Our National Parks - Chapters VII-VIII



CHAPTER VII
AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE

Travelers in the Sierra forests usually complain of the want of life. "The 
trees," they say, "are fine, but the empty stillness is deadly; there are 
no animals to be seen, no birds. We have not heard a song in all the 
woods." And no wonder! They go in large parties with mules and horses; 
they make a great noise; they are dressed in outlandish unnatural colors; 
every animal shuns them. Even the frightened pines would run away if they 
could. But Nature-lovers, devout, silent, open-eyed, looking and listening 
with love, find no lack of inhabitants in these mountain mansions, and 
they come to them gladly. Not to mention the large animals or the small 
insect people, every waterfall has its ouzel and every tree its squirrel 
or tamias or bird: tiny nuthatch threading the furrows of the bark, 
sheerily whispering to itself as it deftly pries off loose scales and 
examines the curled edges of lichens; or Clarke crow or jay examining the 
cones; or some singer--oriole, tanager, warbler--resting, feeding, 
attending to domestic affairs. 

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Hawks and eagles sail overhead, grouse walk in happy flocks below, and 
song sparrows sing in every bed of chaparral. There is no crowding, to be 
sure. Unlike the low Eastern trees, those of the Sierra in the main forest 
belt average nearly two hundred feet in height, and of course many birds 
are required to make much show in them, and many voices to fill them. 
Nevertheless, the whole range, from foothills to snowy summits, is shaken 
into song every summer; and though low and thin in winter, the music never 
ceases.

The sage cock (Centrocercus urophasianus) is the largest of the Sierra 
game-birds and the king of American grouse. It is admirably strong, hardy, 
handsome, independent bird, able with comfort to bid defiance to heat, 
cold, drought, hunger, and all sorts of storms, living on whatever seeds 
or insects chance to come in its way, or simply on the leaves of sage-
brush, everywhere abundant on its desert range. In winter, when the 
temperature is oftentimes below zero, and heavy snowstorms are blowing, he 
sits beneath a sage bush and allows himself to be covered, poking his head 
now and then through the snow to feed on the leaves of his shelter. Not 
even the Arctic ptarmigan is hardier in braving frost and snow and wintry 
darkness. When in full plumage he is a beautiful bird, with a long, firm, 
sharp-pointed tail, which in walking is slightly raised and swings 
sidewise back and 

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forth with each step. The male is handsomely marked with black and white 
on the neck, back, and wings, weighs five or six pounds, and measures 
about thirty inches in length. The female is clad mostly in plain brown, 
and is not so large. They occasionally wander from the sage plains into 
the open nut-pine and juniper woods, but never enter the main coniferous 
forest. It is only in the broad, dry, half-desert sage plains that they 
are quite at home, where the weather is blazing hot in summer, cold in 
winter. If any one passes through a flock, all squat on the gray ground 
and hold their heads low, hoping to escape observation; but when 
approached within a rod or so, they rise with a magnificent burst of wing-
beats, looking about as big as turkeys and making a noise like a whirlwind.

On the 28th of June, at the head of Owen's Valley, I caught one of the 
young that was then just able to fly. It was seven inches long, of a 
uniform gray color blunt-billed, and when captured cried lustily in a 
shrill piping voice, clear in tone as a boy's small willow whistle. I have 
seen flocks of from ten to thirty or forty on the east margin of the Park, 
where the Mono Desert meets the gray foothills of the Sierra; but since 
cattle have been pastured there they are becoming rarer every year.

Another magnificent bird, the blue or dusky grouse, next in size to the 
sage cock, is found all 

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through the main forest belt, though not in great numbers. They like best 
the heaviest silver-fir woods near garden and meadow openings, where there 
is but little underbrush to cover the approach of enemies. When a flock of 
these brave birds, sauntering and feeding on the sunny, flowery levels of 
some hidden meadow or Yosemite valley far back in the heart of the 
mountains, see a man for the first time in their lives, they rise with 
hurried notes of surprise and excitement and alight on the lowest branches 
of the trees, wondering what the wanderer may be, and showing great 
eagerness to get a good view of the strange vertical animal. Knowing 
nothing of guns, they allow you to approach within a half dozen paces, 
then quietly hop a few branches higher or fly to the next tree without a 
thought of concealment, so that you may observe them as long as you like, 
near enough to see the fine shading of their plumage, the feathers on 
their toes, and the innocent wonderment in their beautiful wild eyes. But 
in the neighborhood of roads and trails they soon become shy, and when 
disturbed fly into the highest, leafiest trees, and suddenly become 
invisible, so well do they know how to hide and keep still and make use of 
their protective coloring. Nor can they be easily dislodged ere they are 
ready to go. In vain the hunter goes round and round some tall pine or fir 
into which he has perhaps seen a dozen enter, 

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gazing up through the branches, straining his eyes while his gun is held 
ready; not a feather can he see unless his eyes have been sharpened by 
long experience and knowledge of the blue grouse's habits. Then, perhaps, 
when he is thinking that the tree must be hollow and that the birds have 
all gone inside, they burst forth with a startling whir of wing-beats, and 
after gaining full speed go skating swiftly away through the forest arches 
in a long, silent, wavering slide, with wings held steady.

During the summer they are most of the time on the ground, feeding on 
insects, seeds, berries, etc., around the margins of open spots and rocky 
moraines, playing and sauntering, taking sun baths and sand baths, and 
drinking at little pools and rills during the heat of the day. In winter 
they live mostly in the trees, depending on buds for food, sheltering 
beneath dense overlapping branches at night and during storms on the 
leeside of the trunk, sunning themselves on the southside limbs in fine 
weather, and sometimes diving into the mealy snow to flutter and wallow, 
apparently for exercise and fun.

I have seen young broods running beneath the firs in June at a height of 
eight thousand feet above the sea. On the approach of danger, the mother 
with a peculiar cry warns the helpless midgets to scatter and hide beneath 
leaves and twigs, and even in plain open places it is almost 

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impossible to discover them. In the meantime the mother feigns lameness, 
throws herself at your feet, kicks and gasps and flutters, to draw your 
attention from the chicks. The young are generally able to fly about the 
middle of July; but even after they can fly well they are usually advised 
to run and hide and lie still, no matter how closely approached, while the 
mother goes on with her loving, lying acting, apparently as desperately 
concerned for their safety as when they were featherless infants. 
Sometimes, however, after carefully studying the circumstances, she tells 
them to take wing; and up and away in a blurry birr and whir they scatter 
to all points of the compass, as if blown up with gunpowder, dropping 
cunningly out of sight three or four hundred yards off, and keeping quiet 
until called, after the danger is supposed to be past. If you walk on a 
little way without manifesting any inclination to hunt them, you may sit 
down at the foot of a tree near enough to see and hear the happy reunion. 
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin; and it is truly wonderful 
how love-telling the small voices of these birds are, and how far they 
reach through the woods into one another's hearts and into ours. The tones 
are so perfectly human and so full of anxious affection, few mountaineers 
can fail to be touched by them.

The are cared for until full grown. On the 

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20th of August, as I was passing along the margin of a garden spot on the 
head-waters of the San Joaquin, a grouse rose from the ruins of an old 
juniper that had been uprooted and brought down by an avalanche from a 
cliff overhead. She threw herself at my feet, limped and fluttered and 
gasped, showing, as I thought, that she had a nest and was raising a 
second brood. Looking for the eggs, I was surprised to see a strong-winged 
flock nearly as large as the mother fly up around me.

Instead of seeking a warmer climate when the winter storms set in, these 
hardy birds stay all the year in the high Sierra forests, and I have never 
known them to suffer in any sort of weather. Able to live on the buds of 
pine, spruce, and fir, they are forever independent in the matter of food 
supply, which gives so many of us trouble, dragging us here and there away 
from our best work. How gladly I would live on pine buds, however pitchy, 
for the sake of this grand independence! With all his superior resources, 
man makes more distracting difficulty concerning food than any other of 
the family.

The mountain quail, or plumed partridge (Oreortyx pictus plumiferus) is 
common in all the upper portions of the Park, though nowhere in numbers. 
He ranges considerably higher than the grouse in summer, but is unable to 
endure the heavy storms of winter. When his food is 

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buried. he descends the range to the brushy foothills, at a height of from 
two to three thousand feet above sea; but like every true mountaineer, he 
is quick to follow the spring back into the highest mountains. I think he 
is the very handsomest and most interesting of all the American 
partridges, larger and handsomer than the famous Bob White, or even the 
fine California valley quail, or the Massena partridge of Arizona and 
Mexico. That he is not so regarded, is because as a lonely mountaineer he 
is not half known.

His plumage is delicately shaded, brown above, white and rich chestnut 
below and on the sides, with many dainty markings of black and white and 
gray here and there, while his beautiful head plume, three or four inches 
long, nearly straight, composed of two feathers closely folded so as to 
appear as one, is worn jauntily slanted backward like a single feather in 
a boy's cap, giving him a very marked appearance. They wander over the 
lonely mountains in family flocks of from six to fifteen, beneath 
ceanothus, manzanita, and wild cherry thickets, and over dry sandy flats, 
glacier meadows, rocky ridges, and beds of Bryanthus around glacier lakes, 
especially in autumn, when the berries of the upper gardens are ripe, 
uttering low clucking notes to enable them to keep together. When they are 
so suddenly disturbed that they are 

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afraid they cannot escape the danger by running into thickets, they rise 
with a fine hearty whir and scatter in the brush over an area of half a 
square mile or so, a few of them diving into leafy trees. But as soon as 
the danger is past, the parents with a clear piping note call them 
together again. By the end of July the young are two thirds grown and fly 
well, though only dire necessity can compel them to try their wings. In 
gait, gestures, habits, and general behavior they are like domestic 
chickens, but infinitely finer, searching for insects and seeds, looking 
to this side and that, scratching among fallen leaves, jumping up to pull 
down grass heads, and clucking and muttering in low tones.

Once when I was seated at the foot of a tree on the head-waters of the 
Merced, sketching, I heard a flock up the valley behind me, and by their 
voices gradually sounding nearer I knew that they were feeding toward me. 
I kept still, hoping to see them. Soon one came within three or four feet 
of me, without noticing me any more than if I were a stump or a bulging 
part of the trunk against which I was leaning, my clothing being brown, 
nearly like the bark. Presently along came another and another, and it was 
delightful to get so near a view of these handsome chickens perfectly 
undisturbed, observe their manners, and hear their low peaceful notes. At 
last one of them caught my eye, 

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gazed in silent wonder for a moment, then uttered a peculiar cry, which 
was followed by a lot of hurried muttered notes that sounded like speech. 
The others, of course, saw me as soon as the alarm was sounded, and joined 
the wonder talk, gazing and chattering, astonished but not frightened. 
Then all with one accord ran back with the news to the rest of the flock. 
"What is it? what is it? Oh, you never saw the like," they seemed to be 
saying. "Not a deer, or a wolf, or a bear; come see, come see." "Where? 
where? "Down there by that tree." Then they approached cautiously, past 
the tree, stretching their necks, and looking up in turn as if knowing 
from the story told them just where I was. For fifteen or twenty minutes 
they kept coming and going, venturing within a few feet of me, and 
discussing the wonder in charming chatter. Their curiosity at last 
satisfied, they began to scatter and feed again, going back in the 
direction they had come from; while I, loath to part with them, followed 
noiselessly, crawling beneath the bushes, keeping them in sight for an 
hour or two, learning their habits, and finding out what seeds and berries 
they like best.

The valley quail is not a mountaineer, and seldom enters the Park except 
at a few of the lowest places on the western boundary. It belongs to the 
brushy foothills and plains, orchards 

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and wheatfields, and is a hundred times more numerous than the mountain 
quail. It is a beautiful bird, about the size of the Bob White, and has a 
handsome crest of four or five feathers an inch long, recurved, standing 
nearly erect at times or drooping forward. The loud calls of these quails 
in the spring--Pe-check-ah, Pe-check-a, Hoy, Hoy--are heard far and near 
over all the lowlands. They have vastly increased in numbers since the 
settlement of the country, notwithstanding the immense numbers killed 
every season by boys and pot-hunters as well as the regular leggined 
sportsmen from the towns; for man's destructive action is more than 
counterbalanced by increased supply of food from cultivation, and by the 
destruction of their enemies--coyotes, skunks, foxes, hawks, owls, etc.--
which not only kill the old birds, but plunder their nests. Where coyotes 
and skunks abound, scarce one pair in a hundred is successful in raising a 
brood. So well aware are these birds of the protection afforded by man, 
even now that the number of their wild enemies has been greatly 
diminished, that they prefer to nest near houses, notwithstanding they are 
so shy. Four or five pairs rear their young around our cottage every 
spring. One year a pair nested in a straw pile within four or five feet of 
the stable door, and did not leave the eggs when the men led the horses 
back and forth within a foot or two. For 

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many seasons a pair nested in a tuft of pampas grass in the garden; 
another pair in an ivy vine on the cottage roof, and when the young were 
hatched, it was interesting to see the parents getting the fluffy dots 
down. They were greatly excited, and their anxious calls and directions to 
their many babes attracted our attention. They had no great difficulty in 
persuading the young birds to pitch themselves from the main roof to the 
porch roof among the ivy, but to get them safely down from the latter to 
the ground, a distance of ten feet, was most distressing. It seemed 
impossible the frail soft things could avoid being killed. The anxious 
parents led them to a point above a spiræa bush, that reached nearly to 
the eaves, which they seemed to know would break the fall. Anyhow they led 
their chicks to this point, and with infinite coaxing and encouragement 
got them to tumble themselves off. Down they rolled and sifted through the 
soft leaves and panicles to the pavement, and, strange to say, all got 
away unhurt except one that lay as if dead for a few minutes. When it 
revived, the joyful parents, with their brood fairly launched on the 
journey of life, proudly led them down the cottage hill, through the 
garden, and along an osage orange hedge into the cherry orchard. These 
charming birds even enter towns and villages, where the gardens are of 
good size and guns are forbidden, sometimes 

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going several miles to feed, and returning every evening to their roosts 
in ivy or brushy trees and shrubs.

Geese occasionally visit the Park, but never stay long. Sometimes on their 
way across the range, a flock wanders into Hetch-Hetchy or Yosemite to 
rest or get something to eat, and if shot at, are often sorely bewildered 
in seeking a way out. I have seen them rise from the meadow or river, 
wheel round in a spiral until a height of four or five hundred feet was 
reached, then form ranks and try to fly over the wall. But Yosemite 
magnitudes seem to be as deceptive to geese as to men, for they would 
suddenly find themselves against the cliffs not a fourth of the way to the 
top. Then turning in confusion, and screaming at the strange heights, they 
would try the opposite side, and so until exhausted they were compelled to 
rest, and only after discovering the river cañon could they make their 
escape. Large, harrow-shaped flocks may often be seen crossing the range 
in the spring, at a height of at least fourteen thousand feet. Think of 
the strength of wing required to sustain so heavy a bird in air so thin. 
At this elevation it is but little over half as dense as at the sea level. 
Yet they hold bravely on in beautifully dressed ranks, and have breath 
enough to spare for loud honking. After the crest of the Sierra is passed 
it is only a smooth slide down the sky to 

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the waters of Mono, where they may rest as long as they like.

Ducks of five or six species, among which are the mallard and wood duck, 
go far up into the heart of the mountains in the spring, and of course 
come down in the fall with the families they have reared. A few, as if 
loath to leave the mountains, pass the winter in the lower valleys of the 
Park at a height of three thousand to four thousand feet, where the main 
streams are never wholly frozen over, and snow never falls to a great 
depth or lies long. In summer they are found up to a height of eleven 
thousand feet on all the lakes and branches of the rivers except the 
smallest, and those beside the glaciers incumbered with drifting ice and 
snow. I found mallards and wood ducks at Lake Tenaya, June 1, before the 
ice-covering was half melted, and a flock of young ones in Bloody Cañon 
Lake, June 20. They are usually met in pairs, never in large flocks. No 
place is too wild or rocky or solitary for these brave swimmers, no stream 
too rapid. In the roaring, resounding cañon torrents, they seem as much at 
home as in the tranquil reaches and lakes of the broad glacial valleys. 
Abandoning themselves to the wild play of the waters, they go drifting 
confidingly through blinding, thrashing spray, dancing on boulder-dashed 
waves, tossing in beautiful security on rougher water than is usually 
encountered by sea birds when storms are blowing.

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A mother duck with her family of ten little ones, waltzing round and round 
in a pot-hole ornamented with foam bells, huge rocks leaning over them, 
cascades above and below and beside them, made one of the most interesting 
bird pictures I ever saw.

I have never found the great northern diver in the Park lakes. Most of 
them are inaccessible to him. He might plump down into them, but would 
hardly be able to get out of them, since, with his small wings and heavy 
body, a wide expanse of elbow room is required in rising. Now and then one 
may be seen in the lower Sierra lakes to the northward about Lassens Butte 
and Shasta, at a height of four thousand to five thousand feet, making the 
loneliest places lonelier with the wildest of wild cries.

Plovers are found along the sandy shores of nearly all the mountain lakes, 
tripping daintily on the water's edge, picking up insects; and it is 
interesting to learn how few of these familiar birds are required to make 
a solitude cheerful.

Sandhill cranes are sometimes found in comparatively small marshes, mere 
dots in the mighty forest. In such spots, at an elevation of from six 
thousand to eight thousand feet above the sea, they are occasionally met 
in pairs as early as the end of May, while the snow is still deep in the 
surrounding fir and sugar-pine woods. And on sunny days in autumn, large 

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flocks may be seen sailing at a great height above the forests, shaking 
the crisp air into rolling waves with their hearty koor-r-r, koor-r-r, uck-
uck, soaring in circles for hours together on their majestic wings, 
seeming to float without effort like clouds, eying the wrinkled landscape 
outspread like a map mottled with lakes and glaciers and meadows and 
streaked with shadowy cañons and streams, and surveying every frog marsh 
and sandy flat within a hundred miles.

Eagles and hawks are oftentimes seen above the ridges and domes. The 
greatest height at which I have observed them was about twelve thousand 
feet, over the summits of Mount Hoffman, in the middle region of the Park. 
A few pairs had their nests on the cliffs of this mountain, and could be 
seen every day in summer, hunting marmots, mountain beavers, pikas, etc. A 
pair of golden eagles have made their home in Yosemite ever since I went 
there thirty years ago. Their nest is on the Nevada Fall Cliff, opposite 
the Liberty Cap. Their screams are rather pleasant to hear in the vast 
gulfs between the granite cliffs, and they help the owls in keeping the 
echoes busy.

But of all the birds of the high Sierra, the strangest, noisiest, and most 
notable is the Clarke crow (Nucifraga columbiana). He is a foot long and 
nearly two feet in extent of wing, ashy gray in general color, with black 
wings, white 

[image caption: YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK FROM GLACIER POINT]

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tail, and a strong, sharp bill, with which he digs into the pine cones for 
the seeds on which he mainly subsists. He is quick, boisterous, jerky, and 
irregular in his movements and speech, and makes a tremendously loud and 
showy advertisement of himself,--swooping and diving in deep curves across 
gorges and valleys from ridge to ridge, alighting on dead spars, looking 
warily about him, and leaving his dry springy perches, trembling from the 
vigor of his kick as he launches himself for a new flight, screaming from 
time to time loud enough to be heard more than a mile in still weather. He 
dwells far back on the high stormbeaten margin of the forest, where the 
mountain pine, juniper, and hemlock grow wide apart on glacier pavements 
and domes and rough crumbling ridges, and the dwarf pine makes a low 
crinkled growth along the flanks of the Summit peaks. In so open a region, 
of course, he is well seen. Everybody notices him, and nobody at first 
knows what to make of him. One guesses he must be a woodpecker; another a 
crow or some sort of jay, another a magpie. He seems to be a pretty 
thoroughly mixed and fermented compound of all these birds, has all their 
strength, cunning, shyness, thievishness, and wary, suspicious curiosity 
combined and condensed. He flies like a woodpecker, hammers dead limbs for 
insects, digs big holes in pine cones to get at the seeds, cracks nuts 
held between 

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his toes, cries like a crow or Stellar jay,--but in a far louder, harsher, 
and more forbidding tone of voice,--and besides his crow caws and screams, 
has a great variety of small chatter talk, mostly uttered in a fault-
finding tone. Like the magpie, he steals articles that can be of no use to 
him. Once when I made my camp in a grove at Cathedral Lake, I chanced to 
leave a cake of soap on the shore where I had been washing, and a few 
minutes afterward I saw my soap flying past me through the grove, pushed 
by a Clarke crow.

In winter, when the snow is deep, the cones of the mountain pines are 
empty, and the juniper, hemlock, and dwarf pine orchard buried, he comes 
down to glean seeds in the yellow pine forests, startling the grouse with 
his loud screams. But even in winter, in calm weather, he stays in his 
high mountain home, defying the bitter frost. Once I lay snowbound through 
a three days' storm at the timber-line on Mount Shasta; and while the 
roaring snow-laden blast swept by, one of these brave birds came to my 
camp, and began hammering at the cones on the topmost branches of half-
buried pines, without showing the slightest distress. I have seen Clarke 
crows feeding their young as early as June 19, at a height of more than 
ten thousand feet, when nearly the whole landscape was snow-covered.

They are excessively shy, and keep away from 

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the traveler as long as they think they are observed; but when one goes on 
without seeming to notice them, or sits down and keeps still, their 
curiosity speedily gets the better of their caution, and they come flying 
from tree to tree, nearer and nearer, and watch every motion. Few, I am 
afraid, will ever learn to like this bird, he is so suspicious and self-
reliant, and his voice is so harsh that to most ears the scream of the 
eagle will seem melodious compared with it. Yet the mountaineer who has 
battled and suffered and struggled must admire his strength and 
endurance,--the way he faces the mountain weather, cleaves the icy blasts, 
cares for his young, and digs a living from the stern wilderness.

Higher yet than Nucifraga dwells the little dun-headed sparrow 
(Leucosticte tephrocotis). From early spring to late autumn he is to be 
found only on the snowy, icy peaks at the head of the glacier cirques and 
cañons. His feeding grounds in spring are the snow sheets between the 
peaks, and in midsummer and autumn the glaciers. Many bold insects go 
mountaineering almost as soon as they are born, ascending the highest 
summits on the mild breezes that blow in from the sea every day during 
steady weather; but comparatively few of these adventurers find their way 
down or see a flower bed again. Getting tired and chilly, they alight on 
the snow fields and glaciers, attracted perhaps by the 

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glare, take cold, and die. There they lie as if on a white cloth purposely 
outspread for them, and the dun sparrows find them a rich and varied 
repast requiring no pursuit,--bees and butterflies on ice, and many spicy 
beetles, a perpetual feast, on tables big for guests so small, and in vast 
banqueting halls ventilated by cool breezes that ruffle the feathers of 
the fairy brownies. Happy fellows, no rivals come to dispute possession 
with them. No other birds, not even hawks, as far as I have noticed, live 
so high. They see people so seldom, they flutter around the explorer with 
the liveliest curiosity, and come down a little way, sometimes nearly a 
mile, to meet him and conduct him into their icy homes.

When I was exploring the Merced group, climbing up the grand cañon between 
the Merced and Red mountains into the fountain amphi-theatre of an ancient 
glacier, just as I was approaching the small active glacier that leans 
back in the shadow of Merced Mountain, a flock of twenty or thirty of 
these little birds, the first I had seen, came down the cañon to meet me, 
flying low, straight toward me as if they meant to fly in my face. Instead 
of attacking me or passing by, they circled round my head, chirping and 
fluttering for a minute or two, then turned and escorted me up the cañon, 
alighting on the nearest rocks on either hand, and flying ahead a few 
yards at a time to keep even with me.

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I have not discovered their winter quarters. Probably they are in the 
desert ranges to the eastward, for I never saw any of them in Yosemite, 
the winter refuge of so many of the mountain birds.

Humming-birds are among the best and most conspicuous of the mountaineers, 
flashing their ruby throats in countless wild gardens far up the higher 
slopes, where they would be least expected. All one has to do to enjoy the 
company of these mountain-loving midgets is to display a showy blanket or 
handkerchief.

The arctic bluebird is another delightful mountaineer, singing a wild, 
cheery song and "carrying the sky on his back" over all the gray ridges 
and domes of the subalpine region.

A fine, hearty, good-natured lot of woodpeckers dwell in the Park, and 
keep it lively all the year round. Among the most notable of these are the 
magnificent log cock (Ceophloeus pileatus), the prince of Sierra 
woodpeckers, and only second in rank, as far as I know, of all the 
woodpeckers of the world; the Lewis woodpecker, large, black, glossy, that 
flaps and flies like a crow, does but little hammering, and feeds in great 
part on wild cherries and berries; and the carpenter, who stores up great 
quantities of acorns in the bark of trees for winter use. The last-named 
species is a beautiful bird, and far more common than the others. In the 
woods 

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of the West he represents the Eastern red-head. Bright, cheerful, 
industrious, not in the least shy, the carpenters give delightful 
animation to the open Sierra forests at a height of from three thousand to 
fifty-five hundred feet, especially in autumn, when the acorns are ripe. 
Then no squirrel works harder at his pine-nut harvest than these 
woodpeckers at their acorn harvest, drilling holes in the thick, corky 
bark of the yellow pine and incense cedar, in which to store the crop for 
winter use,--a hole for each acorn, so nicely adjusted as to size that 
when the acorn, point foremost, is driven in, it fits so well that it 
cannot be drawn out without digging around it. Each acorn is thus 
carefully stored in a dry bin, perfectly protected from the weather,--a 
most laborious method of stowing away a crop, a granary for each kernel. 
Yet the birds seem never to weary at the work, but go on so diligently 
that they seem determined to save every acorn in the grove. They are never 
seen eating acorns at the time they are storing them, and it is commonly 
believed that they never eat them or intend to eat them, but that the wise 
birds store them and protect them from the depredations of squirrels and 
jays, solely for the sake of the worms they are supposed to contain. And 
because these worms are too small for use at the time the acorns drop, 
they are shut up like lean calves and steers, each in a 

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separate stall with abundance of food, to grow big and fat by the time 
they will be most wanted, that is, in winter, when insects are scarce and 
stall-fed worms most valuable. So these woodpeckers are supposed to be a 
sort of cattle-raisers, each with a drove of thousands, rivaling the ants 
that raise grain and keep herds of plant lice for milk cows. Needless to 
say the story is not true, though some naturalists, even, believe it. When 
Emerson was in the Park, having heard the worm story and seen the great 
pines plugged full of acorns, he asked (just to pump me, I suppose), "Why 
do the woodpeckers take the trouble to put acorns into the bark of the 
trees?" "For the same reason," I replied, "that bees store honey and 
squirrels nuts." "But they tell me, Mr. Muir, that woodpeckers don't eat 
acorns." "Yes, they do," I said, "I have seen them eating them. During 
snowstorms they seem to eat little besides acorns. I have repeatedly 
interrupted them at their meals, and seen the perfectly sound, half-eaten 
acorns. They eat them in the shell as some people eat eggs." "But what 
about the worms?" "I suppose," I said, "that when they come to a wormy one 
they eat both worm and acorn. Anyhow, they eat the sound ones when they 
can't find anything they like better, and from the time they store them 
until they are used they guard them, and woe to the squirrel or jay 

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caught stealing." Indians, in times of scarcity, frequently resort to 
these stores and chop them out with hatchets; a bushel or more may be 
gathered from a single cedar or pine.

The common robin, with all his familiar notes and gestures, is found 
nearly everywhere throughout the Park,--in shady dells beneath dogwoods 
and maples, along the flowery banks of the streams, tripping daintily 
about the margins of meadows in the fir and pine woods, and far beyond on 
the shores of glacier lakes and the slopes of the peaks. How admirable the 
constitution and temper of this cheery, graceful bird, keeping glad health 
over so vast and varied a range. In all America he is at home, flying from 
plains to mountains, up and down, north and south, away and back, with the 
seasons and supply of food. Oftentimes in the High Sierra, as you wander 
through the solemn woods, awestricken and silent, you will hear the 
reassuring voice of this fellow wanderer ringing out sweet and clear as if 
saying, "Fear not, fear not. Only love is here." In the severest solitudes 
he seems as happy as in gardens and apple orchards.

The robins enter the Park as soon as the snow melts, and go on up the 
mountains, gradually higher, with the opening flowers, until the topmost 
glacier meadows are reached in June and July. After the short summer is 
done, they 

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descend like most other summer visitors in concord with the weather, 
keeping out of the first heavy snows as much as possible, while lingering 
among the frost-nipped wild cherries on the slopes just below the glacier 
meadows. Thence they go to the lower slopes of the forest region, 
compelled to make haste at times by heavy all-day storms, picking up seeds 
or benumbed insects by the way; and at last all, save a few that winter in 
Yosemite valleys, arrive in the vineyards and orchards and stubble-fields 
of the lowlands in November, picking up fallen fruit and grain, and 
awakening old-time memories among the white-headed pioneers, who cannot 
fail to recognize the influence of so homelike a bird. They are then in 
flocks of hundreds, and make their way into the gardens of towns as well 
as into the parks and fields and orchards about the bay of San Francisco, 
where many of the wanderers are shot for sport and the morsel of meat on 
their breasts. Man then seems a beast of prey. Not even genuine piety can 
make the robin-killer quite respectable. Saturday is the great slaughter 
day in the bay region. Then the city pot-hunters, with a rag-tag of boys, 
go forth to kill, kept in countenance by a sprinkling of regular sportsmen 
arrayed in self-conscious majesty and leggins, leading dogs and carrying 
hammerless, breech-loading guns of famous makers. Over the fine landscapes 
the killing 

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goes forward with shameful enthusiasm. After escaping countless dangers, 
thousands fall, big bagfuls are gathered, many are left wounded to die 
slowly, no Red Cross Society to help them. Next day, Sunday, the blood and 
leggins vanish from the most devout of the bird-butchers, who go to 
church, carrying gold-headed canes instead of guns. After hymns, prayers, 
and sermon they go home to feast, to put God's song birds to use, put them 
in their dinners instead of in their hearts, eat them, and suck the 
pitiful little drumsticks. It is only race living on race, to be sure, but 
Christians singing Divine Love need not be driven to such straits while 
wheat and apples grow and the shops are full of dead cattle. Song birds 
for food! Compared with this, making kindlings of pianos and violins would 
be pious economy.

The larks come in large flocks from the hills and mountains in the fall, 
and are slaughtered as ruthlessly as the robins. Fortunately, most of our 
song birds keep back in leafy hidings, and are comparatively inaccessible.

The water ouzel, in his rocky home amid foaming waters, seldom sees a gun, 
and of all the singers I like him the best. He is a plainly dressed little 
bird, about the size of a robin, with short, crisp, but rather broad 
wings, and a tail of moderate length, slanted up, giving him, with his 
nodding, bobbing manners, a wrennish look. 

Page 239

He is usually seen fluttering about in the spray of falls and the rapid 
cascading portions of the main branches of the rivers. These are his 
favorite haunts; but he is often seen also on comparatively level reaches 
and occasionally on the shores of mountain lakes, especially at the 
beginning of winter, when heavy snowfalls have blurred the streams with 
sludge. Though not a water-bird in structure, he gets his living in the 
water, and is never seen away from the immediate margin of streams. He 
dives fearlessly into rough, boiling eddies and rapids to feed at the 
bottom, flying under water seemingly as easily as in the air. Sometimes he 
wades in shallow places, thrusting his head under from time to time in a 
nodding, frisky way that is sure to attract attention. His flight is a 
solid whir of wing-beats like that of a partridge, and in going from place 
to place along his favorite string of rapids he follows the windings of 
the stream, and usually alights on some rock or snag on the bank or out in 
the current, or rarely on the dry limb of an overhanging tree, perching 
like a tree bird when it suits his convenience. He has the oddest, neatest 
manners imaginable, and all his gestures as he flits about in the wild, 
dashing waters bespeak the utmost cheerfulness and confidence. He sings 
both winter and summer, in all sorts of weather,--a sweet, fluty melody, 
rather low, and much less keen and accentuated 

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than from the brisk vigor of his movements one would be led to expect.

How romantic and beautiful is the life of this brave little singer on the 
wild mountain streams, building his round bossy nest of moss by the side 
of a rapid or fall, where it is sprinkled and kept fresh and green by the 
spray! No wonder he sings well, since all the air about him is music; 
every breath he draws is part of a song, and he gets his first music 
lessons before he is born; for the eggs vibrate in time with the tones of 
the waterfalls. Bird and stream are inseparable, songful and wild, gentle 
and strong,--the bird ever in danger in the midst of the stream's mad 
whirlpools, yet seemingly immortal. And so I might go on, writing words, 
words, words; but to what purpose? Go see him and love him, and through 
him as through a window look into Nature's warm heart.



CHAPTER VIII
THE FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS OF THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

"Come let's to the fields, the meads, and the mountains,
The forests invite us, the streams and the fountains."
Carlyle, Translations, vol. iii.

The joyful, songful streams of the Sierra are among the most famous and 
interesting in the world, and draw the admiring traveler on and on through 
their wonderful cañons, year after year, unwearied. After long wanderings 
with them, tracing them to their fountains, learning their history and the 
forms they take in their wild works and ways throughout the different 
seasons of the year, we may then view them together in one magnificent 
show, outspread over all the range like embroidery, their silvery branches 
interlacing on a thousand mountains, singing their way home to the sea: 
the small rills, with hard roads to travel, dropping from ledge to ledge, 
pool to pool, like chains of sweet-toned bells, slipping gently over beds 
of pebbles and sand, resting in lakes, shining, spangling, shimmering, 
lapping the shores with whispering ripples, and shaking over-leaning 

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bushes and grass; the larger streams and rivers in the cañons displaying 
noble purity and beauty with ungovernable energy, rushing down smooth 
inclines in wide foamy sheets fold over fold, springing up here and there 
in magnificent whirls, scattering crisp clashing spray for the sunbeams to 
iris, bursting with hoarse reverberating roar through rugged gorges and 
boulder dams, booming in falls, gliding, glancing with cool soothing 
murmuring, through long forested reaches richly embowered,--filling the 
grand cañons with glorious song, and giving life to all the landscape.

The present rivers of the Sierra are still young, and have made but little 
mark as yet on the grand cañons prepared for them by the ancient glaciers. 
Only a very short geological time ago they all lay buried beneath the 
glaciers they drained, singing in low smothered or silvery ringing tones 
in crystal channels, while the summer weather melted the ice and snow of 
the surface or gave showers. At first only in warm weather was any part of 
these buried rivers displayed in the light of day; for as soon as frost 
prevailed the surface rills vanished, though the streams beneath the ice 
and in the body of it flowed on all the year.

When, toward the close of the glacial period, the ice mantle began to 
shrink and recede from the lowlands, the lower portions of the rivers were 

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developed, issuing from cavelike openings on the melting margin and 
growing longer as the ice withdrew; while for many a century the 
tributaries and upper portions of the trunks remained covered. In the 
fullness of time these also were set free in the sunshine, to take their 
places in the newborn landscapes; each tributary with its smaller branches 
being gradually developed like the main trunks, as the climatic changes 
went on. At first all of them were muddy with glacial detritus, and they 
became clear only after the glaciers they drained had receded beyond lake 
basins in which the sediments were dropped.

This early history is clearly explained by the present rivers of 
southeastern Alaska. Of those draining glaciers that discharge into arms 
of the sea, only the rills on the surface of the ice, and upboiling, 
eddying, turbid currents in the tide water in front of the terminal ice 
wall, are visible. Where glaciers, in the first stage of decadence, have 
receded from the shore, short sections of the trunks of the rivers that 
are to take their places may be seen rushing out from caverns and tunnels 
in the melting front,--rough, roaring, detritus-laden torrents, foaming 
and tumbling over outspread terminal moraines to the sea, perhaps without 
a single bush or flower to brighten their raw, shifting banks. Again, in 
some of the warmer cañons and valleys from which the trunk glaciers have 
been melted, the 

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main trunks of the rivers are well developed, and their banks planted with 
fine forests, while their upper branches, lying high on the snowy 
mountains, are still buried beneath shrinking residual glaciers; 
illustrating every state of development, from icy darkness to light, and 
from muddiness to crystal clearness.

Now that the hard grinding sculpture work of the glacial period is done, 
the whole bright band of Sierra rivers run clear all the year, except when 
the snow is melting fast in the warm spring weather, and during 
extraordinary winter floods and the heavy thunderstorms of summer called 
cloud-bursts. Even then they are not muddy above the foothill mining 
region, unless the moraines have been loosened and the vegetation 
destroyed by sheep; for the rocks of the upper basins are clean, and the 
most able streams find but little to carry save the spoils of the 
forests,--trees, branches, flakes of bark, cones, leaves, pollen dust, 
etc.,--with scales of mica, sand grains, and boulders, which are rolled 
along the bottom of the steep parts of the main channels. Short sections 
of a few of the highest tributaries heading in glaciers are of course 
turbid with finely ground rock mud, but this is dropped in the first lakes 
they enter.

On the northern part of the range, mantled with porous fissured volcanic 
rocks, the fountain waters sink and flow below the surface for 
considerable 

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distances, groping their way in the dark like the draining streams of 
glaciers, and at last bursting forth in big generous springs, filtered and 
cool and exquisitely clear. Some of the largest look like lakes, their 
waters welling straight up from the bottom of deep rock basins in quiet 
massive volume giving rise to young rivers. Others issue from horizontal 
clefts in sheer bluffs, with loud tumultuous roaring that may be heard 
half a mile or more. Magnificent examples of these great northern spring 
fountains, twenty or thirty feet deep and ten to nearly a hundred yards 
wide, abound on the main branches of the Feather, Pitt, McCloud, and Fall 
rivers.

The springs of the Yosemite Park, and the high Sierra in general, though 
many times more numerous, are comparatively small, oozing from moraines 
and snowbanks in thin, flat irregular currents which remain on the surface 
or near it, the rocks of the south half of the range being mostly flawless 
impervious granite; and since granite is but slightly soluble, the streams 
are particularly pure. Nevertheless, though they are all clear, and in the 
upper and main central forest regions delightfully lively and cool, they 
vary somewhat in color and taste as well as temperature, on account of 
differences, however slight, in exposure, and in the rocks and vegetation 
with which they come in contact. Some 

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are more exposed than others to winds and sunshine in their falls and thin 
plumelike cascades; the amount of dashing, mixing, and airing the waters 
of each receive varies considerably; and there is always more or less 
variety in the kind and quantity of the vegetation they flow through, and 
in the time they lie in shady or sunny lakes and bogs.

The water of one of the branches of the north fork of Owens River, near 
the southeastern boundary of the Park, at an elevation of ninety-five 
hundred feet above the sea, is the best I ever found. It is not only 
delightfully cool and bright, but brisk, sparkling, exhilarating, and so 
positively delicious to the taste that a party of friends I led to it 
twenty-five years ago still praise it, and refer to it as "that wonderful 
champagne water;" though, comparatively, the finest wine is a coarse and 
vulgar drink. The party camped about a week in a pine grove on the edge of 
a little round sedgy meadow through which the stream ran bank full, and 
drank its icy water on frosty mornings, before breakfast, and at night 
about as eagerly as in the heat of the day; lying down and taking massy 
draughts direct from the brimming flood, lest the touch of a cup might 
disturb its celestial flavor. On one of my excursions I took pains to 
trace this stream to its head springs. It is mostly derived from snow that 
lies in heavy drifts and avalanche 

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heaps on or near the axis of the range. It flows first in flat sheets over 
coarse sand or shingle derived from a granite ridge and the metamorphic 
slates of Red Mountain. Then, gathering its many small branches, it runs 
through beds of moraine material, and a series of lakelets and meadows and 
frosty juicy bogs bordered with heathworts and linked together by short 
bouldery reaches. Below these, growing strong with tribute drawn from many 
a snowy fountain on either side, the glad stream goes dashing and swirling 
through clumps of the white-barked pine, and tangled willow and alder 
thickets enriched by the fragrant herbaceous vegetation usually found 
about them. And just above the level camp meadow it is chafed and churned 
and beaten white over and over again in crossing a talus of big earthquake 
boulders, giving it a very thorough airing. But to what the peculiar 
indefinable excellence of this water is due I don't know; for other 
streams in adjacent cañons are aired in about the same way, and draw 
traces of minerals and plant essences from similar sources. The best 
mineral water yet discovered in the Park flows from the Tuolumne soda 
springs, on the north side of the Big Meadow. Mountaineers like it and 
ascribe every healing virtue to it, but in no way can any of these waters 
be compared with the Owens River champagne.

It is a curious fact that the waters of some 

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of the Sierra lakes and streams are invisible, or nearly so, under certain 
weather conditions. This is noticed by mountaineers, hunters, and 
prospectors, wide-awake, sharp-eyed observers, little likely to be fooled 
by fine whims. One of these mountain men, whom I had nursed while a broken 
leg was mending, always gratefully reported the wonders he found. One, 
returning from a trip on the head waters of the Tuolumne, he came running 
eagerly, crying: "Muir, I've found the queerest lake in the mountains! 
It's high up where nothing grows; and when it isn't shiny you can't see 
it, and you walk right into it as if there was nothing there. The first 
you know of that lake you are in it, and get tripped up by the water, and 
hear the splash." The waters of Illilouette Creek are nearly invisible in 
the autumn; so that, in following the channel, jumping from boulder to 
boulder after a shower, you will frequently drag your feet in the 
apparently surfaceless pools.

Excepting a few low, warm slopes, fountain snow usually covers all the 
Yosemite Park from November or December to May, most of it until June or 
July, while on the coolest parts of the north slopes of the mountains, at 
a height of eleven to thirteen thousand feet, it is perpetual. It seldom 
lies at a greater depth than two or three feet on the lower margin, ten 
feet over the middle forested region, or fifteen to twenty feet 

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in the shadowy cañons and cirques among the peaks of the Summit, except 
where it is drifted, or piled in avalanche heaps at the foot of long 
converging slopes to form perennial fountains.

The first crop of snow crystals that whitens the mountains and refreshes 
the streams usually falls in September or October, in the midst of 
charming Indian summer weather, often while the goldenrods and gentians 
are in their prime; but these Indian summer snows, like some of the late 
ones that bury the June gardens, vanish in a day or two, and garden work 
goes on with accelerated speed. The grand winter storms that load the 
mountains with enduring fountain snow seldom set in before the end of 
November. The fertile clouds, descending, glide about and hover in 
brooding silence, as if thoughtfully examining the forests and streams 
with reference to the work before them; then small flakes or single 
crystals appear, glinting and swirling in zigzags and spirals; and soon 
the thronging feathery masses fill the sky and make darkness like night, 
hurrying wandering mountaineers to their winter quarters. The first fall 
is usually about two to four feet deep. Then, with intervals of bright 
weather, not very cold, storm succeeds storm, heaping snow on snow, until 
from thirty to fifty or sixty feet has fallen; but on account of heavy 
settling and compacting, and the waste from evaporation and melting, the 
depth in the 

Page 250

middle region, as stated above, rarely exceeds ten feet. Evaporation never 
wholly ceases, even in the coldest weather, and the sunshine between 
storms melts the surface more or less. Waste from melting also goes on at 
the bottom from summer heat stored in the rocks, as is shown by the rise 
of the streams after the first general storm, and their steady sustained 
flow all winter.

In the deep sugar-pine and silver-fir woods, up to a height of eight 
thousand feet, most of the snow lies where it falls, in one smooth 
universal fountain, until set free in the streams. But in the lighter 
forests of the two-leaved pine, and on the bleak slopes above the timber 
line, there is much wild drifting during storms accompanied by high winds, 
and for a day or two after they have fallen, when the temperature is low, 
and the snow dry and dusty. Then the trees, bending in the darkening 
blast, roar like feeding lions; the frozen lakes are buried; so also are 
the streams, which now flow in dark tunnels, as if another glacial period 
had come. On high ridges, where the winds have a free sweep, magnificent 
overcurling cornices are formed, which, with the avalanche piles, last as 
fountains almost all summer; and when an exceptionally high wind is 
blowing from the north, the snow, rolled, drifted, and ground to dust, is 
driven up the converging northern slopes of the peaks and sent flying for 
miles in the form of bright wavering banners, 

[image caption: YOSEMITE WOODS]

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displayed in wonderful clearness and beauty against the sky.

The greatest storms, however, are usually followed by a deep, peculiar 
silence, especially profound and solemn in the forests; and the noble 
trees stand hushed and motionless, as if under a spell, until the morning 
sunbeams begin to sift through their laden spires. Then the snow, shifting 
and falling from the top branches, strikes the lower ones in succession, 
and dislodges bossy masses all the way down. Thus each tree is enveloped 
in a hollow conical avalanche of fairy fineness, silvery white, irised on 
the outside; while the relieved branches spring up and wave with startling 
effect in the general stillness, as if moving of their own volition. These 
beautiful tree avalanches, hundreds of which may be seen falling at once 
on fine mornings after storms, pile their snow in raised rings around 
corresponding hollows beneath the trees, making the forest mantle somewhat 
irregular, but without greatly influencing its duration and the flow of 
the streams.

The large storm avalanches are most abundant on the Summit peaks of the 
range. They descend the broad, steep slopes, as well as narrow gorges and 
couloirs, with grand roaring and booming, and glide in graceful curves out 
on the glaciers they so bountifully feed.

Down in the main cañons of the middle region 

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broad masses are launched over the brows of cliffs three or four thousand 
feet high, which, worn to dust by friction in falling so far through the 
air, oftentimes hang for a minute or two in front of the tremendous 
precipices like gauzy half-transparent veils, gloriously beautiful when 
the sun is shining through them. Most of the cañon avalanches, however, 
flow in regular channels, like the cascades of tributary streams. When the 
snow first gives way on the upper slopes of their basins a dull muffled 
rush and rumble is heard, which, increasing with heavy deliberation, seems 
to draw rapidly nearer with appalling intensity of tone. Presently the 
wild floods comes in sight, bounding out over bosses and sheer places, 
leaping from bench to bench, spreading and narrowing and throwing off 
clouds of whirling diamond dust like a majestic foamy cataract. Compared 
with cascades and falls, avalanches are short-lived, and the sharp 
clashing sounds so common in dashing water are usually wanting; but in 
their deep thunder tones and pearly purple-tinged whiteness, and in dress, 
gait, gestures, and general behavior, they are much alike.

Besides these common storm avalanches there are two other kinds, the 
annual and the century, which still further enrich the scenery, though 
their influence on fountains is comparatively small. Annual avalanches are 
composed of heavy compacted 

Page 253

snow which has been subjected to frequent alternations of frost and thaw. 
They are developed on cañon and mountain sides, the greater number of 
them, at elevations of from nine to ten thousand feet, where the slopes 
are so inclined that the dry snows of winter accumulate and hold fast 
until the spring thaws sap their foundations and make them slippery. Then 
away in grand style go the ponderous icy masses, adorned with crystalline 
spray without any cloudy snow dust; some of the largest descending more 
than a mile with even, sustained energy and directness like thunderbolts. 
The grand century avalanches, that mow wide swaths through the upper 
forests, occur on shady mountain sides about ten to twelve thousand feet 
high, where, under ordinary 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 below them. On their way 
through the forests they usually make a 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, and piling the uprooted 
trees, head downward, in windrows along the sides like lateral moraines. 
Sears and broken branches on the standing trees bordering the gaps record 
the side depth of the overwhelming flood; and when we come to count the 
annual wood rings of the uprooted trees, we 

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learn that some of these colossal avalanches occur only once in about a 
century, or even at still wider intervals.

Few mountaineers go far enough, during the snowy months, to see many 
avalanches, and fewer still know the thrilling exhilaration of riding on 
them. In all my wild mountaineering I have enjoyed only one avalanche 
ride; and the start was so sudden, and the end came so soon, I thought but 
little of the danger that goes with this sort of travel, though one thinks 
fast at such times. One calm, bright morning in Yosemite, after a hearty 
storm had given three or four feet of fresh snow to the mountains, being 
eager to see as many avalanches as possible, and gain wide views of the 
peaks and forests arrayed in their new robes, before the sunshine had time 
to change or rearrange 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 be trying, and estimated it might require three or 
four hours. But it proved far more difficult than I had foreseen. Most of 
the way I sank waist-deep, in some places almost out of sight; and after 
spending the day to within half an hour of sundown in this loose, baffling 
snow work, I was still several hundred feet below the summit. Then my 
hopes were reduced to getting 

Page 255

up in time for the sunset, and a quick, sparkling home-going beneath the 
stars. But I was not to get top 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 back down to the foot of the cañon as if by 
enchantment. The plodding, wallowing ascent of about a mile had taken all 
day, the undoing descent perhaps a minute.

When the snow suddenly gave way, I instinctively threw myself on my back 
and spread my arms, to try to keep from sinking. Fortunately, though the 
grade of the cañon was steep, it was not interrupted by step levels or 
precipices big 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 a 
little below it, and covered with a hissing back-streaming veil of dusty 
snow particles; and as the whole mass beneath or about me joined in the 
flight I felt no friction, though tossed here and there, and lurched from 
side to side. And when the torrent swedged and came to rest, I found 
myself on the top of the crumpled pile, without a single bruise or scar. 
Hawthorne says that stream has spiritualized travel, notwithstanding the 
smoke, friction, smells, and clatter of boat and rail riding. This flight 
in a milky way of snow flowers was the most spiritual of all my travels; 
and, after many years, the mere thought of it is still an exhilaration.

Page 256

In the spring, after all the avalanches are down and the snow is melting 
fast, it is glorious to hear the streams sing out on the mountains. Every 
fountain swelling, countless rills hurry together to the rivers at the 
call of the sun,-- beginning to run and sing soon after sunrise, 
increasing until toward sundown, then gradually failing through the cold 
frosty hours of the night. Thus the volume of the upper rivers, even in 
flood time, is nearly doubled during the day, rising and falling as 
regularly as the tides of the sea. At the height of flood, in the warmest 
June 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 the dance and song to swell their chorus.

Then the plants also are in flood; the hidden sap singing into leaf and 
flower, responding as faithfully to the call of the sun as the streams 
from the snow, gathering along the outspread roots like rills in their 
channels on the mountains, rushing up the stems of herb and tree, swirling 
in their myriad cells like streams in potholes, spreading along the 
branches and breaking into foamy bloom, while fragrance, like a finer 
music, rises and flows with the winds.

About the same may be said of the spring 

Page 257

gladness of blood when the red streams surge and sing in accord with the 
swelling plants and rivers, inclining animals and everybody to travel in 
hurrahing crowds like floods, while exhilarating melody in color and 
fragrance, form and motion, flows to the heart through all the quickening 
senses.

In early summer the streams are in bright prime, running crystal clear, 
deep and full, but not overflowing their banks,--about as deep through the 
night as the day, the variation so marked in spring being now too slight 
to be noticed. Nearly all the weather is cloudless sunshine, and 
everything is at its brightest,--lake, river, garden, and forest, with all 
their warm, throbbing life. Most of the plants are in full leaf and 
flower; the blessed ousels have built their mossy huts, and are now 
singing their sweetest song on spray-sprinkled ledges beside the 
waterfalls.

In tranquil, mellow autumn , when the year's work is about done, when the 
fruits are ripe, birds and seeds out of their nests, and all the landscape 
is glowing like a benevolent countenance at rest, then the streams are at 
their lowest ebb,--their wild rejoicing soothed to thoughtful calm. All 
the smaller tributaries whose branches do not reach back to the perennial 
fountains of the Summit peaks shrink to whispering, tinkling currents. The 
snow of their 

Page 258

basins gone, they are now fed only by small moraine springs, whose waters 
are mostly evaporated in passing over warm pavements, and in feeling their 
way from pool to pool through the midst of boulders and sand. Even the 
main streams are so low they may be easily forded, and their grand falls 
and cascades, now gentle and approachable, have waned to sheets and webs 
of embroidery, falling fold over fold in new and ever changing beauty.

Two of the most songful of the rivers, the Tuolumne and Merced, water 
nearly all the Park, spreading their branches far and wide, like broad-
headed oaks; and the highest branches of each draw their sources from one 
and the same foundation on Mount Lyell, at an elevation of about thirteen 
thousand feet above the sea. The crest of the mountain, against which the 
head of the glacier rests, is worn to a thin blade full of joints, through 
which a part of the glacial water flows southward, giving rise to the 
highest trickling affluents of the Merced; while the main drainage, 
flowing northward, gives rise to those of the Tuolumne. After diverging 
for a distance of ten or twelve miles, these twin rivers flow in a general 
westerly direction, descending rapidly for the first thirty miles, and 
rushing in glorious apron cascades and falls from one Yosemite valley to 
another. Below the Yosemites they descend in gray rapids and swirling, 
swaying reaches, 

[image caption: TUOLUMNE CASCADE, YOSEMITE]

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through the chaparral-clad cañons of the foothills and across the golden 
California plain, to their confluence with the San Joaquin, where, after 
all their long wanderings, they are only about ten miles apart.

The main cañons are from fifty to seventy miles long, and from two to four 
thousand feet deep, carved in the solid flank of the range. Though rough 
in some places and hard to travel, they are the most delightful of roads, 
leading through the grandest scenery, full of life and motion, and 
offering most telling lessons in earth sculpture. The walls, far from 
being unbroken, featureless cliffs, seem like ranges of separate 
mountains, so deep and varied is their sculpture; rising in lordly domes, 
towers, round-browed outstanding headlands, and clustering spires, with 
dark, shadowy side cañons between. But, however wonderful in height and 
mass and fineness of finish, no anomalous curiosities are presented, no 
"freaks of nature." All stand related in delicate rhythm, a grand glacial 
rock song.

Among the interesting and influential of the secondary features of cañon 
scenery are the great avalanche taluses, that lean against the walls at 
intervals of a mile or two. In the middle Yosemite region they are usually 
from three to five hundred feet high, and are made up of huge, angular, 
well-preserved, unshifting boulders, 

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overgrown with gray lichens, trees shrubs, and delicate flowering plants. 
Some of the largest of the boulders are forty or fifty feet cube, weighing 
from five to ten thousand tons; and where the cleavage joints of the 
granite are exceptionally wide apart a few blocks may be found nearly a 
hundred feet in diameter. These wonderful boulder piles are distributed 
throughout all the cañons of the range, completely choking them in some of 
the narrower portions, and no mountaineer will be likely to forget the 
savage roughness of the roads they make. Even the swift, overbearing 
rivers, accustomed to sweep everything out of their way, are in some 
places bridled and held in check by them. Foaming, roaring, in glorious 
majesty of flood, rushing off long rumbling trains of ponderous blocks 
without apparent effort, they are not able to move the largest, which, 
withstanding all assaults for centuries, are left at rest in the channels 
like islands, with gardens on their tops, fringed with foam below, with 
flowers above.

On some points concerning the origin of these taluses I was long in doubt. 
Plainly enough they were derived from the cliffs above them, the size of 
each talus being approximately measured by a scar on the wall, the rough 
angular surface of which contrasts with the rounded, glaciated, 
unfractured parts. I saw also that, instead of being slowly accumulated 
material, 

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weathered off, boulder by boulder, in the ordinary way, almost every talus 
had been formed suddenly, in a single avalanche, and had not been 
increased in size during the last three or four centuries; for trees three 
or four hundred years old were growing on them, some standing at the top 
close to the wall, without a bruise or broken branch, showing that 
scarcely a single boulder had fallen among them since they were planted. 
Furthermore, all the taluses throughout the range seemed, by the trees and 
lichens growing on them, to be of the same age. All the phenomena pointed 
straight to a grand ancient earthquake. But I left the question open for 
years, and went on from cañon to cñon, observing again and again; 
measuring the heights of taluses throughout the range on both flanks, and 
the variations in the angles of their surface slopes; studying the way 
their boulders were assorted and related and brought to rest, and the 
cleavage joints of the cliffs from whence they were derived, cautious 
about making up my mind. Only after I had seen one made did all doubt as 
to their formation vanish.

In Yosemite Valley, one morning about two o'clock, I was aroused by an 
earthquake; and though I had never before enjoyed a storm of this sort, 
the strange, wild thrilling motion and rumbling could not be mistaken, and 
I ran out of my cabin, near the Sentinel Rock, both glad and 

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frightened, shouting, "A noble earthquake!" feeling sure I was going to 
learn something. The shocks were so violent and varied, and succeeded one 
another so closely, one had to balance in walking as if on the deck of a 
ship among the waves, and it seemed impossible the high cliffs should 
escape being shattered. In particular, I feared that the sheer-fronted 
Sentinel Rock, which rises to a height of three thousand feet, would be 
shaken down, and I took shelter back of a big pine, hoping I might be 
protected from outbounding boulders, should any come so far. I was now 
convinced that an earthquake had been the maker of the taluses, and 
positive proof soon came. It was a calm moonlight night, and no sound was 
heard for the first minute or two save a low muffled underground rumbling 
and a slight rustling of the agitated trees, as if, in wrestling with the 
mountains, Nature were holding her breath. Then, suddenly, out of the 
strange silence and strange motion there came a tremendous roar. The Eagle 
Rock, a short distance up the valley, had given way, and I saw it falling 
in thousands of the great boulders I had been studying so long, pouring to 
the valley floor in a free curve luminous from friction, making a terribly 
sublime and beautiful spectacle,--an arc of the fifteen hundred feet span, 
as true in form and as steady as a rainbow, in the midst of the stupendous 
roaring rock storm. The 

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sound was inconceivably deep and broad and earnest, as if the whole earth, 
like a living creature, had at last found a voice and were calling to her 
sister planets. It seemed to me that if all the thunder I ever heard were 
condensed into one roar it would not equal this rock roar at the birth of 
a mountain talus. Think, then, of the roar that arose to heaven when all 
the thousands of ancient cañon taluses throughout the length and breadth 
of the range were simultaneously given birth.

The main storm was soon over, and, eager to see the new-born talus, I ran 
up the valley in the moonlight and climbed it before the huge blocks, 
after their wild fiery flight, had come to complete rest. They were slowly 
settling into their places, chafing, grating against one another, 
groaning, and whispering; but no motion was visible except in a stream of 
small fragments pattering down the face of the cliff at the head of the 
talus. A cloud of dust particles, the smallest of the boulders, floated 
out across the whole breadth of the valley and formed a ceiling that 
lasted until after sunrise; and the air was loaded with the odor of 
crushed Douglas spruces, from a grove that had been mowed down and mashed 
like weeds.

Sauntering about to see what other changes had been made, I found the 
Indians in the middle of the valley, terribly frightened, of course, 
fearing 

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the angry spirits of the rocks were trying to kill them, The few whites 
wintering in the valley were assembled in front of the old Hutchings 
Hotel, comparing notes and meditating flight to steadier ground, seemingly 
as sorely frightened as the Indians. It is always interesting to see 
people in dead earnest, from whatever cause, and earthquakes make 
everybody earnest. Shortly after sunrise, a low blunt muffled rumbling, 
like distant thunder, was followed by another series of shocks, which, 
though not nearly so severe as the first, made the cliffs and domes 
tremble like jelly, and the big pines and oaks thrill and swish and wave 
their branches with startling effect. Then the groups of talkers were 
suddenly hushed, and the solemnity on their faces was sublime. One in 
particular of these winter neighbors, a rather thoughtful, speculative 
man, with whom I had often conversed, was a firm believer in the 
cataclysmic origin of the valley; and I now jokingly remarked that his 
wild tumble-down-and-engulfment hypothesis might soon be proved, since 
these underground rumblings and shakings might be the forerunners of 
another Yosemite-making cataclysm, which would perhaps double the depth of 
the valley by swallowing the floor, leaving the ends of the wagon roads 
and trails three or four thousand feet in the air. Just then came the 
second series of shocks, and it was fine to see how awfully silent and 
solemn he became. 

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His belief in the existence of a mysterious abyss, into which the 
suspended floor of the valley and all the domes and battlements of the 
walls might at any moment go roaring down, mightily troubled him. To cheer 
and tease him into another view of the case, I said: "Come, cheer up; 
smile a little and clap your hands, now that kind Mother Earth is trotting 
us on her knee to amuse us and make us good." But the well-meant joke 
seemed irreverent and utterly failed, as if only prayerful terror could 
rightly belong to the wild beauty-making business. Even after all the 
heavier shocks were over, I could do nothing to reassure him. On the 
contrary, he handed me the keys of his little store, and, with a companion 
of like mind, fled to the lowlands. In about a month he returned; but a 
sharp shock occurred that very day, which sent him flying again.

The rocks trembled more or less every day for over two months, and I kept 
a bucket of water on my table to learn what I could of the movements. The 
blunt thunder-tones in the depths of the mountains were usually followed 
by sudden jarring, horizontal thrusts from the northward, often succeeded 
by twisting, upjolting movements. Judging by its effects, this Yosemite, 
or Inyo earthquake, as it is sometimes called, was gentle as compared with 
the one that gave rise to the grand talus system of the range and did so 
much 

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for the cañon scenery. Nature, usually so deliberate in her operations, 
then created, as we have seen, a new of features, simply by giving the 
mountains a shake,--changing not only the high peaks and cliffs, but the 
streams. As soon as these rock avalanches fell every stream began to sing 
new songs; for in many places thousands of boulders were hurled into their 
channels, roughening and half damming them, compelling the waters to surge 
and roar in rapids where before they were gliding smoothly. Some of the 
streams were completely dammed, driftwood, leaves, etc., filling the 
interstices between the boulders, thus giving rise to lakes and level 
reaches; and these, again, after being gradually filled in, to smooth 
meadows, through which the streams now silently meander; while at the same 
time some of the taluses took the places of old meadows and groves. Thus 
rough places were made smooth, and smooth places rough. But on the whole, 
by what at first sight seemed pure confusion and ruin, the landscapes were 
enriched; for gradually every talus, however big the boulders composing 
it, was covered with groves and gardens, and made a finely proportioned 
and ornamental base for the sheer cliffs. In this beauty work, every 
boulder is prepared and measured and put in its place more thoughtfully 
than are the stones of temples. If for a moment you are inclined to regard 
these taluses as mere draggled, chaotic dumps, climb 

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to the top of one of them, tie your mountain shoes firmly over the instep, 
and with braced nerves run down without any haggling, puttering 
hesitation, boldly jumping from boulder to boulder with even speed. You 
will then find your feet playing a tune, and quickly discover the music 
and poetry of rock piles,--a fine lesson; and all nature's wildness tells 
the same story. Storms of every sort, torrents, earthquakes, cataclysms, 
"convulsions of nature," etc., however mysterious and lawless at first 
sight they may seem, are only harmonious notes in the song of creation, 
varied expressions of God's love.