Your National Parks Part 4

Everts not only recovered, but lived for thirty-one years after his terrible experience, dying at the age of eighty-five. One of the peaks in the Park, Mount Everts, is named for him.

The adventures of Colter and Everts are inspiring achievements. They give thrilling views of primitive life, and are striking instances of men, empty-handed, successfully combating Nature. The stability, the will-power, the insistent, tenacious hopefulness of these men were extraordinary. Courageously they met and mastered the swiftly coming obstacles and afflictions that fate thrust thick and fast upon them.

Their deeds are a part of our helpful heritage in the Yellowstone wonderland.

II

THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

On the western slope of the Sierra, about one hundred and forty miles east of San Francisco, lies the Yosemite National Park, with an area of 1124 square miles. It is slightly larger than Rhode Island. Its lower sections on the west have an alt.i.tude of about 3000 feet. From this elevation it rises through bold terraces into the High Sierra.

Mount Lyell has an alt.i.tude of 13,090 feet; Mount Dana, 13,050 feet.

Gibbs Mountain and a number of other peaks have slightly lower alt.i.tudes. The elevational range, then, of this one Park runs through 10,000 feet, or nearly two vertical miles.

It is one of the scenic wonders of the world. Within it are many attractions, each great by itself, and all more impressive in their splendid grouping.

Its glacial landscapes are magnificent and startling. Here the Ice King, the great landscape engineer, did work immensely bold and enchanting. An array of stupendous rock sculpture remains almost untarnished. Scores of lovely alpine lakes in solid rock lie open to the sun. The wild-flower population numbers more than a thousand varieties. It has scores of varieties of wild birds and many kinds of wild life. World-famous are its waterfalls.

Two of the greatest of mountain rivers rise in the Park and cross it from east to west. Each of them falls several thousand feet within the Park. Crossing centrally through the northern section is the Tuolumne.

Pa.s.sing miles of alpine rock and meadow, it roars through the rugged Tuolumne Canon, and when well across the Park it sweeps through the majestic gorge known as the Hetch-Hetchy Valley.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF YOSEMITE VALLEY LOOKING EASTWARD TO THE CREST OF THE SIERRA NEVADA

1. Clouds' Rest.

2. Half Dome.

3. Mount Watkins.

4. Basket Dome.

5. North Dome.

6. Was.h.i.+ngton Column.

7. Royal Arches.

8. Mirror Lake and mouth of Tenaya Canon.

9. Yosemite Village.

10. Head of Yosemite Falls.

11. Eagle Peak (the Three Brothers).

12. El Capitan.

13. Ribbon Falls.

14. Merced River.

15. El Capitan Bridge and Moraine.

16. Big Oak Flat Road.

17. Wawona Road.

18. Bridal Veil Falls.

19. Cathedral Rocks.

20. Cathedral Spires.

21. Sentinel Rock.

22. Glacier Point.

23. Sentinel Dome.

24. Liberty Cap.

25. Mount Broderick.

26. Little Yosemite Valley.

_By permission of the National Park Service, Department of the Interior_]

Paralleling this stream at the distance of about ten miles is the intense Merced. This and its tributaries are signally rich in lakes and waterfalls, and they flow among stupendous and astounding glacial landscapes. At last the Merced flows serenely through the world-famous valley, the matchless Yosemite Gorge.

No name can suggest the amazing combinations of vastness and beauty seen in this rocky pa.s.sage; the name "valley" is altogether lacking in significance. It may be described as having gorge walls with a valley floor. The walls have unshattered solidity, great height, and almost true verticalness. They bear the marks of individuality, and the valley-like floor shows original character.

The Yosemite Valley is obviously the greatest, as it is the most celebrated, scene in the Park. It is about seven miles long, approximately one mile wide, and about three fourths of a mile deep.

The floor is nearly level and lies at an alt.i.tude of four thousand feet. It is well gra.s.sed, adorned with trees and groves, and glorified from end to end by the Merced River. The nearly vertical walls rise mainly in smooth, substantial ma.s.ses from twenty-five hundred to nearly five thousand feet. Waterfalls from the heights above make the wild plunge over the rim down to the floor of the valley.

This gorge is countersunk into a plateau. It extends from east to west. The western and open end has an impressive entrance. On the left, El Capitan raises his colossal figure thirty-three hundred feet in smooth and simple ma.s.siveness. On the right, over the front face of the mountain wall opposite, flutter several hundred feet of Bridal Veil Falls. Then in order, on the right south wall, Cathedral Spires rise high above the valley; then Sentinel Rock; then stupendous Glacier Point. Farther east on the south wall, Half Dome stands up forty-five hundred feet, the most impressive figure on the valley rim.

Farther along, on the right or south side of the valley, is the celebrated Clouds' Rest. On the left or north wall stand the Three Brothers. By these the snowy stream of the Yosemite Waterfall comes down. About halfway up the valley on the left are the Was.h.i.+ngton Column and the Royal Arches. Then, along the left or north wall in succession, rise North Dome, Basket Dome, and Mount Watkins. The upper part of the valley divides into three depressions or gorges. The north one is Tenaya Canon, the central one is Little Yosemite Valley, and from this branches the southerly one, Illilouette Canon. Each of these canons is a wonder by itself.

Following is one of the most descriptive and eloquent tributes ever paid to this unrivaled array of stupendous nature statuary:--

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 att.i.tudes, 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 rea.s.suring 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 s.h.i.+ne and sing and wreathe about them as the years go by, and myriads of small winged creatures--birds, bees, b.u.t.terflies--give glad animation and help to make all the air into music. Down through the middle of the valley flows the crystal Merced, River of Mercy, peacefully quiet, reflecting lilies and trees and the onlooking rocks; things frail and fleeting and types of endurance meeting here and blending in countless forms, as if into this one mountain mansion Nature had gathered her choicest treasures, to draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with her. (John Muir, in "The Yosemite.")

1. ICE-KING TOPOGRAPHY

The splendid scenic endowment of the Yosemite Valley, its stupendous architecture and vast sculpturing, its natural landscape engineering, are largely triumphs of the ice age. Many theories have been advanced to account for the origin and the extraordinary features of this valley, especial prominence being given to subsidence, uplift, explosion, with earthquake modifications and influences of violent cataclysmic nature. Stream erosion has been strongly urged. All these theories attribute minor influences to one or more other factors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HALF DOME, YOSEMITE]

The theory now generally accepted gives ice the leading part in the scooping of the valley and the creation of its wondrous forms. There is much evidence to support this conclusion. The ice theory is championed by John Muir, by Clarence King, and by F. E. Matthes.

Matthes and Muir probably have made the most careful and exhaustive studies of the geological history of the valley.

This famous depression is of varying width. Examination of its walls shows that in the wider places it is composed of fissured rock that was more readily carried away by the ice than the adjoining unfissured rock-sections. These resisting unfissured places jut into the valley.

Erosion by ice probably was preceded and somewhat guided by stream erosion. But this ice sculpture, the rock-forms and features wrought, must have been determined in a marked measure by the rock-structure.

That is to say, the dense quality of the rock, the number and the position of the cleavage joints, or their absence in the rock, were factors that helped determine the rock-forms of Yosemite. Other factors since the ice age have altered or modified this glacial topography.

It is certain that a vast ice-stream poured over the walls and forced through this valley. This is shown in the rock-groovings and perched boulders high on the walls, and also by the ma.s.sive moraine which dams the outlet of the valley. It appears certain that this must have been left when the ice vanished; and apparently it formed a lake that filled the entire valley nearly to the height of the dam. The lake finally filled with sediment and sand, its surface corresponding approximately with the present surface of the valley. The valley floor is noticeably smooth, and its margins along the bottoms of the walls are comparatively free from rock-debris.

The landscape of the entire Yosemite National Park is preeminently glacial. Ice-polished mountains and hundreds of sculptured figures of vast size are a part of the matchless exhibit of the ice age in this wonderland. Polished domes predominate. Much of the rock-surface was dense granite comparatively free from cleavage lines, soft materials, or stratification. The forms made by the ice in these have endured.

Since the ice age the softer and more fissured rocks have been far more changed by the various erosive forces than the more resistant rock of the domes and other sculptured forms.

Little Yosemite Valley is essentially similar to the Greater Yosemite in features and also in the manner of creation. Its walls are from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet high, its length is about three miles, its width one half-mile. Its floor, like that of the Greater Yosemite, was for a time a lake. In origin and history, the Hetch-Hetchy Valley, too, is almost identical with the Yosemite.

Nature often changes the scene, often puts on a new landscape. The forces of erosion are steadily at work; most of them work slowly, but sometimes a change is wrought suddenly.

When the Sierra was first upheaved it was more or less tilted, terraced, and fissured. The surface was uneven. The present topography is the product of a long and complicated series of events. It has been wrought out by many erosive forces. It probably has been acted upon by two or more ice ages, but the last age shaped the splendid topography of the Yosemite that is attracting the world to the scene.

The eroding power of ice is determined by its thickness, that is to say, by its weight. The small, shallow glaciers wear much more slowly than the deep ice-streams that bear heavily upon the surface pa.s.sed over. The ancient glaciers of the region took on vast proportions. An enormous and deep ice-field acc.u.mulated from the snows of Mounts Dana, Lyell, Gibbs, McClure, Conness, and other peaks. Flowing westward, it came in contact with Mount Hoffman, against which it divided. The right section flowed down into the Tuolumne; the left, a branch about two miles wide, swept upward, climbing about five hundred feet over the pa.s.s and descending upon the Lake Tenaya region.

Apparently, five glacier streams united in the Yosemite Valley. They not only filled it but deeply overflowed the highest points on its walls. Pa.s.sing out of the lower end of the valley, the united glacier was forced to climb upward several hundred feet.

About twenty-five small glaciers still remain in the Yosemite National Park. There are about two hundred and fifty glacier lakes, mostly small. Others have filled with sediment and are hidden and forgotten.