USA > California > Tulare County > History of Tulare County, California with biographical sketches > Part 25
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A NATIVE VIEWING THE SCENERY.
summer. They enter the valley in July, from the plains below, and remain about three months. Our Ameriean robins (Turdus migratorius) frequent the valley during the summer. The only snakes found there are our ubiquitous rattlesnake, in June and July, and the small brown water-snake (Regina valida ?) of California. In the neighboring mountains the most venomous rattlesnakes, from four to five feet long, have oceasionally been killed. There are scorpions in the valley, but no tarantulas or centipedes.
ANIMAL LIFE IN THE SIERRAS.
Three speeies of bear, the blaek, cinnamon and brown, are oceasionally met with as high as 10,000 feet. In mid-summer, deer keep close to the snow line. Grouse are numerous in
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certain localities, and in the spring their drumming may be heard on every hill-side. Mountain quail, roused by the traveler, fly in every direction from a common center, and generally the quick whir of their vanishing forms is the first intimation one has of their presence. Lesser lights of the feathered tribe flit to and fro among the trees, and trill sweet lays from deep forests. Social thrushes, rapping wood-peckers, dart- ing humming-birds, gold-tinted finches, confiding snowbirds, diving water-ousels, talkative chicka- dees, California bluebirds, facetious owls, narrow-billed wood-ducks, and chattering blue jays, have their habitats in the Sierras.
Among the arbor- eal quadrupeds, the most beautiful is the black fox. It has a pelage of the finest and blackest fur, with an eye that Cleopatra's could not rival for bril- liancy. It watches the intruder from afar, and on his first effort to approach, disappears among the rocks.
The mountain sheep, once common in this region, is now rarely seen. He who visits the Sierras to trap the black fox, or hunt KING OF THE MOUNTAINS. the mountain sheep, undertakes a heroic task, and.one not easily accomplished.
There are many mighty cañons and yawning gorges along the bottoms of which rush furious rivers and many tributaries. There are occasional benches, or narrow, level surfaces, free from thicket and occupied by thestately forests; but the most of
this belt presents deep ravines bristling with tangled thickets, where prowl the brown, black, and dreaded grizzly bears, with their irascible compeer, the "California lion." An occa- sional saw-mill, or hunter's cabin, or temporary "sheep camp," are the only signs of civilization.
KING OF THE MOUNTAINS.
This name was given by Clarence King to one of the big trees near Thomas Mill. Standing in rather an open glade, where the ground was starred with upland flowers, stood the largest shaft we observed. It was a slowly tapering, regularly round column of about forty feet diameter, and rising 274 feet, which height was accurately measured, and adorned with a few huge branches. That which impresses one most after its vast bulk and grand pillar-like stateliness, is the thin and incon- spicuous foliage, which feathers out delicately on the boughs, like a meremist of pale apple-green. Near this tree grew a sugar- pine of about 8 feet diameter, and hardly less than 300 feet high. For 150 feet the pine was branchless, and as round as if turned ; delicate, bluish-purple in hue. Adjoining were two firs, which sprang from a common root, dividing slightly as they rose about 300 feet. The two firs, King judges, were about 300 years old ; the pine 500 years, and the King of the Mountains not less than 2,000 years.
"This monarch is one for whose sake it would be worth while to make a long journey to see. It is not in words to convey an impression of its granduer, majesty and power."
VISIT TO PARADISE VALLEY.
A correspondent of the Fresno Republican, who went to visit the valley in 1882, says : From Fresno to the Big Trees, a distance of fifty-five miles, there is a plain wagon road, but beyond that the traveler must take it afoot or on horseback. Knowing this, we took the entire journey on horseback, carry- ing our camp equipage on a pack animal. Occasionally for fifteen miles are found groves of the sequoia gigantea ; one on Boulder Creek containing a large number of monster growths. Toiling on, real work is necessary to ascend some of the tower- ing mountains over which the trail leads. On either hand the view was simply grand. From the mountain top, where the descent into King's River Canon begins, looking to the north and east the picture is one never to be forgotten, and the weird grandeur brought to view is beyond the power of pen description. Across the rugged gorge, about twenty miles distant, towers Mount Kearsage, whose snowy cap rests 14,500 feet above the sea.
Two hours and a half constantly descending will bring you to the bottom of the famous canon. Flowing at your feet is the south fork of King's River, fresh, pure and cold from its snowy fountain. About half a mile wide and fifteen miles long, this cañon or valley is walled in by rocky mountains, rising perpendicularly 4,000 to 6,000 feet above the river bed. Little or no vegetation grows upon these walls of solid rock,
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which tower aloft and seein wholly above and beyond the milder influences of nature. While seeming, yet they are not, in their granite firmness, beyond the gentle but mighty force of the tiny rivulet trickling down their rugged sides. A five days' sojourn in this wild place sufficed to show many points of great interest. The river abounds with speckled trout which take the fly or 'hopper cagerly. Along the banks are grassy meadows through which the sportive streams come leap- ing from the rocky cliff's above, and earlier in the season foaming cataracts issuing from the melting snows add to the otherwise sublime scene.
GRAND AND INTERESTING.
Clarence King says : " We could not find words to describe the terribleness and grandeur of the deep cañon. The average descent is immensely steep. At times the two walls approach each other, standing in perpendicular gateways. The ridges of one side are reproduced upon the other. It is safe to say that the actual rending asunder of the mountain mass determined and formed this cañon."
Bierstadt made a painting of what he termed, " King's River Cañon," which attracted great attention. It was reported to have been sold to an English nobleman for $50,000.
Judge Winchell says : "From the forest to the crest of the Sierra, is a land of science most awful, of desolation most stu- pendous, a universe of granite, drear and naked, except when robed in snow. Summer tears this robe in tatters, uncovering by the middle of autumn, the gaunt ribs and gray crest; but in the gorges and on the shaded slopes the snow and ice endure forever. From the brink of a precipice at the lower edge of this belt, the party mentioned looked down into the chasm of King's River-a vertical mile deep! Lifting up their eyes they beheld Mount Whitney, with a long train of lofty peaks which barred the east. The Hanks, shoulders, and crests of these monarchs were of cold, gray granite, spotted with fields of snow. There were endless forms of dizzy walls, towering needles, slippery declivities, dreadful yawning gulfs, sullen sleeping masses of adamant, that filled the scope of vision for fifty miles north and south, as the awe-stricken travelers gazed upon the scene.
In a narrow crevice below them, King's River lay like a shining thread. Descending, for four miles, by a steep though coiling trail, they reached the floor of the gorge, finding it the rival of Yosemite.
The valley, one-half a mile wide and twelve miles long, was closed at either end by inaccessible cañons.
Through it, the middle fork of King's River shot its arrowy way. Gentle slopes on each side were clothed in fresh grass and fragrant ferns, and shaded by forests of pine. Threading the valley to its upper end, they passed, on the right and on the left, smooth, perpendicular walls that seemed to woo the clouds Such a mural front stood across the eastern extremity of the
valley. On either hand rose two similar cliffs, completing three sides of a square apartment. Through the two corners rushed into this space two roaring streams, which instantly uniting, formed the middle fork of King's River. The travel- ers pitched their tent at this junction, in an open glade car- peted with verdure, over which the three towering walls seemed to bend. There were speckle.l trout in the berylline waters, mountain grouse upon the cliff's, squirrels among the trees, a sky shaming that of Italy, a genial October sun. But the crowning attraction, beauty, glory and wonder, were those three mighty tablets-each a thousand feet broad and four times higher-springing like walls of a Titian temple from the green carpet to the blue sky.
ICTFIC
SCENE IN KERN RIVER CANON. (From a painting by A. Bierstadt.)
KERN RIVER CAÑON.
The bottom of another wild, grand and awe-inspiring valley is that of the Kern River at its head. The canon runs north, and south at the base of Mount Whitney and other grand peaks. This valley is 8,000 feet above the sea. The cañon is quite broad and level, with groves of pinc and fir and little meadows scattered over its surface. For a long distance there are high precipitous walls. The sides are more nearly perpendicular than those of Paradise Valley. The walls vary in height from 3,000 to 6,000 feet. For nearly twenty miles along this cañon there is but one point where horses can be taken out on the west, and not one on the cast. Little meadows
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occur every few hundred yards, and there is not the desolate, sand-strewn flats that Paradise Valley presents. In riding along between these massive walls that rise so high above, one cannot but feel as though he had been suddenly let down into the interior of the earth.
The width at the bottom of this huge canon, for thirty or forty miles, varies from less than a quarter of a inile to a mile, while the upper edges of the beetling cliffs that form its con- tiuuous walls are from one to two miles apart. Near these falls the altitude of the river-bed varies from 7,000 to 7,200 feet, while, judging from the apparent smallness of the trees which fringe the upper edges of the cliff's, their height above sea-level must range from 9,000 to 11,000 feet. This would make the wall-faces tower from 2,000 to 5,000 feet above the bottom of the cañon, while the peaks that crown these walls are from 500 to 2,500 feet higher.
For grandeur it far surpasses Paradise Cañon on King's River, which Muir styled the "New Yosemite."
Along this cañon one in search of pleasure or relief from care may loiter away many an interesting day.
SHA-GOO-PAH FALLS.
There are five waterfalls from the sides of the cañon, that are from 1,500 to 3,000 feet high, the water of which drops down two or three feet at a plunge, to be dashed into spray on a narrow shelf or glanced off to similar shelves below. The highest of the falls is called Sha-goo-pah, from the Indian name of Mount Williamson. Its height is 3,000 feet. There are three handsome falls, from 1,500 to 3,000 feet high, formed by small streams that leap over the very precipitous western wall of the cañon, and another such waterfall coming from the east. The highest of these on the west is named Sha-goo-pah Falls, as mentioned.
From the sides come in many smaller cañons to remind one of Powell's vivid description of those of Colorado.
The general monotonous appearance of the gray granite is relieved by a variety made up largely of rosy-tinted feldspar that forms part of the west canon wall. Above Junction Camp this variety has been worn into the forms of columns and needles, that scintillate under the bright beams of the morning sun. Throughout this entire region of upper Kern, nature seems to have taken a delight in sharp angles and striking contrasts. You pass out of the cañon onto a plateau having a triangular form, and extending south from Mount Kaweah about six miles, and which at the base has a width of four miles. It is covered with a heavy growth of pine and fir, amongst which are countless numbers of fallen trees. Numerous meadows dot its surface, and many little brooks flowing from Mount Kaweah cross it.
Near the southern extremity is a shallow lake, half a mile long, far surpassing Mirror Lake of Yosemite.
HEMATITE BASIN.
The large basin at the head of this valley is called Hematite Basin, from an immense ledge of hematite (a peculiar iron ore) that is found there. Along the cañon and in this basin is a considerable variety of rocks and minerals. Diorite, quartz- diorite, porphyry, calc-spar, red and green quartzite, tour- maline, magnetite, tremolite, hornblende, epidote, pyrites of copper, galena and zinc-blende are to be found there. Near the head of the canon are two great tables of granulite, thirty feet long, and from six to twelve feet wide, as smooth and level as if they had been wrought by hand. There are many lakelets of varying sizes, and of a common character. From
VISITORS IN THE SIERRAS.
the outlet of each, back to the center, is a smoothly worn and very gradually inclined plane. The glacier burnished surfaces here are very extensive.
RED SNOW.
This peculiar and beautiful sight is met with on these mountains at an elevation of 12,000 feet. Mr. Dusy says he has seen miles of it on the mountain ranges. When examined through a strong microscope these odd and and pretty globules are discovered to be of the very small microscopic water plant, protococcus navalis, which gives to this snow its red or crim- son color. These minute globules appear as round as a ball. They propagate by subdivision. The best way to preserve
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them for examination under the mieroseope, is to melt a bueket- ful of the red snow, let the coloring substance settle, pour off the water and save the red sediment, of which you will have about a tablespoonful. Dry this and it forms a pinkish pow- der, a few partieles of which ean be moistened and mounted for the mieroseope at any time. They are, beyond question the veritable protococcus navalis, discovered first in the Arctie regions and then in the Alps, and in late years found in abundanee on many of the higher mountains of Colorado Utah and California.
Some red snow was found along the upper edge of the huge snow-bank in the gorge of Farewell Gap. This snow, which was, no doubt, twenty-five feet deep, is the source of the Little Kern. This red snow, when seraped up and hield in the hand, is just like red roek-eandy erushed, and its eolor when melted is exactly the same as the water of a red watermelon.
MOUNT WHITNEY.
"This grand mountain," says Clarence King, " is a splendid mass of granite, 14,987 feet high, inehiseled and storm-tinted
MOUNT WHITNEY. (Sketched by Wales.)
a great monolith left standing amid the ruins of a bygone geologieal empire, the summit of the United States."
" At eleven o'clock the next morning Knowles and I stood together on the topmost peak of Mount Whitney. We found there a monument of stones and records of two parties who had preceded us. The first, Messrs. Hunter and Crapo, and next Robe, of Geological survey. The first, so far as we know, who had aseended this summit. Mr. Robe made the first measurements. We were all there within a month."
THE DEVIL'S LADDER.
The most difficult portion of this steep elimb is what is ealled the Devil's Ladder. This begins at a height of about 13,000 feet, and extends upward at least a quarter of a mile, between perpendicular outeroppings of roek, forty or fifty feet apart, and looking very much like the " Devil's Slide" in Weber Cañon, on the Union Pacific Railroad. By sueh zig- zags as one does not often see, even on mountain trails, mules lightly paeked ean make the ascent with great difficulty, it being necessary at one point for men to unpack them and
remove the artieles one by one to a point fifty or sixty feet above, and there repaek the animals. Some of his paek animals were the first that ever reached the summit of Whitney, and considerable work had to be done on a trail before the feat could be accomplished.
VIEW OF MOUNT WHITNEY.
We here present an engraving of Mount Whitney, furnished us by Captain Wright, who says that though plain, this engraving is very accurate, and gives eorreetly the appearance of this grand and noted peak, as seen from the deep, wild, roeky gorge immediately west of it, known as Whitney Cañon. Down this eañon Whitney Creek proper flows southwest to the main Kern, about eight miles distant in a straight line. It also presents faithfully the outlines of the true Mount Whitney as seen from the elevated tablelands to westward, on both the east and west side of the immense eañon of the main Kern ; also from Mount Kaweah, located some ten or twelve miles in a direet line, slightly south of west from Mount Whitney; and from the high divide still farther west, in which is the preeipi- tous Cliff Pass, 12,000 feet above sea level, and which forms the west wall of Jenny Lind Canon, through which flows a large westerly branch of Kern River, ealled by the miners Crabtree Creek, from one of their number.
One remarkable thing about a view from Mount Whitney is that while you stand on the highest point in the United States, 15,000 feet above the sea, you overlook the renowned "Death Valley," but seventy-five miles away-that rainless, lifeless, bone-strewn valley, the lowest land in America-three hundred and seventy-seven feet below sea level.
Due south ean be seen the bold outlines of the San Gabriel Mountains, near Los Angeles, and a range of mountains on the Colorado River, 200 miles away.
SIGNAL STATION OF MOUNT WHITNEY.
In accordance with orders from the War Department, there was established a Signal Station on Mount Whitney, and the United States flag officially raised, August 16, 1881.
A trail was made, which was, perhaps, three or four miles in length from eamp to camp, by which the paek mules, by dint of hard elimbing, earried to the summit the tent, bedding and a few instruments, with enough food and fuel-a quarter of a eord of wood-to last during the four days and nights that part of the corps made observations there, September 2d to 6th. So, as far as paeking up supplies is eoneerned, that ean be done, but not without the severest and prolonged exer- tion of man and beast.
LADIES ASCEND MOUNT WHITNEY.
Towards the end of July, 1877, a party of ladies and gentle- men from Porterville started on an excursion to Mount Whit- ney. At Fish Lake they met Mr. Wm. Crapo, one of the guides of Captain Michaelis' party. He went with them, and hey undoubtedly aseended to the summit of the true Mount
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Whitney, and left their record in its monument, with the names of Clarence King, John Muir, A. H. Johnson and some of Lieutenant Wheeler's party. Mr. Crapo told so mueh of the plucky perseverance of one of the ladies under peculiar disadvantages, to surmount all the difficulties of that most arduous climb, that by common agreement it was felt a prom- inent peak should be named in her honor. The party who made the ascent consisted of Judge Redd and wife, and two sons, George and Robert, Miss Hope Broughton, Miss Mattie Martin, H. E. Ford, Kit Carson Johnson, Luther Anderson and N. B. Martin, with the lady teacher after whom the mountain referred to is named-Miss Anna Mills. It was undecided for a time which peak to name for her, but the final selection was a long, high peak just south of Loomis Cañon and about four miles south of Mount Guyot. . It is certainly between 13,000 and 14,000 feet in altitude. Even in Septem- ber there was considerable snow near its summit. It lies along the regular route to Mount Whitney.
TWO-MAN-I-GOO-YAH PARK.
The unanimous conclusion of the Wright party was that Congress should establish in connection with the signal station on Mount Whitney a National Park, on somewhat the same plan as the " Yellowstone Park." It was believed that twenty miles square, or 400 square miles, around Mount Whitney would include sufficient area for this purpose. Or twenty miles north and south by twenty-five cast and west might be better, as this would embrace the Kaweah group, with its mcadows and abundant forests of hackniatack. This would make the area extend ten miles north and ten miles south of Mount Whitney ; seven miles east of it, to the base of the Sierra in Owen's River Valley, and eighteen miles west of it, including the upper twenty miles of the truly grand cañon of the main Kern, with the five high waterfalls dashing over its precipitous cliffs from 1,500 to upwards of 3,000 feet in height. This Government reservation it is proposed to call Two-man- i-goo-yah Park.
Four thundering streams leap out of the snow from bencath the throne of Mount Whitney. They rush down the western slope of the Sierra into that great and undivided valley, the south half of which is called Tulare, from its tule marshes, the north half San Joaquin, from its chief river. From Mt. Whitney's southern base the north fork of Kern River flows southwardly along the lofty rugged valley between the main ridge of the Sierra and its inferior counterpart as far as Walker's Pass, when, joining with the south fork, they together turn to the west, break through all the mountain barriers, and launching upon the peaceful Tulare Plain pour into the wide "Lake of the Tulares." Bakersfield, the county-seat, is in the midst of the plain near the river.
From the mountain's western base flows westerly the Kaweah, down deep gorges and over plunging falls to the
valley's edge, where it instantly unbraids into four streams, that meander across the plain to the Tulare Lake and are called the "Four Creeks." They traverse and embrace a rich alluvial "delta" in the midst of which, guarded by giant oaks, stands the village of Visalia.
From the northwestern front of the mountain the south fork of King's River goes forth to wed the middle fork, is a few miles below joined by the north fork, and becomes a strong and headstrong stream.
Lastly, from the northern side of Mount Whitney the splen- did rivulets of the south fork of the San Joaquin shape their rise. They flow northward between parallel chains for thirty miles and then turn abrupt- ly to the west and commin- gle with those of the north fork, which rises near Yo- semnite, roar and tumble along dark, unfathomed caverns, falling thousands of fect in the course of for- ty miles, Among the foot- hills they pass the town of Millerton, once the couuty seat of Fres- no County; thence into the level pam- pas of the great valley, westerly for forty miles, where swcep- ing slowly around to the north ward in a great curve they roll lazily off to the Golden Gate. Directly opposite this TWIN FALLS. region, lics the Owen's River Valley, the county of Inyo. That valley is essentially of volcanic character. Mono Lake is a veritable Dead Sea.
Between the remaining basalt-capped hills are many peace- ful and picturesque vales that have been scooped out by the hand of nature since the fiery epoch closed ; and pretty cottages, with tiny farms, orchards and vineyards, are now nestled in dreamy repose and fancied security, in spots where once, a thousand feet above them, flowed endless, fearful, incandescent tides of fluid granite.
Along this belt are found many small creeks and rivulets, fed by the winter rains, and occasional springs flowing through secluded, narrow vales of rich soil, where pioneers have fenced and cultivated a few acres, reared their unpretending cottages and gathered about them flocks and herds.
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THE KAWEAH BUTTES.
We here give the only engraving ever made of four of California's most noted peaks, Mounts Albert, Henry, Lc Conte and Kaweah. It is from a drawing hastily made by Rev. F. H. Wales, one of the party of three who were explor- ing the upper Kern in 1881-Wallace, Wales and Wright. It was made-the impromptu artist seated on a huge bowlder- on the frosty morning that they left "Camp Kawealı," where, for part of three days, they pitched their cosy tent near a clear, cold brook in the edge of a dense tamarack forest, on the southern side of a large, open, sandy meadow, and, as nearly as they could estimate, about three miles south of the highest point of Mount Kaweah, as shown in the engraving. The high, massive and very grand peak on the south end of this ridge is the true Mount Kaweah, and is shown on the right in the engraving. The sharp point farthest north, or on the left side of the engraving, is Mount Albert, The next peak south, or just to the right of it, is Mount Henry. The sharp point seen here between Mount Henry and Mount Kaweah has not yet been named, " but permit me," says Mr. Wright, "to suggest the propriety of calling it Mount Le Conte, in honor of Prof. Joseph Le Conte, of the University of
MOUNTS ALBERT, HENRY, LE CONTE AND KAWEAH.
California, whose labors have done so much to solve the pecu- liar difficulties of the geology of California." All four of these most prominent peaks of this group are of nearly the same alti- tude-that is, they are all about 14,000 feet high.
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