Page:Condor4(1).djvu/3

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4
THE CONDOR
Vol. IV

to indicate that the east slope, down at least to Mono plain, was made in a hurry. Bloody Canyon is steep, raw and picturesque. Cliffs and slides rise on either hand, bare and reddish, but the name refers to the bloody trail that cattle


Photo by Dr. C. Hart Merriam

Tuolumne Meadows Mt. Dana, on extreme left, Mt Gibbs and Kuna Crest. Mono Pass is between Gibbs and Kuna Crest.


used to leave on the sharp loose rock. The canyon was done over by an eccentric glacier in days gone by, and one descends by a series of several rude steps. These small cold lakes add much to the wild charm of the place, which is furlher enhanced by groves of trembling asp, lodge-pole, Jeffrey, and flexilIs pines, silver fir and Douglas spruce. One of the lakes, the second, really a mere pond occupies a very deep hole in the earth. It is suggested that this same eccentric glacier stood on its head and spun around, like a demented fly, till it had accomplished considerable damage. Once a mule loaded with canned sardines disappeared into the pond to explore its remote depths. He never came back, and since then the icy pool has born the rather incongruous title of Sardine Lake.


Photo by W. K. Fisher

Ephedra Virdis Near Mono Lake.


From near the top of the canyon a fine view of the southern half of Mono Lake is to be had, spread out map-like in the gray sage-brush country. Directly in front, extending south from the lake are the remarkable Mono Craters, smooth and gray except for an open forest of pinyon pines on their lower slopes. I was glad to reach Farrington's ranch after a weary walk through sandy sage-brush country from the bottom of Bloody Canyon. The ranch is several miles from the southwest corner of the lake—if roundish lakes can have corners—and is right under a splendid nut pine[1] hill, completely strewn with huge rocks all jumbled together. The ranch is a capital place to make one's headquarters, and the country about is most diverting. The fact that one drops suddenly from the Boreal of Mono Pass into the Transition and Upper Sonoran of the Mono country

  1. Pinus monophylla.