The South Dome
With the exception of a few spires and pinnacles, the South Dome is the
only rock about the Valley that is strictly inaccessible without
artificial means, and its inaccessibility is expressed in severe terms.
Nevertheless many a mountaineer, gazing admiringly, tried hard to
invent a way to the top of its noble crown—all in vain, until in the
year 1875, George Anderson, an indomitable Scotchman, undertook the
adventure. The side facing Tenaya Cañon is an absolutely vertical
precipice from the summit to a depth of about 1600 feet, and on the
opposite side it is nearly vertical for about as great a depth. The
southwest side presents a very steep and finely drawn curve from the
top down a thousand feet or more, while on the northeast, where it is
united with the Clouds’ Rest Ridge, one may easily reach a point called
the Saddle, about seven hundred feet below the summit. From the Saddle
the Dome rises in a graceful curve a few degrees too steep for unaided
climbing, besides being defended by overleaning ends of the concentric
dome layers of the granite.
A year or two before Anderson gained the summit, John Conway, the
master trail-builder of the Valley, and his little sons, who climbed
smooth rocks like lizards, made a bold effort to reach the top by
climbing barefooted up the grand curve with a rope which they fastened
at irregular intervals by means of eye-bolts driven into joints of the
rock. But finding that the upper part would require laborious drilling,
they abandoned the attempt, glad to escape from the dangerous position
they had reached, some 300 feet above the Saddle. Anderson began with
Conway’s old rope, which had been left in place, and resolutely drilled
his way to the top, inserting eye-bolts five to six feet apart, and
making his rope fast to each in succession, resting his feet on the
last bolt while he drilled a hole for the next above. Occasionally some
irregularity in the curve, or slight foothold, would enable him to
climb a few feet without a rope, which he would pass and begin drilling
again, and thus the whole work was accomplished in a few days. From
this slender beginning he proposed to construct a substantial stairway
which he hoped to complete in time for the next year’s travel, but
while busy getting out timber for his stairway and dreaming of the
wealth he hoped to gain from tolls, he was taken sick and died all
alone in his little cabin.
On the 10th of November, after returning from a visit to Mount Shasta,
a month or two after Anderson had gained the summit, I made haste to
the Dome, not only for the pleasure of climbing, but to see what I
might learn. The first winter storm-clouds had blossomed and the
mountains and all the high points about the Valley were mantled in
fresh snow. I was, therefore, a little apprehensive of danger from the
slipperiness of the rope and the rock. Anderson himself tried to
prevent me from making the attempt, refusing to believe that any one
could climb his rope in the now-muffled condition in which it then was.
Moreover, the sky was overcast and solemn snow-clouds began to curl
around the summit, and my late experiences on icy Shasta came to mind.
But reflecting that I had matches in my pocket, and that a little
firewood might be found, I concluded that in case of a storm the night
could be spent on the Dome without suffering anything worth minding, no
matter what the clouds might bring forth. I therefore pushed on and
gained the top.
It was one of those brooding, changeful days that come between Indian
summer and winter, when the leaf colors have grown dim and the clouds
come and go among the cliffs like living creatures looking for work:
now hovering aloft, now caressing rugged rock-brows with great
gentleness, or, wandering afar over the tops of the forests, touching
the spires of fir and pine with their soft silken fringes as if trying
to tell the glad news of the coming of snow.
The first view was perfectly glorious. A massive cloud of pure pearl
luster, apparently as fixed and calm as the meadows and groves in the
shadow beneath it, was arched across the Valley from wall to wall, one
end resting on the grand abutment of El Capitan, the other on Cathedral
Rock. A little later, as I stood on the tremendous verge overlooking
Mirror Lake, a flock of smaller clouds, white as snow, came from the
north, trailing their downy skirts over the dark forests, and entered
the Valley with solemn god-like gestures through Indian Cañon and over
the North Dome and Royal Arches, moving swiftly, yet with majestic
deliberation. On they came, nearer and nearer, gathering and massing
beneath my feet and filling the Tenaya Cañon. Then the sun shone free,
lighting the pearly gray surface of the cloud-like sea and making it
glow. Gazing, admiring, I was startled to see for the first time the
rare optical phenomenon of the “Specter of the Brocken.” My shadow,
clearly outlined, about half a mile long, lay upon this glorious white
surface with startling effect. I walked back and forth, waved my arms
and struck all sorts of attitudes, to see every slightest movement
enormously exaggerated. Considering that I have looked down so many
times from mountain tops on seas of all sorts of clouds, it seems
strange that I should have seen the “Brocken Specter” only this once. A
grander surface and a grander stand-point, however, could hardly have
been found in all the Sierra.
After this grand show the cloud-sea rose higher, wreathing the Dome,
and for a short time submerging it, making darkness like night, and I
began to think of looking for a camp ground in a cluster of dwarf
pines. But soon the sun shone free again, the clouds, sinking lower and
lower, gradually vanished, leaving the Valley with its Indian-summer
colors apparently refreshed, while to the eastward the summit-peaks,
clad in new snow, towered along the horizon in glorious array.
Though apparently it is perfectly bald, there are four clumps of pines
growing on the summit, representing three species, Pinus albicaulis, P.
contorta and P. ponderosa, var. Jeffreyi—all three, of course,
repressed and storm-beaten. The alpine spiræa grows here also and
blossoms profusely with potentilla, erigeron, eriogonum, pentstemon,
solidago, and an interesting species of onion, and four or five species
of grasses and sedges. None of these differs in any respect from those
of other summits of the same height, excepting the curious little
narrow-leaved, waxen-bulbed onion, which I had not seen elsewhere.
Notwithstanding the enthusiastic eagerness of tourists to reach the
crown of the Dome the views of the Valley from this lofty standpoint
are less striking than from many other points comparatively low,
chiefly on account of the foreshortening effect produced by looking
down from so great a height. The North Dome is dwarfed almost beyond
recognition, the grand sculpture of the Royal Arches is scarcely
noticeable, and the whole range of walls on both sides seem
comparatively low, especially when the Valley is flooded with noon
sunshine; while the Dome itself, the most sublime feature of all the
Yosemite views, is out of sight beneath one’s feet. The view of Little
Yosemite Valley is very fine, though inferior to one obtained from the
base of the Starr King Cone, but the summit landscapes towards Mounts
Ritter, Lyell, Dana, Conness, and the Merced Group, are very effective
and complete.
No one has attempted to carry out Anderson’s plan of making the Dome
accessible. For my part I should prefer leaving it in pure wildness,
though, after all, no great damage could be done by tramping over it.
The surface would be strewn with tin cans and bottles, but the winter
gales would blow the rubbish away. Avalanches might strip off any sort
of stairway or ladder that might be built. Blue jays and Clark’s crows
have trodden the Dome for many a day, and so have beetles and
chipmunks, and Tissiack would hardly be more “conquered” or spoiled
should man be added to her list of visitors. His louder scream and
heavier scrambling would not stir a line of her countenance.
When the sublime ice-floods of the glacial period poured down the flank
of the Range over what is now Yosemite Valley, they were compelled to
break through a dam of domes extending across from Mount Starr King to
North Dome; and as the period began to draw near a close the shallowing
ice-currents were divided and the South Dome was, perhaps, the first to
emerge, burnished and shining like a mirror above the surface of the
icy sea; and though it has sustained the wear and tear of the elements
tens of thousands of years, it yet remains a telling monument of the
action of the great glaciers that brought it to light. Its entire
surface is still covered with glacial hieroglyphics whose
interpretation is the reward of all who devoutly study them.