Eureka!

Leonard's journal of this period of the exploration is a moving account of men who were terrified they wouldn't get out alive from this "awfully sublime" place.  Day by day, they continued trying, calling on final reserves of strength, courage and cunning.  

They reached what we believe was Tuolumne Canyon and turned south, traveling

8-10 miles a day.  On October 20, 1833 they became the first white men to reach the brink and look down at Yosemite Valley.  Walker remembered it to the day he died and Leonard's account is next...

"Here we began to encounter in our path many small streams which would shoot out from under these high snow banks and after running a short distance in deep chasms which they have, through the ages, cut into the rocks, precipitate themselves from one lofty precipice to another, until they are exhausted in rain below.  Some of these precipices appeared to us to be more than a mile high.  Some men thought that if we could succeed in descending one of these precipices to the bottom we might thus work our way into the valley below - but making several attempts we found it untterly inpossible for a man to descend to say nothing of our horses."  

Next time - Real Meat! 

 

Dreaming of the Ocean

The rendezvous of 1833 drew 350 white trappers, traders and tourists along with about 500 Indians.  Camps were strung out for 10 miles along the Green River and Horse Creek all the way to Fort Nonsense.  

Cerre was getting ready to take Walker's furs back to Missouri to sell and agreed to stop in Washington to deliver Bonneville's message to the navy that he would need 2 more years of leave in his task of exploration.


Walker meantime was visiting other camps of his friends and acquaintances - he was a considerable figure, having earned the reputation by his performance that spring and winter.  Walker also made a point of showing up at these affairs with some big, fast horses which he raced, bet on, and usually won almost daily.

Walker also passed the word that he wanted to recruit 40 good men for an expedition from the Green River all the way to the Pacific Ocean.  The response was enthusiastic even though no one knew much about California, except the rumors that it was a warm, golden, natural Eden.  

Next time...Separate Ways One Last Time   

The Midnight Wolf

There are many stories about the last rendezvous of 1833 that belonged to just the good ole boys.  Nearly anyone who had any reputation in the mountain fur trade was there and ready to party.  They sang, drank, gambled, fought, courted Indian women and of course, traded furs. 

Such folly involved one trader,  a wild, light-hearted young man by the name of Joe Meek.  True to the wanton abandon of these affairs, William Stewart wanted a place to entertain an Indian woman so he kicked George Holmes out the their shared tent.  

George Holmes was a New York gentleman so he wrapped a blanket around him and tried to sleep in the grass until he was bitten by a rabid wolf.  His screaming as he was attacked created more laughs than sympathy.  A midnight wolf hunt was suggested.

The next morning Stewart found Joe Meek trying to get up from where the whiskey had left him the night before.  Stewart told him he was lucky the wolf hadn't gotten him to which Meek replied, "It would have killed the wolf." 

Unfortunately whiskey couldn't save Holmes who became ill with rabies and died.  He was buried in an unmarked grave along an unmarked stream.   

Next time...Dreaming of the Ocean