If These Cliffs Could Talk: The Legend of Kos-su-kah, Tee-hee-nay, and Hum-mo in the Valley of the Ah-wah-nee

 

I've done a lot of traveling in the last month, from Arizona and back, to Pinnacles National Park, and then through Northern California to the Oregon Coast. In the blogging sense, I got distracted from a little mini-blog-series I was doing on Yosemite Valley, but today we're back among some of the most beautiful cliffs in the world.

There is a spire kind of hidden in plain view among the high precipices near Yosemite Falls, the Three Brothers and Yosemite Point. It's more prominent from some angles than others, but it helps if some clouds are pouring over the high cliffs, defining it. The spire is called the Lost Arrow. It formed in the El Capitan granite and Sentinel granodiorite where vertical joints have caused the rocks around the spire to fall away (joints are straight fractures in the rock caused by the release of pressure as the rocks are exposed by erosion).

This is what joints look like if there isn't an adjacent 3,000 foot cliff (Tokopah Valley in Sequoia National Park)

As with many of the distinctive rocks of the valley, there is a Miwok legend told of it, not so much as its origin, but of an event to which it is related. As I read this narrative, I was struck by the sensitivity and heart of the story. It has a bit less of the fantastical mythological aspects that often accompany such stories, and thus in a way seems grounded in possible real events. In a biblical setting, this would be like comparing the narratives of Genesis floods and Egyptian Plagues with their apocalyptic themes to the later stories of King David and his relationships with Jonathan or Bathsheba. Or maybe the narratives concerning Ruth and Boaz.

We pick up the story as it is related by Galen Clark in The Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity (1904):

Tee-hee'-nay was a beautiful Ah-wah-nee maiden, said to be the most beautiful of her tribe, and she was beloved by Kos-su'-kah, a strong and valiant young brave. Valuable presents had been made to the bride's parents, and they had given their consent to an early marriage, which was to be celebrated by a great feast.

To provide an abundance of venison and other meat for this banquet, Kos-su'-kah gathered together his young companions and went into the mountains in search of game. In order that Tee-hee'-nay might know of his welfare and the success of the hunt, it was agreed between the lovers that at sunset Kos-su'-kah should go to the high rock to the east of Cho'-lack (Yosemite Falls), and should shoot an arrow into the Valley, to which should be attached a number of grouse feathers corresponding to the number of deer that had fallen before the skill of the hunters.

At the time appointed Tee-hee'-nay went near the foot of the great cliff and waited, with her eyes raised to the towering rocks above, hoping with her keen sight to see the form of her lover outlined against the sky, but no form could she see, and no arrow fell into the Valley. As darkness gathered, gloomy forebodings took possession of her, and she climbed part way up the canyon called Le-ham'-i-tee because the arrow-wood grew there, and finally she stood at the very foot of the rocky wall which rose to dizzy heights above her, and there she waited through the long night.

The Miwoks and other First Nation people who utilized Yosemite Valley for thousands of years no doubt had a good understanding of the geologic hazards of the valley. In about eighty visits to Yosemite Valley, I've seen two rockfalls, and heard several others. They are common events in the glacially steepened valley. Joints and exfoliation fractures provide the loosened rock, while ice wedging or earthquakes provide the tipping point that sends the rocks plummeting to the valley floor.

With the first streak of dawn she bounded swiftly up the rough canyon, for she was fully convinced that some terrible fate had overtaken the brave Kos-su'-kah, and soon she -stood upon the lofty summit, where she found her lover's footsteps leading towards the edge of the precipice. Drawing nearer she was startled to find that a portion of the cliff had given way, and, upon peering over the brink, what was her horror to discover the blood-stained and lifeless body of Kos-su'-kah lying on a rocky ledge far beneath.

Summoning assistance by means of a signal fire, which was seen from the Valley below, a rope was made of sapling tamaracks lashed firmly together with thongs from one of the deer that was to have furnished the marriage feast, and Tee-hee'-nay herself insisted on being lowered over the precipice to recover the body of her lover. This was at last successfully accomplished, and when his ghastly form lay once more upon the rocky summit, she threw herself on his bosom and gave way to a passionate outburst of grief.

Finally she became quiet, but when they stooped to raise her they found that her spirit had fled to join the lost Kos-su'-kah, and that the lovers were re-united in death.

The fateful arrow that was the cause of so much sorrow could never be found, and the Indians believe that it was taken away by the spirits of Kos-su'-kah and Tee-hee'-nay. In memory of them, and of this tragedy, the slender spire of rock that rises heavenward near the top of the cliff at this point is known among the Indians as Hum-mo', or the Lost Arrow.

There are so many elements of humanity in this legend, even to the echoes of the ending of Romeo and Juliet (there is also a favorite folk song of the eastern Sierra Nevada with a similar tragic ending: Darcy Farrow). After all, what is the role of a myth but to teach us about life, both the happy parts and the tragic ones? This is one of my favorite Sierra legends.

I couldn't help but notice that in the legend it is a remarkable thing to have descended a vertical cliff, something that today is considered a form of recreation. One year I caught sight of someone tight-rope walking from the Lost Arrow back to the main cliff. Times are different...

A Beautiful and Precious Day: How it was in Yosemite 2

My geology field trip to Yosemite Valley last weekend was one of those stunningly beautiful days, the kind made all the better by the clearing storm that cleaned the air, filled the waterfalls, and left a wonderful pine-filled scent throughout the valley. Although I had two dozen students with me, I had a two hour break in the middle of the afternoon (because we needed to utilize the NPS trams to get around the valley, we made "appointments" at various spots on the valley floor). With those two hours I had a choice of walking four miles along the Valley Loop Trail, or sitting in a pizza joint and grabbing a tram at the last second. I opted for the former.

For all the times I've been to Yosemite Valley, the north side of the Valley Loop Trail was a new one for me. I'd been on parts of it here and there, but not the whole thing. It was pleasantly deserted, and offered some very nice perspectives on familiar sights from new angles. I started at Yosemite Falls and walked around the base of Yosemite Point (above), which towers about 3,000 feet above. That little spire near the tip is Lost Arrow, a famous destination for rock climbers. It formed as a consequence of vertical joints (fractures) in the granitic rock.

I had thought the trail stuck to the valley floor, but it actually climbed a hundred feet or more onto the talus slopes, giving a nice view down-valley towards the Cathedral Rocks and Cathedral Spire. These cliffs, famous, but sometimes overshadowed by El Capitan across the valley, are also the result of vertical joints. The Cathedral Rocks (slightly right and partly obscured by clouds) have widely spaced joints that could not be effectively quarried by the glaciers, the cliffs are bold and protrude as bold cliffs.

Zooming in on one of the Cathedral Spires reveals a more narrow and sharper tower. The cliffs are more closely jointed. Looking closely in the clefts, one can see fall colors starting up (click on the picture for a closer view).

The trail is a pleasant and quiet way to explore the valley. It was not a crowded day anyway, but I seriously saw no more than 4-5 people in an hour. The sound of motors was present, but distant.

I wasn't the only person in Yosemite last weekend. Fellow teacher of geosciences SciGuy315 posted a series of absolutely stunning photos of a rainbow in Yosemite Falls, from across the valley on Sentinel Dome. With his permission, I've posted one of them here. Copyright is obviously his, check the link for contact info.
Precious? Every day in Yosemite is precious! If you want to learn more about the geology of this wonderful place, check out my newly revised roadguide to the geology of Yosemite Valley at Geotripper Images. I also did a themed blog series some time back called Under the Volcano and Into the Abyss.

Yosemite and a Sense of Scale (scroll down for the better pictures!)

A few weeks ago I had 'dinner' at the Mountain Room at the Yosemite Lodge (on my budget, dinner amounts to the French Onion Soup), and the maitre d', having been properly tipped, gave us the best seats in the restaurant for viewing the beautiful cliffs of Yosemite Valley.

Oh, the picture above isn't the view we had. It was 9:30 PM on a moonless light and we couldn't see a thing. But on our trip this week, I scooted around the corner and found what view we would have had from our table. That's the top of a booming Yosemite Falls a little to the left, and Yosemite Point on the right. The spire called the Lost Arrow is just left of center. I mentioned some of the geological background of Lost Arrow a while back.

I zoomed in a little bit to get a shot without the distraction of the roofs of buildings and to get a nice framing effect with the greenery. It's a beautiful and unique cliff that is sometimes overshadowed by the presence of nearby Yosemite Falls.

Lost Arrow is a destination for many rock climbers, so I zoomed in even more to see if anyone was around There seemed to be a dot of a person on the summit of the Lost Arrow, and three or four people standing at Yosemite Point, behind the fence up there. What a view they must have had on this sparkling June day!

As I stared through the camera lens, I started to realize once again the sheer scale of a place like Yosemite Valley. There is a difference of 3,000 feet between the point and the valley floor. People fade into insignificance against such cliffs (I explored this idea last Christmas at the Grand Canyon).

Can we use a scene like this as a way of understanding the immensity of geologic time? Maybe. It's a difficult concept. We geologists toss about ages in the millions and billions of years, and sometimes those numbers lose meaning, just like when a politician talks about spending in the millions, billions or trillions of dollars. I mean, really, what the difference? An 'm' replaced by a 'b' or 'tr'. Until the bill comes in.

The world has been around a long time. If the climber at the top of the Lost Arrow is six feet tall, his or her height is equal to 0.002 of the height of the cliff. If we think of the height of that person as representing a human lifetime of 100 years, the cliff represents 50,000 years. A goodly sum of years, certainly. There were essentially modern humans on the planet then, but many things would have been different; no cities, no agriculture, for instance, and there were a lot of strange animals in the world who are no longer with us: woolly mammoths, mastodons, sabertooth cats, and giant ground sloths. The last pulse of the ice age glaciers would still lie in the future, and the floor of Yosemite Valley may well have been a lake.

But 50,000 years is a small increment of time in geology. It is but 1/20th of a million years. The oldest glaciers coursed through Yosemite around a million years ago. If a human standing on the rim of the canyon represented a human life compared to a million years, Yosemite Valley would be 60,000 feet deep, essentially the difference between the top of Mount Everest and deepest trenches of the ocean floors.

Geological time certainly doesn't stop there. The granitic rocks that form the spectacular cliffs of Yosemite Valley cooled from molten magma around 85 to 120 million years ago. Round off to 100 million: if the person standing on the rim of this canyon represents a human life, the canyon of 100 million years would be 1,135 miles deep. That's more than a quarter of the way to the center of the Earth.

The oldest rocks in the Yosemite region, metamorphic rocks that once lay on the floor of the Pacific Ocean thousands of miles from California, date from around 500 million years ago. Our metaphorical canyon would now be 5,675 miles deep, which would be a real trick, since our planet is just 8,000 miles in diameter.

The oldest rocks in the world are just over four billion years old, and the planet formed 4.6 billion years ago. I don't know how to represent such numbers! But you could take a look at the next photo zooming in on Lost Arrow...how many people were climbing it on Tuesday (click on the photo to find out)?

UPDATE: I shouldn't say "I don't know how to represent such numbers", I should say, "It's late and I can't think anymore". If this cliff represents 4.6 billion years (the age of the earth), each foot represents about 1.5 million years, each inch equals about 128,000 years, so a human lifetime of a century would be about 1/1,280 of an inch.

Under the Volcano: Changing the Emphasis -Part 5

We continue our week's tour of the less famous parts of Yosemite Valley. The Lost Arrow is a fairly familiar sight if you know where to find it, tucked into the cliff just east of Yosemite Falls (see Under the Volcano: Changing the Emphasis -Part 4 ). It is tricky to get some sky behind the rock for pictures, but the clouds cooperated for me in April of 2006. The rock once again is Sentinel granodiorite, and the Lost Arrow is outlined by some prominent vertical joints. As can be seen, the spire is a popular technical climb.

I've not had the pleasure (I'm getting a bit too old and fat to even contemplate this kind of exercise), but if you are wondering what the view is like looking down, check out http://www.100megsfree.com/dew4theq/rock/yosemite/yosemite02.htm.