Sunday, February 2, 2003

Innumerable peaks, black and sharp, rose grandly into the dark blue sky, their bases set in solid white, their sides streaked and splashed with snow, like ocean rocks with foam; and from every summit, all free and unconfused, was streaming a beautiful silky silvery banner, from half a mile to a mile in length, slender at the point of attachment, then widening gradually as it extended from the peak until it was about 1000 or 1500 feet in breadth, as near as I could estimate. The cluster of peaks called the “Crown of the Sierra,” at the head of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers,—Mounts Dana, Gibbs, Conness, Lyell, Maclure, Ritter, with their nameless compeers,—each had its own refulgent banner, waving with a clearly visible motion in the sunglow, and there was not a single could in the sky to mar their simple grandeur. John Muir, “The Mountains of California.” Just what I need to read as I look forward to some time in the Sierra backcountry next week, although in the tamer terrain around Tahoe. I hope to find a way to do a winter tour in the higher region in the next couple of years. Muir's prose sharpens the feeling I have for the Sierra above all other ranges. 9:22:00 PM