The Yosemite eBook

and lark purple, marking the extension of the forests; and stretching long the base of the range a broad belt of rose-purple; all these colors, from the blue sky to the yellow valley smoothly blending as they do in a rainbow, making a wall of light ineffably fine.  Then it seemed to me that the Sierra should be called, not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light.  And after ten years of wandering and wondering in the heart of it, rejoicing in its glorious floods of light, the white beams of the morning streaming through the passes, the noonday radiance on the crystal rocks, the flush of the alpenglow, and the irised spray of countless waterfalls, it still seems above all others the Range of Light.

In general views no mark of man is visible upon it, nor any thing to suggest the wonderful depth and grandeur of its sculpture.  None of its magnificent forest-crowned ridges seems to rise mud above the general level to publish its wealth.  No great valley or river is seen, or group of well-marked features of any kind standing out as distinct pictures.  Even the summit peaks, marshaled in glorious array so high in the sky, seem comparatively regular in form.  Nevertheless the whole range five hundred miles long is furrowed with canyons 2000 to 5000 feet deep, in which once flowed majestic glaciers, and in which now flow and sing the bright rejoicing rivers.

Characteristics Of The Canyons

Though of such stupendous depth, these canyons are not gloom gorges, savage and inaccessible.  With rough passages here and there they are flowery pathways conducting to the snowy, icy fountains; mountain streets full of life and light, graded and sculptured by the ancient glaciers, and presenting throughout all their course a rich variety of novel and attractive scenery—­the most attractive that has yet been discovered in the mountain ranges of the world.  In many places, especially in the middle region of the western flank, the main canyons widen into spacious valleys or parks diversified like landscape gardens with meadows and groves and thickets of blooming bushes, while the lofty walls, infinitely varied in form are fringed with ferns, flowering plants, shrubs of many species and tall evergreens and oaks that find footholds on small benches and tables, all enlivened and made glorious with rejoicing stream that come chanting in chorus over the cliffs and through side canyons in falls of every conceivable form, to join the river that flow in tranquil, shining beauty down the middle of each one of them.

The Incomparable Yosemite

The most famous and accessible of these canyon valleys, and also the one that presents their most striking and sublime features on the grandest scale, is the Yosemite, situated in the basin of the Merced River at an elevation of 4000 feet above the level of the sea.  It is about seven miles long, half a mile to a mile wide, and nearly a mile deep in the solid granite flank of the range.  The walls are made up of rocks, mountains in size, partly separated from each other by side canyons, and they are so sheer in front, and so compactly and harmoniously arranged on a level floor, that the Valley, comprehensively seen, looks like an immense hall or temple lighted from above.