Sierra Nevada (US)

The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range that is mostly in eastern California. The range is also known as The Sierra or The Sierras.

History

History of Exploration

The earliest identified inhabitants of the Sierra Nevada were the Paiute tribe on the east side and the Miwok tribe on the west. These tribes traded goods by meeting at and traveling over mountain passes. Even today, passes such as Duck Pass are littered with discarded obsidian arrowheads, which are remnants of the trading.

Related Topics:
Paiute - Miwok - Duck Pass - Obsidian - Arrowhead

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In the winter of 1844, Lieutenant John C. Frémont, accompanied by Kit Carson, was the first white man to see Lake Tahoe.

Related Topics:
1844 - John C. Frémont - Kit Carson - Lake Tahoe

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By 1860, even though the California gold rush populated the flanks of the Sierra Nevada, most of the Sierra remained unexplored. Therefore, the state legislature authorized the California Geological Survey to officially explore the Sierra (and survey the rest of the state). Josiah Whitney was appointed to head the survey.

Related Topics:
1860 - California gold rush - California Geological Survey - Josiah Whitney

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Men of the survey, including William H. Brewer, Charles F. Hoffmann, and Clarence King, explored the backcountry of what would become Yosemite National Park in 1863. In 1864, they explored the area around Kings Canyon. King later recounted his adventures over the Kings-Kern divide in his book Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada. In 1871, King mistakenly thought that Mount Langley was the highest peak in the Sierra and climbed it. However, before he could climb the true highest peak (Mount Whitney), fishermen from Lone Pine, California climbed it and left a note.

Related Topics:
William H. Brewer - Charles F. Hoffmann - Clarence King - Yosemite National Park - 1863 - 1864 - Kings Canyon - 1871 - Mount Langley - Mount Whitney - Lone Pine, California

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Between 1892 and 1897, Theodore Solomons was the first explorer to attempt to map a route along the crest of the Sierra (what would eventually become the John Muir Trail, along a different route). On his 1894 expedition, he took along Leigh Bierce, son of writer Ambrose Bierce.

Related Topics:
1892 - 1897 - Theodore Solomons - John Muir Trail - 1894 - Leigh Bierce - Ambrose Bierce

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Other noted early mountaineers included:

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• John Muir
• Bolton Coit Brown
• Joseph LeConte
• James S. Hutchinson
• Norman Clyde
• Walter Starr, Sr.
• Walter A. Starr, Jr.

Features in the Sierra are named after these men.

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History of the Name

Sierra Nevada means "snowy range" in Spanish. In April of 1776, Padre Pedro Font on the second de Anza expedition gave that name to the mountains that could be seen in the distance to the east. Its most common nickname is the Range of Light. This nickname comes from John Muir, who in 1894 wrote in The Mountains of California:

Related Topics:
Spanish - 1776 - De Anza - John Muir - 1894 - The Mountains of California

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:Looking eastward from the summit of Pacheco Pass one shining morning, a landscape was displayed that after all my wanderings still appears as the most beautiful I have ever beheld. At my feet lay the Great Central Valley of California, level and flowery, like a lake of pure sunshine, forty or fifty miles wide, five hundred miles long, one rich furred garden of yellow Compositae. And from the eastern boundary of this vast golden flower-bed rose the mighty Sierra, miles in height, and so gloriously colored and so radiant, it seemed not clothed with light but wholly composed of it, like the wall of some celestial city.... Then it seemed to me that the Sierra should be called, not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten years of wandering and wondering in the heart of it, rejoicing in its glorious floods of light, the white beams of the morning streaming through the passes, the noonday radiance on the crystal rocks, the flush of the alpenglow, and the irised spray of countless waterfalls, it still seems above all others the Range of Light.

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This description is due to the unusually light colored granite exposed by glacial action.

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