Clarence King

“ The Sierra, as we travelled southward, became bolder and bolder, strong granite spurs plunging steeply down into the desert; above, the mountain sculpture grew grander and grander, until forms wild and rugged as the Alps stretched on in dense ranks as far as the eye could reach. More and more the granite came out in all its strength. Less and less soil covered the slopes: groves of pine became rarer, and sharp, rugged buttresses advanced boldly to the plain. Here and there a cañon-gate between rough granite pyramids, and flanked by huge moraines, opened its savage gallery back among peaks. ”

“ Across their terrible, blade-like precipice-edges you look on and down over vistas of cañon and green hillswells, the dark color of pine and fir broken by bare spots of harmonious red or brown, and changing with distance into purple, then blue, which reaches on farther into the brown monotonous plains. Beyond, where the earth’s curve defines its horizon, dim serrations of Coast Range loom indistinctly on the hazy air. From here those remarkable fracture results, the Royal Arches, a series of recesses carved into the granite front, beneath the North Dome, are seen in their true proportions. ”

“ When we stand by river-bank or meadow of that fair valley, looking up at the torrent falling bright under fulness of light, and lovely in its graceful, wind-swayed airiness, we are apt to feel its enchantment; but how immeasurably grander must it have been when the great, living, moving glacier, with slow, invisible motion, crowded its huge body over the brink, and launched blue ice-blocks down through the foam of the cataract into that gulf of wild rocks and eddying mist! ”

“ Throughout nearly a whole day we rode comfortably along at a gentle grade, reaching at evening the region of the snow, where, among innumerable huge granite blocks, we threaded our way in search of a camp-ground. The mountain amphitheatre which gave rise to the King’s River opened to the east, a broad valley, into which we at length climbed; and, among scattered groves of alpine pines, and on patches of meadow, rode eastward till twilight, watching the high pyramidal peak which lay directly at the head of the gorge. ”

“ I became convinced from the great apparent elevation and the wide fields of snow that we had not formerly deceived ourselves as to their great height. Warned at length by the deepening shadow in the King’s Cañon, by the heightened glow suffusing the peaks, and the deep purple tone of the level expanse of forest, all forerunners of twilight, we quitted our eyrie, crept carefully down over half-balanced blocks of débris to the horses, and, mounting, were soon headed homeward, in what seemed, by contrast, to be almost a nocturnal darkness. ”

“ Seen from the west it is a high, isolated peak, having a dome-like outline very much flattened upon its west side, the precipice sinking deeply down to an old glacier ravine. From the north this peak is a slender, single needle, jutting two thousand feet from a rough-hewn pedestal of rocks and snow-fields. Forest-covered heights rise to its base from east and west. To the south it falls into a deep saddle, which rises again, after a level outline of a mile, sweeping up in another noble granite peak. ”

“ Fremont found for her camp-ground. North and south for miles extends our ridge in gently rising or falling outline, its top broadly round, and for the most part an open oak-grove with grass carpet and mountain flowers in wayward loveliness of growth. West, you overlook a wide panorama. Oak and pine mottled foot-hills, with rusty groundwork and cloudings of green, wander down in rolling lines to the ripe plain; beyond are plains, then coast ranges, rising in peaks, or curved down in passes, through which gray banks of fog drift in and vanish before the hot air of the plains. ”

“ The Kern Plateau, so green and lovely on my former visit, in 1864, was now a gray sea of rolling granite ridges, darkened at intervals by forest, but no longer velveted with meadows and upland grasses. The indefatigable shepherds have camped everywhere, leaving hardly a spear of grass behind them.
To the sad annoyance of our hungry horses, we found this true until we entered the rough, rocky cañon which leads down from the false Mount Whitney, in whose depths, among glacier erratics and dark pines, we selected a spot where a vocal brook and patches of carex meadow seemed to welcome us. ”

“ A little farther begin the wild, cañon-curved piles of green mountains which represent the Sierras, and afar, towering over them, eighty miles away, the lava dome of Lassen’s Peak standing up bold and fine. South, the Sacramento cañon cuts down to unseen depths, its deep trough opening a view of the California plain, a brown, sunny expanse, over which loom in vanishing perspective the coast-range peaks. West of us, and quite around the semi-circle of view, stretches a vast sea of ridges, chains, peaks, and sharp walls of cañons, as wild and tumultuous as an ocean storm. ”

“ Torrents of water and avalanches of rock and snow spouted at intervals all along the cliff walls. Not a tree nor a vestige of life was in sight, except far away upon ridges below, or out upon the dimly expanding plain. Granite and ice and snow, silence broken only by the howling tempest and the crash of falling ice or splintered rock, and a sky deep freighted with cloud and storm,—these were the elements of a period which lasted immeasurably long, and only in comparatively the most recent geological times have given way to the present marvellously changed condition. ”

“ East, the Sierra slope is rent and gashed in a wilderness of cañons, yawning deep and savage. Miles of chaparral tangle in dense{225} growth over walls and spurs, covering with kindly olive-green the staring red of riven mountain-side and gashed earth. Beyond this swells up the more refined plateau and hill country made of granite and trimmed with pine, bold domes rising above the green cover; and there the sharp, terrible front of El Capitan, guarding Yosemite and looking down into its purple gulf. Beyond, again, are the peaks, and among them one looms sharpest. ”

“ Already above vegetation, we looked out over all the valley south and west, observing its arabesque of forest, meadow, and chaparral, the files of pines which struggled up almost to our feet, and just below us the volcano slope strewn with red and brown wreck and patches of shrunken snowdrift.
Our climb up the steep western crater slope was slow and tiresome, quite without risk or excitement. The footing, altogether of lodged débris, at times gave way provokingly, and threw us out of balance. Once upon the spiry pinnacles which crown the rim, a scene of wild power broke upon us. ”

“ Perhaps there is no element in the varied life of an explorer so full of contemplative pleasure as the frequent and rapid passages he makes between city life and home: by that I mean his true home, where the flames of his bivouac fire light up trunks of sheltering pine and make an island of light in the silent darkness of the primeval forest. The crushing Juggernaut-car of modern life and the smothering struggle of civilization are so far off that the wail of suffering comes not, nor the din and dust of it all ”

“ Cotter and I had ridden all one morning northeast from camp under the shadowy roof of forest, catching but occasional glimpses out over the plateau, until at last we emerged upon the bare surface of a ridge of granite, and came to the brink of a sharp precipice. Rocky crags lifted just east of us. The hour devoted to climbing them proved well spent.
A single little family of alpine firs growing in a niche in the granite surface, and partly sheltered by a rock, made the only shadow, and just shielded us from the intense light as we lay down by their roots. ”

“ José, with the horses, left us and went back half a mile to a mountain ranch, where he was to await our return; and presently Pinson and I, with heavy burdens upon our backs, began slowly to work our way up the granite spur and toward the great cañon.
An hour’s climb brought us around upon the south wall of our spur, and about a thousand feet above a stream which dashed and leaped along the cañon bottom, through wild ravines and over granite bluffs. Our slope was a rugged rock-face, giving foothold here and there to pine and juniper trees, but for the greater part bare and bold. ”

“ Sleet and snow and rain fell fast, and the boom of falling trees and crashing avalanches followed one another in an almost uninterrupted roar. In the Sentinel gorge, back of our camp, an avalanche of rock was suddenly let loose, and came down with a harsh rattle, the bowlders bounding over débris piles and tearing through the trees by our camp. A vivid belt of blue lightning flashed down through the blackness, and for a moment every outline of cliff and forest forms, and the rushing clouds of snow and sleet, were lighted up with a cold, pallid gleam. ”

“ If one loves to gather the material for travellers’ stories, he may find here and there a hollow fallen trunk through whose heart he may ride for many feet without bowing the head. But if he love the tree for its own grand nature, he may lie in silence upon the soft forest floor, in shadow or sunny warmth, if he please, and spend many days in wonder, gazing upon majestic shafts, following their gold and purple flutings from broad, firmly planted base up and on through the few huge branches and among the pale clouds of filmy green traced in open network upon the deep blue of the sky. ”

“ In a deep gorge between lofty, pine-clad walls we came upon the McCloud, a brilliantly pure stream, wearing its way through lava rocks, and still bearing the ice-chill of Shasta. Dark, feathery firs stand in files along the swift river. Oaks, with lustrous leaves, rise above hill-slopes of red and brown. Numbers of Indian camps are posted here. I find them picturesque: low, conical huts, opening upon small, smoking fires attended by squaws. Numberless salmon, split and drying in rows upon light scaffoldings, make their light-red conspicuous amid the generally dingy surroundings. ”

“ Our rocky amphitheatre, opening directly to the sun, was crowded full of this pure, red light; snow-fields warmed to deepest rose, gnarled stems of dead pines were dark vermilion, the rocks yellow, and the vast body of the Obelisk at our left one spire of gold piercing the sapphire zenith. Eastward, far below us, the Illilluette basin lay in a peculiarly mild haze, its deep carpet of forest warmed into faint bronze, and the bare domes and rounded, granite ridges which everywhere rise above the trees were yellow, of a soft, creamy tint. ”