Sierra Club Bulletins early 1900's: Cataract Creek and environs

[KT5519]

I am revisiting a book I own that I haven’t read in years: Pathway in the Sky, by Hal Roth. Written in 1965, it’s the story of the building of the JMT. I picked it back up this summer after having my first experience with Cartridge Pass; I had remembered that the book contained a photo of the old sign for the pass and I wanted to see it again. It was made of 2 pieces of wood. The top piece says “Dangerous Steep and Rough”; the bottom says “Cartridge Pass” and includes a carved arrow pointing the way. Above the top piece someone has hung a pair of boots. I always thought that was kind of funny, maybe a forget this(!), I’m going home kind of gesture.

Besides being a fun photographic time capsule of who was on the trail in the mid 60’s, it contains great information about the early dreamers and explorers who wanted to create this route. The part that I am having a lot of fun with at present is coming across the account of Joseph LeConte and party on their 1908 attempt at getting up out of the Palisade Creek canyon to the south with their mules and being able to complete the trail (they started in Yosemite on this particular journey). There was a reference in the book to them giving up after they scoped the way up and beyond to what today is Mather Pass, but realized they could not get their animals up the initial cliff (today this is the Golden Staircase). The account continues with them bailing out by spending “two hard days detouring up Cataract Creek to Cartridge Pass” before continuing over Pinchot Pass. Wow! Having just experienced that part of the trek in reverse this summer, I couldn’t imagine getting animals up all of that rock along Cataract Creek Pass.

This then had me wondering, who might have named Cataract Creek and other places in the area. So, I grabbed my copy of Place Names of the Sierra Nevada and learned that it was LeConte that had named that feature. However, what caught my attention was that his description in the Place Names book indicated they had just come DOWN from Amphitheatre Lake, and there was a reference to an earlier Sierra Club Bulletin article, which contained a recounting of a 1903 trip. On that trip, they were on foot as of Marion Lake with no stock. He and party also did name Amphitheatre Lake and Dumbbell Lake on the same journey, in which they had set out to climb North Palisade.

I was able to find copies of the 2 accounts since the old bulletins are in an internet archive. Being the history geek that I am for all things Sierra I then read through them while cross referencing them with a GAIA map up on the other screen and matching their descriptions up to spots on the map so that I could follow along on their journey. Here are the links to the bulletins in case anyone else wants to read them. The main area for all of the SCBs is here: https://archive.org/search?query=%22Sie ... ulletin%22

Vol V January 1904: https://archive.org/details/sierraclubb ... 1/mode/1up

Vol VII 1909-1910: https://archive.org/details/sierraclubbullet7110sier

There are also photographs. There is one of them sitting at Dumbbell Lake on the 1903 trip, with a view back towards Dumbbell Pass (it wasn’t named at the time; they referred to it as a sheep pass). It was really fun for me to read some of the passages, having walked the same ground myself.

Their description of descending Cataract Creek from Amphitheatre Lake from the 1903 trip made me chuckle, remembering the brush down that route: “At the shore of our Amphitheater Lake we stopped a moment to rest and enjoy the wild outlook, and then entered the canon through which the outlet stream made its way. The view down this was now unobstructed. Its confluence with Palisade Creek was directly opposite that of the stream which drained the huge amphitheater between the North Palisade and Mt. Sill. Our route could not have been picked better, for all that was now necessary was to descend to Palisade Creek, cross it, and climb out on the other side as far as the timberline before dark. This all seems very easy on paper, and looks nice and smooth on the map, but the reality was quite the reverse. The canon which we now entered was exceptionally rough. Near its head falls blockaded the way, necessitating detours alongside ledges. In other places brush choked the narrow space by the stream, or piles of giant débris encumbered the way.”

On the 1908 trip they describe building trail for their mules from their Amphitheatre Lake camp the night before ascending it, and then wrote about what a glorious campsite it was, with the alpenglow and the peaks around. I had the same feeling when I spent the night there.

[Harlen]

Thanks a lot. I read through a bunch of htose articles from way back when, and it was fascinating. I am going to bookmark these journals, and enjoy them in the future. Thanks again, Ian.

[KT5519]

Thanks a lot. I read through a bunch of htose articles from way back when, and it was fascinating. I am going to bookmark these journals, and enjoy them in the future. Thanks again, Ian.

You bet. I’m so glad that they are archived online; I had read a few articles long ago too and had forgotten they were out there. I am looking forward to some future reading myself.

[Gogd]

Ah! The kind of home I wish they assigned in high school.

Ed