|
CHAPTER IV, Part 2 To the High Mountains
July 10. A Douglas squirrel, peppery, pungent autocrat of the woods, is
barking overhead this morning, and the small forest birds, so seldom seen when
one travels noisily, are out on sunny branches along the edge of the meadow
getting warm, taking a sun bath and dew bath -- a fine sight. How charming the
sprightly confident looks and ways of these little feathered people of the
trees! They seem sure of dainty, wholesome breakfasts, and where are so many
breakfasts to come from? How helpless should we find ourselves should we try to
set a table for them of such buds, seeds, insects, etc., as would keep them in
the pure wild health they enjoy! Not a headache or any other ache amongst them,
I guess. As for the irrepressible Douglas squirrels, one never thinks of their
breakfasts or the possibility of hunger, sickness or death; rather they seem
like stars above chance or change, even though we may see them at times busy
gathering burrs, working hard for a living.
On through the forest ever higher we go, a cloud of dust dimming the way,
thousands of feet trampling leaves and flowers, but in this mighty wilderness
they seem but a feeble band, and a thousand gardens will escape their blighting
touch. They cannot hurt the trees, though some of the seedlings suffer, and
should the woolly locusts be greatly multiplied, as on account of dollar value
they are likely to be, then the forests, too, may in time be destroyed. Only
the sky will then be safe, though hid from view by dust and smoke, incense of a
bad sacrifice. Poor, helpless, hungry sheep, in great part misbegotten, without
good right to be, semi-manufactured, made less by God than man, born out of time
and place, yet their voices are strangely human and call out one's pity.
Our way is still along the Merced and Tuolumne divide, the streams on our right
going to swell the songful Yosemite River, those on our left to the songful
Tuolumne, slipping through sunny carex and lily meadows, and breaking into song
down a thousand ravines almost as soon as they are born. A more tuneful set of
streams surely nowhere exists, or more sparkling crystal pure, now gliding with
tinkling whisper, now with merry dimpling rush, in and out through sunshine and
shade, shimmering in pools, uniting their currents, bouncing, dancing from form
to form over cliffs and inclines, ever more beautiful the farther they go until
they pour into the main glacial rivers.
All day I have been gazing in growing admiration at the noble groups of the
magnificent silver fir which more and more is taking the ground to itself. The
woods above Crane Flat still continue comparatively open, letting in the
sunshine on the brown needle-strewn ground. Not only are the individual trees
admirable in symmetry and superb in foliage and port, but half a dozen or more
often form temple groves in which the trees are so nicely graded in size and
position as to seem one. Here, indeed, is the tree-lover's paradise. The
dullest eye in the world must surely be quickened by such trees as these.
Fortunately the sheep need little attention, as they are driven slowly and
allowed to nip and nibble as they like. Since leaving Hazel Green we have been
following the Yosemite trail; visitors to the famous valley coming by way of
Coulterville and Chinese Camp pass this way -- the two trails uniting at Crane
Flat -- and enter the valley on the north side. Another trail enters on the
south side by way of Mariposa. The tourists we saw were in parties of from
three or four to fifteen or twenty, mounted on mules or small mustang ponies. A
strange show they made, winding single file through the solemn woods in gaudy
attire, scaring the wild creatures, and one might fancy that even the great
pines would be disturbed and groan aghast. But what may we say of ourselves and
the flock?
We are now camped at Tamarack Flat, within four or five miles of the lower end
of Yosemite. Here is another fine meadow embosomed in the woods, with a deep,
clear stream gliding through it, its banks rounded and beveled with a thatch of
dipping sedges. The flat is named after the two-leaved pine (Pinus
contorta, var. Murrayana), common here, especially around the cool
margin of the meadow. On rocky ground it is a rough, thick-set tree, about
forty to sixty feet high and one to three feet in diameter, bark thin and
gununy, branches rather naked, tassels, leaves, and cones small. But in damp,
rich soil it grows close and slender, and reaches a height at times of nearly a
hundred feet. Specimens only six inches in diameter at the ground are often
fifty or sixty feet in height, as slender and sharp in outline as arrows, like
the true tamarack (larch) of the Eastern States; hence the name, though it is a
pine.
July 11. The Don has gone ahead on one of the pack animals to spy out
the land to the north of Yosemite in search of the best point for a central
camp. Much higher than this we cannot now go, for the upper pastures, said to
be better than any hereabouts, are still buried in heavy winter snow. Glad I am
that camp is to be fixed in the Yosemite region, for many a glorious ramble I'll
have along the top of the walls, and then what landscapes I shall find with
their new mountains and cations, forests and gardens, lakes and streams and
falls.
We are now about seven thousand feet above the sea, and the nights are so cool
we have to pile coats and extra clothing on top of our blankets. Tamarack Creek
is icy cold, delicious, exhilarating champagne water. It is flowing bank-full
in the meadow with silent speed, but only a few hundred yards below our camp the
ground is bare gray granite strewn with boulders, large spaces being without a
single tree or only a small one here and there anchored in narrow seams and
cracks. The boulders, many of them very large, are not in piles or scattered
like rubbish among loose crumbling débris as if weathered out of the solid as
boulders of disintegration; they mostly occur singly, and are lying on a clean
pavement on which the sunshine falls in a glare that contrasts with the shimmer
of light and shade we have been accustomed to in the leafy woods. And, strange
to say, these boulders lying so still and deserted, with no moving force near
them, no boulder carrier anywhere in sight, were nevertheless brought from a
distance, as difference in color and composition shows, quarried and carried and
laid down here each in its place; nor have they stirred, most of them, through
calm and storm since first they arrived. They look lonely here, strangers in a
strange land, -- huge blocks, angular mountain chips, the largest twenty or
thirty feet in diameter, the chips that Nature has made in modeling her
landscapes, fashioning the forms of her mountains and valleys. And with what
tool were they quarried and carried? On the pavement we find its marks. The
most resisting unweathered portion of the surface is scored and striated in a
rigidly parallel way, indicating that the region has been overswept by a glacier
from the northeastward, grinding down the general mass of the mountains, scoring
and polishing, producing a strange, raw, wiped appearance, and dropping whatever
boulders it chanced to be carrying at the time it was melted at the close of the
Glacial Period. A fine discovery this. As for the forests we have been passing
through, they are probably growing on deposits of soil most of which has been
laid down by this same ice agent in the form of moraines of different sorts, now
in great part disintegrated and outspread by post-glacial weathering.
Out of the grassy meadow and down over this ice-planed granite runs the glad
young Tamarack Creek, rejoicing, exulting, chanting, dancing in white, glowing,
irised falls and cascades on its way to the Merced Cañon, a few miles below
Yosemite, falling more than three thousand feet in a distance of about two
miles.
All the Merced streams are wonderful singers, and Yosemite is the centre where
the main tributaries meet. From a point about half a mile from our camp we can
see into the lower end of the famous valley, with its wonderful cliffs and
groves, a grand page of mountain manuscript that I would gladly give my life to
be able to read. How vast it seems, how short human life when we happen to
think of it, and how little we may learn, however hard we try! Yet why bewail
our poor inevitable ignorance? Some of the external beauty is always in sight,
enough to keep every fibre of us tingling, and this we are able to gloriously
enjoy though the methods of its creation may lie beyond our ken. Sing on, brave
Tamarack Creek, fresh from your snowy fountains, plash and swirl and dance to
your fate in the sea; bathing, cheering every living thing along your way.
Have greatly enjoyed all this huge day, sauntering and seeing, steeping in the
mountain influences, sketching, noting, pressing flowers, drinking ozone and
Tamarack water. Found the white fragrant Washington lily, the finest of all the
Sierra lilies. Its bulbs are buried in shaggy chaparral tangles, I suppose for
safety from pawing bears; and its magnificent panicles sway and rock over the
top of the rough snow-pressed bushes, while big, bold, blunt-nosed bees drone
and mumble in its polleny bells. A lovely flower, worth going hungry and
footsore endless miles to see. The whole world seems richer now that I have
found this plant in so noble a landscape.
A log house serves to mark a claim to the Tamarack meadow, which may become
valuable as a station in case travel to Yosemite should greatly increase.
Belated parties occasionally stop here. A white man with an Indian woman is
holding possession of the place.
Sauntered up the meadow about sundown, out of sight of camp and sheep and all
human mark, into the deep peace of the solemn old woods, everything glowing with
Heaven's unquenchable enthusiasm.
Next Part: July 12-14th
Table of Contents
|
|
