Chapter 2
Winter Storms and Spring Floods
The Bridal Veil and the Upper Yosemite Falls, on account of their
height
and exposure, are greatly influenced by winds. The common summer winds
that come up the river cañon from the plains are seldom very
strong;
but the north winds do some very wild work, worrying the falls and the
forests, and hanging snow-banners on the comet-peaks. One wild winter
morning I was awakened by storm-wind that was playing with the falls as
if they were mere wisps of mist and making the great pines bow and sing
with glorious enthusiasm. The Valley had been visited a short time
before by a series of fine snow-storms, and the floor and the cliffs
and
all the region round about were lavishly adorned with its best winter
jewelry, the air was full of fine snow-dust, and pine branches, tassels
and empty cones were flying in an almost continuous flock.
Soon after sunrise, when I was seeking a place safe from flying
branches, I saw the Lower Yosemite Fall thrashed and pulverized from
top
to bottom into one glorious mass of rainbow dust; while a thousand feet
above it the main Upper Fall was suspended on the face of the cliff in
the form of an inverted bow, all silvery white and fringed with short
wavering strips. Then, suddenly assailed by a tremendous blast, the
whole mass of the fall was blown into thread and ribbons, and driven
back over the brow of the cliff whence it came, as if denied admission
to the Valley. This kind of storm-work was continued about ten or
fifteen minutes; then another change in the play of the huge exulting
swirls and billows and upheaving domes of the gale allowed the baffled
fall to gather and arrange its tattered waters, and sink down again in
its place. As the day advanced, the gale gave no sign of dying,
excepting brief lulls, the Valley was filled with its weariless roar,
and the cloudless sky grew garish-white from myriads of minute,
sparkling snow-spicules. In the afternoon, while I watched the Upper
Fall from the shelter of a big pine tree, it was suddenly arrested in
its descent at a point about half-way down, and was neither blown
upward
nor driven aside, but simply held stationary in mid-air, as if
gravitation below that point in the path of its descent had ceased to
act. The ponderous flood, weighing hundreds of tons, was sustained,
hovering, hesitating, like a bunch of thistledown, while I counted one
hundred and ninety. All this time the ordinary amount of water was
coming over the cliff and accumulating in the air, swedging and
widening
and forming an irregular cone about seven hundred feet high, tapering
to
the top of the wall, the whole standing still, jesting on the invisible
arm of the North Wind. At length, as if commanded to go on again,
scores
of arrowy comets shot forth from the bottom of the suspended mass as if
escaping from separate outlets.
The brow of El Capitan was decked with long snow-streamers like hair,
Clouds' Rest was fairly enveloped in drifting gossamer elms, and the
Half
Dome loomed up in the garish light like a majestic, living creature
clad
in the same gauzy, wind-woven drapery, while upward currents meeting at
times overhead made it smoke like a volcano.
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