wealth.
—JOURNAL ENTRY, JULY 7, 1869
Illilouette Falls
JOHN MUIR’S FAVORITE WATERFALL in Yosemite was none of the classic, famous falls—the Upper Yosemite, Bridal Veil, nor Vernal Fall. It was the modest and lovely Illilouette, because as he explained, it is a “… singular form and beauty, flashing up and dancing in large flame-shaped masses, wavering at times, then steadying, rising and falling in accord with the shifting forms of the water.… the color changed not at all. Nothing in clouds or flowers, on bird-wings or the lips of shells, could rival it in fineness. It was the most divinely beautiful mass of yellow light I ever beheld—one of nature’s precious sights that come to us but once in a lifetime.”
One of the finest things I ever saw in Yosemite or elsewhere I found on the brow of this beautiful fall [the Illilouette]. It was in the Indian summer, when the leaf colors were ripe and the great cliffs and domes were transfigured in the hazy golden air. I had wandered up the rugged talus-dammed canyon of the Illilouette, admiring the wonderful views to be had there of the great Half Dome and the Liberty Cap, the foliage of the maples, dogwoods, rubus tangles, etc., the late goldenrods and asters, and the extreme purity of the water, which in motionless pools on this stream is almost perfectly invisible. The voice of the fall was now low, and the grand flood had waned to floating gauze and thin-broidered folds of linked and arrowy lace-work. When I reached the fall, slant sun-beams were glinting across the head of it, leaving all the rest in shadow; and on the illumined brow a group of yellow spangles were playing, of singular form and beauty, flashing up and dancing in large flame-shaped masses, wavering at times, then steadying, rising and falling in accord with the shifting forms of the water. But the color changed not at all. Nothing in clouds or flowers, on bird-wings or the lips of shells, could rival it in fineness. It was the most divinely beautiful mass of yellow light I ever beheld—one of nature’s precious sights that come to us but once in a lifetime.
—“THE TREASURES OF YOSEMITE,” Century Magazine, AUGUST, 1890
A Beautiful Crystal Hill
IMAGINE IT IS A FRIGID JANUARY in snow-covered Yosemite. Muir was so taken with the beauty of the frozen falls that created a cone as ice froze around the water-flow, he scarcely noticed the bone-chilling temperatures nor considered the fragility of the ice-crater. Against his better judgment, he sought to get as close as possible to the delicate and beautiful crystal hill.
Anxious to learn what I could about the structure of this curious ice-hill, I tried to climb it, carrying an ax to cut footsteps. Before I had reached the base of it I was met by a current of spray and wind that made breathing difficult. I pushed on backward, however, and soon gained the slope of the hill, where by creeping close to the surface most of the blast was avoided. Thus I made my way nearly to the summit, halting at times to peer up through the wild whirls of spray, or to listen to the sublime thunder beneath me, the whole hill sounding as if it were a huge, bellowing, exploding drum. I hoped that by waiting until the fall was blown aslant I should be able to climb to the lip of the crater and get a view of the interior; but a suffocating blast, half air, half water, followed by the fall of an enormous mass of ice from the wall, quickly discouraged me. The whole cone was jarred by the blow, and I was afraid its side might fall in. Some fragments of the mass sped past me dangerously near; so I beat a hasty retreat, chilled and drenched, and laid myself on a sunny rock in a safe place to dry.
Throughout the winter months the spray of the upper Yosemite Fall is frozen while falling thinly exposed and is deposited around the base of the fall in the form of a hollow truncated cone, which sometimes reaches a height of five hundred feet or more, into the heart of which the whole volume of the fall descends with a tremendous roar as if pouring down the throat of a crater. In the building of this ice-cone part of the frozen spray falls directly to its place, but a considerable portion is first frozen upon the face of the cliff on both sides of the fall, and attains a thickness of a foot or more during the night. When the sun strikes this ice-coating it is expanded and cracked off in masses weighing from a few pounds to several tons, and is built into the walls of the cone; while in windy, frosty weather, when the fall is swayed from side to side, the cone is well drenched, and the loose ice-masses and dust are all firmly frozen together. The thundering, reverberating reports of the falling ice-masses are like those of heavy cannon. They usually occur at intervals of a few minutes, and are the most strikingly characteristic of the winter sounds of the valley, and constant accompaniments of the best sunshine. While this stormy building is in progress the surface of the cone is smooth and pure white, the whole presenting the appearance of a beautiful crystal hill wreathed with folds of spray which are oftentimes irised.
—“THE TREASURES OF YOSEMITE,” Century Magazine, AUGUST, 1890
One Grand Canyon of Canyons
AFTER THE CIVIL WAR, The Gilded Age brought great economic growth to the United States, quickly transforming it into a modern industrial nation. The production of steel rose dramatically, and the nation’s forests were sacked for such natural resources, such as as timber, gold, and silver. Ten million immigrants flocked across oceans to work the nation’s farms, mills, and factories. In l869, John Muir’s first recorded summer in the Sierra, the Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad met at Promontory Point in Utah, where a golden spike was driven in, indicating that the nation—from East to West—was linked by 3,500 miles of iron rails and wooden ties. It now took six days to move goods from the resource-rich West to the East.
Concerned about the toll such rapid growth was taking on the nation’s forests, President Grover Cleveland’s Secretary of the Interior, Hoke Smith, requested the National Academy of Sciences form a forestry commission to review the status of the American forests. In l896, led by Harvard botany professor Charles Sprague Sargent, John Muir joined the prestigious group of scientists and conservationists, which included Gifford Pinchot, to survey the forests of Yellowstone, South Dakota’s Black Hills, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, the Cascades, the mountains of southern California, and the southern Sierra Nevada. The trip opened up new territory to Muir, and he was particularly impressed by the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, which he described as “one grand canyon of canyons.”
The Colorado River rises in the heart of the continent on the dividing ranges and ridges between the two oceans, drains thousands of snowy mountains through narrow or spacious valleys, and thence through canyons of every color, sheer-walled and deep, all of which seem to be represented in this one grand canyon of canyons.
It is very hard to give anything like an adequate conception of its size; much more of its color, its vast wall-sculpture, the wealth of ornate architectural buildings that fill it, or, most of all, the tremendous impression it makes.… So tremendous a chasm would be one of the world’s greatest wonders even if, like ordinary canyons cut in sedimentary rocks, it were empty and its walls were simple. But instead of being plain, the walls are so deeply and elaborately carved into all sorts of recesses—alcoves, cirques, amphitheaters, and side canyons—that, were you to trace the rim closely around on both sides, your journey would be nearly a thousand miles long. Into all these recesses the level, continuous beds of rock in ledges and benches, with their various colors, run like broad ribbons, marvelously beautiful and effective even at a distance of ten or twelve miles. And the vast space these glorious walls inclose, instead of being empty, is crowded with gigantic architectural rock forms gorgeously colored and adorned with towers and spires like works of art.
Looking down from this level plateau, we are more impressed with a feeling of being on the top of everything than when looking from the summit of a mountain. From side to side of the vast gulf, temples, palaces, towers, and spires come soaring up in thick array half a mile or nearly a mile above their sunken, hidden bases, some to a level with our standpoint, but none higher. And in the inspiring morning light all are so fresh and rosy-looking that they seem new-born; as if, like the quick-growing crimson snowplants of the California woods, they had just sprung up, hatched by the warm, brooding, motherly weather.
—Steep Trails
Leaf Shadows
NOTHING ESCAPED JOHN MUIR’S ATTENTION. We can imagine him pausing as the hush of the day recedes and the shadows lengthen, his