Sierra Journal, Summer of 1869, v. 3, 1869 [ca. 1887], Image 36
86 & all the weird effects of my campfire & the wild uproar of the winds & waters making their way down the huge jagged canyon. X Of course I slept but [It was long ere I slept so great were the excitements & strange the sounds of the night] little & [I] gladly welcomed the [purp...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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Scholarly Commons
2018
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| Online Access: | https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn-sj3/36 https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmn-sj3/article/1035/type/native/viewcontent/MuirReel31_Notebook_009_Img036.jpg |
| Summary: | 86 & all the weird effects of my campfire & the wild uproar of the winds & waters making their way down the huge jagged canyon. X Of course I slept but [It was long ere I slept so great were the excitements & strange the sounds of the night] little & [I] gladly welcomed the [purple] dawn [as it appeared] over the Mono Desert. By the time I had made a cupful of tea & eaten my breakfast the sunbeams were pouring through the canyon & I set forth gazing eagerly at the tremendous walls of red states savagely hacked & scarred & apparently ready to fall in [launch down] avalanches great enough to choke the pass [narrow way] & fill up the chain of lakelets. But soon its beauties came to view & I bounded lightly from rock to rock admiring the polished bosses shiny in the slant sunshine with glorious effect in the general roughness of [of] moraines & avalanche talus showing how heavy had been the glaciation even towards the head of the canyon near the highest fountains of the ice. Here [for the first time] I found the charming Arctic Daisy & many delicate ferns such as Pellaea Breweri. The freshness of everything was delightful & one could not fail to glory in the sufficiency of Nature in caring for so many tender plant people in so wild & stormy a home. The little 87 water ouzel [is here also & he] sang cheerily [delightfully] as if this huge cold raw looking rocky gorge was [the most] a delightful home of all the mountain mansions – a charming bird gentle & brave how sweet & fluty its voice. This one bird redeems the coldest [and most forbidding] solitude & makes a summer anywhere interpreting every word [voice] of torrents & storms [and torrent as only varying expressions of Natures love] besides the high (large) fall on the north wall [side] of the canyon which seems to come [leaping out of] direct from the sky there are many narrow cascades, brought silvery ribbons zigzagging down the red cliffs (here & there) tracing (following) the ... |
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