During the gold excitement
it was at times a matter of considerable pecuniary importance to force a
way through the canon with pack-trains early in the spring while it was
yet heavily blocked with snow; and then the mules with their loads had
sometimes to be let down over the steepest drifts and avalanche beds by
means of ropes.
A good bridle-path leads from Yosemite through many a grove and meadow
up to the head of the canon, a distance of about thirty miles. Here the
scenery undergoes a sudden and startling condensation. Mountains, red,
gray, and black, rise close at hand on the right, whitened around their
bases with banks of enduring snow; on the left swells the huge red mass
of Mount Gibbs, while in front the eye wanders down the shadowy canon,
and out on the warm plain of Mono, where the lake is seen gleaming like
a burnished metallic disk, with clusters of lofty volcanic cones to the
south of it.
When at length we enter the mountain gateway, the somber rocks seem
aware of our presence, and seem to come thronging closer about us.
Happily the ouzel and the old familiar robin are here to sing us
welcome, and azure daisies beam with trustfulness and sympathy, enabling
us to feel something of Nature's love even here, beneath the gaze of her
coldest rocks.
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