My First Summer in the Sierra E-Book

John Muir

• Herausgeber: Youcanprint
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

In the great Central Valley of California there are only two seasons: spring and summer. The spring begins with the first rainstorm, which usually falls in November. In a few months the wonderful flowery vegetation is in full bloom, and by the end of May it is dead and dry and crisp, as if every plant had been roasted in an oven. Then the lolling, panting flocks and herds are driven to the high, cool, green pastures of the Sierra. I was longing for the mountains about this time, but money was scarce and I couldn't see how a bread supply was to be kept up. While I was anxiously brooding on the bread problem, so troublesome to wanderers, and trying to believe that I might learn to live like the wild animals, gleaning nourishment here and there from seeds, berries, etc., sauntering and climbing in joyful independence of money or baggage, Mr. Delaney, a sheep-owner, for whom I had worked a few weeks, called on me, and offered to engage me to go with his shepherd and flock to the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers—the very region I had most in mind. I was in the mood to accept work of any kind that would take me into the mountains whose treasures I had tasted last summer in the Yosemite region. The flock, he explained, would be moved gradually higher through the successive forest belts as the snow melted, stopping for a few weeks at the best places we came to. These I thought would be good centers of observation from which I might be able to make many telling excursions within a radius of eight or ten miles of the camps to learn something of the plants, animals, and rocks; for he assured me that I should be left perfectly free to follow my studies. I judged, however, that I was in no way the right man for the place, and freely explained my shortcomings, confessing that I was wholly unacquainted with the topography of the upper mountains, the streams that would have to be crossed, and the wild sheep-eating animals, etc.; in short that, what with bears, coyotes, rivers, cañons, and thorny, bewildering chaparral, I feared that half or more of his flock would be lost. Fortunately these shortcomings seemed insignificant to Mr. Delaney. The main thing, he said, was to have a man about the camp whom he could trust to see that the shepherd did his duty, and he assured me that the difficulties that seemed so formidable at a distance would vanish as we went on; encouraging me further by saying that the shepherd would do all the herding, that I could study plants and rocks and scenery as much as I liked, and that he would himself accompany us to the first main camp and make occasional visits to our higher ones to replenish our store of provisions and see how we prospered. Therefore I concluded to go, though still fearing, when I saw the silly sheep bouncing one by one through the narrow gate of the home corral to be counted, that of the two thousand and fifty many would never return.

Leseprobe

Contents

Illustrations in the Text

Bibliographic Information

Chapter 1 Through the Foothills with a Flock of Sheep

Chapter 2 In Camp on the North Fork of the Merced

Chapter 3 A Bread Famine

Chapter 4 To the High Mountains

Chapter 5 The Yosemite

Chapter 6 Mount Hoffman and Lake Tenaya

Chapter 7 A Strange Experience

Chapter 8 The Mono Trail

Chapter 9 Bloody Cañon and Mono Lake

Chapter 10 The Tuolumne Camp

Chapter 11 Back to the Lowlands

My First Summer in the Sierra

By

John Muir

Drawings made by the Author in 1869 and from Photographs by Herbert W. Gleason

Houghton Mifflin Company Boston and New York

The Riverside Press Cambridge Published June 1911

Copyright, 1911, by John Muir

All Rights Reserved

Edition 2017 by

David De Angelis

To

The Sierra Club of California,

Faithful Defender of the People’s Playgrounds

Liberty Cap, with Vernal and Nevada Falls

Illustrations in the Text

Plates

Reproduced from photographs by Herbert W. Gleason, several of which were taken while in the company of the author, who is seen in the one facing page 216.

Liberty Cap, with Vernal and Nevada Falls (Frontispiece)

White Mariposa Tulip (

Calochortus albus

)

A Forest Brook

A Sugar Pine

A Mountain Stream

A Glacial Boulder

Thunder-storm over Yosemite

Foliage and Cones of Sierra Hemlock (

Tsuga Mertensiana

)

Magnificent Silver Firs (Mr. Muir in foreground)

Tuolumne Meadow from Cathedral Peak

Sierra Range from Mono Crater

In Tuolumne Sequoia Grove

From sketches made by the author in 1869.

Horseshoe Bend, Merced River

On Second Bench. Edge of the Main Forest Belt, above Coulterville, near Greeley’s Mill

Camp, North Fork of the Merced

Mountain Live Oak (

Quercus chrysolepis

), Eight Feet in Diameter

Sugar Pine

Douglas Squirrel Observing Brother Man

Divide Between the Tuolumne and the Merced, below Hazel Green

Track of Singing Dancing Grasshopper in the Air over North Dome

Abies magnifica

(Mt. Clark, Top of South Dome, Mt. Starr King)

Illustrating Growth of New Pine from Branch Below the Break of Axis of Snow-crushed Tree

Approach of Dome Creek to Yosemite

Junipers in Tenaya Canon

View of Tenaya Lake Showing Cathedral Peak

One of the Tributary Fountains of the Tuolumne Canon Waters, on the North Side of the Hoffman Range

Glacier Meadow, on the Headwaters of the Tuolumne, 9500 Feet above the Sea

Mono Lake and Volcanic Cones, Looking South

Highest Mono Volcanic Cones (near view)

One of the Highest Mt. Ritter Fountains

Glacier Meadow Strewn with Moraine Boulders, 10,000 Feet above the Sea (near Mt. Dana) • Front of Cathedral Peak

View of Upper Tuolumne Valley

Bibliographic Information

Muir, John (1838-1914). My first summer in the Sierra (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin company, 1911). vii, 353 p., front., illus., plates. 21 cm. Illustrations from drawings made by the author in 1869 and from photographs by Herbert W. Gleason. Library of Congress Call Number F868.S5 M9. LCCN 11014183.

Chapter 1Through the Foothills with a Flock of Sheep

1869

IN the great Central Valley of California there are only two seasons, —spring and summer. The spring begins with the first rainstorm, which usually falls in November. In a few months the wonderful flowery vegetation is in full bloom, and by the end of May it is dead and dry and crisp, as if every plant had been roasted in an oven.

Then the lolling, panting flocks and herds are driven to the high, cool, green pastures of the Sierra. I was longing for the mountains about this time, but money was scarce and I couldn’t see how a bread supply was to be kept up. While I was anxiously brooding on the bread problem, so troublesome to wanderers, and trying to believe that I might learn to live like the wild animals, gleaning nourishment here and there from seeds, berries, etc., sauntering and climbing in joyful independence of money or baggage, Mr. Delaney, a sheep-owner, for whom I had worked a few weeks, called on me, and offered to engage me to go with his shepherd and flock to the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers, —the very region I had most in mind. I was in the mood to accept work of any kind that would take me into the mountains whose treasures I had tasted last summer in the Yosemite region. The flock, he explained, would be moved gradually higher through the successive forest belts as the snow melted, stopping for a few weeks at the best places we came to. These I thought would be good centres of observation from which I might be able to make many telling excursions within a radius of eight or ten miles of the camps to learn something of the plants, animals, and rocks; for he assured me that I should be left perfectly free to follow my studies. I judged, however, that I was in no way the right man for the place, and freely explained my shortcomings, confessing that I was wholly unacquainted with the topography of the upper mountains, the streams that would have to be crossed, and the wild sheep-eating animals, etc.; in short that, what with bears, coyotes, rivers, cañons, and thorny, bewildering chaparral, I feared that half or more of his flock would be lost. Fortunately these shortcomings seemed insignificant to Mr. Delaney. The main thing, he said, was to have a man about the camp whom he could trust to see that the shepherd did his duty, and he assured me that the difficulties that seemed so formidable at a distance would vanish as we went on; encouraging me further by saying that the shepherd would do all the herding, that I could study plants and rocks and scenery as much as I liked, and that he would himself accompany us to the first main camp and make occasional visits to our higher ones to replenish our store of provisions and see how we prospered. Therefore I concluded to go, though still fearing, when I saw the silly sheep bouncing one by one through the narrow gate of the home corral to be counted, that of the two thousand and fifty many would never return.