The Yosemite | Page 2

my wanderings still
appears as the most beautiful I have ever beheld. At my feet lay the
Great Central Valley of California, level and flowery, like a lake of
pure sunshine, forty or fifty miles wide, five hundred miles long, one
rich furred garden of yellow Compositoe. And from the eastern
boundary of this vast golden flower-bed rose the mighty Sierra, miles
in height, and so gloriously colored and so radiant, it seemed not
clothed with light, but wholly composed of it, like the wall of some
celestial city. Along the top and extending a good way down, was a
rich pearl-gray belt of snow; below it a belt of blue and lark purple,
marking the extension of the forests; and stretching long the base of the
range a broad belt of rose-purple; all these colors, from the blue sky to
the yellow valley smoothly blending as they do in a rainbow, making a
wall of light ineffably fine. Then it seemed to me that the Sierra should
be called, not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light.
And after ten years of wandering and wondering in the heart of it,
rejoicing in its glorious floods of light, the white beams of the morning
streaming through the passes, the noonday radiance on the crystal rocks,
the flush of the alpenglow, and the irised spray of countless waterfalls,
it still seems above all others the Range of Light.
In general views no mark of man is visible upon it, nor any thing to
suggest the wonderful depth and grandeur of its sculpture. None of its
magnificent forest-crowned ridges seems to rise mud above the general
level to publish its wealth. No great valley or river is seen, or group of

well-marked features of any kind standing out as distinct pictures. Even
the summit peaks, marshaled in glorious array so high in the sky, seem
comparatively regular in form. Nevertheless the whole range five
hundred miles long is furrowed with canyons 2000 to 5000 feet deep,
in which once flowed majestic glaciers, and in which now flow and
sing the bright rejoicing rivers.
Characteristics Of The Canyons
Though of such stupendous depth, these canyons are not gloom gorges,
savage and inaccessible. With rough passages here and there they are
flowery pathways conducting to the snowy, icy fountains; mountain
streets full of life and light, graded and sculptured by the ancient
glaciers, and presenting throughout all their course a rich variety of
novel and attractive scenery--the most attractive that has yet been
discovered in the mountain ranges of the world. In many places,
especially in the middle region of the western flank, the main canyons
widen into spacious valleys or parks diversified like landscape gardens
with meadows and groves and thickets of blooming bushes, while the
lofty walls, infinitely varied in form are fringed with ferns, flowering
plants, shrubs of many species and tall evergreens and oaks that find
footholds on small benches and tables, all enlivened and made glorious
with rejoicing stream that come chanting in chorus over the cliffs and
through side canyons in falls of every conceivable form, to join the
river that flow in tranquil, shining beauty down the middle of each one
of them.
The Incomparable Yosemite
The most famous and accessible of these canyon valleys, and also the
one that presents their most striking and sublime features on the
grandest scale, is the Yosemite, situated in the basin of the Merced
River at an elevation of 4000 feet above the level of the sea. It is about
seven miles long, half a mile to a mile wide, and nearly a mile deep in
the solid granite flank of the range. The walls are made up of rocks,
mountains in size, partly separated from each other by side canyons,
and they are so sheer in front, and so compactly and harmoniously
arranged on a level floor, that the Valley, comprehensively seen, looks

like an immense hall or temple lighted from above.
But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every
rock in its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic
repose; others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet,
advance beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes, giving
welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly aware, yet heedless, of
everything going on about them. Awful in stern, immovable majesty,
how softly these rocks are adorned, and how fine and reassuring the
company they keep: their feet among beautiful groves and meadows,
their brows in the sky, a thousand flowers leaning confidingly against
their feet, bathed in floods of water, floods of light, while the snow and
waterfalls, the winds and avalanches and clouds shine and sing and
wreathe about them as the years go by, and myriads of small winged