the john muir exhibit - writings - the_yosemite - chapter 2
The Yosemite
Chapter 2
Winter Storms and Spring Floods
The Bridal Veil and the Upper Yosemite Falls, on account of their height
and exposure, are greatly influenced by winds. The common summer winds
that come up the river cañon from the plains are seldom very strong;
but the north winds do some very wild work, worrying the falls and the
forests, and hanging snow-banners on the comet-peaks. One wild winter
morning I was awakened by storm-wind that was playing with the falls as
if they were mere wisps of mist and making the great pines bow and sing
with glorious enthusiasm. The Valley had been visited a short time
before by a series of fine snow-storms, and the floor and the cliffs and
all the region round about were lavishly adorned with its best winter
jewelry, the air was full of fine snow-dust, and pine branches, tassels
and empty cones were flying in an almost continuous flock.
Soon after sunrise, when I was seeking a place safe from flying
branches, I saw the Lower Yosemite Fall thrashed and pulverized from top
to bottom into one glorious mass of rainbow dust; while a thousand feet
above it the main Upper Fall was suspended on the face of the cliff in
the form of an inverted bow, all silvery white and fringed with short
wavering strips. Then, suddenly assailed by a tremendous blast, the
whole mass of the fall was blown into thread and ribbons, and driven
back over the brow of the cliff whence it came, as if denied admission
to the Valley. This kind of storm-work was continued about ten or
fifteen minutes; then another change in the play of the huge exulting
swirls and billows and upheaving domes of the gale allowed the baffled
fall to gather and arrange its tattered waters, and sink down again in
its place. As the day advanced, the gale gave no sign of dying,
excepting brief lulls, the Valley was filled with its weariless roar,
and the cloudless sky grew garish-white from myriads of minute,
sparkling snow-spicules. In the afternoon, while I watched the Upper
Fall from the shelter of a big pine tree, it was suddenly arrested in
its descent at a point about half-way down, and was neither blown upward
nor driven aside, but simply held stationary in mid-air, as if
gravitation below that point in the path of its descent had ceased to
act. The ponderous flood, weighing hundreds of tons, was sustained,
hovering, hesitating, like a bunch of thistledown, while I counted one
hundred and ninety. All this time the ordinary amount of water was
coming over the cliff and accumulating in the air, swedging and widening
and forming an irregular cone about seven hundred feet high, tapering to
the top of the wall, the whole standing still, jesting on the invisible
arm of the North Wind. At length, as if commanded to go on again, scores
of arrowy comets shot forth from the bottom of the suspended mass as if
escaping from separate outlets.
The brow of El Capitan was decked with long snow-streamers like hair,
Clouds' Rest was fairly enveloped in drifting gossamer elms, and the Half
Dome loomed up in the garish light like a majestic, living creature clad
in the same gauzy, wind-woven drapery, while upward currents meeting at
times overhead made it smoke like a volcano.
An Extraordinary Storm And Flood
Glorious as are these rocks and waters arrayed in storm robes, or
chanting rejoicing in every-day dress, they are still more glorious when
rare weather conditions meet to make them sing with floods. Only once
during all the years I have lived in the Valley have I seen it in full
flood bloom. In 1871 the early winter weather was delightful; the days
all sunshine, the nights all starry and calm, calling forth fine crops
of frost-crystals on the pines and withered ferns and grasses for the
morning sunbeams to sift through. In the afternoon of December 16, when
I was sauntering on the meadows, I noticed a massive crimson cloud
growing in solitary grandeur above the Cathedral Rocks, its form
scarcely less striking than its color. It had a picturesque, bulging
base like an old sequoia, a smooth, tapering stem, and a bossy,
down-curling crown like a mushroom; all its parts were colored alike,
making one mass of translucent crimson. Wondering what the meaning of
that strange, lonely red cloud might be, I was up betimes next morning
looking at the weather, but all seemed tranquil as yet. Towards noon
gray clouds with a lose, curly grain like bird's-eye maple began to
grow, and late at night rain fell, which soon changed to snow. Next
morning the snow on the meadows was about ten inches deep, and it was
still falling in a fine, cordial storm. During the night of the 18th
heavy rain fell on the snow, but as the temperature was 34 degrees, the
snow-line was only a few hundred feet above the bottom of the Valley, and
one had only to climb a little higher than the tops of the pines to get
out of the rain-storm into the snow-storm. The streams, instead of being
increased in volume by the storm, were diminished, because the snow
sponged up part of their waters and choked the smaller tributaries. But
about midnight the temperature suddenly rose to 42°, carrying
the snow-line far beyond the Valley walls, and next morning Yosemite
was rejoicing in a glorious flood. The comparatively warm rain falling
on the snow was at first absorbed and held back, and so also was that
portion of the snow that the rain melted, and all that was melted by the
warm wind, until the whole mass of snow was saturated and became sludgy,
and at length slipped and rushed simultaneously from a thousand slopes
in wildest extravagance, heaping and swelling flood over flood, and
plunging into the Valley in stupendous avalanches.
Awakened by the roar, I looked out and at once recognized the
extraordinary character of the storm. The rain was still pouring in
torrent abundance and the wind at gale speed was doing all it could with
the flood-making rain.
The section of the north wall visible from my cabin was fairly streaked
with new falls--wild roaring singers that seemed strangely out of place.
Eager to get into the midst of the show, I snatched a piece of bread for
breakfast and ran out. The mountain waters, suddenly liberated, seemed
to be holding a grand jubilee. The two Sentinel Cascades rivaled the
great falls at ordinary stages, and across the Valley by the Three
Brothers I caught glimpses of more falls than I could readily count;
while the whole Valley throbbed and trembled, and was filled with an
awful, massive, solemn, sea-like roar. After gazing a while enchanted
with the network of new falls that were adorning and transfiguring every
rock in sight, I tried to reach the upper meadows, where the Valley is
widest, that I might be able to see the walls on both sides, and thus
gain general views. But the river was over its banks and the meadows
were flooded, forming an almost continuous lake dotted with blue sludgy
islands, while innumerable streams roared like lions across my path and
were sweeping forward rocks and logs with tremendous energy over ground
where tiny gilias had been growing but a short time before. Climbing
into the talus slopes, where these savage torrents were broken among
earthquake boulders, I managed to cross them, and force my way up the
Valley to Hutchings' Bridge, where I crossed the river and waded to the
middle of the upper meadow. Here most of the new falls were in sight,
probably the most glorious assemblage of waterfalls ever displayed from
any one standpoint. On that portion of the south wall between Hutchings'
and the Sentinel there were ten falls plunging and booming from a height
of nearly three thousand feet, the smallest of which might have been
heard miles away. In the neighborhood of Glacier Point there were six;
between the Three Brothers and Yosemite Fall, nine; between Yosemite and
Royal Arch Falls, ten; from Washington Column to Mount Watkins, ten; on
the slopes of Half Dome and Clouds' Rest, facing Mirror Lake and Tenaya
Cañon, eight; on the shoulder of Half Dome, facing the Valley, three;
fifty-six new falls occupying the upper end of the Valley, besides a
countless host of silvery threads gleaming everywhere. In all the Valley
there must have been upwards of a hundred. As if celebrating some
great event, falls and cascades in Yosemite costume were coming down
everywhere from fountain basins, far and near; and, though newcomers,
they behaved and sang as if they had lived here always.
All summer-visitors will remember the comet forms of the Yosemite Fall
and the laces of the Bridal Veil and Nevada. In the falls of this
winter jubilee the lace forms predominated, but there was no lack of
thunder-toned comets. The lower portion of one of the Sentinel Cascades
was composed of two main white torrents with the space between them
filled in with chained and beaded gauze of intricate pattern, through
the singing threads of which the purplish-gray rock could be dimly seen.
The series above Glacier Point was still more complicated in structure,
displaying every form that one could imagine water might be dashed and
combed and woven into. Those on the north wall between Washington Column
and the Royal Arch Fall were so nearly related they formed an almost
continuous sheet, and these again were but slightly separated from those
about Indian Cañon. The group about the Three Brothers and El Capitan,
owing to the topography and cleavage of the cliffs back of them, was
more broken and irregular. The Tissiack Cascades were comparatively
small, yet sufficient to give that noblest of mountain rocks a glorious
voice. In the midst of all this extravagant rejoicing the great Yosemite
Fall was scarce heard until about three o'clock in the afternoon. Then I
was startled by a sudden thundering crash as if a rock avalanche had
come to the help of the roaring waters. This was the flood-wave of
Yosemite Creek, which had just arrived delayed by the distance it had to
travel, and by the choking snows of its widespread fountains. Now, with
volume tenfold increased beyond its springtime fullness, it took its
place as leader of the glorious choir.
And the winds, too, were singing in wild accord, playing on every tree
and rock, surging against the huge brows and domes and outstanding
battlements, deflected hither and thither and broken into a thousand
cascading, roaring currents in the cañons, and low bass, drumming
swirls in the hollows. And these again, reacting on the clouds, eroded
immense cavernous spaces in their gray depths and swept forward the
resulting detritus in ragged trains like the moraines of glaciers. These
cloud movements in turn published the work of the winds, giving them
a visible body, and enabling us to trace them. As if endowed with
independent motion, a detached cloud would rise hastily to the very top
of the wall as if on some important errand, examining the faces of the
cliffs, and then perhaps as suddenly descend to sweep imposingly along
the meadows, trailing its draggled fringes through the pines, fondling
the waving spires with infinite gentleness, or, gliding behind a grove
or a single tree, bringing it into striking relief, as it bowed and
waved in solemn rhythm. Sometimes, as the busy clouds drooped and
condensed or dissolved to misty gauze, half of the Valley would be
suddenly veiled, leaving here and there some lofty headland cut off from
all visible connection with the walls, looming alone, dim, spectral, as
if belonging to the sky--visitors, like the new falls, come to take part
in the glorious festival. Thus for two days and nights in measureless
extravagance the storm went on, and mostly without spectators, at least
of a terrestrial kind. I saw nobody out--bird, bear, squirrel, or man.
Tourists had vanished months before, and the hotel people and laborers
were out of sight, careful about getting cold, and satisfied with views
from windows. The bears, I suppose, were in their cañon-boulder dens,
the squirrels in their knot-hole nests, the grouse in close fir groves,
and the small singers in the Indian Cañon chaparral, trying to keep
warm and dry. Strange to say, I did not see even the water-ouzels,
though they must have greatly enjoyed the storm.
This was the most sublime waterfall flood I ever saw--clouds, winds,
rocks, waters, throbbing together as one. And then to contemplate what
was going on simultaneously with all this in other mountain temples; the
Big Tuolumne Cañon--how the white waters and the winds were singing
there! And in Hetch Hetchy Valley and the great King's River yosemite,
and in all the other Sierra cañons and valleys from Shasta to the
southernmost fountains of the Kern, thousands of rejoicing flood
waterfalls chanting together in jubilee dress.
Writings of John Muir
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