The Snow. Result of John Muir's Investigations in the Sierra. A Lighter Fall Than Known Since the Settlement of the State. What May Be Now Seen in a Trip Through the Mountains-Rivers and Streams Full-The Forests in High Altitude.
THE SNOW Result of John tigations in the Sierra. A Lighter Fall than Known Since the Settlement of the State. What May 3e How Seen in a Trip Through the Mountains -Rivers and Streams Full—The Forests in High Altitudes, John Kuir has recently been prosecuting some investigations in the Sierra, and wr...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Scholarly Commons
1889
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/172 https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1171&context=jmb |
| Summary: | THE SNOW Result of John tigations in the Sierra. A Lighter Fall than Known Since the Settlement of the State. What May 3e How Seen in a Trip Through the Mountains -Rivers and Streams Full—The Forests in High Altitudes, John Kuir has recently been prosecuting some investigations in the Sierra, and writes as follows from Yosemite concerning the snow in the mountains: The snow on the mountains lies comparatively light this year, lighter perhaps, than ever was known since the settlement o the State. Far back on the higher mountain slopes among the peaks of the summit snow still exists in abundance, deep bossy drifts and sheets, and piled up masses shot down in avalanches upon the glaciers which with the innumerable springs issuing from moraines that have been replenished from snow recently melted are now lavishly supplying the rivers. Everywhere throughout the middle region is heard the happy rush and dance of rejoicing water. But the supply will not last through the dry summer in anything like its present fullness. Many of the shorter tributaries will soon begin to fail, and only those draining the glaciers and the cool northern slopes of the summit peaks will continue to How on with steady currents to the time of fresh snowfalls at the close of the year. During an excursion that I made a tew days ago to the head waters ot tne Merced and Tuolumne I found, even at a height of from 8,000 to 9,500 feet above the sea, only small local patclies of show, oE no great depth, in the cooler shadows of the rocks and woods, and these are vanishing rapidly, where usually one would find a depth of five or six feet. Excursions into the high Sierra, that la seasons of average, snowfall could not be made witn animals until some time in July, may now be undertaken without difficulty, the few patenes of deep snow still lying on the north slopes of forested ridges being easily passed. The robins are already singing on the glacier meadows, and the grass is green and the early flowers that have escaped tbe destructive trampling and biting of the theep are coming into bloom. The young Paton spruces and pines growing at an elevation of 10,000 feet, usually at this time still bent and hurled beneath a massive mantle of snow, are erect in the sunshine and stirring with new life, showing signs of new leaves and cones. THE WARMTH OF APRIL. Doubtless the extraordinary warmth of the weatner in April went far toward clearing the middle region thus early. Nevertheless the actual snowfall, according to the testimony of every observer I have met, was much less than usual, less than would be looted for in view of tne amount of rainfall on the lowlands. Tae first snows that whiten the mountaius usually fall about the end of October or early in K ovem- ber to the depth of a few inches, after months of the most charming sunny weather imaginable. But this light covering mostly melts from all the slopes exposed to the sun in a few days after its fall and causes but little apprehension on the part of mountaineers who may chance to be lingering among the peaks at such times. The first general winter storm tnat yields snow that ts to form a lasting pottion of the season's supply seldom breaks upon the mountains before the end of November. Then tne birds, bears, deer and other mountaineers make haste to the lowlands, and burrowing marmots, squirrels, wood-rats, etc., go into winter quarters, some of tnem not again to see the lignt of day until the general awakening and resurrectiou of the spring. The first fall is usually from about two to four feet in depth. Then, with intervals of clear, kindly sunshine, storm succeeds storm, heaping snow on snow, until about thirty or forty feet have fallen. But on account of its settling and compacting, and the waste resulting from melting and evaporation, the deptb actually found at any time seldom exceeds eight or ten feet. Even during the coldest weather evaporation never wbotly ceases; and the sunshine that abounds between storms is sufficiently powerful to rneit the surface more or less through all the months of winter. Waste from melting also goes on at the bottom from heat stored up in the rooks and given off slowly to tne snow ia eon- tact with tnem, as is shown by the rising of the streams on all the bUher regions after the first snowfall, and their steady sustained How all winter. IS THE WOODS. In the deep woods up to a height of eight thousand feet the snow lies mostly where it falls, until it is thawed and set free to sing its way back to the sea. But on the bleak slopes above the timber-line, and the long glacier meadows, and through tbe lighter forests of the two-leat pine, there is much wild, fierce drifting during storms when the temperature is low and tbe snow dry and dusty. Then tne great pines and firs bending in the darkening blast roar litte feeding lions, and ever and anon the deep muffled booming of avalanches are heard as the laden mountains shed off huge masses that gather into deep gullies and side canons and descend beneath whirling clouds of snow dust to the glaciers and meadows and lake basins id the hollows. Then the shaggy chaparral is buried and the young groves and all tne streams of the middle region which then have to flow in long, dark turnels burrowing beneath tne snow like marmots. Magnificent over-curling cornices are forired on the high ridges where the winds sweep free, and under certain conditions of the saow and direction of the wind, long waving banners of snow are displayed at the tops of the peaks along the axis of the range, proclaiming the glorious power and gladness of the storm. And when at length, after days and Lights of darkness and roar, the sky is clear again and the winds die away, marvellously beautiful is the scene that the sun looks down upon. The bloom of the meadows of the sky covers all the landscape. Every tree in the broad-spreading zones of tbe forests, round bossy domes, rugged ridges ana rock-piles; meadows, bogs and brown, withered gardens, the d6ad and the living, all are laden and blooming with the borrowed flowers of the storm-clouds. And when the last storm has fallen and the sun with increasing neat withdraws the crystal cloth i rorn the landscape, the lost streams are set free to run in the lignt, the meadows take on their own proper bloom, the bent groves arise, birds and bears and all the otber mountain people come back to their summer bomes, and over ever height and hollow life and joy refreshed and replenished proclaim the glorious story of the snow on the mountains. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/1171/thumbnail.jpg |
|---|