemite Fall,
though on a smaller scale.
The rainbows of the Veil, or rather the spray- and foam-bows, are
superb, because the waters are dashed among angular blocks of granite
at the foot, producing abundance of spray of the best quality for iris
effects, and also for a luxuriant growth of grass and maiden-hair on
the side of the talus, which lower down is planted with oak, laurel
and willows.
General Features Of The Valley
On the other side of the Valley, almost immediately opposite the Bridal
Veil, there is another fine fall, considerably wider than the Veil when
the snow is melting fast and more than 1000 feet in height, measured
from the brow of the cliff where it first springs out into the air to
the head of the rocky talus on which it strikes and is broken up into
ragged cascades. It is called the Ribbon Fall or ***'s Tears. During
the spring floods it is a magnificent object, but the suffocating blasts
of spray that fill the recess in the wall which it occupies prevent a
near approach. In autumn, however when its feeble current falls in a
shower, it may then pass for tears with the sentimental onlooker fresh
from a visit to the Bridal Veil.
Just beyond this glorious flood the El Capitan Rock, regarded by many as
the most sublime feature of the Valley, is seen through the pine groves,
standing forward beyond the general line of the wall in most imposing
grandeur, a type of permanence. It is 3300 feet high, a plain, severely
simple, glacier-sculptured face of granite, the end of one of the most
compact and enduring of the mountain ridges, unrivaled in height and
breadth and flawless strength.
Across the Valley from here, next to the Bridal Veil, are the
picturesque Cathedral Rocks, nearly 2700 feet high, making a noble
display of fine yet massive sculpture. They are closely related to El
Capitan, having been eroded from the same mountain ridge by the great
Yosemite Glacier when the Valley was in process of formation.
Next to the Cathedral Rocks on the south side towers the Sentinel Rock
to a height of more than 3000 feet, a telling monument of the glacial
period.
Almost immediately opposite the Sentinel are the Three Brothers, an
immense mountain mass with three gables fronting the Valley, one above
another, the topmost gable nearly 4000 feet high. They were named for
three brothers, sons of old Tenaya, the Yosemite chief, captured here
during the Indian War, at the time of the discovery of the Valley in
1852.
Sauntering up the Valley through meadow and grove, in the company of
these majestic rocks, which seem to follow us as we advance, gazing,
admiring, looking for new wonders ahead where all about us is so
wonderful, the thunder of the Yosemite Fall is heard, and when we
arrive in front of the Sentinel Rock it is revealed in all its glory
from base to summit, half a mile in height, and seeming to spring out
into the Valley sunshine direct from the sky. But even this fall,
perhaps the most wonderful of its kind in the world, cannot at first
hold our attention, for now the wide upper portion of the Valley is
displayed to view, with the finely modeled North Dome, the Royal Arches
and Washington Column on our left; Glacier Point, with its massive,
magnificent sculpture on the right; and in the middle, directly in
front, looms Tissiack or Half Dome, the most beautiful and most sublime
of all the wonderful Yosemite rocks, rising in serene majesty from
flowery groves and meadows to a height of 4750 feet.
The Upper Canyons
Here the Valley divides into three branches, the Tenaya, Nevada, and
Illilouette Canyons, extending back into the fountains of the High
Sierra, with scenery every way worthy the relation they bear to
Yosemite.
In the south branch, a mile or two from the main Valley, is the
Illilouette Fall, 600 feet high, one of the most beautiful of all the
Yosemite choir, but to most people inaccessible as yet on account of its
rough, steep, boulder-choked canyon. Its principal fountains of ice and
snow lie in the beautiful and interesting mountains of the Merced group,
while its broad open basin between its fountain mountains and canyon is
noted for the beauty of its lakes and forests and magnificent moraines.
Returning to the Valley, and going up the north branch of Tenaya Canyon,
we pass between the North Dome and Half Dome, and in less than an hour
come to Mirror Lake, the Dome Cascade and Tenaya Fall. Beyond the Fall,
on the north side of the canyon is the sublime Ed Capitan-like rock
called Mount Watkins; on the south the vast granite wave of Clouds' Rest,
a mile in height; and between them the fine Tenaya Cascade with silvery
plumes outspread on smooth glacier-polished folds of granite, making a
vertical descent in all of about 700 feet.
Just beyond the Dome Cascades, on the shoulder of Mount Watkins, there
is an old trail once used by Indians on their way across the range to
Mono, but in the canyon above this point there is no trail of any sort.
Between Mount Watkins and Clouds' Rest the canyon is accessible only to
mountaineers, and it is so dangerous that I hesitate to advise even good
climbers, anxious to test their nerve and skill, to attempt to pass
through it. Beyond the Cascades no great difficulty will be encountered.
A succession of charming lily gardens and meadows occurs in filled-up
lake basins among the rock-waves in the bottom of the canyon, and
everywhere the surface of the granite has a smooth-wiped appearance, and
in many places reflects the sunbeams like glass, a phenomenon due to
glacial action, the canyon having been the channel of one of the main
tributaries of the ancient Yosemite Glacier.
About ten miles above the Valley we come to the beautiful Tenaya Lake,
and here the canyon terminates. A mile or two above the lake stands the
grand Sierra Cathedral, a building of one stone, sewn from the living
rock, with sides, roof, gable, spire and ornamental pinnacles, fashioned
and finished symmetrically like a work of art, and set on a well-graded
plateau about 9000 feet high, as if Nature in making so fine a building
had also been careful that it should be finely seen. From every
direction its peculiar form and graceful, majestic beauty of expression
never fail to charm. Its height from its base to the ridge of the roof
is about 2500 feet, and among the pinnacles that adorn the front grand
views may be gained of the upper basins of the Merced and Tuolumne
Rivers.
Passing the Cathedral we descend into the delightful, spacious Tuolumne
Valley, from which excursions may be made to Mounts Dana, Lyell, Ritter,
Conness, and Mono Lake, and to the many curious peaks that rise above
the meadows on the south, and to the Big Tuolumne Canyon, with its
glorious abundance of rock and falling, gliding, tossing water. For all
these the beautiful meadows near the Soda Springs form a delightful
center.
Natural Features Near The Valley
Returning now to Yosemite and ascending the middle or Nevada branch of
the Valley, occupied by the main Merced River, we come within a few
miles to the Vernal and Nevada Falls, 400 and 600 feet high, pouring
their white, rejoicing waters in the midst of the most novel and sublime
rock scenery to be found in all the World. Tracing the river beyond the
head of the Nevada Fall we are lead into the Little Yosemite, a valley
like the great Yosemite in form, sculpture and vegetation. It is about
three miles long, with walls 1500 to 2000 feet high, cascades coming
over them, and the ever flowing through the meadows and groves of the
level bottom in tranquil, richly-embowered reaches.
Beyond this Little Yosemite in the main canyon, there are three other
little yosemites, the highest situated a few miles below the base of
Mount Lyell, at an elevation of about 7800 feet above the sea. To
describe these, with all their wealth of Yosemite furniture, and the
wilderness of lofty peaks above them, the home of the avalanche and
treasury of the fountain snow, would take us far beyond the bounds of a
single book. Nor can we here consider the formation of these mountain
landscapes—how the crystal rock were brought to light by glaciers made
up of crystal snow, making beauty whose influence is so mysterious on
every one who sees it.
Of the small glacier lakes so characteristic of these upper regions,
there are no fewer than sixty-seven in the basin of the main middle
branch, besides countless smaller pools. In the basin of the Illilouette
there are sixteen, in the Tenaya basin and its branches thirteen, in the
Yosemite Creek basin fourteen, and in the Pohono or Bridal Veil one,
making a grand total of one hundred and eleven lakes whose waters come
to sing at Yosemite. So glorious is the background of the great Valley,
so harmonious its relations to its widespreading fountains.
The same harmony prevails in all the other features of the adjacent
landscapes. Climbing out of the Valley by the subordinate canyons, we
find the ground rising from the brink of the walls: on the south side to
the fountains of the Bridal Veil Creek, the basin of which is noted for
the beauty of its meadows and its superb forests of silver fir; on the
north side through the basin of the Yosemite Creek to the dividing ridge
along the Tuolumne Canyon and the fountains of the Hoffman Range.
Down The Yosemite Creek
In general views the Yosemite Creek basin seems to be paved with
domes and smooth, whaleback masses of granite in every stage of
development—some showing only their crowns; others rising high and free
above the girdling forests, singly or in groups. Others are developed
only on one side, forming bold outstanding bosses usually well fringed
with shrubs and trees, and presenting the polished surfaces given them
by the glacier that brought them into relief. On the upper portion of
the basin broad moraine beds have been deposited and on these fine,
thrifty forests are growing. Lakes and meadows and small spongy bogs
may be found hiding here and there in the woods or back in the fountain
recesses of Mount Hoffman, while a thousand gardens are planted along
the banks of the streams.
All the wide, fan-shaped upper portion of the basin is covered with a
network of small rills that go cheerily on their way to their grand fall
in the Valley, now flowing on smooth pavements in sheets thin as glass,
now diving under willows and laving their red roots, oozing through
green, plushy bogs, plashing over small falls and dancing down slanting
cascades, calming again, gliding through patches of smooth glacier
meadows with sod of alpine agrostis mixed with blue and white violets
and daisies, breaking, tossing among rough boulders and fallen trees,
resting in calm pools, flowing together until, all united, they go to
their fate with stately, tranquil gestures like a full-grown river. At
the crossing of the Mono Trail, about two miles above the head of the
Yosemite Fall, the stream is nearly forty feet wide, and when the snow
is melting rapidly in the spring it is about four feet deep, with a
current of two and a half miles an hour. This is about the volume of
water that forms the Fall in May and June when there had been much snow
the preceding winter; but it varies greatly from month to month. The
snow rapidly vanishes from the open portion of the basin, which faces
southward, and only a few of the tributaries reach back to perennial
snow and ice fountains in the shadowy amphitheaters on the precipitous
northern slopes of Mount Hoffman. The total descent made by the stream
from its highest sources to its confluence with the Merced in the Valley
is about 6000 feet, while the distance is only about ten miles, an
average fall of 600 feet per mile. The last mile of its course lies
between the sides of sunken domes and swelling folds of the granite that
are clustered and pressed together like a mass of bossy cumulus clouds.
Through this shining way Yosemite Creek goes to its fate, swaying and
swirling with easy, graceful gestures and singing the last of its
mountain songs before it reaches the dizzy edge of Yosemite to fall 2600
feet into another world, where climate, vegetation, inhabitants, all are
different. Emerging from this last canyon the stream glides, in flat
lace-like folds, down a smooth incline into a small pool where it seems
to rest and compose itself before taking the grand plunge. Then calmly,
as if leaving a lake, it slips over the polished lip of the pool down
another incline and out over the brow of the precipice in a magnificent
curve thick-sown with rainbow spray.
End of Section 2
The Yosemite
by John Muir
Chapter 1 Section C
The Yosemite Fall
Long ago before I had traced this fine stream to its head back of Mount
Hoffman, I was eager to reach the extreme verge to see how it behaved in
flying so far through the air; but after enjoying this view and getting
safely away I have never advised any one to follow my steps. The last
incline down which the stream journeys so gracefully is so steep and
smooth one must slip cautiously forward on hands and feet alongside the
rushing water, which so near one's head is very exciting. But to gain a
perfect view one must go yet farther, over a curving brow to a slight
shelf on the extreme brink. This shelf, formed by the flaking off of a
fold of granite, is about three inches wide, just wide enough for a safe
rest for one's heels. To me it seemed nerve-trying to slip to this
narrow foothold and poise on the edge of such precipice so close to the
confusing whirl of the waters; and after casting longing glances over
the shining brow of the fall and listening to its sublime psalm, I
concluded not to attempt to go nearer, but, nevertheless, against
reasonable judgment, I did. Noticing some tufts of artemisia in a cleft
of rock, I filled my mouth with the leaves, hoping their bitter taste
might help to keep caution keen and prevent giddiness. In spite of
myself I reached the little ledge, got my heels well set, and worked
sidewise twenty or thirty feet to a point close to the out-plunging
current. Here the view is perfectly free down into the heart of the
bright irised throng of comet-like streamers into which the whole
ponderous volume of the fall separates, two or three hundred feet below
the brow. So glorious a display of pure wildness, acting at close range
while cut off from all the world beside, is terribly impressive. A less
nerve-trying view may be obtained from a fissured portion of the edge of
the cliff about forty yards to the eastward of the fall. Seen from this
point towards noon, in the spring, the rainbow on its brow seems to be
broken up and mingled with the rushing comets until all the fall is
stained with iris colors, leaving no white water visible. This is the
best of the safe views from above, the huge steadfast rocks, the flying
waters, and the rainbow light forming one of the most glorious pictures
conceivable.
The Yosemite Fall is separated into an upper and a lower fall with a
series of falls and cascades between them, but when viewed in front from
the bottom of the Valley they all appear as one.
So grandly does this magnificent fall display itself from the floor of
the Valley, few visitors take the trouble to climb the walls to gain
nearer views, unable to realize how vastly more impressive it is near by
than at a distance of one or two miles.
A Wonderful Ascent
The views developed in a walk up the zigzags of the trail leading to
the foot of the Upper Fall are about as varied and impressive as those
displayed along the favorite Glacier Point Trail. One rises as if on
wings. The groves, meadows, fern-flats and reaches of the river gain
new interest, as if never seen before; all the views changing in a most
striking manner as we go higher from point to point. The foreground
also changes every few rods in the most surprising manner, although the
earthquake talus and the level bench on the face of the wall over which
the trail passes seem monotonous and commonplace as seen from the bottom
of the Valley. Up we climb with glad exhilaration, through shaggy
fringes of laurel, ceanothus, glossy-leaved manzanita and live-oak, from
shadow to shadow across bars and patches of sunshine, the leafy openings
making charming frames for the Valley pictures beheld through gem, and
for the glimpses of the high peaks that appear in the distance. The
higher we go the farther we seem to be from the summit of the vast
granite wall. Here we pass a projecting buttress hose grooved and
rounded surface tells a plain story of the time when the Valley, now
filled with sunshine, was filled with ice, when the grand old Yosemite
Glacier, flowing river-like from its distant fountains, swept through
it, crushing, grinding, wearing its way ever deeper, developing and
fashioning these sublime rocks. Again we cross a white, battered gully,
the pathway of rock avalanches or snow avalanches. Farther on we come
to a gentle stream slipping down the face of the Cliff in lace-like
strips, and dropping from ledge to ledge—too small to be called a
fall—trickling, dripping, oozing, a pathless wanderer from one of
the upland meadow lying a little way back of the Valley rim, seeking
a way century after century to the depths of the Valley without any
appreciable channel. Every morning after a cool night, evaporation being
checked, it gathers strength and sings like a bird, but as the day
advances and the sun strikes its thin currents outspread on the heated
precipices, most of its waters vanish ere the bottom of the Valley is
reached. Many a fine, hanging-garden aloft on breezy inaccessible heights
owes to it its freshness and fullness of beauty; ferneries in shady
nooks, filled with Adiantum, Woodwardia, Woodsia, Aspidium, Pellaea,
and Cheilanthes, rosetted and tufted and ranged in lines, daintily
overlapping, thatching the stupendous cliffs with softest beauty, some
of the delicate fronds seeming to float on the warm moist air, without
any connection with rock or stream. Nor is there any lack of colored
plants wherever they can find a place to cling to; lilies and mints,
the showy cardinal mimulus, and glowing cushions of the golden bahia,
enlivened with butterflies and bees and all the other small, happy
humming creatures that belong to them.
After the highest point on the lower division of the trail is gained it
leads up into the deep recess occupied by the great fall, the noblest
display of falling water to be found in the Valley, or perhaps in the
world. When it first comes in sight it seems almost within reach of
one's hand, so great in the spring is its volume and velocity, yet it is
still nearly a third of a mile away and appears to recede as we advance.
The sculpture of the walls about it is on a scale of grandeur, according
nobly with the fall plain and massive, though elaborately finished, like
all the other cliffs about the Valley.
In the afternoon an immense shadow is cast athwart the plateau in front
of the fall, and over the chaparral bushes that clothe the slopes and
benches of the walls to the eastward, creeping upward until the fall is
wholly overcast, the contrast between the shaded and illumined sections
being very striking in these near views.
Under this shadow, during the cool centuries immediately following the
breaking-up of the Glacial Period, dwelt a small residual glacier, one
of the few that lingered on this sun-beaten side of the Valley after the
main trunk glacier had vanished. It sent down a long winding current
through the narrow canyon on the west side of the fall, and must have
formed a striking feature of the ancient scenery of the Valley; the
lofty fall of ice and fall of water side by side, yet separate and
distinct.
The coolness of the afternoon shadow and the abundant dewy spray make a
fine climate for the plateau ferns and grasses, and for the beautiful
azalea bushes that grow here in profusion and bloom in September, long
after the warmer thickets down on the floor of the Valley have withered
and gone to seed. Even close to the fall, and behind it at the base of
the cliff, a few venturesome plants may be found undisturbed by the
rock-shaking torrent.
The basin at the foot of the fall into which the current directly pours,
when it is not swayed by the wind, is about ten feet deep and fifteen to
twenty feet in diameter. That it is not much deeper is surprising, when
the great height and force of the fall is considered. But the rock where
the water strikes probably suffers less erosion than it would were the
descent less than half as great, since the current is outspread, and
much of its force is spent ere it reaches the bottom—being received on
the air as upon an elastic cushion, and borne outward and dissipated
over a surface more than fifty yards wide.
This surface, easily examined when the water is low, is intensely clean
and fresh looking. It is the raw, quick flesh of the mountain wholly
untouched by the weather. In summer droughts when the snowfall of the
preceding winter has been light, the fall is reduced to a mere shower of
separate drops without any obscuring spray. Then we may safely go back
of it and view the crystal shower from beneath, each drop wavering and
pulsing as it makes its way through the air, and flashing off jets of
colored light of ravishing beauty. But all this is invisible from the
bottom of the Valley, like a thousand other interesting things. One must
labor for beauty as for bread, here as elsewhere.
The Grandeur Of The Yosemite Fall
During the time of the spring floods the best near view of the fall is
obtained from Fern Ledge on the east side above the blinding spray at a
height of about 400 feet above the base of the fall. A climb of about
1400 feet from the Valley has to be made, and there is no trail, but
to any one fond of climbing this will make the ascent all the more
delightful. A narrow part of the ledge extends to the side of the fall
and back of it, enabling us to approach it as closely as we wish. When
the afternoon sunshine is streaming through the throng of comets, ever
wasting, ever renewed, fineness, firmness and variety of their forms are
beautifully revealed. At the top of the fall they seem to burst forth in
irregular spurts from some grand, throbbing mountain heart. Now and then
one mighty throb sends forth a mass of solid water into the free air
far beyond the others which rushes alone to the bottom of the fall with
long streaming tail, like combed silk, while the others, descending in
clusters, gradually mingle and lose their identity. But they all rush
past us with amazing velocity and display of power though apparently
drowsy and deliberate in their movements when observed from a distance
of a mile or two. The heads of these comet-like masses are composed of
nearly solid water, and are dense white in color like pressed snow, from
the friction they suffer in rushing through the air, the portion worn
off forming the tail between the white lustrous threads and films of
which faint, grayish pencilings appear, while the outer, finer sprays of
water-dust, whirling in sunny eddies, are pearly gray throughout. At the
bottom of the fall there is but little distinction of form visible. It
is mostly a hissing, clashing, seething, upwhirling mass of scud and
spray, through which the light sifts in gray and purple tones while
at times when the sun strikes at the required angle, the whole wild
and apparently lawless, stormy, striving mass is changed to brilliant
rainbow hues, manifesting finest harmony. The middle portion of the
fall is the most openly beautiful; lower, the various forms into which
the waters are wrought are more closely and voluminously veiled, while
higher, towards the head, the current is comparatively simple and
undivided. But even at the bottom, in the boiling clouds of spray,
there is no confusion, while the rainbow light makes all divine, adding
glorious beauty and peace to glorious power. This noble fall has far the
richest, as well as the most powerful, voice of all the falls of the
Valley, its tones varying from the sharp hiss and rustle of the wind
in the glossy leaves of the live-oak and the soft, sifting, hushing
tones of the pines, to the loudest rush and roar of storm winds and
thunder among the crags of the summit peaks. The low bass, booming,
reverberating tones, heard under favorable circumstances five or six
miles away are formed by the dashing and exploding of heavy masses
mixed with air upon two projecting ledges on the face of the cliff, the
one on which we are standing and another about 200 feet above it. The
torrent of massive comets is continuous at time of high water, while
the explosive, booming notes are wildly intermittent, because, unless
influenced by the wind, most of the heavier masses shoot out from the
face of the precipice, and pass the ledges upon which at other times
they are exploded. Occasionally the whole fall is swayed away from the
front of the cliff, then suddenly dashed flat against it, or vibrated
from side to side like a pendulum, giving rise to endless variety of
forms and sounds.
End of Section D of Chapter 1
The Yosemite
by John Muir Chapter 1
Section D The Nevada Fall
The Nevada Fall is 600 feet high and is usually ranked next to the
Yosemite in general interest among the five main falls of the Valley.
Coming through the Little Yosemite in tranquil reaches, the river is
first broken into rapids on a moraine boulder-bar that crosses the lower
end of the Valley. Thence it pursues its way to the head of the fall in
a rough, solid rock channel, dashing on side angles, heaving in heavy
surging masses against elbow knobs, and swirling and swashing in
pot-holes without a moment's rest. Thus, already chafed and dashed to
foam, overfolded and twisted, it plunges over the brink of the precipice
as if glad to escape into the open air. But before it reaches the bottom
it is pulverized yet finer by impinging upon a sloping portion of the
cliff about half-way down, thus making it the whitest of all the falls
of the Valley, and altogether one of the most wonderful in the world.
On the north side, close to its head, a slab of granite projects over the
brink, forming a fine point for a view, over its throng of streamers and
wild plunging, into its intensely white ***, and through the broad
drifts of spray, to the river far below, gathering its spent waters and
rushing on again down the canyon in glad exultation into Emerald Pool,
where at length it grows calm and gets rest for what still lies before
it. All the features of the view correspond with the waters in grandeur
and wildness. The glacier sculptured walls of the canyon on either hand,
with the sublime mass of the Glacier Point Ridge in front, form a huge
triangular pit-like basin, which, filled with the roaring of the falling
river seems as if it might be the hopper of one of the mills of the gods
in which the mountains were being ground.
The Vernal Fall
The Vernal, about a mile below the Nevada, is 400 feet high, a staid,
orderly, graceful, easy-going fall, proper and exact in every movement
and gesture, with scarce a hint of the passionate enthusiasm of the
Yosemite or of the impetuous Nevada, whose chafed and twisted waters
hurrying over the cliff seem glad to escape into the open air, while its
deep, booming, thunder-tones reverberate over the listening landscape.
Nevertheless it is a favorite with most visitors, doubtless because it
is more accessible than any other, more closely approached and better
seen and heard. A good stairway ascends the cliff beside it and the
level plateau at the head enables one to saunter safely along the edge
of the river as it comes from Emerald Pool and to watch its waters,
calmly bending over the brow of the precipice, in a sheet eighty feet
wide, changing in color from green to purplish gray and white until
dashed on a boulder talus. Thence issuing from beneath its fine broad
spray-clouds we see the tremendously adventurous river still unspent,
beating its way down the wildest and deepest of all its canyons in
gray roaring rapids, dear to the ouzel, and below the confluence of
the Illilouette, sweeping around the shoulder of the Half Dome on its
approach to the head of the tranquil levels of the Valley.
The Illilouette Fall
The Illilouette in general appearance most resembles the Nevada. The
volume of water is less than half as great, but it is about the same
height (600 feet) and its waters receive the same kind of preliminary
tossing in a rocky, irregular channel. Therefore it is a very white and
fine-grained fall. When it is in full springtime bloom it is partly
divided by rocks that roughen the lip of the precipice, but this
division amounts only to a kind of fluting and grooving of the column,
which has a beautiful effect. It is not nearly so grand a fall as the
upper Yosemite, or so symmetrical as the Vernal, or so airily graceful
and simple as the Bridal Veil, nor does it ever display so tremendous
an outgush of snowy magnificence as the Nevada; but in the exquisite
fineness and richness of texture of its flowing folds it surpasses
them all.
One of the finest effects of sunlight on falling water I ever saw in
Yosemite or elsewhere I found on the brow of this beautiful fall. It
was in the Indian summer, when the leaf colors were ripe and the great
cliffs and domes were transfigured in the hazy golden air. I had
scrambled up its rugged talus-dammed canyon, oftentimes stopping to take
breath and look back to admire the wonderful views to be had there of
the great Half Dome, and to enjoy the extreme purity of the water, which
in the motionless pools on this stream is almost perfectly invisible;
the colored foliage of the maples, dogwoods, Rubus tangles, etc., and
the late goldenrods and asters. The voice of the fall was now low, and
the grand spring and summer floods had waned to sifting, drifting gauze
and thin-broidered folds of linked and arrowy lace-work. When I reached
the foot of the fall sunbeams were glinting across its head, leaving all
the rest of it in shadow; and on its illumined brow a group of yellow
spangles of singular form and beauty were playing, flashing up and
dancing in large flame-shaped masses, wavering at times, then steadying,
rising and falling in accord with the shifting forms of the water. But
the color of the dancing spangles changed not at all. Nothing in clouds
or flowers, on bird-wings or the lips of shells, could rival it in
fineness. It was the most divinely beautiful mass of rejoicing yellow
light I ever beheld—one of Nature's precious gifts that perchance may
come to us but once in a lifetime.
The Minor Falls
There are many other comparatively small falls and cascades in the
Valley. The most notable are the Yosemite Gorge Fall and Cascades,
Tenaya Fall and Cascades, Royal Arch Falls, the two Sentinel Cascades
and the falls of Cascade and Tamarack Creeks, a mile or two below the
lower end of the Valley. These last are often visited. The others are
seldom noticed or mentioned; although in almost any other country they
would be visited and described as wonders.
The six intermediate falls in the gorge between the head of the Lower
and the base of the Upper Yosemite Falls, separated by a few deep pools
and strips of rapids, and three slender, tributary cascades on the west
side form a series more strikingly varied and combined than any other
in the Valley, yet very few of all the Valley visitors ever see them or
hear of them. No available standpoint commands a view of them all. The
best general view is obtained from the mouth of the gorge near the head
of the Lower Fall. The two lowest of the series, together with one of
the three tributary cascades, are visible from this standpoint, but in
reaching it the last twenty or thirty feet of the descent is rather
dangerous in time of high water, the shelving rocks being then slippery
on account of spray, but if one should chance to slip when the water is
low, only a bump or two and a harmless plash would be the penalty. No
part of the gorge, however, is safe to any but cautious climbers.
Though the dark gorge hall of these rejoicing waters is never flushed by
the purple light of morning or evening, it is warmed and cheered by the
white light of noonday, which, falling into so much foam and and spray
of varying degrees of fineness, makes marvelous displays of rainbow
colors. So filled, indeed, is it with this precious light, at favorable
times it seems to take the place of common air. Laurel bushes shed
fragrance into it from above and live-oaks, those fearless mountaineers,
hold fast to angular seams and lean out over it with their fringing
sprays and bright mirror leaves.
One bird, the ouzel, loves this gorge and flies through it merrily, or
cheerily, rather, stopping to sing on foam-washed bosses where other
birds could find no rest for their feet. I have even seen a gray
squirrel down in the heart of it beside the wild rejoicing water.
One of my favorite night walks was along the rim of this wild gorge in
times of high water when the moon was full, to see the lunar bows in the
spray.
For about a mile above Mirror Lake the Tenaya Canyon is level, and
richly planted with fir, Douglas spruce and libocedrus, forming a
remarkably fine grove, at the head of which is the Tenaya Fall. Though
seldom seen or described, this is, I think, the most picturesque of all
the small falls. A considerable distance above it, Tenaya Creek comes
hurrying down, white and foamy, over a flat pavement inclined at an
angle of about eighteen degrees. In time of high water this sheet of
rapids is nearly seventy feet wide, and is varied in a very striking way
by three parallel furrows that extend in the direction of its flow.
These furrows, worn by the action of the stream upon cleavage joints,
vary in width, are slightly sinuous, and have large boulders firmly
wedged in them here and there in narrow places, giving rise, of course,
to a complicated series of wild dashes, doublings, and upleaping arches
in the swift torrent. Just before it reaches the head of the fall the
current is divided, the left division making a vertical drop of about
eighty feet in a romantic, leafy, flowery, mossy nook, while the other
forms a rugged cascade.
The Royal Arch Fall in time of high water is a magnificent object,
forming a broad ornamental sheet in front of the arches. The two
Sentinel Cascades, 3000 feet high, are also grand spectacles when the
snow is melting fast in the spring, but by the middle of summer they
have diminished to mere streaks scarce noticeable amid their sublime
surroundings.
The Beauty Of The Rainbows
The Bridal Veil and Vernal Falls are famous for their rainbows; and
special visits to them are often made when the sun shines into the spray
at the most favorable angle. But amid the spray and foam and fine-ground
mist ever rising from the various falls and cataracts there is an
affluence and variety of iris bows scarcely known to visitors who stay
only a day or two. Both day and night, winter and summer, this divine
light may be seen wherever water is falling dancing, singing; telling
the heart-peace of Nature amid the wildest displays of her power. In the
bright spring mornings the black-walled recess at the foot of the Lower
Yosemite Fall is lavishly fine with irised spray; and not simply does
this span the dashing foam, but the foam itself, the whole mass of it,
beheld at a certain distance, seems to be colored, and drips and wavers
from color to color, mingling with the foliage of the adjacent trees,
without suggesting any relationship to the ordinary rainbow. This is
perhaps the largest and most reservoir-like fountain of iris colors to
be found in the Valley.
Lunar rainbows or spray-bows also abound in the glorious affluence of
dashing, rejoicing, hurrahing, enthusiastic spring floods, their colors
as distinct as those of the sun and regularly and obviously banded,
though less vivid. Fine specimens may be found any night at the foot of
the Upper Yosemite Fall, glowing gloriously amid the gloomy shadows and
thundering waters, whenever there is plenty of moonlight and spray. Even
the secondary bow is at times distinctly visible.
The best point from which to observe them is on Fern Ledge. For some
time after moonrise, at time of high water, the arc has a span of about
five hundred feet, and is set upright; one end planted in the boiling
spray at the bottom, the other in the edge of the fall, creeping lower,
of course, and becoming less upright as the moon rises higher. This
grand arc of color, glowing in mild, shapely beauty in so weird and huge
a chamber of night shadows, and amid the rush and roar and tumultuous
dashing of this thunder-voiced fall, is one of the most impressive and
most cheering of all the blessed mountain evangels.
Smaller bows may be seen in the gorge on the plateau between the Upper
and Lower Falls. Once toward midnight, after spending a few hours with
the wild beauty of the Upper Fall, I sauntered along the edge of the
gorge, looking in here and there, wherever the footing felt safe, to see
what I could learn of the night aspects of the smaller falls that dwell
there. And down in an exceedingly black, pit-like portion of the gorge,
at the foot of the highest of the intermediate falls, into which the
moonbeams were pouring through a narrow opening, I saw a well-defined
spray-bow, beautifully distinct in colors, spanning the pit from side
to side, while pure white foam-waves beneath the beautiful bow were
constantly springing up out of the dark into the moonlight like dancing
ghosts.
End of Section D Of Chapter 1
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