Title

Snow Banners of the California Alps.

Authors

John Muir

Files

Kimes Entry Number

068

Original Date

7-1-1877

William and Maymie Kimes Annotation

""The crown of the Sierra decorated with streaming snow banners, was the most sublime phenomenon I ever witnessed in the Alps, far surpassing in plain downright grandeur all the most imposing effects of clouds, floods, and avalanches."" Muir emphasizes their rarity, commenting that in five winters he observed them only once. He writes: ""Wherever strong storm winds find this light, well grounded snow dust in loose condition, upon exposed slopes where there is a free upward sweep, it is tossed back into the sky, and born outward from peak to peak ... how trimly each is attached to the very summit of its peak, like a streamer at a mast-head. How smooth and silky they are in texture, and how exquisitely their fading fringes are penciled upon the azure!""

Publication

Harper's New Monthly Magazine, v. 55, no. 326

Page/Column

pp. 162-164

See also Kimes Entry Number

See also: no. 144; no. 189, pp. 41-47; no.341, v.4,pp.47-[54].

Recommended Citation

Muir, John, "Snow Banners of the California Alps." (1877). John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes, 1986 (Muir articles 1866-1986). 9.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/9