July-September 1895, Trip Down Tuolumne Canyon, etc. Image 5

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1895
• Subjects: John Muir; journals; drawings; writings; travel; journaling; naturalist; Arctic; Camp Lake; Long Rapids; Long Ridge; Rus’; Second Lake; Arctic hare
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/2371; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmj-all/article/3370/type/native/viewcontent

polyguny white and showy. One tall Senicio daisy purple. Ennanes Flax in flower pedicularis at 9000 feet Bryanthus in glory. Camped at Cathedral lake. Glorious thunderstorm at 5:40 crashing lightning, scaring horses. Sheltered in grove, pouring rain. Lovely night full moon. Aug. 3. Lovely morning, calm, clear, intensely blue sky. Go to Soda Springs meadows in flower and no trace of sheep. Lovely Paton sp. Largest contorta in dry places and in sports of good soil surrounded by water safe from fire. Bryanthus etc. Meet lost party seeking Yosemite. Set out for Coness. Moraine all the way planted with Mariposa white. Magnificent Patons very large 5 feet diameter 100 feet high trail rus around North Church. Camped at lake half mile long which discharges into Coness creek. Snow still in shadows of North Church wall and the long ridge of gray raw looking granite extending to Coness interrupted by peaks all making a magnificent amphitheatre, fountain of many waters. A second lake lies just above Camp Lake, smaller both charmingly embossed and embroidered by sods of bryanthus and vaccinium first in flower, potentilla, yellow mimulus, Lurrunus, silky grasses sedges pediculadis fine purple spike deserving better name. The timer chiefly albicaulus now in bloom parts growing in groups 20 to 30 feet high and taller contorta. The North Church striking rock from every direction almost as interesting as Cathedral. Trail to Conness runs around it. And up the valley between it and its ridge extention and the peak S E of Conness to top of ridge and then direct to peak. Fine storm as we sent into camp. Whitened peak with hail beyond Conness, rain here. Aug. 4. Left camp for Conness af 6:30 leaving baggage- took horses to 11300 ft. might have ridden to foot of abrupt peak within 800 feet of summit but hard on horses. Lovely sods of bryanthus to 10,000 feet. The long slopes above this charmingly planted with Ivesia, Yellow Eriagonum Eununus Azure Daesus Jacobs ladder and Hulsea, the only large flowers, Ivesia the most influential. Also saw mats of huckleberry dwarf willow etc. tolmeru- draba- much phlox and albicaulis reaches to 11,000 feet. Conness is 12,400 feet. Got back to camp at 4:30 pm. Saw an arctic hare white tail near camp alsp Zonobuchia. Aug 5. 20 Island Camp, evening. Return to Tuolumne meadows, lower and there after lunch part with my two companions and start down the canyon. Bars of granite make rapids above and below it. The later half a mile long or more with scarce a rest. Huge glaciated bosses on both sides the river. Charming grove of P spruce on south side in nook- 8.8000 feet head of 2d long rapids reaching to mouth of Conness creek. ((Barometer 200 feet too high)) Just above this there is a notched striated mass of basalt 100 feet diameter 50 feet high. Paton spruce on south side can here 8.8000 feet altitude. Half a mile below lower Tuolumne meadows purple spiraea just coming into bloom, the chief flower in rocks. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/3370/thumbnail.jpg