Farewell.
John Muir.
Sissons Station,
November 1st, 1874.
Here is icy Shasta fifteen miles away yet at the very door. It is all close wrapt in clean young snow down to the very base, one mass of white from the dense black forest girdle at an elevation of five or six thousand feet to the very summit. The extent of its individuality is perfectly wonderful.
When I first caught sight of it over the braided folds of the Sacramento valley, I was fifty miles away and afoot, alone, and weary, yet all my blood turned to wine and I have not been weary since. Stone was to have accompanied me, but has failed of course. The last storm was severe, and all the mountains shake their heads and say impossible, etc., but you know I will meet all its icy snows lovingly.
I set out in a few minutes for the edge of the timber-line. Then upwards, if unstormy, in the early morning. If the snow proves to be mealy and loose, it is barely possible that I may be unable to urge my way through so many upward miles, as there is no intermediate camping-ground. Yet I am feverless and strong now and can spend two days with their intermediate nights in one deliberate, unstrained effort.
I am the more eager to ascend to study the mechanical conditions of the fresh snow at so great an elevation; also to obtain clear views of the comparative quantities of lava inundation northward and southward; also general views of the channels of the ancient Shasta glaciers, etc.; many other lesser problems, besides the fountains of the rivers here and the living glaciers. I would like to remain a week or two and may have to return next year in summer.
I wrote a short letter a few days ago which was printed in the “Evening Bulletin,” which I suppose you have seen.
I wonder how you all are faring in your wilderness educational departmental institutional, etc. Write me a line here in care of Sisson. I think it will reach me on my return from icy Shasta.
Farewell.