My First Summer in the Sierra

In the spring of 1869, naturalist John Muir was living in California's Central Valley, longing to explore the Sierra Nevada mountains but lacking money and a reliable food supply. His opportunity arrived when Mr. Delaney, a sheep owner for whom Muir had done brief work, offered to hire him to accompany a shepherd and flock of over two thousand sheep to the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers for the summer grazing season. Delaney assured Muir that the shepherd, Billy, would handle the herding and that Muir would be free to study the landscape. Muir accepted and acquired Carlo, a large, intelligent St. Bernard dog, from a hunter friend.

On June 3, the party set out: Muir, Delaney, Billy, a Chinese laborer, a Native Californian assistant hired for the first few days through the foothills, two pack horses, Carlo, and 2,050 sheep. Muir likens Delaney to Don Quixote. The flock moved at about a mile per hour through scorching, dusty foothills. By June 5, they gained the first mountain bench at Pino Blanco, where Muir was overwhelmed by a panoramic view of Horseshoe Bend on the Merced River. The next day they reached the edge of the great coniferous forest at about 2,500 feet. Muir describes a transformative sense of unity with the landscape, declaring, "We are now in the mountains and they are in us" (9).

On June 8, the sheep settled into a central camp at a bend of the North Fork of the Merced, at the foot of Pilot Peak Ridge. Muir immersed himself in observation of the surrounding sugar pines, yellow pines, incense cedars, ferns, and orange lilies. The sheep fell ill from eating azalea leaves, prompting Muir to reflect critically on the California sheep industry. When Delaney departed for the plains, Muir devoted himself to studying the camp's surroundings, discovering the water ouzel, a small bird that dives into rapids to feed and sings sweetly amid roaring water.

By early July, all flour and beans were exhausted, leaving only mutton, sugar, and tea. Billy declared the diet unfit and refused to tend the sheep properly. Muir suffered nausea and headaches, dreamed of bread at night, and found himself helplessly craving it. Delaney finally arrived with fresh provisions, ending the famine and enabling the flock's move to higher pastures.

On July 8, the sheep rushed eagerly toward new ground. The party camped at Hazel Green on the Merced-Tuolumne divide at about 6,000 feet, where silver firs dominated the forest. At Crane Flat, a meadow atop the divide, Muir notes seven species of conifers growing together near a grove of giant sequoias. He laments the sheep trampling lily meadows that nature spent centuries perfecting. The party then settled at Tamarack Flat at about 7,000 feet, where Muir discovered evidence of glacial activity: polished granite scored with parallel grooves and erratic boulders transported by ancient ice sheets.

At the Yosemite Creek crossing, the sheep refused to enter the forty-foot-wide stream despite all efforts. Delaney built a corral against the bank and physically threw sheep into the water, but they swam back. After hours of failed attempts, the men let the flock grow calm until one sheep plunged in and the entire flock rushed after it. None drowned. From a point near the camp, Muir gained his first view into the lower end of Yosemite Valley, calling it "a grand page of mountain manuscript that I would gladly give my life to be able to read" (61).

On July 15, Muir climbed the ridge west of Indian Cañon and beheld the full panorama of the summit peaks. He reached the valley rim and gazed down three-thousand-foot cliffs at the meadows, groves, and the Merced River below, with Half Dome rising nearly a mile at the valley's upper end. At Yosemite Creek, he descended to a ledge only three inches wide at the very brink of the fall, filling his mouth with bitter artemisia leaves to prevent giddiness. He lost track of time on the ledge, the grandeur smothering his fear, and returned to camp after dark. That night and the next, he suffered nerve-strained dreams of falling into the valley.

A new camp was established in a silver fir grove near Yosemite, where Muir spent days sketching on North Dome. Billy refused Muir's offer to watch the sheep so he could visit the valley, dismissing it as "a lot of rocks" (90). On July 21, Muir encountered a cinnamon bear in a flower-filled meadow and rushed at it to see it run, but the bear stood its ground and lowered its head to fight. They stared at each other in tense silence until the bear slowly withdrew.

On July 26, Muir reached the summit of Mount Hoffman at 11,000 feet, surveying a vast panorama of snowy peaks, forests, and glaciated fields. He discovered the mountain hemlock, which he calls the most beautiful conifer he has ever seen. He then rambled to Lake Tenaya, studying glacier-polished pavements and ancient Sierra junipers with lifespans possibly spanning thousands of years.

On August 2, while sketching on North Dome, Muir was suddenly seized by an inexplicable conviction that his old friend Professor J. D. Butler, from the University of Wisconsin, was in the valley below. The next morning he descended and learned at the hotel that Butler had arrived the previous day. Muir found Butler lost in brush above the Vernal Fall, exhausted and unrecognizing until Muir called his name. General Alvord, a fellow student of Butler's, attributed Muir's uncanny knowledge to Scottish farsightedness. Muir calls this the one seemingly supernatural event of his life, though he insists it is simply not yet understood.

On August 5, bears attacked the camp before dawn, killing several sheep. Despite preventive fires, the raids continued. Delaney arrived and decided the flock must relocate to the Upper Tuolumne region. The party moved eastward along the Mono Trail, where Muir saw Cathedral Peak for the first time as "a majestic temple of one stone, hewn from the living rock" (123). The Tuolumne Meadows stretched before him as the most spacious high pleasure-ground he had yet seen.

Billy quarreled with Delaney over herding methods and quit. Delaney brought replacement shepherds, freeing Muir for further exploration. Muir recounts a solo excursion through the Mono or Bloody Cañon Pass, first ascending through dwarfing vegetation and alpine gardens to the Sierra summit, then descending about 4,000 feet in four miles to the edge of the Mono Desert. He camped alone by a lake where the full moon rose over the cañon wall with startling intimacy, and on the descent observed Indigenous women gathering wild rye on the Mono plain.

Through late August and early September, Muir records calm, frosty mornings and warm noons from the Tuolumne camp, coining the name Range of Light for the Sierra. On September 1, he climbed Mount Dana and surveyed the full breadth of the range, wishing to stay all winter but lacking provisions. On September 7, he climbed Cathedral Peak and finally discovered cassiope, a small alpine heather-like plant whose thousands of bell-shaped flowers he calls "the sweetest church music I ever enjoyed" (158). He crossed a dangerous snow and ice cliff, slipping near the brink of a yawning gulf before stopping himself.

Delaney warned they must leave the high mountains by mid-September. On September 9, the flock began its descent, retracing the summer's route through Lake Tenaya, Crane Flat, and Hazel Green. Muir visited a grove of giant sequoias and revisited Bower Cave, finding its marble chambers disfigured by vandals' names. The descent continued through increasingly hot, dusty foothills until September 21, when they reached the home ranch on the San Joaquin plain.

On September 22, the sheep were counted one by one. Of the 2,050 that departed in the spring, 2,025 returned fat and strong. Total losses amounted to thirteen: ten killed by bears, one by a rattlesnake, one with a broken leg, and one that ran away in terror. Three others were sold and nine consumed as camp provisions. Muir closes by calling the Sierra "the brightest and best of all the Lord has built" (166), expressing gratitude and hopeful prayer that he may return.