THE PASSES
The sustained grandeur of the High Sierra is strikingly illustrated by
the great height of the passes. Between latitude 36° 20′ and 38° the
lowest pass, gap, gorge, or notch of any kind cutting across the axis
of the range, as far as I have discovered, exceeds 9000 feet in height
above the level of the sea; while the average height of all that are in
use, either by Indians or whites, is perhaps not less than 11,000 feet,
and not one of these is a carriage-pass.
Farther north a carriage-road has been constructed through what is
known as the Sonora Pass, on the head waters of the Stanislaus and
Walker’s rivers, the summit of which is about 10,000 feet above the
sea. Substantial wagon-roads have also been built through the Carson
and Johnson passes, near the head of Lake Tahoe, over which immense
quantities of freight were hauled from California to the mining regions
of Nevada, before the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad.
Still farther north, a considerable number of comparatively low passes
occur, some of which are accessible to wheeled vehicles, and through
these rugged defiles during the exciting years of the gold period long
emigrant-trains with foot-sore cattle wearily toiled. After the
toil-worn adventurers had escaped a thousand dangers and had crawled
thousands of miles across the plains the snowy Sierra at last loomed in
sight, the eastern wall of the land of gold. And as with shaded eyes
they gazed through the tremulous haze of the desert, with what joy must
they have descried the pass through which they were to enter the better
land of their hopes and dreams!
Between the Sonora Pass and the southern extremity of the High Sierra,
a distance of nearly 160 miles, there are only five passes through
which trails conduct from one side of the range to the other. These are
barely practicable for animals; a pass in these regions meaning simply
any notch or cañon through which one may, by the exercise of unlimited
patience, make out to lead a mule, or a sure-footed mustang; animals
that can slide or jump as well as walk. Only three of the five passes
may be said to be in use, viz.: the Kearsarge, Mono, and Virginia
Creek; the tracks leading through the others being only obscure Indian
trails, not graded in the least, and scarcely traceable by white men;
for much of the way is over solid rock and earthquake avalanche
taluses, where the unshod ponies of the Indians leave no appreciable
sign. Only skilled mountaineers are able to detect the marks that serve
to guide the Indians, such as slight abrasions of the looser rocks, the
displacement of stones here and there, and bent bushes and weeds. A
general knowledge of the topography is, then, the main guide, enabling
one to determine where the trail ought to go—_must_ go. One of these
Indian trails crosses the range by a nameless pass between the head
waters of the south and middle forks of the San Joaquin, the other
between the north and middle forks of the same river, just to the south
of “The Minarets”; this last being about 9000 feet high, is the lowest
of the five. The Kearsarge is the highest, crossing the summit near the
head of the south fork of King’s River, about eight miles to the north
of Mount Tyndall, through the midst of the most stupendous
rock-scenery. The summit of this pass is over 12,000 feet above
sea-level; nevertheless, it is one of the safest of the five, and is
used every summer, from July to October or November, by hunters,
prospectors, and stock-owners, and to some extent by enterprising
pleasure-seekers also. For, besides the surpassing grandeur of the
scenery about the summit, the trail, in ascending the western flank of
the range, conducts through a grove of the giant Sequoias, and through
the magnificent Yosemite Valley of the south fork of King’s River. This
is, perhaps, the highest traveled pass on the North American continent.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY, SHOWING PRESENT RESERVATION
BOUNDARY.]
The Mono Pass lies to the east of Yosemite Valley, at the head of one
of the tributaries of the south fork of the Tuolumne. This is the best
known and most extensively traveled of all that exist in the High
Sierra. A trail was made through it about the time of the Mono gold
excitement, in the year 1858, by adventurous miners and prospectors—men
who would build a trail down the throat of darkest Erebus on the way to
gold. Though more than a thousand feet lower than the Kearsarge, it is
scarcely less sublime in rock-scenery, while in snowy, falling water it
far surpasses it. Being so favorably situated for the stream of
Yosemite travel, the more adventurous tourists cross over through this
glorious gateway to the volcanic region around Mono Lake. It has
therefore gained a name and fame above every other pass in the range.
According to the few barometrical observations made upon it, its
highest point is 10,765 feet above the sea. The other pass of the five
we have been considering is somewhat lower, and crosses the axis of the
range a few miles to the north of the Mono Pass, at the head of the
southernmost tributary of Walker’s River. It is used chiefly by roaming
bands of the Pah Ute Indians and “sheepmen.”
But, leaving wheels and animals out of the question, the free
mountaineer with a sack of bread on his shoulders and an ax to cut
steps in ice and frozen snow can make his way across the range almost
everywhere, and at any time of year when the weather is calm. To him
nearly every notch between the peaks is a pass, though much patient
step-cutting is at times required up and down steeply inclined
glaciers, with cautious climbing over precipices that at first sight
would seem hopelessly inaccessible.
In pursuing my studies, I have crossed from side to side of the range
at intervals of a few miles all along the highest portion of the chain,
with far less real danger than one would naturally count on. And what
fine wildness was thus revealed—storms and avalanches, lakes and
waterfalls, gardens and meadows, and interesting animals—only those
will ever know who give the freest and most buoyant portion of their
lives to climbing and seeing for themselves.
To the timid traveler, fresh from the sedimentary levels of the
lowlands, these highways, however picturesque and grand, seem terribly
forbidding—cold, dead, gloomy gashes in the bones of the mountains, and
of all Nature’s ways the ones to be most cautiously avoided. Yet they
are full of the finest and most telling examples of Nature’s love; and
though hard to travel, none are safer. For they lead through regions
that lie far above the ordinary haunts of the devil, and of the
pestilence that walks in darkness. True, there are innumerable places
where the careless step will be the last step; and a rock falling from
the cliffs may crush without warning like lightning from the sky; but
what then! Accidents in the mountains are less common than in the
lowlands, and these mountain mansions are decent, delightful, even
divine, places to die in, compared with the doleful chambers of
civilization. Few places in this world are more dangerous than home.
Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain-passes. They will kill care,
save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty
into vigorous, enthusiastic action. Even the sick should try these
so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill,
they cure a thousand.
All the passes make their steepest ascents on the eastern flank. On
this side the average rise is not far from a thousand feet to the mile,
while on the west it is about two hundred feet. Another marked
difference between the eastern and western portions of the passes is
that the former begin at the very foot of the range, while the latter
can hardly be said to begin lower than an elevation of from seven to
ten thousand feet. Approaching the range from the gray levels of Mono
and Owen’s Valley on the east, the traveler sees before him the steep,
short passes in full view, fenced in by rugged spurs that come plunging
down from the shoulders of the peaks on either side, the courses of the
more direct being disclosed from top to bottom without interruption.
But from the west one sees nothing of the way he may be seeking until
near the summit, after days have been spent in threading the forests
growing on the main dividing ridges between the river cañons.
It is interesting to observe how surely the alp-crossing animals of
every kind fall into the same trails. The more rugged and inaccessible
the general character of the topography of any particular region, the
more surely will the trails of white men, Indians, bears, wild sheep,
etc., be found converging into the best passes. The Indians of the
western slope venture cautiously over the passes in settled weather to
attend dances, and obtain loads of pine-nuts and the larvae of a small
fly that breeds in Mono and Owen’s lakes, which, when dried, forms an
important article of food; while the Pah Utes cross over from the east
to hunt the deer and obtain supplies of acorns; and it is truly
astonishing to see what immense loads the haggard old squaws make out
to carry bare-footed through these rough passes, oftentimes for a
distance of sixty or seventy miles. They are always accompanied by the
men, who stride on, unburdened and erect, a little in advance, kindly
stooping at difficult places to pile stepping-stones for their patient,
pack-animal wives, just as they would prepare the way for their ponies.
Bears evince great sagacity as mountaineers, but although they are
tireless and enterprising travelers they seldom cross the range. I have
several times tracked them through the Mono Pass, but only in late
years, after cattle and sheep had passed that way, when they doubtless
were following to feed on the stragglers and on those that had been
killed by falling over the rocks. Even the wild sheep, the best
mountaineers of all, choose regular passes in making journeys across
the summits. Deer seldom cross the range in either direction. I have
never yet observed a single specimen of the mule-deer of the Great
Basin west of the summit, and rarely one of the black-tailed species on
the eastern slope, notwithstanding many of the latter ascend the range
nearly to the summit every summer, to feed in the wild gardens and
bring forth their young.
The glaciers are the pass-makers, and it is by them that the courses of
all mountaineers are predestined. Without exception every pass in the
Sierra was created by them without the slightest aid or predetermining
guidance from any of the cataclysmic agents. I have seen elaborate
statements of the amount of drilling and blasting accomplished in the
construction of the railroad across the Sierra, above Donner Lake; but
for every pound of rock moved in this way, the glaciers which descended
east and west through this same pass, crushed and carried away more
than a hundred tons.
The so-called practicable road-passes are simply those portions of the
range more degraded by glacial action than the adjacent portions, and
degraded in such a way as to leave the summits rounded, instead of
sharp; while the peaks, from the superior strength and hardness of
their rocks, or from more favorable position, having suffered less
degradation, are left towering above the passes as if they had been
heaved into the sky by some force acting from beneath.
The scenery of all the passes, especially at the head, is of the
wildest and grandest description,—lofty peaks massed together and laden
around their bases with ice and snow; chains of glacier lakes;
cascading streams in endless variety, with glorious views, westward
over a sea of rocks and woods, and eastward over strange ashy plains,
volcanoes, and the dry, dead-looking ranges of the Great Basin. Every
pass, however, possesses treasures of beauty all its own.
Having thus in a general way indicated the height, leading features,
and distribution of the principal passes, I will now endeavor to
describe the Mono Pass in particular, which may, I think, be regarded
as a fair example of the higher alpine passes in general.
The main portion of the Mono Pass is formed by Bloody Cañon, which
begins at the summit of the range, and runs in a general
east-northeasterly direction to the edge of the Mono Plain.
The first white men who forced a way through its somber depths were, as
we have seen, eager gold-seekers. But the cañon was known and traveled
as a pass by the Indians and mountain animals long before its discovery
by white men, as is shown by the numerous tributary trails which come
into it from every direction. Its name accords well with the character
of the “early times” in California, and may perhaps have been suggested
by the predominant color of the metamorphic slates in which it is in
great part eroded; or more probably by blood-stains made by the
unfortunate animals which were compelled to slip and shuffle awkwardly
over its rough, cutting rocks. I have never known an animal, either
mule or horse, to make its way through the cañon, either in going up or
down, without losing more or less blood from wounds on the legs.
Occasionally one is killed outright—falling headlong and rolling over
precipices like a boulder. But such accidents are rarer than from the
terrible appearance of the trail one would be led to expect; the more
experienced when driven loose find their way over the dangerous places
with a caution and sagacity that is truly wonderful. During the gold
excitement it was at times a matter of considerable pecuniary
importance to force a way through the cañon with pack-trains early in
the spring while it was yet heavily blocked with snow; and then the
mules with their loads had sometimes to be let down over the steepest
drifts and avalanche beds by means of ropes.
A good bridle-path leads from Yosemite through many a grove and meadow
up to the head of the cañon, a distance of about thirty miles. Here the
scenery undergoes a sudden and startling condensation. Mountains, red,
gray, and black, rise close at hand on the right, whitened around their
bases with banks of enduring snow; on the left swells the huge red mass
of Mount Gibbs, while in front the eye wanders down the shadowy cañon,
and out on the warm plain of Mono, where the lake is seen gleaming like
a burnished metallic disk, with clusters of lofty volcanic cones to the
south of it.
When at length we enter the mountain gateway, the somber rocks seem
aware of our presence, and seem to come thronging closer about us.
Happily the ouzel and the old familiar robin are here to sing us
welcome, and azure daisies beam with trustfulness and sympathy,
enabling us to feel something of Nature’s love even here, beneath the
gaze of her coldest rocks.
The effect of this expressive outspokenness on the part of the
cañon-rocks is greatly enhanced by the quiet aspect of the alpine
meadows through which we pass just before entering the narrow gateway.
The forests in which they lie, and the mountain-tops rising beyond
them, seem quiet and tranquil. We catch their restful spirit, yield to
the soothing influences of the sunshine, and saunter dreamily on
through flowers and bees, scarce touched by a definite thought; then
suddenly we find ourselves in the shadowy cañon, closeted with Nature
in one of her wildest strongholds.
After the first bewildering impression begins to wear off, we perceive
that it is not altogether terrible; for besides the reassuring birds
and flowers we discover a chain of shining lakelets hanging down from
the very summit of the pass, and linked together by a silvery stream.
The highest are set in bleak, rough bowls, scantily fringed with brown
and yellow sedges. Winter storms blow snow through the cañon in
blinding drifts, and avalanches shoot from the heights. Then are these
sparkling tarns filled and buried, leaving not a hint of their
existence. In June and July they begin to blink and thaw out like
sleepy eyes, the carices thrust up their short brown spikes, the
daisies bloom in turn, and the most profoundly buried of them all is at
length warmed and summered as if winter were only a dream.
Red Lake is the lowest of the chain, and also the largest. It seems
rather dull and forbidding at first sight, lying motionless in its
deep, dark bed. The cañon wall rises sheer from the water’s edge on the
south, but on the opposite side there is sufficient space and sunshine
for a sedgy daisy garden, the center of which is brilliantly lighted
with lilies, castilleias, larkspurs, and columbines, sheltered from the
wind by leafy willows, and forming a most joyful outburst of plant-life
keenly emphasized by the chill baldness of the onlooking cliffs.
After indulging here in a dozing, shimmering lake-rest, the happy
stream sets forth again, warbling and trilling like an ouzel, ever
delightfully confiding, no matter how dark the way; leaping, gliding,
hither, thither, clear or foaming: manifesting the beauty of its
wildness in every sound and gesture.
One of its most beautiful developments is the Diamond Cascade, situated
a short distance below Red Lake. Here the tense, crystalline water is
first dashed into coarse, granular spray mixed with dusty foam, and
then divided into a diamond pattern by following the diagonal
cleavage-joints that intersect the face of the precipice over which it
pours. Viewed in front, it resembles a strip of embroidery of definite
pattern, varying through the seasons with the temperature and the
volume of water. Scarce a flower may be seen along its snowy border. A
few bent pines look on from a distance, and small fringes of cassiope
and rock-ferns are growing in fissures near the head, but these are so
lowly and undemonstrative that only the attentive observer will be
likely to notice them.
On the north wall of the cañon, a little below the Diamond Cascade, a
glittering side stream makes its appearance, seeming to leap directly
out of the sky. It first resembles a crinkled ribbon of silver hanging
loosely down the wall, but grows wider as it descends, and dashes the
dull rock with foam. A long rough talus curves up against this part of
the cliff, overgrown with snow-pressed willows, in which the fall
disappears with many an eager surge and swirl and plashing leap,
finally beating its way down to its confluence with the main cañon
stream.
Below this point the climate is no longer arctic. Butterflies become
larger and more abundant, grasses with imposing spread of panicle wave
above your shoulders, and the summery drone of the bumblebee thickens
the air. The Dwarf Pine, the tree-mountaineer that climbs highest and
braves the coldest blasts, is found scattered in storm-beaten clumps
from the summit of the pass about half-way down the cañon. Here it is
succeeded by the hardy Two-leaved Pine, which is speedily joined by the
taller Yellow and Mountain Pines. These, with the burly juniper, and
shimmering aspen, rapidly grow larger as the sunshine becomes richer,
forming groves that block the view; or they stand more apart here and
there in picturesque groups, that make beautiful and obvious harmony
with the rocks and with one another. Blooming underbrush becomes
abundant,—azalea, spiraea, and the brier-rose weaving fringes for the
streams, and shaggy rugs to relieve the stern, unflinching rock-bosses.
[Illustration: RANCHERIA FALLS, HETCH-HETCHY VALLEY]
Through this delightful wilderness, Cañon Creek roves without any
constraining channel, throbbing and wavering; now in sunshine, now in
thoughtful shade; falling, swirling, flashing from side to side in
weariless exuberance of energy. A glorious milky way of cascades is
thus developed, of which Bower Cascade, though one of the smallest, is
perhaps the most beautiful of them all. It is situated in the lower
region of the pass, just where the sunshine begins to mellow between
the cold and warm climates. Here the glad creek, grown strong with
tribute gathered from many a snowy fountain on the heights, sings
richer strains, and becomes more human and lovable at every step. Now
you may by its side find the rose and homely yarrow, and small meadows
full of bees and clover. At the head of a low-browed rock, luxuriant
dogwood bushes and willows arch over from bank to bank, embowering the
stream with their leafy branches; and drooping plumes, kept in motion
by the current, fringe the brow of the cascade in front. From this
leafy covert the stream leaps out into the light in a fluted curve
thick sown with sparkling crystals, and falls into a pool filled with
brown boulders, out of which it creeps gray with foam-bells and
disappears in a tangle of verdure like that from which it came.
Hence, to the foot of the cañon, the metamorphic slates give place to
granite, whose nobler sculpture calls forth expressions of
corresponding beauty from the stream in passing over it,—bright trills
of rapids, booming notes of falls, solemn hushes of smooth-gliding
sheets, all chanting and blending in glorious harmony. When, at length,
its impetuous alpine life is done, it slips through a meadow with
scarce an audible whisper, and falls asleep in Moraine Lake.
This water-bed is one of the finest I ever saw. Evergreens wave
soothingly about it, and the breath of flowers floats over it like
incense. Here our blessed stream rests from its rocky wanderings, all
its mountaineering done,—no more foaming rock-leaping, no more wild,
exulting song. It falls into a smooth, glassy sleep, stirred only by
the night-wind, which, coming down the cañon, makes it croon and mutter
in ripples along its broidered shores.
Leaving the lake, it glides quietly through the rushes, destined never
more to touch the living rock. Henceforth its path lies through ancient
moraines and reaches of ashy sage-plain, which nowhere afford rocks
suitable for the development of cascades or sheer falls. Yet this
beauty of maturity, though less striking, is of a still higher order,
enticing us lovingly on through gentian meadows and groves of rustling
aspen to Lake Mono, where, spirit-like, our happy stream vanishes in
vapor, and floats free again in the sky.
Bloody Cañon, like every other in the Sierra, was recently occupied by
a glacier, which derived its fountain snows from the adjacent summits,
and descended into Mono Lake, at a time when its waters stood at a much
higher level than now. The principal characters in which the history of
the ancient glaciers is preserved are displayed here in marvelous
freshness and simplicity, furnishing the student with extraordinary
advantages for the acquisition of knowledge of this sort. The most
striking passages are polished and striated surfaces, which in many
places reflect the rays of the sun like smooth water. The dam of Red
Lake is an elegantly modeled rib of metamorphic slate, brought into
relief because of its superior strength, and because of the greater
intensity of the glacial erosion of the rock immediately above it,
caused by a steeply inclined tributary glacier, which entered the main
trunk with a heavy down-thrust at the head of the lake.
Moraine Lake furnishes an equally interesting example of a basin formed
wholly, or in part, by a terminal moraine dam curved across the path of
a stream between two lateral moraines.
At Moraine Lake the cañon proper terminates, although apparently
continued by the two lateral moraines of the vanished glacier. These
moraines are about 300 feet high, and extend unbrokenly from the sides
of the cañon into the plain, a distance of about five miles, curving
and tapering in beautiful lines. Their sunward sides are gardens, their
shady sides are groves; the former devoted chiefly to eriogonae,
compositae, and graminae; a square rod containing five or six profusely
flowered eriogonums of several species, about the same number of bahia
and linosyris, and a few grass tufts; each species being planted trimly
apart, with bare gravel between, as if cultivated artificially.
My first visit to Bloody Cañon was made in the summer of 1869, under
circumstances well calculated to heighten the impressions that are the
peculiar offspring of mountains. I came from the blooming tangles of
Florida, and waded out into the plant-gold of the great valley of
California, when its flora was as yet untrodden. Never before had I
beheld congregations of social flowers half so extensive or half so
glorious. Golden composite covered all the ground from the Coast Range
to the Sierra like a stratum of curdled sunshine, in which I reveled
for weeks, watching the rising and setting of their innumerable suns;
then I gave myself up to be borne forward on the crest of the summer
wave that sweeps annually up the Sierra and spends itself on the snowy
summits.
At the Big Tuolumne Meadows I remained more than a month, sketching,
botanizing, and climbing among the surrounding mountains. The
mountaineer with whom I then happened to be camping was one of those
remarkable men one so frequently meets in California, the hard angles
and bosses of whose characters have been brought into relief by the
grinding excitements of the gold period, until they resemble glacial
landscapes. But at this late day, my friend’s activities had subsided,
and his craving for rest caused him to become a gentle shepherd and
literally to lie down with the lamb.
Recognizing the unsatisfiable longings of my Scotch Highland instincts,
he threw out some hints concerning Bloody Cañon, and advised me to
explore it. “I have never seen it myself,” he said, “for I never was so
unfortunate as to pass that way. But I have heard many a strange story
about it, and I warrant you will at least find it wild enough.”
Then of course I made haste to see it. Early next morning I made up a
bundle of bread, tied my note-book to my belt, and strode away in the
bracing air, full of eager, indefinite hope. The plushy lawns that lay
in my path served to soothe my morning haste. The sod in many places
was starred with daisies and blue gentians, over which I lingered. I
traced the paths of the ancient glaciers over many a shining pavement,
and marked the gaps in the upper forests that told the power of the
winter avalanches. Climbing higher, I saw for the first time the
gradual dwarfing of the pines in compliance with climate, and on the
summit discovered creeping mats of the arctic willow overgrown with
silky catkins, and patches of the dwarf vaccinium with its round
flowers sprinkled in the grass like purple hail; while in every
direction the landscape stretched sublimely away in fresh wildness—a
manuscript written by the hand of Nature alone.
At length, as I entered the pass, the huge rocks began to close around
in all their wild, mysterious impressiveness, when suddenly, as I was
gazing eagerly about me, a drove of gray hairy beings came in sight,
lumbering toward me with a kind of boneless, wallowing motion like
bears.
I never turn back, though often so inclined, and in this particular
instance, amid such surroundings, everything seemed singularly
unfavorable for the calm acceptance of so grim a company. Suppressing
my fears, I soon discovered that although as hairy as bears and as
crooked as summit pines, the strange creatures were sufficiently erect
to belong to our own species. They proved to be nothing more formidable
than Mono Indians dressed in the skins of sage-rabbits. Both the men
and the women begged persistently for whisky and tobacco, and seemed so
accustomed to denials that I found it impossible to convince them that
I had none to give. Excepting the names of these two products of
civilization, they seemed to understand not a word of English; but I
afterward learned that they were on their way to Yosemite Valley to
feast awhile on trout and procure a load of acorns to carry back
through the pass to their huts on the shore of Mono Lake.
Occasionally a good countenance may be seen among the Mono Indians, but
these, the first specimens I had seen, were mostly ugly, and some of
them altogether hideous. The dirt on their faces was fairly stratified,
and seemed so ancient and so undisturbed it might almost possess a
geological significance. The older faces were, moreover, strangely
blurred and divided into sections by furrows that looked like the
cleavage-joints of rocks, suggesting exposure on the mountains in a
castaway condition for ages. Somehow they seemed to have no right place
in the landscape, and I was glad to see them fading out of sight down
the pass.
Then came evening, and the somber cliffs were inspired with the
ineffable beauty of the alpenglow. A solemn calm fell upon everything.
All the lower portion of the cañon was in gloaming shadow, and I crept
into a hollow near one of the upper lakelets to smooth the ground in a
sheltered nook for a bed. When the short twilight faded, I kindled a
sunny fire, made a cup of tea, and lay down to rest and look at the
stars. Soon the night-wind began to flow and pour in torrents among the
jagged peaks, mingling strange tones with those of the waterfalls
sounding far below; and as I drifted toward sleep I began to experience
an uncomfortable feeling of nearness to the furred Monos. Then the full
moon looked down over the edge of the cañon wall, her countenance
seemingly filled with intense concern, and apparently so near as to
produce a startling effect as if she had entered my bedroom, forgetting
all the world, to gaze on me alone.
The night was full of strange sounds, and I gladly welcomed the
morning. Breakfast was soon done, and I set forth in the exhilarating
freshness of the new day, rejoicing in the abundance of pure wildness
so close about me. The stupendous rocks, hacked and scarred with
centuries of storms, stood sharply out in the thin early light, while
down in the bottom of the cañon grooved and polished bosses heaved and
glistened like swelling sea-waves, telling a grand old story of the
ancient glacier that poured its crushing floods above them.
Here for the first time I met the arctic daisies in all their
perfection of purity and spirituality,—gentle mountaineers face to face
with the stormy sky, kept safe and warm by a thousand miracles. I
leaped lightly from rock to rock, glorying in the eternal freshness and
sufficiency of Nature, and in the ineffable tenderness with which she
nurtures her mountain darlings in the very fountains of storms. Fresh
beauty appeared at every step, delicate rock-ferns, and groups of the
fairest flowers. Now another lake came to view, now a waterfall. Never
fell light in brighter spangles, never fell water in whiter foam. I
seemed to float through the cañon enchanted, feeling nothing of its
roughness, and was out in the Mono levels before I was aware.
Looking back from the shore of Moraine Lake, my morning ramble seemed
all a dream. There curved Bloody Cañon, a mere glacial furrow 2000 feet
deep, with smooth rocks projecting from the sides and braided together
in the middle, like bulging, swelling muscles. Here the lilies were
higher than my head, and the sunshine was warm enough for palms. Yet
the snow around the arctic willows was plainly visible only four miles
away, and between were narrow specimen zones of all the principal
climates of the globe.
On the bank of a small brook that comes gurgling down the side of the
left lateral moraine, I found a camp-fire still burning, which no doubt
belonged to the gray Indians I had met on the summit, and I listened
instinctively and moved cautiously forward, half expecting to see some
of their grim faces peering out of the bushes.
Passing on toward the open plain, I noticed three well-defined terminal
moraines curved gracefully across the cañon stream, and joined by long
splices to the two noble laterals. These mark the halting-places of the
vanished glacier when it was retreating into its summit shadows on the
breaking-up of the glacial winter.
Five miles below the foot of Moraine Lake, just where the lateral
moraines lose themselves in the plain, there was a field of wild rye,
growing in magnificent waving bunches six to eight feet high, bearing
heads from six to twelve inches long. Rubbing out some of the grains, I
found them about five eighths of an inch long, dark-colored, and sweet.
Indian women were gathering it in baskets, bending down large handfuls,
beating it out, and fanning it in the wind. They were quite
picturesque, coming through the rye, as one caught glimpses of them
here and there, in winding lanes and openings, with splendid tufts
arching above their heads, while their incessant chat and laughter
showed their heedless joy.
Like the rye-field, I found the so-called desert of Mono blooming in a
high state of natural cultivation with the wild rose, cherry, aster,
and the delicate abronia; also innumerable gilias, phloxes, poppies,
and bush-compositae. I observed their gestures and the various
expressions of their corollas, inquiring how they could be so fresh and
beautiful out in this volcanic desert. They told as happy a life as any
plant-company I ever met, and seemed to enjoy even the hot sand and the
wind.
But the vegetation of the pass has been in great part destroyed, and
the same may be said of all the more accessible passes throughout the
range. Immense numbers of starving sheep and cattle have been driven
through them into Nevada, trampling the wild gardens and meadows almost
out of existence. The lofty walls are untouched by any foot, and the
falls sing on unchanged; but the sight of crushed flowers and stripped,
bitten bushes goes far toward destroying the charm of wildness.
The cañon should be seen in winter. A good, strong traveler, who knows
the way and the weather, might easily make a safe excursion through it
from Yosemite Valley on snow-shoes during some tranquil time, when the
storms are hushed. The lakes and falls would be buried then; but so,
also, would be the traces of destructive feet, while the views of the
mountains in their winter garb, and the ride at lightning speed down
the pass between the snowy walls, would be truly glorious.
[Illustration: VIEW OF THE MONO PLAIN FROM THE FOOT OF BLOODY CAÑON.]