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 mountain-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 valley or lake is seen, or river, or group of
well-marked features of any kind, standing out in distinct pictures.
Even the summit-peaks, so clear and high in the sky, seem comparatively
smooth and featureless. 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 cañons to a depth of
from 2000 to 5000 feet, in which once flowed majestic glaciers, and in
which now flow and sing a band of beautiful rivers.

Though of such stupendous depth, these famous cañons are not raw,
gloomy, jagged-walled gorges, savage and inaccessible. With rough
passages here and there they still make delightful pathways for the
mountaineer, conducting from the fertile lowlands to the highest icy
fountains, as a kind of mountain streets full of charming life and
light, graded and sculptured by the ancient glaciers, and presenting,
throughout all their courses, a rich variety of novel and attractive
scenery, the most attractive that has yet been discovered in the
mountain-ranges of the world.