Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada

by Clarence King

The luminous cloud-bank in the east rolled from the last Sierra summit, leaving the whole chain of peaks in broad light, each rocky crest strongly red, the newly fallen snow marbling it over with a soft, deep rose; and wherever a cañon carved itself down the rocky fronts its course was traceable by a shadowy band of blue. The middle distance glowed with a tint of golden yellow; the broken heights along the cañon-brinks and edges of the cliff in front were of an intense, spotless white. Far below us the cloud stratum melted away, revealing the floor of the valley, whose russet and emerald and brown and red burned in the broad evening sun. It was a marvellous piece of contrasted lights,—the distance so pure, so soft in its rosy warmth, so cool in the depth of its shadowy blue; the foreground strong in fiery orange, or sparkling in absolute whiteness. I enjoyed, too, looking up at the pure, unclouded sky, which now wore an aspect of intense serenity. For half an hour nature seemed in entire repose; not a breath of wind stirred the white, snow-laden shafts of the trees; not a sound of animate creature or the most distant reverberation of waterfall reached us; no film of vapor moved across the tranquil, sapphire sky; absolute quiet reigned until a loud roar proceeding from Capitan turned our eyes in that direction. From the round, dome-like cap of its summit there moved down an avalanche, gathering volume and swiftness as it rushed to the brink, and then, leaping out two or three hundred feet into space, fell, slowly filtering down through the lighted air, like a silver cloud, until within a thousand feet of the earth it floated into the shadow of the cliff and sank to the ground as a faint blue mist. Next the Cathedral snow poured from its lighted summit in resounding avalanches; then the Three Brothers shot off their loads, and afar from the east a deep roar reached us as the whole snow-cover thundered down the flank of Cloud’s Rest.

We were warned by the hour to make all haste, and, driving the poor brutes before us, worked our way down the trail as fast as possible. The light, already pale, left the distant heights in still more glorious contrast. A zone of amber sky rose behind the glowing peaks, and a cold steel-blue plain of snow skirted their bases. Mist slowly gathered again in the gorge below us and overspread the valley floor, shutting it out from our view.

We ran down the zigzag trail until we came to that shelf of bare granite immediately below the final descent into the valley. Here we paused just above the surface of the clouds, which, swept by fitful breezes, rose in swells, floating up and sinking again like waves of the sea. Intense light, more glowing than ever, streamed in upon the upper half of the cliffs, their bases sunken in the purple mist. As the cloud-waves crawled upward in the breeze they here and there touched a red-purple light and fell back again into the shadow.

We watched these effects with greatest interest, and, just as we were about moving on again, a loud burst as of heavy thunder arrested us, sounding as if the very walls were crashing in. We looked, and from the whole brow of Capitan rushed over one huge avalanche, breaking into the finest powder and floating down through orange light, disappearing in the sea of purple cloud beneath us.

We soon mounted and pressed up the valley to our camp, where our anxious friends greeted us with enthusiastic welcome and never-to-be-forgotten beans. We fed our exhausted animals a full ration of barley, and turned them out to shelter themselves as best they might under friendly oaks or among young pines. In anticipation of our return the party had gotten up a capital supper, to which we first administered justice, then punishment, and finally annihilation. Brief starvation and a healthy combat for life with the elements lent a most marvellous zest to the appetite. Under the subtle influences of a free circulation and a stinging cold night, I perceived a region of the taste which answers to those most refined blue waves of the spectrum.

Clouds which had enfolded the heavens rolled off to the east in torn fillets of gold. The stars came out full and flashing in the darkling sky of evening. We left our cabins and grouped ourselves round a loquacious camp-fire, which prattled incessantly and distilled volumes of that mild stimulant, pyroligneous acid—an ill-savored gas which seems to have inspired much domestic poetry, however it may have affected the New England olfactory nerves.

The vast valley-walls, light in contrast with the deep nocturnal violet heavens, rose far into the night, apparently holding up a roof of stars whose brilliancy faded quite rapidly, until finally the last blinking points of light died out, and cold, hard gray stretched from cliff to cliff. Far up cañons and in the heart of the mountains we could hear terrible tempest-gusts crashing among the trees, and breaking in deep, long surges against faces of granite; coming nearer and nearer, they swept down the gorges, with volume increasing every moment, until they poured into the upper end of the valley and fell upon its groves with terrible fury. The wind shrieked wild and high among the summit crags, it tore through the pine-belts, and now and then a sudden, sharp crash resounded through the valley as, one after another, old, infirm pines were hurled down before its blast. The very walls seemed to tremble; the air was thick with flying leaves and dead branches; the snow of the summits, hard frozen by a sudden chill, was blown from the walls, and filled the air with its keen, cutting crystals. At last the very clouds, torn into wild flocks, were swept down into the valley, filling it with opaque, hurrying vapors. Rocks, loosening themselves from the plateau, came thundering down precipice-faces, crashing upon débris piles and forest groups below. 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. The burst of thunder which followed rolled but for a moment, and was silenced by the furious storm. In the moment of lightning I saw that the Yosemite Fall, which had been dry for a month, had suddenly sprung into life again. Vast volumes of water and ice were pouring over and beating like sea-waves upon the granite below. Our mules came up to the cabin, and stood on its lee side trembling, and uttering suppressed moans.

After hours the fitfulness of the tempest passed away, leaving a grand, monotonous roar. It had torn off all the rotten branches of the year, and prostrated every decrepit tree, and at last settled down to a continuous gale, laden with torrents of rain. We lay down upon our bunks in our clothes, watching and listening through all the first hours of the night. Sleep was impossible; angry winds and the fury of drifting rain shook our little shelters, and kept us wide awake. Toward morning a second thunderstorm burst, and by the light of its flashes I saw that the river had risen nearly to our cabin door, covering the broad valley in front of us with a sheet of flood. Gradually the sound of Yosemite Fall grew louder and stronger, the throbs, as it beat upon the rocks, rising higher and higher till the whole valley rung with its pulsations. By dawn the storm had spent its fury, rain ceased, and around us the air was perfectly still; but aloft, among cliffs and walls, the gale might still be heard sweeping across the forest and tearing itself among granite needles. Fearing that so continuous a storm might block up our mountain trails, Hyde and Cotter and Wilmer, with instruments and pack-animals, started early and went out to Clark’s Ranch.

So dense and impenetrable a fog overhung us that daylight came with extreme slowness, and it was nine o’clock before we rose for breakfast, and at ten a gloomy sea of mist still hung over the valley. The Merced had overflowed its banks, and ran wild. Toward noon the mist began to draw down the valley, and finally all drifted away, leaving us shut in by a gray canopy of cloud which stretched from wall to wall, hanging down here and there in deep blue sags. In this stratum of gray were lost many higher summits, but the whole form of valley and cliff could be seen with terrible distinctness, the walls apparently drawn together, their bases at one or two points pushed into yellow floods of water which lay like lakes upon the level expanse. The whole lip of Yosemite was filled to the brim, and through it there poured a broad, full torrent of white. Shortly after noon a few rifts opened overhead, showing a far sky, from which poured gushes of strong, yellow sunlight, touching here and there upon sombre faces of cliff, and occasionally gilding the falling torrent. A wind still blew, smiting the Yosemite precipice, and playing strangest games with the fall itself. At one time a gust rushed upon the lip of the fall with such violence as to dam back all its waters. We could see its white pile in the lip mounting higher and higher, still held back by the wind, until there must have been a front of from a hundred and fifty to two hundred feet of boiling white water. For a whole minute not a drop poured down the wall; but, gathering strength, the torrent overcame the wind, rushed out with tremendous violence, leaped one hundred and fifty feet straight out into air, and fell clear to the rocks below, dashing high and white again, and breaking into a cloud of spray that filled the lower air of the valley for a mile.

While the water was held back in the gorge there was a moment of complete silence, but when it finally burst out again a crash as of sudden thunder shook the air. At times gusts of wind would drive upon the Three Brothers cliff, and be deflected toward the Yosemite, swinging the whole mighty cataract like a pendulum; and again, pouring upon the rocks at the bottom of the valley, it would gather up the whole fall in mid-air, whirl it in a festoon, and carry it back over the very summit of the walls. I got out the theodolite to measure the angle of its deflection, and, while watching, it swung over an entire semi-circle, now carried from the cliffs to the right, and then whirled back in a cloud of foam over the head of the Three Brothers. A very frequent prank was to loop the whole twenty-six hundred feet of cataract into a single, semi-circular festoon, which fell in the form of fine fringe.