June 1934

June 1934 Volume XIII Number 6

THE PUBLICATION OF THE YOSEMITE NATURALIST DEPARTMENT AND THE YOSEMITE NATURAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION

Published Monthly Volume XIII June 1934 Number 6 History of the Firefall By M. E. BEATTY Assistant Park Naturalist The firefall is a distinctive and glowing pile of embers. internationally - known feature The signal for the firefall is the which even rivals the natural extinguishing of the Camp Curry scenic attractions of Yosemite, so lights at the conclusion of their far as the average visitor is conentertainment. The exchange of cerned. calls between Curry and Glacier Most of our visitors who witness may be heard from either place, this impressive spectacle are desirand at the conclusion, the fire ous of knowing how the custom tender by means of a long handled originated. Due to the meager inshover, slowly pushes the glowing formation at hand, conflicting coals over the cliff. stories are ofttimes given out. This gives the effect of a solid A description of the firefall folstream of fire, dropping some 1400 lows for those not familiar with feet vertically to an oblique ledge, the practice. A bonfire is built embers sometimes dropping along nightly during the summer near this ledge an additional 1000 or the over-hanging rock at Glacier 1500 feet There is no fire hazard Point, 3254 feet above the valley as very little vegetation exists on floor. The wood for the fire conthe granite walls. sists mainly of red fir bark gathWhile it is true that the Indians ered during the day by a workman occasionally built signal fires on from down trees in the vicinity. some of the higher promontories, Approximately one-quarter of a there is no evidence to suppose cord of wood is used for the larger they ever pushed the fire over the bonfires. cliff The pile of bark is ignited about Early guide books fail to menp. m. and a program conducted tion or give reference to the fireby a ranger-naturalist is held fall, although we are positive the around the fire between 8 and 9 custom prevailed at the time, at By 9 o'clock, the time of the fireleast occasionally. Our positive infall, the fire has been reduced to a formation starts in 1899, when Mr. E14 1

and Mrs. David A. Curry estabclimbed to Glacier Point, twolished the Curry Camping Comthirds of a mile above Yosemite pany at what is now Camp Curry. Valley. I decided to spend the David Curry learned of the firefall night there. The weather became custom, which had fallen into discold, so I gathered a pile of use and decided to revive it for the cones and built a fire. When the benefit of his guests. He would cones had burned down to red occasionally send one of his em hot coals I grasped a long stick ployes up the trail to Glacier Point and amused myself by knocking to build the fire and push it off. them out into space. This was done more rout more oreJ. K. Barnard, who was manquently, until it became a nightly ager of the Sentinel Hotel at the occurrencetime, saw the flaming cones Mr. Curry's, "Hello, Glacier" and bouncing down the mountain "Let the fire fall," delivered with side, spi ending sparks in all diremarkable volume, won for him rections as they came. He was the title, "The Stentor of Yosemite." very much pleased with the disThis custom has been continued play. The following day he came ever since, although David Curry to my camp near Half Dome and has passed away. offered to pay me $2 per night In August, 1928, the San Franif I would build a fire at Glacier Cisco Chronicle printed an article Point and shove it from the concerning Fred W. Zimmerman, precipice each night for the who claims the distinction of origipleasure of his guests. nating the firefall. He was quoted cepted. as follows : Fred McCauley claims for his fa. My first trip to Yosemite Val. ther, James McCauley, the same, ley was in 1883. I came over the distinction. McCauley came to Yollig Oak Flat road in a buckSemite Valley in the spring of 1870, board pulled by two mules. One after spending a number of years day, during that summer, I in the mines around Mariposa. In Glacier Point Hotel and Mountain House

1871, he was granted the privilege High Sierra Hikes. of building a trail to Glacier point, what is now the four-mile trail. The first guided High Sierra hike In either 1871 or 1872 the idea of for this season will leave Happy pushing the fire over the cliff was Isles Monday morning, June 18, thought of and McCauley's guests under the leadership of Naturalist traveled to the floor of the valley Borell, for Merced Lake, the first to witness the spectacle. It was so night's stop on this unique seven successful and effective that many day feature of Yosemite ' s natural111. 1111h ' requested more. The orders ist program. Each Monday mornbecame so numerous that finally ing thereafter until the middle of McCauley decided to make a charge August another party will start $1.50 for each firefall. This around the circuit of the High practice was continued irregularly Sierra camps. for a number of years. Averaging about nine miles of In addition to pushing the fire hiking each day, there is more than over, McCauley would soak gunny ample time for fishing, resting and sacks in kerosene, light them, and photographing along the way. after waving them back and fourth Nights are spent at comfortable several times, throw them over the High Sierra camps. Congenial cliff. outdoorsmen gather around cheery campfires for relating the day's adventures. The trip's circuit includes overnight stops at Merced Lake, Vogelsang Lake, Tuolumne Meadows, Glen Aulin and Tenaya Lake. The party will climb Mt. Dana, 13,0511 feet---40 feet less than Mt. Lyell, highest peak in the park. A dollar a night and a dollar a meal constitute the expense, with free guide service, making the total cost for the seven days in the high mountains about $25. Reservations are necessary since parties must be limited to fifteen persons. Leaders designated for the first five trips are as follows: June 18-24 Naturalist A. E. Borell June 25-July 1 Ranger Naturalist R. P. Beal July 2-S Ranger Naturalist C. Sharsmith July 9--15 Ass't Park Naturalist Ed. Beatty July 16-22 Ranger Naturalist J. E. Cole

Glaciers of Yosemite By M. E. BEATTY Assistant Park Naturalist. When speaking of glaciers, one's gether with a decrease in the averthoughts immediately travel to age height of the Sierra-Cascade Alaska, Iceland, or some other far Range. northern region. Few people, even This serves to explain the unin California, are aware that our usually heavy snowfall in the Sierra contains a number of small Sierra around the Yosemite region but actually live glaciers. As a where the annual snowfall ranges matter of fact these ice bodies are from 20 feet to 60 feet with up to larger and more extensive than 20 feet of snow pack at one time. others in North America of the Most Yosemite visitors learn same latitude. something of the part played by In the Sierra-Cascade Range, glaciers in carving Yosemite and running from the Tehachapi to other similar valleys of the Sierra Canada, a distance of over 1,000 dureip t"e Ice Age. How these gimiles, there are no glaciers of imgantic bodies of ice traveled down portance north of the Yosemite rethe canyons of the Merced and the ',ion until the volcanic peaks of Tuolumne of f;0 miles, deepening Shasta, Hood, Rainier, etc. are and widening the original river reached. This seems contrary to canyons. How the climate changes, the general conception that the bringing alternate periods of heavy further north one goes the larger and light snowfall. How glaciers the glaciers but a study of the toporiginate in f ells of perpetual ography gives the clue to the reasnow and creep down valleys as son. The Yosemite region is dislow moving rivers of ice to a rectly east of San Francisco where point where melting, due to a the Coast Range, is very low, alwarmer temperature, offsets the lowing the vapor-laden ocean advance. Let us see just how these winds to reach the Sierra where, alternating weather intervals cf. -due to the high elevations, they are fet our glaciers. In Switzerland, chilled and discharge their burden, where they have studied their glnmainly as snow. This accounts for ciers for over a century, during the unusually heavy snow that the middle decades of the last cenforms the basis of our glaciers. tury they were found to be gredTo the immediate north, the ually retreating while, during the snowfall is less, consequently pialatter decades, they showed a tiers are smaller and fewer, due gradual advance. An-1 now 'n the to the increased heights of the early decades of the 20th century Coast Range and other coastal They again find them retreating. ranges in Northern California toIn other words, the decrease or in-

crease in the glaciers is directly the committee of glaciology, from proportionate to the amount of these studies shows American glasnowfall. Our glaciers are unciers are at the present slowly undoubtedly reacting in the same losing ground. Alaskan glaciers manner although we have only recently attempted detailed study in advance at the rate of one or two cently attempted detailed study. feet per day while those of the YoIn 1931 the Naturalist Departsemite region only about one inch ment of Yosemite National Park a day. detailed annual measurements of Mt. Lyell, 13,090 feet, is the the four Yosemite glaciers : Lyell, highest peak in Yosemite National Maclure, Dana, and Conness. This Park and Lyell glacier is credited work is in conjunction with simas being the largest glacier in the ilar glacial studies carried out by Central Sierra. This ice mass is the United States Geological Surapproximately one mile wide, convev throughout the continental sidering both the east and west. United States. Statistics compiled lobes, and about one-half mile by Dr. F. E. Matthes, chairman of long. Hiking Party on Maclure Glacier

Lyell was first climbed by John as well as fascinating in the power B. Tileston of Boston, Massachuthey display in their work. One setts, on August 29, 1851, and interested in geology can, from the since that time has been climbed ample evidence, read the story of by hundreds. It is rather easily the Ice Age and the important part reached from Tuolumne Meadows they played at that time in the by a trail up the Lyell Fork of the carving of the Yosemite. Tuolumne, a distance of about 13 miles. Mt. Maclure, 13,000 feet, adjoins Lyell on the west and has the secTWILIGHT BY THE RIVER'S ond largest glacier of the YosemEDGE ite group. Dana glacier, on the By Natasha Smith east side of Mt. Dana, is probably Field School 1932 the most accessible, involving a Did you ever think of Yosemite three mile hike from the Tioga valley at night as Nature's huge Ranger station on the Tioga road. cradle with a neh daylight-loving Mt. Dana, 13,500 feet, is undoubtbird and animal tucked away in its edly the most climbed peak in the special little niche? Some choose Sierra with as many as 500 climbtrees, some holes, some shrubs as ing it in one season. One obtains their resting places and still others a splendid view of the Dana glasleep on the ground. cier occupying the cirque basin to One evening as the shadows deepened, soft twitters told of many the east. birds finding roosting places. I notConness glacier is best reached iced a sandpiper family still forag by driving to Saddle Bag Lake and ing at the river's edge. They were then walking about four miles folworking hard and paying strict atlowing the stream course to the tention to the many insects that snout of the glacier. come out just at twilight. It was dusk before the mother sandpiper These glaciers, though small, led her babies up the bank into the have the same characteristics of grasses and hedges. The family was the larger ones of Switzerland, barely distinguishable as faint mov. Alaska, and Greenland. Their stning forms. Mainly by the call of the faces often present yawning fissmother and the low answer of the sures known as crevasses, caused chicks was I able to follow them as they threaded their way through by tension or straining of the ice the shadows On a little knoll overas it, moves over irregular surlooking the surrounding territory faces. They also build up rock grew several thick clumps of grass. debris in belts or moraines both in The moving shadow-like forms fadfront and to the side of the ice ed into the darkness at the base of the largest of those gifts. mass. A soft, sweet cheep was heard, as Those who know our Sierra glathe chicks settled clew then qr : of tiers find them beautiful to behold reigned over al.

Snake Facts By NATURALIST

STAFF

Snakes are cold-blooded animals and cannot stand great fluctuations of temperature having little temperature control. Exposure to intense sunlight at midday can literally cook a snake to death in about 10 minutes time. The only deadly poisonous snake in California is the rattlesnake. Snakes as a whole are extremely, beneficial in that they destroy myriads of insects and rodents. Our most valuable snake, the Gopher snake, is commonly killed because his color pattern somewhat ___._ resembles that of the rattler. The Rubber Snake (Charina bottae) Gopher snake feeds mainly on goA relative of the boas and pythons phers, ground-squirrels and mice, of the tropics. This species, however, seldom exceeds twenty-four Snakes have no ears; they reinches in length. Its characteristceive vibrations of sound through is small head and blunt tail gives their tongue. They also taste the appearance of being two-headed. odors in the air through their haThe harmless snake is not only perfectly but is extremely gentle tongue. and easy to handle. Snakes do not swallow their

NATURE NOTELETS

young for protection against eneWestern azaleas (Rhododendron mies. occidentale) are now giving their best display of the season. An espeSome snakes give birth to live cially beautiful group of pink ones young while others lay eggs, the is to be found near the Washingyoung hatching out by natural ton and Lincoln trees. heat. There were no fish in my Rattlesnakes have been found streams flowing into Mono Lake from sea level to 10,000 feet eleuntil planted there through intervation. est of our Fish and Game Commission.

Strange Things song bird that has learned to dive into the water for food. There is a stream flowing under the base of a Big Tree in the The California Woodpecker Merced Grove. stores acorns for the acorns themselves and not for any worms that Evening Primroses burst into full bloom from the bud in around may get into them. a minute's time.

SUNSET AT WAWONA POINT

Swifts are the swiftest flyers of By Vera Margaret Christian all birds and our White-throated Swift is the swiftest Swift. You stand at the crest of a mountain Where no other feet have trod, A wild gooseberry bush is growWatching a beautiful sunset, ing nearly 100 feet above the Your soul in communion with God ground on a six-foot-in-diameterYou feel you are part of the silence, limb of the Grizzly Giant. And the breath-taking beauty belowOver 1,300 different flowering Of the crimson, the russet and yelplants have been recorded in Yolow, semite National Park. Cast from the sunset 's glow. The blue haze you see in the dist A trout weighing 12 pounds 9 ance, ounces was taken from the Merced Dimly obscuring the sky, River near El Capitan last sumIs a reflection cast by the shadow mer. Of a soul that is passing by. Two trees growing together at The pine trees are sentinels of silence, the base is rather a common sight, The beauty of all they enfold, but in the Mariposa Grove there are two trees growing together at And the river has caught the reflection the top. Of the amber the blue and the "Yosemite" means "Grizzly gold. Bear," yet there are no Grizzlies The rim of the mountain beyond left in California so far as is you, known. When the magical ritual is done. Eagerly races forward, The Water Ouzel is the only And embraces the setting sun,

Digitized by Yosemite Online Library Dan Anderson