Summering in the Sierra. John Muir Discourses of Sierra Forests, Etc.-The Glorious Solitudes of Nature-Pine Nuts as Food-Tuolumne Meadows-Mono Pass-A Lovely Lake. (Special Correspondence of the Bulletin.) Mono Lake, July, 1875.
SUMMERING \H THE SIERRA. Joiin Muir Discourses of Sierra Forests, Etc.— The Glorious Solitudes of Nature—Pine Nats as Food—Tuolumne Meadows—Mono Pass—A IiOvely Mountain Lake. [SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE OF. THE BULLETIN.] Mono Lake, July —, 18TS. Going to the mountains is going home, and gladly we climb...
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Scholarly Commons
1875
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| Summary: | SUMMERING \H THE SIERRA. Joiin Muir Discourses of Sierra Forests, Etc.— The Glorious Solitudes of Nature—Pine Nats as Food—Tuolumne Meadows—Mono Pass—A IiOvely Mountain Lake. [SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE OF. THE BULLETIN.] Mono Lake, July —, 18TS. Going to the mountains is going home, and gladly we climbed higher, higher, through the freshened piney woods—over meadows, over streamlets, over waving ridge and dome. It was on the morning of the ISth of June that we set out for the summits, from the top of Yosemite walls. The exhilarating snow-storm of the 15th and.Kth being then fully completed and out of sight, as if it had never bsen—coming and going like a pleasant winter dream. The pine trees shook their tassels dry in the sun, every individual needle tingling and shimmering as If pos- . sessed of a separate life. All the mountain voices- birds, winds and leaping, plashing brooks—were tuned to downright gladness.! Even our melancholy pack-mule seemed to catch a trace of the general joy as he trudged along the winding trail, heaped and humped like a dromedary with his heavy, bulging load. ' The toning spiciness and richness of these forests after rain can never be described. The flowers, and buds, and leaves of every thing that grows are steeped and made into tea. Pines, with their sugar, and gum and rosin; firs, with spicy balsam; pungent spruces and junipers; mossy bogs and flowery meadows, all soaked together as if in one pot, fairly filling the sky with a subtle, invigorating aroma. We followed the Mono trail around tbe north Yosemite wall, over the massive rounded ridge whose glacier-broken end forms the famous El Capitau; across Yosemite creek, two mile3 above the precipice where it leaps into the valley, along the south flank of the Hoffmann range, past Lake Tenaya, up the Big Tuolumne Meadows, past Mounts Dana and Giobs, and down Bloody canyon to Mono. MAGNIFICENT FORESTS. Throughout all this glorious region there is nothing citi6 o voaabantlj- i.toranf.g ancl Challenges the Su- miration of the traveler as the belts of the forest through which he passes in regular order. From some bare commanding hilltop we are favored with grand out-looks over miles and miles of dark green woods, not planted in wide fielded masses, but drawn out m lace-like patterns, in curves and straight lines, that cross and recross in endless variety of arrangement, with ridges and domes of bald gray granite between them, the area of the naked rocks greatly surpassing that of the forests. Here and there a fleck of green meadow comes into view, or the sparkle of a stream, or mirror-like gleam of a lakelet. Hooker tells us that all the cedars of Lebanon are growing upon moraine soil; so also In general terms j are all the forests of the Sierra. -H alter the recession of the ancient glaciers our forests had been compelled to wait for soil to be rusted and crumbled for them by the slow action of the atmosphere, they would not at this date have scarce a shadow of their present grandeur. Here and there a tree would be found clinging to rifts in the glacial pavement, and a lew groves would find sufficient soil in shallow lake basins filled with sand, but these luxuriant forest belts, forming the crowning glory of the mountains, would have no existence. As it was, the glaciers furrowed the solid recks, turning and mixing the detritus, and leaving it in just that condition most favorable for the food of forests, and in conjunction with climate bringing about their present magnificence as a necessary result. Few travelers will, however, take the time to trace out tbe order or distribution, or the history of the various forests, but no one will weary in admiring special trees. Pinus Lam.bartiana (sugar Pine) is the acknowledged king of pines, and many a volume might be filled with the history of lis development from the brown, whirling-winged seed nut to its ripe and God-like old age; the quantity and range of its individuality, its gestures in storms or while sleeping in summer light, the quality of its sugar and nut', and glossy fragrant wood. There stands a specimen 250 feet high, s feet in diameter, with a smooth, purplish trunk exquisitely tapered, and with graceful, spreading, down-curving branches 40 feet long, terminated by cone tassels adjusted with reference to size, distribution and color, as if made for beauty only. Could suet a pine be carried from its woods to wave, and sing, and toss its giant arms in some Central City park, all would flock to see it as a wonder of tbe world. It is almost universally conceded by those who are so happy as to have eaten the sugar, that it is the most delicious of known sweets, far surpassing the best maple sugar. It exudes from wounds made either by fire or the ax in the heartvvood, forming white, crisp, candy-like kernels from the size of peas to hazel-nuts, and contains just enough of a spicy, balsamic flavor to render it pleasingly and becomingly piney. PINE-NUTS AND SEEDS AS FOOD. The largest full-grown cones measure ab.out seventeen or eighteen inches in length, though one in my possession measures two feet. A single cone yields nuts enough to make a good square meal for an Indian. They climb the more accessible of the trees aud beat off the cones while they are yet green, then roast them slightly, thus opening the scales and exposing the nuts; but owing to the difficulties in the way of climbing the trees and reaching out to the ends of the long branches, this nut forms but a small portion of their food. The Sabine pine growing on the low foothills of the western slope furnishes larger nuts that are more readily gathered. Tbe dwarf Fremont pine growing upon the sunbeaten rocks of the eastern flank of the Sierra furnishes the Mono, Carson and Waker river Indians with more and better nuts than any other tree, with the least possible exertion. This, undoubtedly, is the most important food tree of all the California conifers. The nuts are called pinyens by the Indians, and when the harvest is abundant their joy linds expression in long-continued nut dances similar to tbe acorn dances of the Diggers. Bears also munch pine seeds with extraordinary austo, and know well now to tear the burrs open. To the squirrels they are bread both winter and summer. When the large gray squirrel wishes the nnts of the yellow pine, he glides out to the enus of the branches, pulls back the springy needles out of ms way, leans over and cuts off the burr with his long curved teeth, carefully holding on to it with his paws to prevent its fulling, then seizingit with grotesquely stretched jaws he carries it to some favorite dining branch, where ne can sit comfortably on bis haunches. Here he sets it on end upside down and gnaws off the seed-protecting scales round and round in regular order, his retreat being indicated by a dribble of gnawed scales and seed-wings. Bat the immense size ol the sugar cones compels a quite different course. These he cuts off aud lets drop to the ground without attempting to hold them, easily harvesting in this way a sufficient number in a few minutes to last a month, then he gnaws and nibbles them as thev lie among the dead needles, roliiug them over and over as the feast goes on, like a pig eating corn from the cob—the strongest squirrel being unable to hold them erect in the regular orthodox manner. THE YELLOW PINE—THE SILVER FIR—THE HOFFMAN "I TEE YELLOW PINE—THE SILVER JJJ.it— ljuja aurrjaii FOREST. The Yellow Pine, the constant companion of the sugar, stands second in importance among California pines as a lumber tree, and almost rivals the king himself in stature and nobleness of part. Tbe traveler will find it keeping him company all the way up this middle region of the Sierra from an elevation above sea level of 2,000 to 9,000 feet. Growing in fine spirey symmetry upon ancient moraines, alluvial lake beds and hot volcanic table-lands, acd whether baskng in light or waving and rocking in storms, its true nobleness is always patent to the eye of the appreciative tree lover. At an elevation ot six or seven thousand feet we find the silver fir, with flat, glistening, plume-like branches, frequently attaining a height of more than two hundred feet, and a diameter of five or six feet. About a thousand feet higher, the place of this tree as ohief of the forest is taken by a stiil finer silver flr, but they unite and bend by a long, gradual splice, and the two form the main bulk of the forest at the elevation given above. The Hoffmann forest, through which we rode, is one of the finest I have ever met in ail my mountaineering, and our whole party were as extravagant as possible in its praise; but to be kuown it mast be seen and lived with. Its surpassing excellence is probably owing to tbe depth and richness of the moraine upon, which it is growing, being composed of eroded slates and granite mixed well together and toned with plenty oi iroD, and spread out in the sunshine, with abundance of small percolatlve streamlets. THE FOREST WORK OF NATURE. . , Happy is the man with the will and the time to ciinio a silver fir in full flower and fruit. How admirable the forest work of Nature is seen to be as one ascends from branch to branch,all arranged in regular collars around the trunk, one above the other like the whorled leaves of lilies, and with each branch and branchlet about as strictly pinnate as the most exact and symmetrical fern frond. There is also the ad«ed beauty of the sterile or staminate coneiets, growing straight downward from the under sides of tne branches in lavish profusion, and coloring the whole tree in delightful purple. On the topmost branches are found the fertile cones six inches long, three in diameter, covered with fine grayish down, standing bolt upright like small caskets, and all dripping with delicious crystal balsam. The seeds are furnished with rose-purple wings with which to fly to their appointed growing places in the groves, and are fiiled with an exceedingly pungent aromatic oil. Tbe Douglass squirrel feeds largely on these seeds, which may account for the flashing lightning energy with which he is pervaded, Under favorable conditions the silver fir attains to venerable oid age, seldom dying before approaching or exceeding two hundred aud fifty years. One oid parent i3 oitentimes seen standing apart, somewhat ruffled-and scarred by centuries of storms, with a protecting circle of young- • iugs, dressed with such perfect care that not a single li-af seems wanting. Other companies are made uc of trees in the prime of life, so exquisitly adjusted to one another in form and stature as to suggest Nature's culling them one by one with the nicest discrimination fiorn all the rest of the woods. It is from this tree. (Picea amabilis.) called "red fir" by the lumberman, that the mountaineer always cuts boughs for a bed when he is so fortunate as to be within its limits. Every twig is crowded with short elastic leaves, rendering the branches more nlusny than the thickest Brussels carpet, to say nothing of their delicious balsam aroma. Our company had never before enjoyed the rare luxury of a silver til be;', and all confessed that no invention of hair, wool or feathers could approach it in pure softness and springy ease, only Highland heather might compare in balmy restfuluess. UNDEVELOPED FLORA—NATURE'S GRAND SOLITUDES, The flora of this fine world of ours is not yet half developed. For not to mention the Innumerable small plants, the violas and daises blooming lowly out of sight, many a tree remains nameless in nature'3 ample wilds. It is but a few years since the great Australian Eucalyptus was first made known to civilization, aud what tree treasures l he untrodden Himalaya may contain we can,, hardly guess. But as yet our silvery Amabilis remains unrivaled among the lira of the world, uid no wonder the enthusiastic Douglass went wild with the joy of its discovery. Through the glorious Hoffmann wilderness we sauntered wholly free. The day was perfect sunshine, and in the coolest, deepest shades theie was no trace of the dampness and swampiness so common in thriliy woods. Sun-goid streamed through many an openicgaDdfell on the smooth grauod as on a canvass in bars and lakes of light. The deep pervading reuose and stillness was stirred only by cascading water and by the drumming partridges and garrulous stellar jay. How perfect was the oblivion that fell upon the fever-work of tbe far off town. Even Yosemite, alODg whose rim we rode, was almost forgotten nothing of its rocks or falls being seen, and nothing'totell of its existence, excepting only the lofty Half Dome which rose impressively above the woods wherever we went snd made its mark on every landscape. Nothing about Yosemite creek is so striking as the simplicity and clearness of its beauty. No one of all the streams that leap Yosemite walls lives so pubdued and tracquil a life. Whether flowing around level bends, through leafy margin groves, or leaping rocky dams, or cascading adown glacier sloj.es, it still seems to be checkmg itself as if hoarding back ail its best talents, conscious of its sublime work in leading the Yosemite choir. Where it is crossed by the Mono trail, some two miles from the brink of the valley, it is a handsome stream three feet deep and thirty wide, flowing with a rippling current over brown pebbles, between grassy banks adorned with dipping willsws and patches ot spiraa and azalea, all in bloom. Back a Uttie distance there are level sandy flats, rosetted with spragnea and hazy with purple gilia?, and beyond are domes in endless variety, bare and shining as if glaciated only yesterday. LAKE TENAYA—A SYLVAN EDEN.- From the top of a hill 700 feet high we catch cur first glimpse of Lake Tenaya—a goblet of sparkling mountaiu water, biue and pure as the sky. Here, some twenty-five years ago. the plundering Indians fled from Yosemite, pursued by Captain Savage's volunteers, and the fine lake perpetuates the old chief's (Tenaya) name. It measures about a mile in length, and is encompassed by glaciated domes ana maintains, whose smoothness and glistening brightness strike the dullest observer with admiration. Mourn; Hoflmann rises in fan view on the north, Colisieum Peak on the south and Cathedral Peak on the east, with numerons domes and waves of glacier'3 polished granite flowing down to the water's edge in graceful Jfolds like drapery. We have no space here to tell of the marvellous beauty of the water in the changing lights of morning and evening, or of the ancient Mer de Grace, whose ice-floods filled all its basin and flowed above its domes. Along its glossy shores we rode with many a tribute of praise, and were soon out of sight in the woods, and on our way to the Big Tuolumne meadows, lying some six or seven miles to the least- ward of the lake. In these higher woods we find the burly brown barked juniper, eight feet in diameter, covered with berries and growing upon pure unbroken granite. The wood of this tree furnishes the fragrant cedar of the pencil makers. Here, too. we And the noble mountain pine, living happily above reach of the lumberman's axe, and in the coolest mountain shadows, where the winter snow fails deepest, we discover the Williamson spruce, the most singularly graceful tree of all the Sierra coniferae. So slender is its axis at toe top, it bends over and droops like the stalk of a nodding lilly. The branches are divided into slender drooping sprays and are put on and combined in a manner that is is wholly indescribable, The purple cones are sprinkeled over the bluish green foliage from top to bottom, and the whole tree is a poem, not a single nrose leaf, or branch, or motion, is ever visible. No tree in all the woods is so slender and delicate, and excepting the flexible pine no other is so heavily crushed beneath the winter snow. In my winter walks I have found whole groves of this abies prostrate as stalks of gras3 or wind-lodged wheat. But |this is nature's, culture—her system of bedding—of putting to winter sleep; and when the spring comes with its sunshine, these heavy snow blankets are lifted, and her favorite spruces rise again to waveband iave in the warm azure more delicately beautiful than before. TUOLUMNE MEADOWS. Out of the forest shadows, through clusters of glacier domes, we all at once emerge into the wide roomy meadows of the Upper Tuolumne. The mount - tains here seem to have been cleared away to make room for them, for they stand thick around its sides, rising sharp and gray above the sombre forests that clothe their flanks. The meadows are smooth and green, acd nearly fifteen miles long, with the Young Tuolumne like a ribbon in their midst, and curving around and up to the very base of Mount Lyell on the summit of the range. On our rigbr, as we enter the meadows, stands Cathedral Peak, a very temple of nature—a church of one stoue, cut from the living granite, hewn and chiseled in a human way, and adorned with spires and pinnacles in front, with dwarf pines, like mosses, on the roof and arouud the edges of the gable, as if nature were a common workman with human tastes and methods. SODA SPRINGS—GRAND CAMPING GROUND. Two miles from where we enter tbe meadows we find the Soda Springs well known to every Indian and mountaineer of the region. The water is icy soda, toned with iron and a little sulphur and magnesia, forming a very wholesome and refreshing drink, just as cold as can be freely drank, (46 deg. Fah.,) and fully charged with carbonic acid. This undoubtedly is one of the most important mineral springs in the State, and if more accessible would be thronged with health-pleasure seekers from far and near, l am not acquainted with any point in the High Sierra adjacent to Yosemite so advantageous and desirable for a central camping ground to those who have a summer to spend, visits can be macte to Mount Dana and to Mount Lyell with its living glacier, to the head of the great Tuolumne canyon, to the glacier monument, to Mount Conness, Unicom Peak, Cathedral Peak, and the North Tuolumne Church. All these lie within easy distance of the springs with many points and objects of interest besides, as avalanche pathways, glacier channels, glacier lakes and meadows, etc. All these, with delicious air and water.where one gets his boyhood back again, and where morbid hopes and morbid fears, either for this life or any other, are alike forgotten, and the sick get well. Let those contemplating health journeys to fashionable Bethesdas bear Tuolumne In mind. MONO PASS—DWARF PINES—ANIMAL LIFE. On the third morning from Gentry's we set out from the Springs to the summit of the Mono Pass, ten miles distant, and nearly 11,000 feet above the level of the sea. Here we made our noon halt by a pretty lakelet among arctic willows and daisies, preparatory to descending the famous Bloody Canyon. This is about the upper limits or the timber.hne formed by the hardy pimis flexilU, which covers the bleak mountain sides in many places like heather, over the too of which we can easily walk. Though some of these dwarfy pines, shorn and repressed by rigorous storm- winds, scarcely exceed three feet in height, they frequently reach the good old age of two hundred years. Oue slim branch that I examined, measuring only a little over an eighth of an inch in diameter inside the bark, was seventy-five years old, and was so seasoned in storm3 that I tied it into knots like a cord. The staminate cones grow in close sessile clusters; and are bright rose- purple in color, producing a flue effect, little looked for in such a tree. The fertile cones are also produced in close-packed clusters, on the ends of the upper branches, ana bear seeds about tne size of dims. and nearly as round ana iThite us nun atones. . Host of the nuts are eaten "by the sparrow-squirrel (Tamias), ar d the notable Clark crow (picicornucts), the most garrulous and omnipresent bira of the high summits. He is a little larger than a jav, wearing black ana ash colored plumage, and with a bill pointed like a miner's pick for digging into the pine-burrs. The little dun- headed Aictic sparrow is here also, and finds his food still higher, feeding chiefly upon beetle.? and butterflies that become chilled in attempting to cross the snow-fields and glaciers. Upon these banks of perpetual ice and snow his food is thn3 spread for him as upon a clean white cloth, and a more confiding and cheery little fellow was never seen. Amid these glorious Alps, San Francisco, with its cares and money, became yet more perfectly invisible. Swett forgot his new-bom lassie, Mack forgot his son, and Keith all but his paints and pencils. John Muir. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/1027/thumbnail.jpg |
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