Across America; Or, The Great West and the Pacific Coast

by James Fowler Rusling

But our stay there was over, and lifting our hats we bade the Yosemite a reverent good-bye, and mounting our horses, turned our faces towards Mariposa. A short ride along the well-defined trail, over crackling pine leaves and gigantic cones, brought us to the Hermitage—a huge sugar-pine, ten or twelve feet in diameter, hollow in the centre, where a Californian aforetime had made his home, closing the entrance with a rude door. It afforded him a goodly-sized room, much better than many of the border cabins; and here, in the midst of the gigantic pines, miles away from any human habitation, as he swung his axe or boiled his pot, he must have had Solitude to his heart's content.

Passing on, we soon struck the snow, and for five or six miles again, as when coming into the valley, we again had a decidedly "hard road to travel." To plunge and flounder along so, through snow-field after snow-field, was tedious and toilsome in the extreme; but there was no help for us, and we struggled on. A mile or so from Inspiration Point, in crossing an open glade, where the snow had melted into a pool, we caught sight of grouse and deer; but they were off before Clark, an experienced hunter, could get a shot at them. Some two miles farther on, we came out into a larger opening, and as we lifted our eyes from the blinding snow saw, right across our trail, a hundred yards or so ahead, a huge she-grizzly and two young cubs. We were all on foot, leading our horses over the snow the best we could—Capt. Coulter behind, Clark and I some yards ahead abreast of each other—our only weapons our trusty revolvers, and a long single-barrelled rifle of Clark's. My own good Spencer carbine (seven-shooter), that I had carried so faithfully across the continent, and through Arizona, without occasion to use it, I had left in San Francisco, not thinking it necessary in California. How I wished for it now, with its seven good balls ready for instant use!

Simultaneously with our sight of her, Madame Grizzly also descried us, and Clark at once frankly said we were in great danger, if she showed fight. For a minute or two, she stood with her head raised, snuffing the air, as if calculating the chances, and then deliberately wheeling in her tracks, shuffled off into the forest—her cubs gambolling by her side, like clumsy kittens. Clark instantly threw me his bridle, and decided to try a shot, if he could sight her heart; but she kept herself well under cover, as she moved off, and he was afraid to fire, unless certain of killing her. He said if he missed or only wounded her, we would have to take to the trees, as the attack would make her savage and ferocious; and also, that if her cubs happened to turn and run toward us in play, as they often did, we would have to run or climb for it, as she would take this also for a hostile movement, and assault us fiercely. Under the circumstances, clearly discretion was the better part of valor; nevertheless, Clark wanted the brace of cubs, and when she waddled off through the slush and snow, he followed cautiously after, resolved to try his luck, if she gave him a decent chance. From bush to bush, and tree to tree, for quite a considerable distance, he dodged along after her; but presently returned, without firing, declaring the risk was too great for such a venture, and we were not sorry to be well rid of her. She was, in truth, as big as a small cow, and altogether would have been an ugly customer to deal with, if not killed at the first shot.

Clark said, grizzlies were now rare on this route, although formerly frequently encountered. And indeed on both routes, and in all our travel among the Sierra Nevadas, I was struck with the general absence of animal life—as I had also been among the Rocky Mountains. I doubt whether in either of these ranges, there is anywhere such variety and extent of animal life, as we always find East, in unfrequented forests and mountains. The solemn stillness, the glad silence, the perfect peace and rest of the Sierras, seemed everywhere profound; and nowhere and never more so, than during this day's ride in general.

Once well out of the snow, we remounted our gamey little steeds, and the rest of the day the trail led down and over the ranges—through magnificent forests of pine and spruce, cedar and fir—where to ride along was itself a luxury and delight. The prevailing tree was the California sugar-pine, so called because the Indians obtain a rude sugar from boiling down its sap. These sugar-pines frequently grow ten and twelve feet in diameter, and shoot up two hundred and fifty, and three hundred feet in height. They bear a gigantic cone, four inches in diameter, by sixteen inches in length usually; and lest this may seem like a "California story," perhaps I should add, I myself picked up one, as we rode along, measuring over eighteen inches in length, and have it now in my private cabinet. Their dead leaves carpeted the ground thickly under foot, and often our horses ambled almost noiselessly along. Overhead, their dense shade excluded the sun, which hourly became more uncomfortable, as we descended the range; while the mountain air was everywhere resinous with their perfume.

Late in the afternoon, we crossed the last ridge, and, descending into the valley of the South Merced, halted at "Clark's," the house of our new guide. We had come twenty-two miles since leaving Hutchings'; and here found excellent accommodations for the night. Mr. Clark himself was from the East, I believe Pennsylvania, but was now an enthusiastic Californian. He said he had come to California years before, a confirmed consumptive; but once among the Sierras, inhaling their resinous breath, his lungs soon healed, and here now he meant to abide the remainder of his days. He could not live in San Francisco at all, the air was so raw and sharp there; but here among the Sierras, he was well and strong, and he looked indeed as rugged as the mountains themselves. His house contained several comfortable rooms, and already the tide of Yosemite travel was setting that way, and paying him well.

Six miles from Clark's, on the border of Mariposa and Fresno Counties, is the Mariposa grove of Big Trees. We visited them next morning (June 1st), under the guidance of Clark himself, who regards them as his special wards. They number in all some five or six hundred, scattered over perhaps a mile square, but usually in clumps together. You ride up to them, through an open forest of huge sugar-pines and cedars, that would be regarded as sylvan monsters elsewhere—ten and twelve feet over; but these Big Trees dwarf even such giants, into pigmies. Many of them, indeed, measure twenty-five and thirty feet in diameter, and run up three hundred feet or more in height—the first hundred feet or so without a limb, and scarcely diminishing in size. Six of them are over thirty feet in diameter, and from ninety to a hundred feet in circumference; fifty are over sixteen feet in diameter; and two hundred over twelve feet. The "Grizzly Giant," the largest, is thirty-three feet in diameter, and its first limb—ninety feet from the ground—is itself six feet through. Another, still standing erect and vigorous, but hollowed out by fire, three of us rode into on horseback, one behind the other, and there was still room for more. Another, prone on the ground, and with its heart eaten out by fire—reduced to a huge shell—we rode through on horseback, for a hundred feet or more, and then passed out—by a small knot-hole!

Among them were some young trees, still coming forward, mere saplings; but as a rule, these Big Trees (Sequoia Gigantea, I believe the botanists call them) impress you with their great age, and hoary venerability. With many the mountain-fires in other years have made sad havoc, scarring and half-consuming some of them; but these are now stopped, the Mariposa Grove being also included in the Congressional grant, which sets apart the Yosemite as a National Park and pleasure-ground forever. Their bark, often eighteen and twenty inches thick, is of a pure cinnamon-color, and fluted up and down like a Corinthian column. Their wood is of a deep red, and much resembles that of the great red-wood trees, that are found everywhere in the Coast Range. Their foliage and cones are much like those of our ordinary yellow-pines East, though their leaves are somewhat smaller.