THE TUOLUMNE CAMP
_August 22._ Clouds none, cool west wind, slight hoarfrost on the
meadows. Carlo is missing; have been seeking him all day. In the thick
woods between camp and the river, among tall grass and fallen pines, I
discovered a baby fawn. At first it seemed inclined to come to me; but
when I tried to catch it, and got within a rod or two, it turned and
walked softly away, choosing its steps like a cautious, stealthy,
hunting cat. Then, as if suddenly called or alarmed, it began to buck
and run like a grown deer, jumping high above the fallen trunks, and was
soon out of sight. Possibly its mother may have called it, but I did not
hear her. I don’t think fawns ever leave the home thicket or follow
their mothers until they are called or frightened. I am distressed about
Carlo. There are several other camps and dogs not many miles from here,
and I still hope to find him. He never left me before. Panthers are very
rare here, and I don’t think any of these cats would dare touch him. He
knows bears too well to be caught by them, and as for Indians, they
don’t want him.
_August 23._ Cool, bright day, hinting Indian summer. Mr. Delaney has
gone to the Smith Ranch, on the Tuolumne below Hetch-Hetchy Valley,
thirty-five or forty miles from here, so I’ll be alone for a week or
more,—not really alone, for Carlo has come back. He was at a camp a few
miles to the northwestward. He looked sheepish and ashamed when I asked
him where he had been and why he had gone away without leave. He is now
trying to get me to caress him and show signs of forgiveness. A wondrous
wise dog. A great load is off my mind. I could not have left the
mountains without him. He seems very glad to get back to me.
Rose and crimson sunset, and soon after the stars appeared the moon rose
in most impressive majesty over the top of Mount Dana. I sauntered up
the meadow in the white light. The jet-black tree-shadows were so
wonderfully distinct and substantial looking, I often stepped high in
crossing them, taking them for black charred logs.
_August 24._ Another charming day, warm and calm soon after sunrise,
clouds only about .01,—faint, silky cirrus wisps, scarcely visible.
Slight frost, Indian summerish, the mountains growing softer in outline
and dreamy looking, their rough angles melted off, apparently. Sky at
evening with fine, dark, subdued purple, almost like the evening purple
of the San Joaquin plains in settled weather. The moon is now gazing
over the summit of Dana. Glorious exhilarating air. I wonder if in all
the world there is another mountain range of equal height blessed with
weather so fine, and so openly kind and hospitable and approachable.
_August 25._ Cool as usual in the morning, quickly changing to the
ordinary serene generous warmth and brightness. Toward evening the west
wind was cool and sent us to the camp-fire. Of all Nature’s flowery
carpeted mountain halls none can be finer than this glacier meadow. Bees
and butterflies seem as abundant as ever. The birds are still here,
showing no sign of leaving for winter quarters though the frost must
bring them to mind. For my part I should like to stay here all winter or
all my life or even all eternity.
_August 26._ Frost this morning; all the meadow grass and some of the
pine needles sparkling with irised crystals,—flowers of light. Large
picturesque clouds, craggy like rocks, are piled on Mount Dana, reddish
in color like the mountain itself; the sky for a few degrees around the
horizon is pale purple, into which the pines dip their spires with fine
effect. Spent the day as usual looking about me, watching the changing
lights, the ripening autumn colors of the grass, seeds, late-blooming
gentians, asters, goldenrods; parting the meadow grass here and there
and looking down into the underworld of mosses and liverworts; watching
the busy ants and beetles and other small people at work and play like
squirrels and bears in a forest; studying the formation of lakes and
meadows, moraines, mountain sculpture; making small beginnings in these
directions, charmed by the serene beauty of everything.
The day has been extra cloudy, though bright on the whole, for the
clouds were brighter than common. Clouds about .15, which in Switzerland
would be considered extra clear. Probably more free sunshine falls on
this majestic range than on any other in the world I’ve ever seen or
heard of. It has the brightest weather, brightest glacier-polished
rocks, the greatest abundance of irised spray from its glorious
waterfalls, the brightest forests of silver firs and silver pines, more
star-shine, moonshine, and perhaps more crystal-shine than any other
mountain chain, and its countless mirror lakes, having more light poured
into them, glow and spangle most. And how glorious the shining after the
short summer showers and after frosty nights when the morning sunbeams
are pouring through the crystals on the grass and pine needles, and how
ineffably spiritually fine is the morning-glow on the mountain-tops and
the alpenglow of evening. Well may the Sierra be named, not the Snowy
Range, but the Range of Light.
_August 27._ Clouds only .05,—mostly white and pink cumuli over the
Hoffman spur towards evening,—frosty morning. Crystals grow in
marvelous beauty and perfection of form these still nights, every one
built as carefully as the grandest holiest temple, as if planned to
endure forever.
Contemplating the lace-like fabric of streams outspread over the
mountains, we are reminded that everything is flowing—going somewhere,
animals and so-called lifeless rocks as well as water. Thus the snow
flows fast or slow in grand beauty-making glaciers and avalanches; the
air in majestic floods carrying minerals, plant leaves, seeds, spores,
with streams of music and fragrance; water streams carrying rocks both
in solution and in the form of mud particles, sand, pebbles, and
boulders. Rocks flow from volcanoes like water from springs, and animals
flock together and flow in currents modified by stepping, leaping,
gliding, flying, swimming, etc. While the stars go streaming through
space pulsed on and on forever like blood globules in Nature’s warm
heart.
_August 28._ The dawn a glorious song of color. Sky absolutely
cloudless. A fine crop hoarfrost. Warm after ten o’clock. The gentians
don’t mind the first frost though their petals seem so delicate; they
close every night as if going to sleep, and awake fresh as ever in the
morning sun-glory. The grass is a shade browner since last week, but
there are no nipped wilted plants of any sort as far as I have seen.
Butterflies and the grand host of smaller flies are benumbed every
night, but they hover and dance in the sunbeams over the meadows before
noon with no apparent lack of playful, joyful life. Soon they must all
fall like petals in an orchard, dry and wrinkled, not a wing of all the
mighty host left to tingle the air. Nevertheless new myriads will arise
in the spring, rejoicing, exulting, as if laughing cold death to scorn.
_August 29._ Clouds about .05, slight frost. Bland serene Indian summer
weather. Have been gazing all day at the mountains, watching the
changing lights. More and more plainly are they clothed with light as a
garment, white tinged with pale purple, palest during the midday hours,
richest in the morning and evening. Everything seems consciously
peaceful, thoughtful, faithfully waiting God’s will.
_August 30._ This day just like yesterday. A few clouds motionless and
apparently with no work to do beyond looking beautiful. Frost enough
for crystal building,—glorious fields of ice-diamonds destined to last
but a night. How lavish is Nature building, pulling down, creating,
destroying, chasing every material particle from form to form, ever
changing, ever beautiful.
Mr. Delaney arrived this morning. Felt not a trace of loneliness while
he was gone. On the contrary, I never enjoyed grander company. The whole
wilderness seems to be alive and familiar, full of humanity. The very
stones seem talkative, sympathetic, brotherly. No wonder when we
consider that we all have the same Father and Mother.
_August 31._ Clouds .05. Silky cirrus wisps and fringes so fine they
almost escape notice. Frost enough for another crop of crystals on the
meadows but none on the forests. The gentians, goldenrods, asters, etc.,
don’t seem to feel it; neither petals nor leaves are touched though they
seem so tender. Every day opens and closes like a flower, noiseless,
effortless. Divine peace glows on all the majestic landscape like the
silent enthusiastic joy that sometimes transfigures a noble human face.
_September 1._ Clouds .05—motionless, of no particular color—ornaments
with no hint of rain or snow in them. Day all calm—another grand throb
of Nature’s heart, ripening late flowers and seeds for next summer, full
of life and the thoughts and plans of life to come, and full of ripe and
ready death beautiful as life, telling divine wisdom and goodness and
immortality. Have been up Mount Dana, making haste to see as much as I
can now that the time of departure is drawing nigh. The views from the
summit reach far and wide, eastward over the Mono Lake and Desert;
mountains beyond mountains looking strangely barren and gray and bare
like heaps of ashes dumped from the sky. The lake, eight or ten miles in
diameter, shines like a burnished disk of silver, no trees about its
gray, ashy, cindery shores. Looking westward, the glorious forests are
seen sweeping over countless ridges and hills, girdling domes and
subordinate mountains, fringing in long curving lines the dividing
ridges, and filling every hollow where the glaciers have spread
soil-beds however rocky or smooth. Looking northward and southward along
the axis of the range, you see the glorious array of high mountains,
crags and peaks and snow, the fountain-heads of rivers that are flowing
west to the sea through the famous Golden Gate, and east to hot salt
lakes and deserts to evaporate and hurry back into the sky. Innumerable
lakes are shining like eyes beneath heavy rock brows, bare or tree
fringed, or imbedded in black forests. Meadow openings in the woods seem
as numerous as the lakes or perhaps more so. Far up the moraine-covered
slopes and among crumbling rocks I found many delicate hardy plants,
some of them still in flower. The best gains of this trip were the
lessons of unity and interrelation of all the features of the landscape
revealed in general views. The lakes and meadows are located just where
the ancient glaciers bore heaviest at the foot of the steepest parts of
their channels, and of course their longest diameters are approximately
parallel with each other and with the belts of forests growing in long
curving lines on the lateral and medial moraines, and in broad
outspreading fields on the terminal beds deposited toward the end of the
ice period when the glaciers were receding. The domes, ridges, and spurs
also show the influence of glacial action in their forms, which
approximately seem to be the forms of greatest strength with reference
to the stress of oversweeping, past-sweeping, down-grinding ice-streams;
survivals of the most resisting masses, or those most favorably
situated. How interesting everything is! Every rock, mountain, stream,
plant, lake, lawn, forest, garden, bird, beast, insect seems to call
and invite us to come and learn something of its history and
relationship. But shall the poor ignorant scholar be allowed to try the
lessons they offer? It seems too great and good to be true. Soon I’ll be
going to the lowlands. The bread camp must soon be removed. If I had a
few sacks of flour, an axe, and some matches, I would build a cabin of
pine logs, pile up plenty of firewood about it and stay all winter to
see the grand fertile snow-storms, watch the birds and animals that
winter thus high, how they live, how the forests look snow-laden or
buried, and how the avalanches look and sound on their way down the
mountains. But now I’ll have to go, for there is nothing to spare in the
way of provisions. I’ll surely be back, however, surely I’ll be back. No
other place has ever so overwhelmingly attracted me as this hospitable,
Godful wilderness.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE HIGHEST MOUNT RITTER FOUNTAINS]
_September 2._ A grand, red, rosy, crimson day,—a perfect glory of a
day. What it means I don’t know. It is the first marked change from
tranquil sunshine with purple mornings and evenings and still, white
noons. There is nothing like a storm, however. The average cloudiness
only about .08, and there is no sighing in the woods to betoken a big
weather change. The sky was red in the morning and evening, the color
not diffused like the ordinary purple glow, but loaded upon separate
well-defined clouds that remained motionless, as if anchored around the
jagged mountain-fenced horizon. A deep-red cap, bluffy around its sides,
lingered a long time on Mount Dana and Mount Gibbs, drooping so low as
to hide most of their bases, but leaving Dana’s round summit free, which
seemed to float separate and alone over the big crimson cloud. Mammoth
Mountain, to the south of Gibbs and Bloody Cañon, striped and spotted
with snow-banks and clumps of dwarf pine, was also favored with a
glorious crimson cap, in the making of which there was no trace of
economy—a huge bossy pile colored with a perfect passion of crimson
that seemed important enough to be sent off to burn among the stars in
majestic independence. One is constantly reminded of the infinite
lavishness and fertility of Nature—inexhaustible abundance amid what
seems enormous waste. And yet when we look into any of her operations
that lie within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her
material is wasted or worn out. It is eternally flowing from use to use,
beauty to yet higher beauty; and we soon cease to lament waste and
death, and rather rejoice and exult in the imperishable, unspendable
wealth of the universe, and faithfully watch and wait the reappearance
of everything that melts and fades and dies about us, feeling sure that
its next appearance will be better and more beautiful than the last.
I watched the growth of these red-lands of the sky as eagerly as if new
mountain ranges were being built. Soon the group of snowy peaks in whose
recesses lie the highest fountains of the Tuolumne, Merced, and North
Fork of the San Joaquin were decorated with majestic colored clouds like
those already described, but more complicated, to correspond with the
grand fountain-heads of the rivers they overshadowed. The Sierra
Cathedral, to the south of camp, was overshadowed like Sinai. Never
before noticed so fine a union of rock and cloud in form and color and
substance, drawing earth and sky together as one; and so human is it,
every feature and tint of color goes to one’s heart, and we shout,
exulting in wild enthusiasm as if all the divine show were our own. More
and more, in a place like this, we feel ourselves part of wild Nature,
kin to everything. Spent most of the day high up on the north rim of the
valley, commanding views of the clouds in all their red glory spreading
their wonderful light over all the basin, while the rocks and trees and
small Alpine plants at my feet seemed hushed and thoughtful, as if they
also were conscious spectators of the glorious new cloud-world.
Here and there, as I plodded farther and higher, I came to small
garden-patches and ferneries just where one would naturally decide that
no plant-creature could possibly live. But, as in the region about the
head of Mono Pass and the top of Dana, it was in the wildest, highest
places that the most beautiful and tender and enthusiastic plant-people
were found. Again and again, as I lingered over these charming plants, I
said, How came you here? How do you live through the winter? Our roots,
they explained, reach far down the joints of the summer-warmed rocks,
and beneath our fine snow mantle killing frosts cannot reach us, while
we sleep away the dark half of the year dreaming of spring.
Ever since I was allowed entrance into these mountains I have been
looking for cassiope, said to be the most beautiful and best loved of
the heathworts, but, strange to say, I have not yet found it. On my high
mountain walks I keep muttering, “Cassiope, cassiope.” This name, as
Calvinists say, is driven in upon me, notwithstanding the glorious host
of plants that come about me uncalled as soon as I show myself. Cassiope
seems the highest name of all the small mountain-heath people, and as
if conscious of her worth, keeps out of my way. I must find her soon, if
at all this year.
_September 4._ All the vast sky dome is clear, filled only with mellow
Indian summer light. The pine and hemlock and fir cones are nearly ripe
and are falling fast from morning to night, cut off and gathered by the
busy squirrels. Almost all the plants have matured their seeds, their
summer work done; and the summer crop of birds and deer will soon be
able to follow their parents to the foothills and plains at the approach
of winter, when the snow begins to fly.
_September 5._ No clouds. Weather cool, calm, bright as if no great
thing was yet ready to be done. Have been sketching the North Tuolumne
Church. The sunset gloriously colored.
_September 6._ Still another perfectly cloudless day, purple evening and
morning, all the middle hours one mass of pure serene sunshine. Soon
after sunrise the air grew warm, and there was no wind. One naturally
halted to see what Nature intended to do. There is a suggestion of real
Indian summer in the hushed brooding, faintly hazy weather. The yellow
atmosphere, though thin, is still plainly of the same general character
as that of eastern Indian summer. The peculiar mellowness is perhaps in
part caused by myriads of ripe spores adrift in the sky.
Mr. Delaney now keeps up a solemn talk about the need of getting away
from these high mountains, telling sad stories of flocks that perished
in storms that broke suddenly into the midst of fine innocent weather
like this we are now enjoying. “In no case,” said he, “will I venture to
stay so high and far back in the mountains as we now are later than the
middle of this month, no matter how warm and sunny it may be.” He would
move the flock slowly at first, a few miles a day until the Yosemite
Creek basin was reached and crossed, then while lingering in the heavy
pine woods should the weather threaten he could hurry down to the
foothills, where the snow never falls deep enough to smother a sheep. Of
course I am anxious to see as much of the wilderness as possible in the
few days left me, and I say again,—May the good time come when I can
stay as long as I like with plenty of bread, far and free from trampling
flocks, though I may well be thankful for this generous foodful
inspiring summer. Anyhow we never know where we must go nor what guides
we are to get,—men, storms, guardian angels, or sheep. Perhaps almost
everybody in the least natural is guarded more than he is ever aware
of. All the wilderness seems to be full of tricks and plans to drive and
draw us up into God’s Light.
Have been busy planning, and baking bread for at least one more good
wild excursion among the high peaks, and surely none, however hopefully
aiming at fortune or fame, ever felt so gloriously happily excited by
the outlook.
_September 7._ Left camp at daybreak and made direct for Cathedral Peak,
intending to strike eastward and southward from that point among the
peaks and ridges at the heads of the Tuolumne, Merced, and San Joaquin
Rivers. Down through the pine woods I made my way, across the Tuolumne
River and meadows, and up the heavily timbered slope forming the south
boundary of the upper Tuolumne basin, along the east side of Cathedral
Peak, and up to its topmost spire, which I reached at noon, having
loitered by the way to study the fine trees—two-leaved pine, mountain
pine, albicaulis pine, silver fir, and the most charming, most graceful
of all the evergreens, the mountain hemlock. High, cool, late-flowering
meadows also detained me, and lakelets and avalanche tracks and huge
quarries of moraine rocks above the forests.
[Illustration: GLACIER MEADOW STREWN WITH MORAINE BOULDERS 10,000 FEET
ABOVE THE SEA (NEAR MOUNT DANA)]
[Illustration: FRONT OF CATHEDRAL PEAK]
All the way up from the Big Meadows to the base of the Cathedral the
ground is covered with moraine material, the left lateral moraine of the
great glacier that must have completely filled this upper Tuolumne
basin. Higher there are several small terminal moraines of residual
glaciers shoved forward at right angles against the grand simple lateral
of the main Tuolumne Glacier. A fine place to study mountain sculpture
and soil making. The view from the Cathedral Spires is very fine and
telling in every direction. Innumerable peaks, ridges, domes, meadows,
lakes, and woods; the forests extending in long curving lines and broad
fields wherever the glaciers have left soil for them to grow on, while
the sides of the highest mountains show a straggling dwarf growth
clinging to rifts in the rocks apparently independent of soil. The dark
heath-like growth on the Cathedral roof I found to be dwarf snow-pressed
albicaulis pine, about three or four feet high, but very old looking.
Many of them are bearing cones, and the noisy Clarke crow is eating the
seeds, using his long bill like a woodpecker in digging them out of the
cones. A good many flowers are still in bloom about the base of the
peak, and even on the roof among the little pines, especially a woody
yellow-flowered eriogonum and a handsome aster. The body of the
Cathedral is nearly square, and the roof slopes are wonderfully regular
and symmetrical, the ridge trending northeast and southwest. This
direction has apparently been determined by structure joints in the
granite. The gable on the northeast end is magnificent in size and
simplicity, and at its base there is a big snow-bank protected by the
shadow of the building. The front is adorned with many pinnacles and a
tall spire of curious workmanship. Here too the joints in the rock are
seen to have played an important part in determining their forms and
size and general arrangement. The Cathedral is said to be about eleven
thousand feet above the sea, but the height of the building itself above
the level of the ridge it stands on is about fifteen hundred feet. A
mile or so to the westward there is a handsome lake, and the
glacier-polished granite about it is shining so brightly it is not easy
in some places to trace the line between the rock and water, both
shining alike. Of this lake with its silvery basin and bits of meadow
and groves I have a fine view from the spires; also of Lake Tenaya,
Cloud’s Rest and the South Dome of Yosemite, Mount Starr King, Mount
Hoffman, the Merced peaks, and the vast multitude of snowy fountain
peaks extending far north and south along the axis of the range. No
feature, however, of all the noble landscape as seen from here seems
more wonderful than the Cathedral itself, a temple displaying Nature’s
best masonry and sermons in stones. How often I have gazed at it from
the tops of hills and ridges, and through openings in the forests on my
many short excursions, devoutly wondering, admiring, longing! This I may
say is the first time I have been at church in California, led here at
last, every door graciously opened for the poor lonely worshiper. In our
best times everything turns into religion, all the world seems a church
and the mountains altars. And lo, here at last in front of the Cathedral
is blessed cassiope, ringing her thousands of sweet-toned bells, the
sweetest church music I ever enjoyed. Listening, admiring, until late in
the afternoon I compelled myself to hasten away eastward back of rough,
sharp, spiry, splintery peaks, all of them granite like the Cathedral,
sparkling with crystals—feldspar, quartz, hornblende, mica, tourmaline.
Had a rather difficult walk and creep across an immense snow and ice
cliff which gradually increased in steepness as I advanced until it was
almost impassable. Slipped on a dangerous place, but managed to stop by
digging my heels into the thawing surface just on the brink of a
yawning ice gulf. Camped beside a little pool and a group of crinkled
dwarf pines; and as I sit by the fire trying to write notes the shallow
pool seems fathomless with the infinite starry heavens in it, while the
onlooking rocks and trees, tiny shrubs and daisies and sedges, brought
forward in the fire-glow, seem full of thought as if about to speak
aloud and tell all their wild stories. A marvelously impressive meeting
in which every one has something worth while to tell. And beyond the
fire-beams out in the solemn darkness, how impressive is the music of a
choir of rills singing their way down from the snow to the river! And
when we call to mind that thousands of these rejoicing rills are
assembled in each one of the main streams, we wonder the less that our
Sierra rivers are songful all the way to the sea.
About sundown saw a flock of dun grayish sparrows going to roost in
crevices of a crag above the big snow-field. Charming little
mountaineers! Found a species of sedge in flower within eight or ten
feet of a snow-bank. Judging by the looks of the ground, it can hardly
have been out in the sunshine much longer than a week, and it is likely
to be buried again in fresh snow in a month or so, thus making a winter
about ten months long, while spring, summer, and autumn are crowded and
hurried into two months. How delightful it is to be alone here! How wild
everything is—wild as the sky and as pure! Never shall I forget this
big, divine day—the Cathedral and its thousands of cassiope bells, and
the landscapes around them, and this camp in the gray crags above the
woods, with its stars and streams and snow.
[Illustration: VIEW OF UPPER TUOLUMNE VALLEY, with arrow pointing to Mt
Ritter]
_September 8._ Day of climbing, scrambling, sliding on the peaks around
the highest source of the Tuolumne and Merced. Climbed three of the most
commanding of the mountains, whose names I don’t know; crossed streams
and huge beds of ice and snow more than I could keep count of. Neither
could I keep count of the lakes scattered on tablelands and in the
cirques of the peaks, and in chains in the cañons, linked together by
the streams—a tremendously wild gray wilderness of hacked, shattered
crags, ridges, and peaks, a few clouds drifting over and through the
midst of them as if looking for work. In general views all the immense
round landscape seems raw and lifeless as a quarry, yet the most
charming flowers were found rejoicing in countless nooks and garden-like
patches everywhere. I must have done three or four days’ climbing work
in this one. Limbs perfectly tireless until near sundown, when I
descended into the main upper Tuolumne valley at the foot of Mount
Lyell, the camp still eight or ten miles distant. Going up through the
pine woods past the Soda Springs Dome in the dark, where there is much
fallen timber, and when all the excitement of seeing things was wanting,
I was tired. Arrived at the main camp at nine o’clock, and soon was
sleeping sound as death.