OCR Text |
Show 157 When I was a child, I used to follow Carl Sharsmith, the venerable Naturalist of Tuolumne Meadows. I remember Carl's anger once, when he noticed someone had casually displaced a group of small erratic boulders which sat in the middle of a particularly fine sheet of glacially polished rock. He knew. THE GLACIAL PAST Why should it matter to us that the Sierra is a glacial range? It all depends on us. If we are tourists, the glaciers have created scenery. If we are mountaineers, glaciers have shaped the highest rugged peaks, carving north amphitheaters and leaving the gentle south slopes. They have carved the canyons we ascend when we approach the peaks. If we are rockclimbers, the glaciers have disinterred and polished the fine smooth domes of the middle Sierra. If we are shepherds, the glaciers have scooped out huge basins and filled them with the soils which create high meadows. If we are miners, the glaciers have exposed the contact zones at the crest and at the foothills of the Sierra where we shall dig for gold. If we are loggers, the glaciers have left the huge morainal soil beds on the western slope of the Sierra where the beautiful and productive forests now flourish. If we are farmers, the glaciers have supplied the matrix of rich soil in the entire Central Valley, as well as the intricate system of drainage which waters it. All of these blessings are part of the whole story of the creation of the Sierra. At various times Muir considered |