The Kentucky Gazette

The sustained grandeur of the California Alps is forcibly illustrated by the fact that, throughout their whole extent, there is not a single pass lower than 8,000 feet above the level of the sea. In a distance of 140 miles, between latitude 36° 20' and 38° the lowest I have yet found exceeds 9,000 feet, and the average height of all that are in use is, perhaps, not far from 11,000.

A carriage road has been constructed through what is known as the Sonora Pass, on the Stanislaus and Walker's Rivers, the summit of which is 9,000 feet above the sea. Substantial wagon-roads have also been built through the Carson and Johnson passes, near the head of Lake Tahoe, over which immense quantities of freight were hauled from California to the mining regions of Nevada, prior to the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad.

A considerable number of comparatively low, passes accessible to wheeled vehicles, occur in the northern half of the range, through whose rugged defiles long emigrant trains toiled wearily during the exciting years of the gold period. But, however interesting, these northern passes can not properly be brought within the scope of this work.

Between the Sonora Pass and the southern extremity of the Alps, a distance of nearly 160 miles, there are only five passes through which trails conduct from one side of the range to the other. They are barely practicable for animals; a pass in these regions meaning simply any notch or canyon through which one may, by the exercise of unlimited patience, make out to lead a mule or sure-footed mustang. Only three of the five passes may be said to be in use, viz: the Kearsarge, Mono and Virginia Creek, the tracks leading through the others being only obscure Indian trails, not graded in the least, and scarce at all traceable by white men; for much of the way is over solid rock pavements and bosses, where the unshod ponies of the Indians leave no appreciable sign; while only skilled mountaineers are able to detect the marks that serve to guide the Indians, such as slight abrasions of the lower rocks, the displacement of stones here and there, and bent bushes and weeds. A general knowledge of the topography, however, is the main guide, enabling one to determine where the trail ought to go. One of these Indian trails crosses the range by a nameless pass between the headwaters of the south and middle forks of the San Joaquin, the other between the north and middle forks of the same river, just to the south of Minarets; this last being about 9,000 feet high, the lowest of the five. The Kearsarge is the highest, crossing the summit of the range near the head of the south fork of King's River, about eight miles to the north of Mount Tyndall, through the midst of the most stupendous rock scenery to be found anywhere in the Alps. The summit of the pass is over 12,000 feet above the sea-level; nevertheless, it is one of the safest of the five, and is used every summer, from July to October or November, by hunters, prospectors and stock owners, and to some extent by enterprising pleasure-seekers, also. For, besides the surpassing grandeur of the scenery about the summit, the trail, in ascending the western flank conducts through a grove of the giant sequoias, and through the magnificent Yosemite Valley of the south fork of King's river. This is, perhaps, the highest traveled pass on the continent.