Chapter 10
The South Dome
With the exception of a few spires and
pinnacles, the South Dome is
the only rock about the Valley that is strictly inaccessible without
artificial means, and its inaccessibility is expressed in severe terms.
Nevertheless many a mountaineer, gazing admiringly, tried hard to
invent a way to the top of its noble crown--all in vain, until in the
year 1875, George Anderson, an indomitable Scotchman, undertook the
adventure. The side facing Tenaya Cañon is an absolutely
vertical
precipice from the summit to a depth of about 1600 feet, and on the
opposite side it is nearly vertical for about as great a depth. The
southwest side presents a very steep and finely drawn curve from the
top
down a thousand feet or more, while on the northeast, where it is
united
with the Clouds' Rest Ridge, one may easily reach a point called the
Saddle, about seven hundred feet below the summit. From the Saddle the
Dome rises in a graceful curve a few degrees too steep for unaided
climbing, besides being defended by overleaning ends of the concentric
dome layers of the granite.
A year or two before Anderson gained the
summit, John Conway, the
master
trail-builder of the Valley, and his little sons, who climbed smooth
rocks like lizards, made a bold effort to reach the top by climbing
barefooted up the grand curve with a rope which they fastened at
irregular intervals by means of eye-bolts driven into joints of the
rock. But finding that the upper part would require laborious drilling,
they abandoned the attempt, glad to escape from the dangerous position
they had reached, some 300 feet above the Saddle. Anderson began with
Conway's old rope, which had been left in place, and resolutely drilled
his way to the top, inserting eye-bolts five to six feet apart, and
making his rope fast to each in succession, resting his feet on the
last bolt while he drilled a hole for the next above. Occasionally some
irregularity in the curve, or slight foothold, would enable him to
climb
a few feet without a rope, which he would pass and begin drilling
again,
and thus the whole work was accomplished in a few days. From this
slender beginning he proposed to construct a substantial stairway which
he hoped to complete in time for the next year's travel, but while busy
getting out timber for his stairway and dreaming of the wealth he hoped
to gain from tolls, he was taken sick and died all alone in his little
cabin.
On the 10th of November, after returning
from a visit to Mount Shasta,
a
month or two after Anderson had gained the summit, I made haste to the
Dome, not only for the pleasure of climbing, but to see what I might
learn. The first winter storm-clouds had blossomed and the mountains
and
all the high points about the Valley were mantled in fresh snow. I was,
therefore, a little apprehensive of danger from the slipperiness of the
rope and the rock. Anderson himself tried to prevent me from making
the attempt, refusing to believe that any one could climb his rope in
the now-muffled condition in which it then was. Moreover, the sky was
overcast and solemn snow-clouds began to curl around the summit, and
my late experiences on icy Shasta came to mind. But reflecting that I
had matches in my pocket, and that a little firewood might be found, I
concluded that in case of a storm the night could be spent on the Dome
without suffering anything worth minding, no matter what the clouds
might bring forth. I therefore pushed on and gained the top.
It was one of those brooding, changeful days
that come between Indian
summer and winter, when the leaf colors have grown dim and the clouds
come and go among the cliffs like living creatures looking for work:
now
hovering aloft, now caressing rugged rock-brows with great gentleness,
or, wandering afar over the tops of the forests, touching the spires of
fir and pine with their soft silken fringes as if trying to tell the
glad news of the coming of snow.
The first view was perfectly glorious. A
massive cloud of pure pearl
luster, apparently as fixed and calm as the meadows and groves in the
shadow beneath it, was arched across the Valley from wall to wall, one
end resting on the grand abutment of El Capitan, the other on Cathedral
Rock. A little later, as I stood on the tremendous verge overlooking
Mirror Lake, a flock of smaller clouds, white as snow, came from the
north, trailing their downy skirts over the dark forests, and entered
the Valley with solemn god-like gestures through Indian Cañon
and over
the North Dome and Royal Arches, moving swiftly, yet with majestic
deliberation. On they came, nearer and nearer, gathering and massing
beneath my feet and filling the Tenaya Cañon. Then the sun shone
free,
lighting the pearly gray surface of the cloud-like sea and making it
glow. Gazing, admiring, I was startled to see for the first time the
rare optical phenomenon of the "Specter of the Brocken." My shadow,
clearly outlined, about half a mile long, lay upon this glorious white
surface with startling effect. I walked back and forth, waved my arms
and struck all sorts of attitudes, to see every slightest movement
enormously exaggerated. Considering that I have looked down so many
times from mountain tops on seas of all sorts of clouds, it seems
strange that I should have seen the "Brocken Specter" only this once.
A grander surface and a grander stand-point, however, could hardly
have been found in all the Sierra.
After this grand show the cloud-sea rose
higher, wreathing the Dome,
and
for a short time submerging it, making darkness like night, and I began
to think of looking for a camp ground in a cluster of dwarf pines. But
soon the sun shone free again, the clouds, sinking lower and lower,
gradually vanished, leaving the Valley with its Indian-summer colors
apparently refreshed, while to the eastward the summit-peaks, clad in
new snow, towered along the horizon in glorious array.
Though apparently it is perfectly bald,
there are four clumps of pines
growing on the summit, representing three species, Pinus albicaulis,
P. contorta and P. ponderosa, var. Jeffreyi--all three, of course,
repressed and storm-beaten. The alpine spiræa grows here also and
blossoms profusely with potentilla, erigeron, eriogonum, pentstemon,
solidago, and an interesting species of onion, and four or five species
of grasses and sedges. None of these differs in any respect from those
of other summits of the same height, excepting the curious little
narrow-leaved, waxen-bulbed onion, which I had not seen elsewhere.
Notwithstanding the enthusiastic eagerness
of tourists to reach the
crown of the Dome the views of the Valley from this lofty standpoint
are
less striking than from many other points comparatively low, chiefly on
account of the foreshortening effect produced by looking down from so
great a height. The North Dome is dwarfed almost beyond recognition,
the grand sculpture of the Royal Arches is scarcely noticeable, and the
whole range of walls on both sides seem comparatively low, especially
when the Valley is flooded with noon sunshine; while the Dome itself,
the most sublime feature of all the Yosemite views, is out of sight
beneath one's feet. The view of Little Yosemite Valley is very fine,
though inferior to one obtained from the base of the Starr King Cone,
but the summit landscapes towards Mounts Ritter, Lyell, Dana, Conness,
and the Merced Group, are very effective and complete.
No one has attempted to carry out Anderson's
plan of making the Dome
accessible. For my part I should prefer leaving it in pure wildness,
though, after all, no great damage could be done by tramping over it.
The surface would be strewn with tin cans and bottles, but the winter
gales would blow the rubbish away. Avalanches might strip off any sort
of stairway or ladder that might be built. Blue jays and Clark's crows
have trodden the Dome for many a day, and so have beetles and
chipmunks,
and Tissiack would hardly be more "conquered" or spoiled should man be
added to her list of visitors. His louder scream and heavier scrambling
would not stir a line of her countenance.
When the sublime ice-floods of the glacial
period poured down the flank
of the Range over what is now Yosemite Valley, they were compelled to
break through a dam of domes extending across from Mount Starr King to
North Dome; and as the period began to draw near a close the shallowing
ice-currents were divided and the South Dome was, perhaps, the first to
emerge, burnished and shining like a mirror above the surface of the
icy
sea; and though it has sustained the wear and tear of the elements tens
of thousands of years, it yet remains a telling monument of the action
of the great glaciers that brought it to light. Its entire surface is
still covered with glacial hieroglyphics whose interpretation is the
reward of all who devoutly study them.
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