THE SIERBA NEVADA 3 



shone in all its glory. Then it seemed to me the 

 Sierra should be called not the Nevada, or Snowy 

 Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten years 

 spent in the heart of it, rejoicing and wondering, 

 bathing in its glorious floods of light, seeing the 

 sunbursts of morning among the icy peaks, the 

 noonday radiance on the trees and rocks and snow, 

 the flush of the alpenglow, and a thousand dashing 

 waterfalls with their marvelous abundance of irised 

 spray, it still seems to me above all others the Range 

 of Light, the most divinely beautiful of all the moun 

 tain-chains I have ever seen. 



The Sierra is about 500 miles long, 70 miles wide, 

 and from 7000 to nearly 15,000 feet high. In general 

 views no mark of man is visible on it, nor anything 

 to suggest the richness of the life it cherishes, or the 

 depth and grandeur of its sculpture. None of its 

 magnificent forest-crowned ridges rises much above 

 the general level to publish its wealth. No great val 

 ley or lake is seen, or river, or group of well-marked 

 features of any kind, standing out in distinct pic 

 tures. Even the summit-peaks, so clear and high 

 in the sky, seem comparatively smooth and feature 

 less. Nevertheless, glaciers are still at work in the 

 shadows of the peaks, and thousands of lakes and 

 meadows shine and bloom beneath them, and the 

 whole range is furrowed with canons to a depth of 

 from 2000 to 5000 feet, in which once flowed ma 

 jestic glaciers, and in which now flow and sing a 

 band of beautiful rivers. 



Though of such stupendous depth, these famous 

 canons are not raw, gloomy, jagged- walled gorges, 

 savage and inaccessible. With rough passages here 



