March 29, 2024

Story of the Land: Yosemite

I left camp for the valley in the afternoon, and stayed there ‘til sundown. I spent my time looking over the valley—this giant of a landscape the scale of which still takes me some time to grasp. I thought of how it was formed: a process of destruction simultaneous with creation spanning many millions of years…

—It starts with a rumble. Deep and omnipresent.

At the western coast of North America, the Pacific plate converges with the North American plate, an indefinite suicide merging between two land masses. The Pacific plate slides under the other, both unyielding in their direction of movement. Pressure builds.

Pressure builds, storing energy fit to ignite a hundred volcanoes. The convergence ensues until parts of their edges melt and meld; magma rises from out of this violence. It pools underneath: an underground sea of molten rock. All the while in the surface up above, a stretch of land running along the eastern edge of what is now California lifts and tilts westwardly; It splits and breaks and crumples. Like bunched up dried skin. Like backbone protruding from the land. Smoothness replaced by roughness, flat lands rising into peaks—the Sierra Nevada is born.

A few million years pass. The molten rock underneath has now been cooled by relative inactivity—the granite bed that will become Yosemite’s monuments now rest and wait.

Continued uplift pushes the granite bed up higher, vaults the peaks of the Sierra to new heights, and further breaks the skin of the land. Earthquakes loosen the ground. Now the stage has been set for erosion to come into maximum play. Rivers run: carrying sediments, forming intricate networks, softening the land. Rivers run: like scalpel cutting into land, forming V-shaped valleys. Rain and wind go hand in hand, performing a fitful dance on the skin of land. They loosen, shake, dislodge, winnow, and wash away—Acts repeated down through unthinkable time—acts considerably gentler than other natural forces, but unstoppable just the same.

All these happen until the overlying layer of ground thins out, until the underlying granite is partially exposed. All these happen still, to this day. The valley that will be Yosemite starts to deepen.

Ice Age hits. Winter after long winter snowfall accumulates, never melting. They layer, compress, and solidify, forming masses of ice. This stretch of land of mountains and valleys and canyons, now elevated to colder heights because of continued uplift is blanketed by a vast, unfathomable field of ice thousands of feet thick, broken only by the highest of granite peaks protruding, like icebergs in the sea. Half Dome showing only the last hundred or so feet of its sloping top. . . What silence, what stillness, must have surrounded this desolate scene of ice and snow and bitter cold.

Time passes, as swift as it is patient. The Earth warms, thinning the ice field, breaking them into separate rivers of ice: glaciers.

The Earth warms and the glaciers are weary; you hear them grumble and creak. You might even hear a sudden slam like lightning, or a booming thunder—the calving of ice. Then they start to move. The glaciers recede, downhill, down the valleys, driven by their weight and pulled by gravity. They carry chunks of jagged rocks and boulders on their sides and undersides—the tools they will use to sculpt this land. They grate, quarry, and carve.

The glacier occupying the main valley where the Merced river ran moves westwardly. It is one of the largest glaciers here. It recedes completely and melts away, leaving its finest work—you are now looking at the bare bones of Yosemite Valley. A U-shaped valley stretching for miles made of the granite bed that once lay beneath, now completely exposed, streaked and polished, glinting in the sun.

Moraines—rubble pushed aside and piled by glaciers as they receded—dammed the valley, and here the waters from melting glaciers pooled into the valley floor, forming a large but shallow lake. Silt and sediment from erosion filled the lake, and it eventually dried up. Lake Yosemite is now replaced by a rich and level soil bed for vegetation to grow.

Now a mile wide and about 7 miles long, Yosemite valley runs its length from east to west. Rivers of ice turned into streams of water. The Merced river runs at the bottom of the valley. Commanding the western end is a granite slab 3,000 feet high, solid, divine in its form—El Capitan. Running along the North and South rims are peaks and spires interspersed with the splendor of many waterfalls. Half Dome rises high on the southern rim.

Then there are the hanging valleys, from which some of the waterfalls flow from. Imagine a valley cut in half, showing off its cross section—a V, with a stream of water flowing at the bottom. Now raise that high and perch it atop either the south or north rim of the main Yosemite valley, a few thousand feet higher than the main valley floor. That’s a hanging valley. The stream of which now plunges down a great height, spraying mist and bathing the rock walls, to seek its main body down below, the river Merced. Waterfalls—they add freshness to the scene; they cool the eyes and skin.

Plants flourish and spread, anchoring their roots, settling down. We now have forests, meadows, wildflowers, all adding texture and color to the scene. Oaks, pines, firs, and sequoias race to the sky. A prickling forest of greens thrives on the valley floor. The river Merced snakes down, weaving through trees and rocks.

Animals move in, adding thrill and drama. They animate the scene. Mammals walk in all four limbs; they leap and pounce. Birds swoop in, or they soar. Fish swim upstream and down. Insects crawl under, over, below, up and down, sometimes they bore, or they flutter. Frogs hop in and out of water. Reptiles slither, or scurry from rock to rock. Predators stalk or starve. Preys nibble what they can until that sudden, unexpected dimming of light seizes them, teeth clenching tight on their paling, straining throat. . .

—Now zoom out. This is Yosemite.

Erosion continues its performance. A little rain here, then a downpour. A gust of wind from nowhere. The river Merced cuts, and its tributaries follow. Tucked away at the highest elevations the last of the glaciers are still working – Lyell and Maclure. Rocks are chipped away and polished. Life flourishes amid all these. Trees grow.

This landscape is ever-changing, a story unfolding. Can you see it? Here we are, alive at this time, and standing in the middle of its telling—this intricate interplay among all things created. This extravagant symphony of wildness and beauty. Will you see it?

I get up from my seat and stand; these thoughts send me reeling. But I feel the granite under my feet and it holds me steady. I left the valley, thankful for the abundance received.