No Hint Was Given, By Anything In Their Appearance,
Of The Fleeting Character Of These Most Sublime And Beautiful Cloud
Mountains.
On the contrary they impressed one as being lasting
additions to the landscape.
The weather of the springtime and summer, throughout the Sierra in
general, is usually varied by slight local rains and dustings of snow,
most of which are obviously far too joyous and life-giving to be
regarded as storms - single clouds growing in the sunny sky, ripening
in an hour, showering the heated landscape, and passing away like a
thought, leaving no visible bodily remains to stain the sky.
Snowstorms of the same gentle kind abound among the high peaks, but in
spring they not unfrequently attain larger proportions, assuming a
violence and energy of expression scarcely surpassed by those bred in
the depths of winter. Such was the storm now gathering about us.
It began to declare itself shortly after noon, suggesting to us the
idea of at once seeking our safe camp in the timber and abandoning the
purpose of making an observation of the barometer at 3 p.m., - two
having already been made, at 9 a.m., and 12 m., while simultaneous
observations were made at Strawberry Valley. Jerome peered at short
intervals over the ridge, contemplating the rising clouds with anxious
gestures in the rough wind, and at length declared that if we did not
make a speedy escape we should be compelled to pass the rest of the
day and night on the summit. But anxiety to complete my observations
stifled my own instinctive promptings to retreat, and held me to my
work. No inexperienced person was depending on me, and I told Jerome
that we two mountaineers should be able to make our way down through
any storm likely to fall.
Presently thin, fibrous films of cloud began to blow directly over the
summit from north to south, drawn out in long fairy webs like carded
wool, forming and dissolving as if by magic. The wind twisted them
into ringlets and whirled them in a succession of graceful
convolutions like the outside sprays of Yosemite Falls in flood time;
then, sailing out into the thin azure over the precipitous brink of
the ridge they were drifted together like wreaths of foam on a river.
These higher and finer cloud fabrics were evidently produced by the
chilling of the air from its own expansion caused by the upward
deflection of the wind against the slopes of the mountain. They
steadily increased on the north rim of the cone, forming at length a
thick, opaque, ill-defined embankment from the icy meshes of which
snow-flowers began to fall, alternating with hail. The sky speedily
darkened, and just as I had completed my last observation and boxed my
instruments ready for the descent, the storm began in serious earnest.
At first the cliffs were beaten with hail, every stone of which, as
far as I could see, was regular in form, six-sided pyramids with
rounded base, rich and sumptuous-looking, and fashioned with loving
care, yet seemingly thrown away on those desolate crags down which
they went rolling, falling, sliding in a network of curious streams.
After we had forced our way down the ridge and past the group of
hissing fumaroles, the storm became inconceivably violent. The
thermometer fell 22 degrees in a few minutes, and soon dropped below
zero. The hail gave place to snow, and darkness came on like night.
The wind, rising to the highest pitch of violence, boomed and surged
amid the desolate crags; lightning flashes in quick succession cut the
gloomy darkness; and the thunders, the most tremendously loud and
appalling I ever heard, made an almost continuous roar, stroke
following stroke in quick, passionate succession, as though the
mountain were being rent to its foundations and the fires of the old
volcano were breaking forth again.
Could we at once have begun to descend the snow slopes leading to the
timber, we might have made good our escape, however dark and wild the
storm. As it was, we had first to make our way along a dangerous
ridge nearly a mile and a half long, flanked in many places by steep
ice-slopes at the head of the Whitney Glacier on one side and by
shattered precipices on the other. Apprehensive of this coming
darkness, I had taken the precaution, when the storm began, to make
the most dangerous points clear to my mind, and to mark their
relations with reference to the direction of the wind. When,
therefore, the darkness came on, and the bewildering drift, I felt
confident that we could force our way through it with no other
guidance. After passing the "Hot Springs" I halted in the lee of a
lava-block to let Jerome, who had fallen a little behind, come up.
Here he opened a council in which, under circumstances sufficiently
exciting but without evincing any bewilderment, he maintained, in
opposition to my views, that it was impossible to proceed. He firmly
refused to make the venture to find the camp, while I, aware of the
dangers that would necessarily attend our efforts, and conscious of
being the cause of his present peril, decided not to leave him.
Our discussions ended, Jerome made a dash from the shelter of the
lava-block and began forcing his way back against the wind to the "Hot
Springs," wavering and struggling to resist being carried away, as if
he were fording a rapid stream. After waiting and watching in vain
for some flaw in the storm that might be urged as a new argument in
favor of attempting the descent, I was compelled to follow. "Here,"
said Jerome, as we shivered in the midst of the hissing, sputtering
fumaroles, "we shall be safe from frost." "Yes," said I, "we can lie
in this mud and steam and sludge, warm at least on one side; but how
can we protect our lungs from the acid gases, and how, after our
clothing is saturated, shall we be able to reach camp without
freezing, even after the storm is over?
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