Late Discoveries in the Yosemite Region. Wonderful Gorges and Waterfalls-Explorations by John Muir, the Geologist, and Galen Clark, State Guardian of Yosemite Valley.
Files
Kimes Entry Number
AA1
Original Date
12-5-1872
Publication
San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin
Page/Column
p. [2], col. 4. [Scrapbook II, p. 27.]
Location
C
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Late Discoveries in the Yosemite Region. Wonderful Gorges and Waterfalls-Explorations by John Muir, the Geologist, and Galen Clark, State Guardian of Yosemite Valley." (1872). John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes (Muir articles 1866-1986). 665.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/665
William and Maymie Kimes Annotation
The reporter writes: ""John Muir, the lonely adventurous explorer and geologist of the Yosemite Valley, and Galen Clark, State Guardian of that valley, last month penetrated and explored the Tuolumne River canyon, which Professor Whitney and Clarence King did not enter, the former expressing a doubt, in his State Geological Report whether it was possible to get into it at all."" The writer faithfully reports Muir's long description of Hetch Hetchy Valley and its comparison to that of Yosemite, concluding with Muir's statement: ""The glacial alphabet by which the history of glacial action can be read is very much blurred in Yosemite by the subsequent action of rain, snow, sun, wind and earthquakes; but in the Tuolumne canyon the page is fresh from the glacial workshop on the summits of mounts Lyell, Dana, Gibbs and Ritter. . . . The glaciers from these mountains,"" Mr. Muir thinks, ""at one time not only filled the great Tuolumne canyon, but lavishly overflowed it as a river overflows its banks in springtime."" The writer relates that Muir and Clark ""had a rough task in exploring this great canyon and its surroundings. They were forced to wade rushing, icy torrents . . . . They camped one night in their shirt sleeves and went supperless to bed."" The final conclusion is that these recent discoveries foretell many more wonders to be found in the Sierra Nevada. See also no. AA2. Clark's story of this excursion is contained in a letter written to the Rev. R. C. Waterston that was read at the meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History January 15, 1873. Indicating that he had made the trip the past summer [1872], Clark writes that the canyon ""had never been explored by any white man, and its general character was entirely unknown."" Muir did not mention this excursion with Clark until he wrote The Yosemite, published in 1912 (no. 308, pp. 241-243), in which he states, ""The canon up to that time had not been explored . . . . It was on this first trip from Hetch Hetchy to the upper cataracts that I had convincing proofs of Mr. Clark's daring and skill as a mountaineer . . . . As soon as we returned to Yosemite I obtained fresh provisions, pushed off alone up to the head of Yosemite Creek basin, entered the canon by a side canon, and completed the exploration up to the Tuolumme Meadows."" In a ""Letter"" [dated March, 1872] that Muir sent to the Boston Weekly Transcript (no. 19), but which was not published until March 25, 1873, Muir writes: ""In the first week of last November [1871], I set out from here on an excursion to this wonderful valley [Hetch Hetchy]."" In an expansion of this article published in The Overland Monthly for July, 1873 (no. 21), Muir writes: ""My first excursion to Hetch Hetchy was undertaken in the early portion of November, 1871,"" and he later comments that he went alone. Thus, Muir's earliest writing on Hetch Hetchy indicates that his excursion with Clark was not his first into Hetch Hetchy, although it may have been his first excursion from lower ""Hetch Hetchy to the upper cataracts,"" as he states in The Yosemite. See also no. AA2.