Summering in the Sierra. A New Yosemite-The King\u27s River Valley. It is Geographically Described by John Muir. Glorious Scenery, Magnificent Forests, Lovely Waterfalls-El Capitan and Three Brothers Reproduced-The Valley at Night. (From Our Own...

Daily Evening Bulletin FRIDAY EVENING, AUGUST 13, 1875. SUMERIUG SN THE SIEE1 A Sen Yosemite--The King\u27s Siver Yalley. It is G-sograpMcslly Described by 3c3xa Bficir. Glorious Scenery, Magnificent Forests, Lovely Waterfalls—El Capltan and Three Brothers Reproduced—Tile Valley at Night. [FROM OOP. OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Yosemite Valley, August 5,1875. Nature is seldom suspected of beingpoor, for does she not possess all the real estate of the world, to say nothing of unexplored moons and stars ? and has she then only one Yosemite Valley ? It is now nearly a quarter of a century since the Indians were first disturbed by the intrusion of the whites into this their finest mountain home aud stronghold, and though all sorts of people have written of the grandeur and loveliness of its rocks and snowy waters, the world at large remains strangely blind to the faot, that in the Sierra Nevada there are many Yosemites, differing from this one in no other way or degree than one man or mountain differs from another. Ever since its discovery we have been assured by scientists that Yosemite stood alone and unrelated among all the known valleys of the world. There was nothing like it in Switzerland; in the recesses of the snow-capped Andes; in the Himmalaya, or Africa\u27s Mountains of the Moon It was a special church or temple in which all the landscape-loving world should do extraordinary worship. Or according to ottti penmen perhaps scarcely less devont, it was to be regarded as a mere geological marvel on a grand scale, which like ancient miracles, lay at a hopeless dis ance beyond the boundaries of exact science, the very grandeur and simplicity of its forms preventing the recognition of the plain truth that it constitutes one harmonious and natural feature of the noble mountain landscape in which it lies. Some three years ago I called public attention to Hetch Hetchy Valley, situated on the Tuolumne river twelve miles in an air line to the northwest of here, showing at tbe same time that in every essential particular it was a Yosemite valley, formed by the same forces, lyiug at the same height above sea- level, occupying the same relative position on the flank of the range, and its lofty granite walls scalp- lured and wrought into the same species of sublime forms, and the whle adorned and inspired with the same kinds and combination of plants and waterfalls. THE NEW YOSEMITE. I have just returned from an extended excursion to the summit of Mount Whitney, in the course of which I passed through the King\u27s river Yosemite, which is larger, and in some respects more interesting than the Yosemities of tne Tuolumne and Merced. This magnificent valley is situated upon the South Fork of King\u27s river, about forty-five miles from Visalia in a straight line. It measures about nine miles in length from east to west, and has an average width at bottom of about half a mile. The walls are quite as precipitous as those of Yosemite, so-cilled, and are about three thousand feet in height, and sculptured into the same noble forms that characterize all the Yosemites of the Sierra. The bottom of the valley is about 5,000 feet above the level of the sea, and its level surface is de- versified with meadows and groves, through which the river pours its crystal floods in lavish abundance— now calmly and with scarce a ripple ove r brown pebbles and sheets of yellow sand, now in rushing rapids over beds of mossy bowlders and dams of avalanche debris. We set out, from here on the 9th of July, our party consisting of George Bayley of San Francisco, Charles Washburn, a student of the State University, with Buckskin Bill as male mister, all well mounted on tough, obstinate mules. Iiight gladly we pushed our way into the wild nntrampled kingdoms of the Sierra, inspired with the thousand indefinite joys of the green summer woods; past Clark\u27s Station and the Mariposa Grove of Big riees; through the luxuriant forests of the Unper Fresno, fairly dripping with balsam and gum; climbing many a hill and dale bestrewn wilhbrownburs,andforUing many a bright dashing brook hedged with tangled alders and willows; \u27 making a devious trail, yet tending ever southward, independent in our course as birds in the calm cloudless air. Soon we found ourselves among the heated foothills of the Saa Joaquin, and on the edge of the stramrplv dappled plains. At Centreville we crossed the wide stately current of King\u27s river, still transpaeent and sparkling as if fresh from its high Alpine snows, then facing eastward climbed, to the piney woods cuain, and meandered like a headless river through tbe magnificent groves of King Sequoias that still flourish in cool glens and hollows from King\u27s river southward to the Kaweah, and yet beyond. Here we heard the sound of axes, and soon came upon a group of busy men engaged m preparing a butt section of a giant sequoia they had felled for exhibition at the Qnaker C -atennial. This tree was twenty-five feet in diameter at the base, and so fine was the taper of the trunk mat it still measured ten feet in diameter at a height of two hundred feet from the ground. According to the testimony of the annual wood-rings counted by three different persons, this tree at the time of its death was. from 2,125 to 9,317 years old. The section cat for exhibition is 1G leet long, split into eight immense staves, the heari- wood being removed by splitting and hewing until the staves measure about eight inches in thickness inside the bark. When therefore the section is set up lor exhibition it will aopear as a huge tub cut from a hollow log. The speculative genius who planned and is executing this sequoia enterprise is Martin Vivian of Helena, Montniaa, and In Older to make the most of it, he purposes placing his rustic tub on exhibition during the coming winter at St. Louis. A wagon road has been graded into the grove, and the staves are now almost ready for transportation to tbe railroad. \u27 Many a poor, defrauded town dweller will pay his dollar and peep, and gain some dead arithmetical notion of the bigness ot our Big Trees, but a true aud living knowledge of these tree gods is not to be had at so cheap a rate. As well try to send a section of the storms on which they feed. A GLOBIOUS VIEW. Oat of this solemn ancient forest we climbed, still upward andeastward, into the cool realms of the Alpine pines, and at length caught a- long, sweeping view of the beetling cliffs and rock brows that form the walls of the glorious Yosemite, for which we were so eagerly looking. The trail by which we descended to tbe bottom of tne valley enters at the lower or west, end, zigzagging in a wild Independent fashion over the Sooth lip, and corresponding in a general way both in position and direction to the Mariposa trail of me Merced Yosemite, aDd like it, affording a Berles n enchanting views up the valley, over tne groves and meadows betweenbe massive granite walls. Indee;), 30 fully and radically were these views Yosemitic in a 11 their leading features it was difficult to realize that we were not entering the old Yosemite by Inspiration Point. Bayley\u27s joy usually finds expression in a kind of explosive Indian war whoop, and wild echoes were driven rudely from cliff to cliff, as the varied landscapes revealed themselves from the more commanding points along the trail. BOTTOM OF THE VALLEY—A SIEBBA FLOWEB-GABDEN. In abcnt two hours after beginning the descent, we found ourselves among the sugar pine .groves at the lower end of the valley, through which we rode in perfect ecstasy, for never did pines seem so noble and religious ia all their gestures and tones. The sun pouring down mellow gold, seemed to be shining only for them, and the wind gave them voice, but the gestures of their outstretched arms appeared wholly independent of the winds, and impressed one with a solemn awe that overbore all our knowledge of causes and brought as into the condition of beings new-arrived from seme other far off world. The ground was smoothly strewn with dead, clean leaves and burs, making a fine brown surface for shadows, many a wide, even bar, from tapering trunk columns, and rich mosaic fiom living leaf and braucb. There amid the groves we came to small openings without a tree or shadow, wnolly filled with tne sun, like pools of glowing light. Wc camped on the rlver-bauka mile or two up the vailey near a small circular meadow, that 13 one of the most perfect and downright flower-gardens I have ever discovered in the mountains. The trampling mule?, whom I would fain have kept ont, fairly disappeared beneath the broad, overarching ferns that encircled the garden proper. It was filled with lilies and violets, and orchards, and sun-loving golden rods and asters, and Oenothera, aud purple geraniums, and epilobium, with a hundred others ail in bloom, bat whose names no one would read, though all the world would love to revel in their beauty as they grow. One of the tiger lilies that I measured was six feet long, and had eleven open flowers, five of them in prime beaaty. The wind rocked this splendid orange panicle above the heads of the geraniums and Brier roses, forming a Bpectacle of pure beanty exquisitely poised and harmonized in all its parts. It was as if nature had fingered every leaf and petal that very day, readjusting every curve, and touching the colors of every carolla; and so she had, for not a leaf was misbent, and every plant was J30 placed with refereuce to every other in form aid color that the whole garden had evidently been arranged like one ta .teful bouquet. Here I lived a fine unmeasured hoar considering the lilies warming among the mellow waving golden rods, and gazing into the countenances of the briars and small white \ violets. Every individual flower radiated beauty as real and appreciable as sunbeams, and the lily bells swinging on their long stalks rang out music that was heard as plainly a=ttie river, or wind in the pine tops, j Many other wild gardens occur along tbe river bank, and in cool side dells where a stream comes out of a canyon, but neither at this time nor during my former visit ta ihe Valley were any discovered so perfect as this one. The lower half of the Valley consists of sugar-pine groves divided by svmny park-like openings on which manzanita and several species of ceanothus form a scanty covering. Some of these openings are dry ani gravelly and grow fine crops of Monardella for the bees, together with Erlogona; and the most sun-loving Compositsc for butterflyand humming bird pastures. Towards the upper end of the valley there is quite an extensive meadow that reaches from wall to wall. The river bank, groves and borders are made np chiefly of Alder, Popiar and Willow, and a rich measure of Azalea, Brier Rose and Wild Honeysuckle, all combined with reference to the b st beauty, and to the special wants of the wide crystal river. THE WALLS—NATUBE EEPEATING HEBSELF. Beginning at the lower end of the valley, the flrst two miles of the walls are leveled off at the tops, and are so broken and soil-besprinkled they support quite a number of trees and shaggy bushes, but farther np the granite speedily assumes Yosemitic forms and dimensions, rising in stupendous cliffs, angular and sneer from the level flats and meadows. On the north wall there is an El CaDitan and group ot Three Brothers. Farther np on the same side there is an Indian Canyon and North Dome and Washington Column. On the south wall counterparts of the Sentiuel and Cathedral Rocks occur in iegular order bearing the same relative,position to one another that they do in tbe old Yosemite, for the simple reason that like causes produce like effects, both valleys being in general terms simple pieces of erosion accomplished by the ancient glaciers that flowed through them. WATEBFALLS. With regard ta waterfalls, those of the Old Yosemite are more striking ana impressive in their forms and in the songs they sing, although the whole quantity of water tbat pours over the walls is considerably less and comes from lower sources. The waters of the new valley effect their descent by a series of comparatively short leaps and inclines, which, according to the vague classification in vogne in these dark, pretentious days, would mostly be brought under the head of cascades. These, however, are exceedingly beautiful, more beautiful than vertical falls, aud belong to a higher type of water beauty. Nevertheless, it may be long ere waterfalls have their beauty measured in any other way than by plumb- lines and tape-lines. AN ENCHANTING BIDE—WONDEBFUL VIEWS. Our ride up the Valley was perfectly enchanting, every beud of the river presenting reaches of surpassing loveliness, sunbeams streaming through its border groves, or falling in broad masses upon the white rapids or calm, deep pools. Here and there a dead pine that, had been swept down in flood time reached out over the current, its green mosses and lichens contrasting with the crystal sheen of the water, and its gnarled roots forming shadowy caves for speckled trout where the current eddies slowly, and protecting edges and willows dip their leaves. Among these varied and ever-changU g river reaches the appreciative artist may find studies for a lifetime. The deeply sculptupeo walls presented more and more exciting views, calling forth the unbounded adit iration of the whole party. Bold sheer brows suud-ing forth into a fall blaze of light, deep shadowy side gorges and canyons inhabited by wild cascades, groups of gothic gabies, glacier-polished domes, i coming into view in ever-changing com- i binations, and with different forfgronnds. Yet no individual rock in the valley equals Hi Capi- tan or Half Dome, but, on the other han 1, from no position on tne Yosemite walls conld a section five miles in length be selected equal In downright beauty and grandeur to five miles of the middle portion of the south wall of the new valley. We camped for the night at the foot of the new 1 Washington column, where the ferns and lilies reached to our heads, their rich, lavish exuberance ! contrasting strikingly with the massive, naked walls. | The summer day died in purple and gold, and we i lay watching the growing shadows and the fading sun- j glow among the heights. Each member of the party made bis own bed, like birds building nests. Mine was node of fern frond?, with a sprinkling of mint I spikes in the pillow, thns combining luxurious soft- I ness with delicate fragrance, in which one sleeps not j oniy restful ly but deliciously, making the down beds j of palaces and palace hotels seem poor and vulgar by contrast. THE NEW VALLEY AT NIGHT. The full moon rose just after the night darkness ] was fairly established. The dim gray cliff at the foot of which we lay was crowned with an arch of white, cold light long before the moon\u27s disc appeared above the opposite wall. Down the valley one rock-front after another caught the silvery glow, and came out from they gray and dusky shadows in long, imposing ranks, like very spirits, forming altogether one of the most impressive seenes I ever beheld. The tranquil sky was also intensely lovely, blooming with stars like a meadow, and the thicket3 and groves along the river bank were masses of solid darkness. It was too surpassingly beautiful a night for sleep, and we feasted long upon the rare scene ere the weariness of enjoyment closed our eyes. Next morning we rode up the valley m the sunshine, following the north bank of the river to where it forks at the head. The glacier-polished rocks glowed in the slant sunbeams in many places as if made of burnished steel. All the glacial pnenomena of the new valley, the polished surfaces, roehes montanees, ana moraines, are fresher and less changed than those of the old. It is evidently a somewhat younger valley, a tact easily explained by its relations to the fountains of tne ancient glaciers lying above it in the sno wy Alps. Like the old valley, this also is a favorite summer resort of Indians, because it produces acorns and its streams abound in trout, and, no doubt, they have names for all the principal rocks and cascades, and possess numerous grotesnue and ornamental legends, though as yet I nave do: Seen able to learn any of them. A good mountain ira*l conducts out of the head of the valley, across the rjmge by tbe Kearsarae Pass to Owens Valley, which we followed, and reached-independence iu two days, where we made up our outfit for the ascent ol Mt. Whitney, the loftiest peak m the range. HOW TO GET TEEEE—PRIMEVAL HOG PASTURE. This new King\u27s river Yosemite is already beginning to attract tourists from all parts of the world, and its fame will soon equal that of the old. It is quite as accessible, the distance from the railroad being, as we have said, only about 45 miles in an airline, and the greater portion of the disaance is by a good wagon road. Hor.=es and all the necessary outfit may be obtained at Visalia, aud the excursion has the advantage of comprehending the finest groves of big trees in the State, as well as a section of the best pine and fir forests, and if the trail be followed to InciepeLdence, views will be bad of the very highest portion of the Sierra. The Kearsarge Pass is over 12,000 feet iu height, and is located in tbe midst of a perfect wilderness cf peaks from 1,300 to over 14,000 feet in height, rising from rare glacial meadows and Hke, and adorned around their bases by a multitude of the very dearest of Alpine flowers. Those who can should visit the valley at once, while it remains in primeval order. Some twenty-five years ago the Tuolumne Yosemite was made into a hog pasture, and later into a sheep pasture. The Merced Yosemire has all its will gardens trampled by cows and horses, and we noticed upon a pine tree in the King\u27s river Valley the ft llowing inscription: We tbe undersigned claim this valley for the purpose cf raising stock, etc. Mr. Thomas, Richard, Harvey A Co By which it appears that all the destructible beauty of this remoie Yosemite is doomed to perish like that of its neigbbors. and our tame law-loving citizens plant and water their garden daisies without concern, wholly unconscious of loss. John Muir.https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/1028/thumbnail.jp