The Mountain-Wall On The Right As You Go Up Is More
Precipitous Than Usual, And A Series Of Small
Glaciers is seen along
the top of it, extending their blue-crevassed fronts over the rims of
pure-white snow
Fountains, and from the end of each front a hearty
stream coming in a succession of falls and rapids over the terminal
moraines, through patches of dwarf willows, and then through the
spruce woods into the bay, singing and dancing all the way down. On
the opposite side of the bay from here there is a small side bay
about three miles deep, with a showy group of glacier-bearing
mountains back of it. Everywhere else the view is bounded by
comparatively low mountains densely forested to the very top.
After sailing about six miles from the mine, the experienced
mountaineer could see some evidence of an opening from this wide
lower portion, and on reaching it, it proved to be the continuation
of the main west arm, contracted between stupendous walls of gray
granite, and crowded with bergs from shore to shore, which seem to
bar the way against everything but wings. Headland after headland, in
most imposing array, was seen plunging sheer and bare from dizzy
heights, and planting its feet in the ice-encumbered water without
leaving a spot on which one could land from a boat, while no part of
the great glacier that pours all these miles of ice into the fiord
was visible. Pushing our way slowly through the packed bergs, and
passing headland after headland, looking eagerly forward, the glacier
and its fountain mountains were still beyond sight, cut off by other
projecting headland capes, toward which I urged my way, enjoying the
extraordinary grandeur of the wild unfinished Yosemite.
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