the john muir exhibit - writings - the_yosemite - chapter 3
The Yosemite
Chapter 3
Snow-Storms
As has been already stated, the first of the great snow-storms that
replenish the Yosemite fountains seldom sets in before the end of
November. Then, warned by the sky, wide-awake mountaineers, together
with the deer and most of the birds, make haste to the lowlands or
foothills; and burrowing marmots, mountain beavers, wood-rats, and other
small mountain people, go into winter quarters, some of them not again
to see the light of day until the general awakening and resurrection of
the spring in June or July. The fertile clouds, drooping and condensing
in brooding silence, seem to be thoughtfully examining the forests and
streams with reference to the work that lies before them. At length, all
their plans perfected, tufted flakes and single starry crystals come in
sight, solemnly swirling and glinting to their blessed appointed places;
and soon the busy throng fills the sky and makes darkness like night.
The first heavy fall is usually from about two to four feet in depth
then with intervals of days or weeks of bright weather storm succeeds
storm, heaping snow on snow, until thirty to fifty feet has fallen. But
on account of its settling and compacting, and waste from melting and
evaporation, the average depth actually found at any time seldom exceeds
ten feet in the forest regions, or fifteen feet along the slopes of the
summit peaks. After snow-storms come avalanches, varying greatly in
form, size, behavior and in the songs they sing; some on the smooth
slopes of the mountains are short and broad; others long and river-like
in the side cañons of yosemites and in the main cañons, flowing in
regular channels and booming like waterfalls, while countless smaller
ones fall everywhere from laden trees and rocks and lofty cañon walls.
Most delightful it is to stand in the middle of Yosemite on still clear
mornings after snow-storms and watch the throng of avalanches as they
come down, rejoicing, to their places, whispering, thrilling like birds,
or booming and roaring like thunder. The noble yellow pines stand hushed
and motionless as if under a spell until the morning sunshine begins to
sift through their laden spires; then the dense masses on the ends of
the leafy branches begin to shift and fall, those from the upper
branches striking the lower ones in succession, enveloping each tree in
a hollow conical avalanche of fairy fineness; while the relieved
branches spring up and wave with startling effect in the general
stillness, as if each tree was moving of its own volition. Hundreds of
broad cloud-shaped masses may also be seen, leaping over the brows of
the cliffs from great heights, descending at first with regular
avalanche speed until, worn into dust by friction, they float in front
of the precipices like irised clouds. Those which descend from the brow
of El Capitan are particularly fine; but most of the great Yosemite
avalanches flow in regular channels like cascades and waterfalls. When
the snow first gives way on the upper slopes of their basins, a dull
rushing, rumbling sound is heard which rapidly increases and seems to
draw nearer with appalling intensity of tone. Presently the white flood
comes bounding into sight over bosses and sheer places, leaping from
bench to bench, spreading and narrowing and throwing off clouds of
whirling dust like the spray of foaming cataracts. Compared with
waterfalls and cascades, avalanches are short-lived, few of them lasting
more than a minute or two, and the sharp, clashing sounds so common in
falling water are mostly wanting; but in their low massy thundertones
and purple-tinged whiteness, and in their dress, gait, gestures and
general behavior, they are much alike.
Avalanches
Besides these common after-storm avalanches that are to be found not
only in the Yosemite but in all the deep, sheer-walled cañon of the
Range there are two other important kinds, which may be called annual
and century avalanches, which still further enrich the scenery. The only
place about the Valley where one may be sure to see the annual kind is
on the north slope of Clouds' Rest. They are composed of heavy, compacted
snow, which has been subjected to frequent alternations of freezing and
thawing. They are developed on cañon and mountain-sides at an elevation
of from nine to ten thousand feet, where the slopes are inclined at an
angle too low to shed off the dry winter snow, and which accumulates
until the spring thaws sap their foundations and make them slippery;
then away in grand style go the ponderous icy masses without any fine
snow-dust. Those of Clouds' Rest descend like thunderbolts for more than
a mile.
The great century avalanches and the kind that mow wide swaths through
the upper forests occur on mountain-sides about ten or twelve thousand
feet high, where under ordinary weather conditions the snow accumulated
from winter to winter lies at rest for many years, allowing trees, fifty
to a hundred feet high, to grow undisturbed on the slopes beneath them.
On their way down through the woods they seldom fail to make a perfectly
clean sweep, stripping off the soil as well as the trees, clearing paths
two or three hundred yards wide from the timber line to the glacier
meadows or lakes, and piling their uprooted trees, head downward, in
rows along the sides of the gaps like lateral moraines. Scars and broken
branches of the trees standing on the sides of the gaps record the depth
of the overwhelming flood; and when we come to count the annual
wood-rings on the uprooted trees we learn that some of these immense
avalanches occur only once in a century or even at still wider
intervals.
A Ride On An Avalanche
Few Yosemite visitors ever see snow avalanches and fewer still know the
exhilaration of riding on them. In all my mountaineering I have enjoyed
only one avalanche ride, and the start was so sudden and the end came
so soon I had but little time to think of the danger that attends this
sort of travel, though at such times one thinks fast. One fine Yosemite
morning after a heavy snowfall, being eager to see as many avalanches
as possible and wide views of the forest and summit peaks in their new
white robes before the sunshine had time to change them, I set out early
to climb by a side cañon to the top of a commanding ridge a little over
three thousand feet above the Valley. On account of the looseness of
the snow that blocked the cañon I knew the climb would require a long
time, some three or four hours as I estimated; but it proved far more
difficult than I had anticipated. Most of the way I sank waist deep,
almost out of sight in some places. After spending the whole day to
within half an hour or so of sundown, I was still several hundred feet
below the summit. Then my hopes were reduced to getting up in time to
see the sunset. But I was not to get summit views of any sort that day,
for deep trampling near the cañon head, where the snow was strained,
started an avalanche, and I was swished down to the foot of the cañon
as if by enchantment. The wallowing ascent had taken nearly all day, the
descent only about a minute. When the avalanche started I threw myself
on my back and spread my arms to try to keep from sinking. Fortunately,
though the grade of the cañon is very steep, it is not interrupted by
precipices large enough to cause outbounding or free plunging. On no
part of the rush was I buried. I was only moderately imbedded on the
surface or at times a little below it, and covered with a veil of
back-streaming dust particles; and as the whole mass beneath and about
me joined in the flight there was no friction, though I was tossed here
and there and lurched from side to side. When the avalanche swedged and
came to rest I found myself on top of the crumpled pile without bruise
or scar. This was a fine experience. Hawthorne says somewhere that steam
has spiritualized travel; though unspiritual smells, smoke, etc., still
attend steam travel. This flight in what might be called a milky way of
snow-stars was the most spiritual and exhilarating of all the modes of
motion I have ever experienced. Elijah's flight in a chariot of fire
could hardly have been more gloriously exciting.
The Streams In Other Seasons
In the spring, after all the avalanches are down and the snow is melting
fast, then all the Yosemite streams, from their fountains to their
falls, sing their grandest songs. Countless rills make haste to the
rivers, running and singing soon after sunrise, louder and louder with
increasing volume until sundown; then they gradually fail through the
frosty hours of the night. In this way the volume of the upper branches
of the river is nearly doubled during the day, rising and falling as
regularly as the tides of the sea. Then the Merced overflows its banks,
flooding the meadows, sometimes almost from wall to wall in some places,
beginning to rise towards sundown just when the streams on the fountains
are beginning to diminish, the difference in time of the daily rise and
fall being caused by the distance the upper flood streams have to travel
before reaching the Valley. In the warmest weather they seem fairly to
shout for joy and clash their upleaping waters together like clapping
of hands; racing down the cañons with white manes flying in glorious
exuberance of strength, compelling huge, sleeping boulders to wake up
and join in their dance and song, to swell their exulting chorus.
In early summer, after the flood season, the Yosemite streams are in
their prime, running crystal clear, deep and full but not overflowing
their banks--about as deep through the night as the day, the difference
in volume so marked in spring being now too slight to be noticed. Nearly
all the weather is cloudless and everything is at its brightest--lake,
river, garden and forest with all their life. Most of the plants are in
full flower. The blessed ouzels have built their mossy huts and are now
singing their best songs with the streams.
In tranquil, mellow autumn, when the year's work is about done and
the fruits are ripe, birds and seeds out of their nests, and all the
landscape is glowing like a benevolent countenance, then the streams
are at their lowest ebb, with scarce a memory left of their wild spring
floods. The small tributaries that do not reach back to the lasting
snow fountains of the summit peaks shrink to whispering, tinkling
currents. After the snow is gone from the basins, excepting occasional
thundershowers, they are now fed only by small springs whose waters
are mostly evaporated in passing over miles of warm pavements, and in
feeling their way slowly from pool to pool through the midst of boulders
and sand. Even the main rivers are so low they may easily be forded, and
their grand falls and cascades, now gentle and approachable, have waned
to sheets of embroidery.
Writings of John Muir
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