SIERRA THUNDER-STORMS
The weather of spring and summer in the middle region of the Sierra is
usually well flecked with rains and light dustings of snow, most of
which are far too obviously joyful and life-giving to be regarded as
storms; and in the picturesque beauty and clearness of outlines of
their clouds they offer striking contrasts to those boundless,
all-embracing cloud-mantles of the storms of winter. The smallest and
most perfectly individualized specimens present a richly modeled
cumulous cloud rising above the dark woods, about 11 A.M., swelling
with a visible motion straight up into the calm, sunny sky to a height
of 12,000 to 14,000 feet above the sea, its white, pearly bosses
relieved by gray and pale purple shadows in the hollows, and showing
outlines as keenly defined as those of the glacier-polished domes. In
less than an hour it attains full development and stands poised in the
blazing sunshine like some colossal mountain, as beautiful in form and
finish as if it were to become a permanent addition to the landscape.
Presently a thunderbolt crashes through the crisp air, ringing like
steel on steel, sharp and clear, its startling detonation breaking into
a spray of echoes against the cliffs and cañon walls. Then down comes a
cataract of rain. The big drops sift through the pine-needles, plash
and patter on the granite pavements, and pour down the sides of ridges
and domes in a network of gray, bubbling rills. In a few minutes the
cloud withers to a mesh of dim filaments and disappears, leaving the
sky perfectly clear and bright, every dust-particle wiped and washed
out of it. Everything is refreshed and invigorated, a steam of
fragrance rises, and the storm is finished—one cloud, one
lightning-stroke, and one dash of rain. This is the Sierra mid-summer
thunder-storm reduced to its lowest terms. But some of them attain much
larger proportions, and assume a grandeur and energy of expression
hardly surpassed by those bred in the depths of winter, producing those
sudden floods called “cloud-bursts,” which are local, and to a
considerable extent periodical, for they appear nearly every day about
the same time for weeks, usually about eleven o’clock, and lasting from
five minutes to an hour or two. One soon becomes so accustomed to see
them that the noon sky seems empty and abandoned without them, as if
Nature were forgetting something. When the glorious pearl and alabaster
clouds of these noonday storms are being built I never give attention
to anything else. No mountain or mountain-range, however divinely
clothed with light, has a more enduring charm than those fleeting
mountains of the sky—floating fountains bearing water for every well,
the angels of the streams and lakes; brooding in the deep azure, or
sweeping softly along the ground over ridge and dome, over meadow, over
forest, over garden and grove; lingering with cooling shadows,
refreshing every flower, and soothing rugged rock-brows with a
gentleness of touch and gesture wholly divine.
[Illustration: BRIDAL VEIL FALLS, YOSEMITE VALLEY.]
The most beautiful and imposing of the summer storms rise just above
the upper edge of the Silver Fir zone, and all are so beautiful that it
is not easy to choose any one for particular description. The one that
I remember best fell on the mountains near Yosemite Valley, July 19,
1869, while I was encamped in the Silver Fir woods. A range of bossy
cumuli took possession of the sky, huge domes and peaks rising one
beyond another with deep cañons between them, bending this way and that
in long curves and reaches, interrupted here and there with white
upboiling masses that looked like the spray of waterfalls. Zigzag
lances of lightning followed each other in quick succession, and the
thunder was so gloriously loud and massive it seemed as if surely an
entire mountain was being shattered at every stroke. Only the trees
were touched, however, so far as I could see,—a few firs 200 feet high,
perhaps, and five to six feet in diameter, were split into long rails
and slivers from top to bottom and scattered to all points of the
compass. Then came the rain in a hearty flood, covering the ground and
making it shine with a continuous sheet of water that, like a
transparent film or skin, fitted closely down over all the rugged
anatomy of the landscape.
It is not long, geologically speaking, since the first raindrop fell on
the present landscapes of the Sierra; and in the few tens of thousands
of years of stormy cultivation they have been blest with, how beautiful
they have become! The first rains fell on raw, crumbling moraines and
rocks without a plant. Now scarcely a drop can fail to find a beautiful
mark: on the tops of the peaks, on the smooth glacier pavements, on the
curves of the domes, on moraines full of crystals, on the thousand
forms of yosemitic sculpture with their tender beauty of balmy, flowery
vegetation, laving, plashing, glinting, pattering; some falling softly
on meadows, creeping out of sight, seeking and finding every thirsty
rootlet, some through the spires of the woods, sifting in dust through
the needles, and whispering good cheer to each of them; some falling
with blunt tapping sounds, drumming on the broad leaves of veratrum,
cypripedium, saxifrage; some falling straight into fragrant corollas,
kissing the lips of lilies, glinting on the sides of crystals, on
shining grains of gold; some falling into the fountains of snow to
swell their well-saved stores; some into the lakes and rivers, patting
the smooth glassy levels, making dimples and bells and spray, washing
the mountain windows, washing the wandering winds; some plashing into
the heart of snowy falls and cascades as if eager to join in the dance
and the song and beat the foam yet finer. Good work and happy work for
the merry mountain raindrops, each one of them a brave fall in itself,
rushing from the cliffs and hollows of the clouds into the cliffs and
hollows of the mountains; away from the thunder of the sky into the
thunder of the roaring rivers. And how far they have to go, and how
many cups to fill—cassiope-cups, holding half a drop, and lake basins
between the hills, each replenished with equal care—every drop God’s
messenger sent on its way with glorious pomp and display of
power—silvery new-born stars with lake and river, mountain and
valley—all that the landscape holds—reflected in their crystal depths.