Yosemite: Following John Muir’s Trail

(Continued from Yosemite: Searching for Tuolumne Meadows)

Featured Photo: “Soda Springs, Tuolumne Meadows”  Yosemite National Park, California—2023

In an earlier post, I recounted the story of John Muir looking down at Tenaya Lake and the surrounding landscape of Yosemite’s high country from the summit of Mt. Hoffmann. Unless you’ve read his book describing that experience, however, it may be surprising to learn what led him to that location in the summer of 1869. Simply put, Muir was working as a shepherd at the time—or more precisely, a shepherd’s assistant.

The story is told in Donald Worster’s biography of Muir, which I referenced in another post. After his first trip to Yosemite in 1868, a visit which lasted only a week, Muir was so impressed by what he saw that he vowed to return. The following year, he did just that, finding a job with a man named Pat Delaney, “to help drive 2,050 sheep to the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers, an area of open range and free grass located nine thousand feet above sea level and to the north of Yosemite Valley. Delaney needed someone to watch his hired watcher, a loutish and unreliable shepherd named Billy. Muir would have little responsibility, he promised, except keeping Billy and the St. Bernard guard dog Carlo on the job, leaving plenty of time to gather plants and climb mountains.”

They set out from Delaney’s ranch on 3 June 1869, pushing the sheep at a rate of one mile per hour. Over the summer, Muir came to despise these “hoofed locusts” for tearing up the grass and devouring wildflowers. But along the way, he discovered a dazzling new world, experiencing Yosemite’s beauty all around him. He made dozens of forays into the mountains with nothing but a notebook tied to his rope belt and lumps of hard bread in his coat pockets. During the journey, “they passed between Mount Hoffmann and Lake Tenaya and forded the Yosemite Creek above the point where it plunges spectacularly over the Yosemite Valley rim. Their end of trail was the lush Tuolumne Meadows, where they pitched camp in early August north of Soda Springs.” Muir and the flock “would not come down until 22 September, minus twenty-five head lost to bears, rattlesnakes, various other mishaps, and the camp menu.”

So, it seems fitting with his experience in Tuolumne Meadows that part of the John Muir Trail—a footpath over 200 miles in total length—cuts across that beautiful open area. And as I walked on that short stretch of the trail, I was looking for Soda Springs, where Muir, Billy, Carlo, and the sheep camped and grazed for nearly two months that summer.

My own path through the meadows opened up to offer great views southward, toward several granite peaks in the distance…

…and a bit farther along, I looked back at the scenery across the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River.

I took another photo of the beautiful landscape as I continued my walk…

…until I reached a fork in the trail. The path to the left continued straight onto a stretch of relatively flat, open ground; to the right, the route sloped gently upward, running parallel to the nearby tree line. I saw a sign pointing the way to Soda Springs and chose the higher ground. I walked on, soon reaching my goal—or at least it seemed I had. There was a large National Park sign with information about the location; I admit I didn’t take time to read the sign. I probably should have as I would have learned something; instead, I simply looked around where I stood.

Opposite the informational sign was a small, unimposing log cabin structure, about ten feet along each side, with walls no more than six or seven feet high; there was no roof, no windows, and only one door opening, without a door. I glanced inside and saw what passed for a “dirt floor” mostly submerged beneath a small, shallow, bubbling pool of cool, clear water. Outside the cabin, there were more pools and puddles above the reddish-brown earth, along with partially submerged stones of brown, orange, and gray, ringed with the white outline of bicarbonate from the evaporation of the naturally-carbonated “soda” water. The whole area seemed more akin to a small patch of soggy, muddy ground as one might encounter after a short rainfall, rather than a remarkable sight to behold.

Back home after the trip, I was curious if it was just me, so I did a Google search asking the question, “is Soda Springs in Yosemite beautiful?” My lightning-fast computer returned about 734,000 results in 0.43 seconds. I scanned the first few results—many speaking more to the overall hike than to Soda Springs in particular—with one commenting that Soda Springs was a “pretty spot”, while another countered it was “one of Tuolumne Meadows’ less-spectacular highlights”. A third answer seemed closest to my own experience, and I quote: “While the springs are interesting (the largest enclosed by a log structure), the peaceful setting alongside the Tuolumne River and the picturesque views of the surrounding granite peaks and domes are really what accentuate this short hike.”

Perhaps my expectations had been too high; the Park Rangers I spoke with had depicted Soda Springs as a life-transforming experience. I confess I was disappointed by the destination, so underwhelmed even, that I didn’t take one photo of the little log building—it simply seemed out of place to me. Had I gone there better prepared, more informed, and more patient, I might have been more receptive to the calming characteristics—ideal for introspection—offered by the serene springs and humble cabin.

When I took time after the trip to learn more about Soda Springs, I found a website called Flying Dawn Marie, written by a travel and lifestyle blogger based in Southern California. She wrote in a post—complete with photos and descriptions that were eerily similar to my own gentle hike through Tuolumne Meadows—that Soda Springs are natural mineral springs, but they’re nothing like the incredible features found in some other National Parks. There is only a gentle bubbling up in a few spots, and you may even have to look closely to see that.

She suggests, “it’s fun to sit quietly here and listen to the bubbling water as you enjoy the rich orange colors where the water flows over the rocks in contrast with the vast vibrant green meadow.” She also wrote about the modest, wooden structure commonly known as the Soda Springs Cabin.

From the details of her post, supplemented by an interesting document from the National Register of Historic Places, I learned that, while local Native American tribes had long been the original inhabitants of this area, European settlers began arriving in the 1800s. John Lembert (of Lembert Dome namesake) was recorded as the first white settler in Tuolumne Meadows; he lived there for three summers before filing a claim to 160 acres in 1885. Around 1889—twenty years after John Muir famously grazed sheep there—Lembert built the wooden structure directly over the largest of the bubbling springs. The small cabin was not likely used for habitation; it was probably a spring house, built to prevent the grazing stock from fouling the water.

Although I took no photos of the cabin itself while on our trip, I did take a few of the nearby springs—they were certainly interesting. I stepped onto a log that extended over the mud and water…

…and realized the view (without my legs and feet) made for an interesting abstract composition, with the white rims around the wood and stones.

The broader surroundings were also beautiful. I took a picture above the pools of carbonated water showing the grassy expanse in Tuolumne Meadows (today’s Featured Photo). I also turned my iPhone/camera back toward the trail from which I had come, capturing Lembert Dome in the distance.

Anxious to continue my hike, I paused to look once more at the Soda Springs Cabin. It is possible this historic wooden structure was already in place to witness another important event—one critical to the long-term future of Yosemite. I wrote in a previous post that in 1889—the year the cabin was built—John Muir and the magazine editor Robert Underwood Johnson had retreated to the high country following their disturbing visit to Yosemite Valley, which had been overrun by tourists and livestock.

But even in the remote high country, as Worster notes in his biography, Muir witnessed “a damaged landscape, the vegetation devastated by too many seasons of too many sheep. It had been twenty years since he had trailed Pat Delaney’s flocks through this country—twenty summers of intense grazing, free of charge and with no stocking limits except those the sheep owners imposed on themselves. The result was diminished tree and wildflower richness, trampled meadows, and muddied water.” Muir and Johnson were concerned by what they saw; they felt “so beautiful but fragile a place should be protected.” And it was here, camping under a star-filled sky at Soda Springs in the Tuolumne Meadows, that the two men sketched out their plan to establish Yosemite as a National Park.

Clearly, I missed both the historic and geologic significance of Soda Springs during my all-too-brief visit, and my uninformed disregard would persist as I continued my walk. My next destination was a newer and more substantial structure than the wooden cabin at the springs. Yet again, the history and significance of Parsons Memorial Lodge would be lost on me.

(To be continued…)