The Illilouette Fall
The Illilouette in general appearance most
resembles the Nevada. The
volume of water is less than half as great, but it is about the same
height (600 feet) and its waters receive the same kind of preliminary
tossing in a rocky, irregular channel. Therefore it is a very white and
fine-grained fall. When it is in full springtime bloom it is partly
divided by rocks that roughen the lip of the precipice, but this
division amounts only to a kind of fluting and grooving of the column,
which has a beautiful effect. It is not nearly so grand a fall as the
upper Yosemite, or so symmetrical as the Vernal, or so airily graceful
and simple as the Bridal Veil, nor does it ever display so tremendous
an outgush of snowy magnificence as the Nevada; but in the exquisite
fineness and richness of texture of its flowing folds it surpasses
them all.
One of the finest effects of sunlight on
falling water I ever saw in
Yosemite or elsewhere I found on the brow of this beautiful fall. It
was in the Indian summer, when the leaf colors were ripe and the great
cliffs and domes were transfigured in the hazy golden air. I had
scrambled up its rugged talus-dammed cañon, oftentimes stopping
to take
breath and look back to admire the wonderful views to be had there of
the great Half Dome, and to enjoy the extreme purity of the water,
which
in the motionless pools on this stream is almost perfectly invisible;
the colored foliage of the maples, dogwoods, Rubus tangles,
etc., and
the late goldenrods and asters. The voice of the fall was now low, and
the grand spring and summer floods had waned to sifting, drifting gauze
and thin-broidered folds of linked and arrowy lace-work. When I reached
the foot of the fall sunbeams were glinting across its head, leaving
all
the rest of it in shadow; and on its illumined brow a group of yellow
spangles of singular form and beauty were playing, flashing up and
dancing in large flame-shaped masses, wavering at times, then
steadying,
rising and falling in accord with the shifting forms of the water. But
the color of the dancing spangles changed not at all. Nothing in clouds
or flowers, on bird-wings or the lips of shells, could rival it in
fineness. It was the most divinely beautiful mass of rejoicing yellow
light I ever beheld--one of Nature's precious gifts that perchance may
come to us but once in a lifetime.
|
SPONSORED LINKS
RELATED 