Chapter 2. Winter Storms and Spring Floods
Chapter 3. Snow-Storms
Chapter 4. Snow Banners
Chapter 5. The Trees of the Valley
Chapter 6. The Forest Trees in General
Chapter 7. The Big Trees
Chapter 8. The Flowers
Chapter 9. The Birds
Chapter 10. The South Dome
Chapter 11. The Ancient Yosemite Glaciers: How the Valley Was Formed
Chapter 12. How Best to Spend One’s Yosemite Time
Chapter 13. Early History of the Valley
Chapter 14. Lamon
Chapter 15. Galen Clark
Chapter 16. Hetch Hetchy Valley
Appendix A. Legislation About the Yosemite
Appendix B. Table of Distances
Appendix C. Maximum Rates for Transportation
Chapter 1
The Approach to the Valley
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 _Compositœ_. 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 cañons 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 Cañons
Though of such stupendous depth, these cañons 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 cañons
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 cañons 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 cañon 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 cañons, 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.
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 Virgin’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 Cañons
Here the Valley divides into three branches, the Tenaya, Nevada, and
Illilouette Cañons, 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 cañon. 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
cañon 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 Cañon,
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 cañon 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 cañon above this point there is no trail of any sort.
Between Mount Watkins and Clouds’ Rest the cañon 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
cañon, 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 cañon 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 cañon 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 Cañon, 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 cañon, 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 cañons, 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 Cañon 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 cañon 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.
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 cañon 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.
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 bosom, and
through the broad drifts of spray, to the river far below, gathering
its spent waters and rushing on again down the cañon 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
cañon 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 cañons
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 cañon, 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 Cañon 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.
An Unexpected Adventure
A wild scene, but not a safe one, is made by the moon as it appears
through the edge of the Yosemite Fall when one is behind it. Once,
after enjoying the night-song of the waters and watching the formation
of the colored bow as the moon came round the domes and sent her beams
into the wild uproar, I ventured out on the narrow bench that extends
back of the fall from Fern Ledge and began to admire the dim-veiled
grandeur of the view. I could see the fine gauzy threads of the fall’s
filmy border by having the light in front; and wishing to look at the
moon through the meshes of some of the denser portions of the fall, I
ventured to creep farther behind it while it was gently wind-swayed,
without taking sufficient thought about the consequences of its swaying
back to its natural position after the wind-pressure should be removed.
The effect was enchanting: fine, savage music sounding above, beneath,
around me; while the moon, apparently in the very midst of the rushing
waters, seemed to be struggling to keep her place, on account of the
ever-varying form and density of the water masses through which she was
seen, now darkly veiled or eclipsed by a rush of thick-headed comets,
now flashing out through openings between their tails. I was in
fairyland between the dark wall and the wild throng of illumined
waters, but suffered sudden disenchantment; for, like the witch-scene
in Alloway Kirk, “in an instant all was dark.” Down came a dash of
spent comets, thin and harmless-looking in the distance, but they felt
desperately solid and stony when they struck my shoulders, like a
mixture of choking spray and gravel and big hailstones. Instinctively
dropping on my knees, I gripped an angle of the rock, curled up like a
young fern frond with my face pressed against my breast, and in this
attitude submitted as best I could to my thundering bath. The heavier
masses seemed to strike like cobblestones, and there was a confused
noise of many waters about my ears—hissing, gurgling, clashing sounds
that were not heard as music. The situation was quickly realized. How
fast one’s thoughts burn in such times of stress! I was weighing
chances of escape. Would the column be swayed a few inches away from
the wall, or would it come yet closer? The fall was in flood and not so
lightly would its ponderous mass be swayed. My fate seemed to depend on
a breath of the “idle wind.” It was moved gently forward, the pounding
ceased, and I was once more visited by glimpses of the moon. But
fearing I might be caught at a disadvantage in making too hasty a
retreat, I moved only a few feet along the bench to where a block of
ice lay. I wedged myself between the ice and the wall and lay face
downwards, until the steadiness of the light gave encouragement to rise
and get away. Somewhat nerve-shaken, drenched, and benumbed, I made out
to build a fire, warmed myself, ran home, reached my cabin before
daylight, got an hour or two of sleep, and awoke sound and comfortable,
better, not worse for my hard midnight bath.
Climate And Weather
Owing to the westerly trend of the Valley and its vast depth there is a
great difference between the climates of the north and south
sides—greater than between many countries far apart; for the south wall
is in shadow during the winter months, while the north is bathed in
sunshine every clear day. Thus there is mild spring weather on one side
of the Valley while winter rules the other. Far up the north-side
cliffs many a nook may be found closely embraced by sun-beaten
rock-bosses in which flowers bloom every month of the year. Even
butterflies may be seen in these high winter gardens except when
snow-storms are falling and a few days after they have ceased. Near the
head of the lower Yosemite Fall in January I found the ant lions lying
in wait in their warm sand-cups, rock ferns being unrolled, club mosses
covered with fresh-growing plants, the flowers of the laurel nearly
open, and the honeysuckle rosetted with bright young leaves; every
plant seemed to be thinking about summer. Even on the shadow-side of
the Valley the frost is never very sharp. The lowest temperature I ever
observed during four winters was 7° Fahrenheit. The first twenty-four
days of January had an average temperature at 9 A.M. of 32°, minimum
22°; at 3 P.M. the average was 40° 30′, the minimum 32°. Along the top
of the walls, 7000 and 8000 feet high, the temperature was, of course,
much lower. But the difference in temperature between the north and
south sides is due not so much to the winter sunshine as to the heat of
the preceding summer, stored up in the rocks, which rapidly melts the
snow in contact with them. For though summer sun-heat is stored in the
rocks of the south side also, the amount is much less because the rays
fall obliquely on the south wall even in summer and almost vertically
on the north.
The upper branches of the Yosemite streams are buried every winter
beneath a heavy mantle of snow, and set free in the spring in
magnificent floods. Then, all the fountains, full and overflowing,
every living thing breaks forth into singing, and the glad exulting
streams shining and falling in the warm sunny weather, shake everything
into music making all the mountain-world a song.
The great annual spring thaw usually begins in May in the forest
region, and in June and July on the high Sierra, varying somewhat both
in time and fullness with the weather and the depth of the snow. Toward
the end of summer the streams are at their lowest ebb, few even of the
strongest singing much above a whisper they slip and ripple through
gravel and boulder-beds from pool to pool in the hollows of their
channels, and drop in pattering showers like rain, and slip down
precipices and fall in sheets of embroidery, fold over fold. But,
however low their singing, it is always ineffably fine in tone, in
harmony with the restful time of the year.
The first snow of the season that comes to the help of the streams
usually falls in September or October, sometimes even is the latter
part of August, in the midst of yellow Indian summer when the
goldenrods and gentians of the glacier meadows are in their prime. This
Indian-summer snow, however, soon melts, the chilled flowers spread
their petals to the sun, and the gardens as well as the streams are
refreshed as if only a warm shower had fallen. The snow-storms that
load the mountains to form the main fountain supply for the year seldom
set in before the middle or end of November.
Winter Beauty Of The Valley
When the first heavy storms stopped work on the high mountains, I made
haste down to my Yosemite den, not to “hole up” and sleep the white
months away; I was out every day, and often all night, sleeping but
little, studying the so-called wonders and common things ever on show,
wading, climbing, sauntering among the blessed storms and calms,
rejoicing in almost everything alike that I could see or hear: the
glorious brightness of frosty mornings; the sunbeams pouring over the
white domes and crags into the groves end waterfalls, kindling
marvelous iris fires in the hoarfrost and spray; the great forests and
mountains in their deep noon sleep; the good-night alpenglow; the
stars; the solemn gazing moon, drawing the huge domes and headlands one
by one glowing white out of the shadows hushed and breathless like an
audience in awful enthusiasm, while the meadows at their feet sparkle
with frost-stars like the sky; the sublime darkness of storm-nights,
when all the lights are out; the clouds in whose depths the frail
snow-flowers grow; the behavior and many voices of the different kinds
of storms, trees, birds, waterfalls, and snow-avalanches in the
ever-changing weather.
Every clear, frosty morning loud sounds are heard booming and
reverberating from side to side of the Valley at intervals of a few
minutes, beginning soon after sunrise and continuing an hour or two
like a thunder-storm. In my first winter in the Valley I could not make
out the source of this noise. I thought of falling boulders,
rock-blasting, etc. Not till I saw what looked like hoarfrost dropping
from the side of the Fall was the problem explained. The strange
thunder is made by the fall of sections of ice formed of spray that is
frozen on the face of the cliff along the sides of the Upper Yosemite
Fan—a sort of crystal plaster, a foot or two thick, racked off by the
sunbeams, awakening all the Valley like cock-crowing, announcing the
finest weather, shouting aloud Nature’s infinite industry and love of
hard work in creating beauty.
Exploring An Ice Cone
This frozen spray gives rise to one of the most interesting winter
features of the Valley—a cone of ice at the foot of the fall, four or
five hundred feet high. From the Fern Ledge standpoint its crater-like
throat is seen, down which the fall plunges with deep, gasping
explosions of compressed air, and, after being well churned in the
wormy interior, the water bursts forth through arched openings at its
base, apparently scourged and weary and glad to escape, while belching
spray, spouted up out of the throat past the descending current, is
wafted away in irised drifts to the adjacent rocks and groves. It is
built during the night and early hours of the morning; only in spells
of exceptionally cold and cloudy weather is the work continued through
the day. The greater part of the spray material falls in crystalline
showers direct to its place, something like a small local snow-storm;
but a considerable portion is first frozen on the face of the cliff
along the sides of the fall and stays there until expanded and cracked
off in irregular masses, some of them tons in weight, to be built into
the walls of the cone; while in windy, frosty weather, when the fall is
swayed from side to side, the cone is well drenched and the loose ice
masses and spray-dust are all firmly welded and frozen together. Thus
the finest of the downy wafts and curls of spray-dust, which in mild
nights fall about as silently as dew, are held back until sunrise to
make a store of heavy ice to reinforce the waterfall’s thunder-tones.
While the cone is in process of formation, growing higher and wider in
the frosty weather, it looks like a beautiful smooth, pure-white hill;
but when it is wasting and breaking up in the spring its surface is
strewn with leaves, pine branches, stones, sand, etc., that have been
brought over the fall, making it look like a heap of avalanche
detritus.
Anxious to learn what I could about the structure of this curious hill
I often approached it in calm weather and tried to climb it, carrying
an ax to cut steps. Once I nearly succeeded in gaining the summit. At
the base I was met by a current of spray and wind that made seeing and
breathing difficult. I pushed on backward however, and soon gained the
slope of the hill, where by creeping close to the surface most of the
choking blast passed over me and I managed to crawl up with but little
difficulty. Thus I made my way nearly to the summit, halting at times
to peer up through the wild whirls of spray at the veiled grandeur of
the fall, or to listen to the thunder beneath me; the whole hill was
sounding as if it were a huge, bellowing drum. I hoped that by waiting
until the fall was blown aslant I should be able to climb to the lip of
the crater and get a view of the interior; but a suffocating blast,
half air, half water, followed by the fall of an enormous mass of
frozen spray from a spot high up on the wall, quickly discouraged me.
The whole cone was jarred by the blow and some fragments of the mass
sped past me dangerously near; so I beat a hasty retreat, chilled and
drenched, and lay down on a sunny rock to dry.
Once during a wind-storm when I saw that the fall was frequently blown
westward, leaving the cone dry, I ran up to Fern Ledge hoping to gain a
clear view of the interior. I set out at noon. All the way up the storm
notes were so loud about me that the voice of the fall was almost
drowned by them. Notwithstanding the rocks and bushes everywhere were
drenched by the wind-driven spray, I approached the brink of the
precipice overlooking the mouth of the ice cone, but I was almost
suffocated by the drenching, gusty spray, and was compelled to seek
shelter. I searched for some hiding-place in the wall from whence I
might run out at some opportune moment when the fall with its whirling
spray and torn shreds of comet tails and trailing, tattered skirts was
borne westward, as I had seen it carried several times before, leaving
the cliffs on the east side and the ice hill bare in the sunlight. I
had not long to wait, for, as if ordered so for my special
accommodation, the mighty downrush of comets with their whirling
drapery swung westward and remained aslant for nearly half an hour. The
cone was admirably lighted and deserted by the water, which fell most
of the time on the rocky western slopes mostly outside of the cone. The
mouth into which the fall pours was, as near as I could guess, about
one hundred feet in diameter north and south and about two hundred feet
east and west, which is about the shape and size of the fall at its
best in its normal condition at this season.
The crater-like opening was not a true oval, but more like a huge
coarse mouth. I could see down the throat about one hundred feet or
perhaps farther.
The fall precipice overhangs from a height of 400 feet above the base;
therefore the water strikes some distance from the base off the cliff,
allowing space for the accumulation of a considerable mass of ice
between the fall and the wall.