For the first time in many months a mild, moist wind sprang up from the south, and with it came slowly creeping over the sky a dull, leaden bank of ominous-looking cloud. Since April we had had no storm. The perpetually cloudless sky had banished all thought, almost memory, of foul weather; but winter tempests had already held off remarkably, and we knew that at any moment they might set in, and in twenty-four hours render the plateaus impassable. It was with some anxiety that I closed my eyes that night, and, sleeping lightly, often awoke as a freshening wind moved the pines. At dawn we were up, and observed that a dark, heavy mass of storm-cloud covered the whole sky, and had settled down over the Obelisk, wrapping even the snow-fields at its base in gray folds. The entire peak was lost, except now and then, when the torn vapors parted for a few moments and disclosed its sharp summit, whitened by new-fallen snow. A strange moan filled the air. The winds howled pitilessly over the rocks, and swept in deafening blasts through the pines. It was my duty to saddle up directly and flee for the Yosemite; but I am naturally an optimist, a sort of geological Micawber, so I dodged my duty, and determined to give the weather every opportunity for a clear-off. Accordingly, we remained in camp all day, studying the minerals of the granite as the thickly strewn bowlders gave us material. At nightfall I climbed a little rise back of our meadow, and looked out over the basin of Illilluette and up in the direction of the Obelisk. Now and then the parting clouds opened a glimpse of the mountain, and occasionally an unusual blast of wind blew away the deeply settled vapors from the cañon to westward; but each time they closed in more threateningly, and before I descended to camp the whole land was obscured in the cloud which settled densely down.
The mules had made themselves comfortable with a repast of rich mountain-grasses, which, though slightly frosted, still retained much of their original juice and nutriment. We ourselves made a deep inroad on the supply of provisions, and, after chatting awhile by the firelight, went to bed, taking the precaution to pile our effects carefully together, covering them with an india-rubber blanket. Our bivouac was in the middle of a cluster of firs, quite well protected overhead, but open to the sudden gusts which blew roughly hither and thither. By nine o’clock the wind died away altogether, and in a few moments a thick cloud of snow was falling. We had gone to bed together, pulled the blankets as a cover over our heads, and in a few moments fell into a heavy sleep. Once or twice in the night I woke with a slight sense of suffocation, and cautiously lifted the blanket over my head, but each time found it growing heavier and heavier with a freight of snow. In the morning we awoke quite early, and, pushing back the blanket, found that we had been covered by about a foot and a half of snow. The poor mules had approached us to the limit of their rope, and stood within a few feet of our beds, anxiously waiting our first signs of life.
We hurried to breakfast, and hastily putting on the saddles, and wrapping ourselves from head to foot in our blankets, mounted and started for the crest of the moraine. I had taken the precaution to make a little sketch-map in my note-book, with the compass directions of our march from the Yosemite, and we had now the difficult task of retracing our steps in a storm so blinding and fierce that we could never see more than a rod in advance. But for the regular form of the moraine, with whose curve we were already familiar, I fear we must have lost our way in the real labyrinth of glaciated rocks which covered the whole Illilluette basin. Snow blew in every direction, filling our eyes and blinding the poor mules, who often turned quickly from some sudden gust, and refused to go on. It was a cruel necessity, but we spurred them inexorably forward, guiding them to the right and left to avoid rocks and trees which, in their blindness, they were constantly threatening to strike. Warmly rolled in our blankets, we suffered little from cold, but the driving sleet and hail very soon bruised our cheeks and eyelids most painfully. It required real effort of will to face the storm, and we very soon learned to take turns in breaking trail. The snow constantly balled upon our animals’ feet, and they slid in every direction. Now and then, in descending a sharp slope of granite, the poor creatures would get sliding, and rush to the bottom, their legs stiffened out, and their heads thrust forward in fear. After crossing the Illilluette, which we did at our old ford, we found it very difficult to climb the long, steep hillside; for the mules were quite unable to carry us, obliging us to lead them, and to throw ourselves upon the snow-drifts to break a pathway.
This slope almost wore us out, and when at last we reached its summit, we threw ourselves upon the snow for a rest, but were in such a profuse perspiration that I deemed it unsafe to lie there for a moment, and, getting up again, we mounted the mules and rode slowly on toward open plateaus near great meadows. The snow gradually decreased in depth as we descended upon the plain directly south of the Yosemite. The wind abated somewhat, and there were only occasional snow flurries, between half-hours of tolerable comfort. Constant use of the compass and reference to my little map at length brought us to the Mariposa trail, but not until after eight hours of anxious, exhaustive labor—anxious from the constant dread of losing our way in the blinding confusion of storm; exhausting, for we had more than half of the way acted as trail-breakers, dragging our frightened and tired brutes after us. The poor creatures instantly recognized the trail, and started in a brisk trot toward Inspiration Point. Suddenly an icy wind swept up the valley, carrying with it a storm of snow and hail. The wind blew with such violence that the whole freight of sleet and ice was carried horizontally with fearful swiftness, cutting the bruised faces of the mules, and giving our own eyelids exquisite torture. The brutes refused to carry us farther. We were obliged to dismount and drive them before us, beating them constantly with clubs.
Fighting our way against this bitter blast, half-blinded by hard, wind-driven snow-crystals, we at last gave up and took refuge in a dense clump of firs which crown the spur by Inspiration Point. Our poor mules cowered under shelter with us, and turned tail to the storm. The fir-trees were solid cones of snow, which now and then unloaded themselves when severely bent by a sudden gust, half burying us in dry, white powder. Wind roared below us in the Yosemite gorge; it blew from the west, rolling up in waves which smote the cliffs, and surged on up the valley. While we sat still the drifts began to pile up at our backs; the mules were belly-deep, and our situation began to be serious.
Looking over the cliff-brink we saw but the hurrying snow, and only heard a confused tumult of wind. A steady increase in the severity of the gale made us fear that the trees might crash down over us; so we left the mules and crept cautiously over the edge of the cliff, and ensconced ourselves in a sheltered nook, protected by walls of rock which rose at our back.
We were on the brink of the Yosemite, and but for snow might have looked down three thousand feet. The storm eddied below us, sucking down whirlwinds of snow, and sometimes opening deep rifts,—never enough, however, to disclose more than a few hundred feet of cliffs.
We had been in this position about an hour, half frozen and soaked through, when I at length gathered conscience enough to climb back and take a look at our brutes. The forlorn pair were frosted over with a thick coating, their pitiful eyes staring eagerly at me. I had half a mind to turn them loose, but, considering that their obstinate nature might lead them back to our Obelisk camp, I patted their noses, and climbed back to the shelf by Cotter, determined to try it for a quarter of an hour more, when, if the tempest did not lull, I thought we must press on and face the snow for an hour more, while we tramped down to the valley.
Suddenly there came a lull in the storm; its blinding fury of snow and wind ceased. Overhead, still hurrying eastward, the white bank drove on, unveiling, as it fled, the Yosemite walls, plateau, and every object to the eastward as far as Mount Clark. As yet the valley bottom was obscured by a layer of mist and cloud, which rose to the height of about a thousand feet, submerging cliff-foot and débris pile. Between these strata, the cloud above and the cloud below, every object was in clear, distinct view; the sharp, terrible fronts of precipices, capped with a fresh cover of white, plunged down into the still, gray river of cloud below, their stony surfaces clouded with purple, salmon-color, and bandings of brown,—all hues unnoticeable in every-day lights. Forest, and crag, and plateau, and distant mountain were snow-covered to a uniform whiteness; only the dark gorge beneath us showed the least traces of color. There all was rich, deep, gloomy. Even over the snowy surfaces above there prevailed an almost ashen gray, which reflected itself from the dull, drifting sky. A few torn locks of vapor poured over the cliffedge at intervals, and crawled down like wreaths of smoke, floating gracefully and losing themselves at last in the bank of cloud which lay upon the bottom of the valley.
On a sudden the whole gray roof rolled away like a scroll, leaving the heavens from west to far east one expanse of pure, warm blue. Setting sunlight smote full upon the stony walls below, and shot over the plateau country, gilding here a snowy forest group, and there a wave-crest of whitened ridge. The whole air sparkled with diamond particles; red light streamed in through the open Yosemite gateway, brightening those vast, solemn faces of stone, and intensifying the deep neutral blue of shadowed alcoves.