A grander surface and a grander stand-point, however, could hardly
have been found in all the Sierra.
After this grand show the cloud-sea rose higher, wreathing the Dome, and
for a short time submerging it, making darkness like night, and I began
to think of looking for a camp ground in a cluster of dwarf pines. But
soon the sun shone free again, the clouds, sinking lower and lower,
gradually vanished, leaving the Valley with its Indian-summer colors
apparently refreshed, while to the eastward the summit-peaks, clad in
new snow, towered along the horizon in glorious array.
Though apparently it is perfectly bald, there are four clumps of pines
growing on the summit, representing three species, Pinus albicaulis,
P. contorta and P. ponderosa, var. Jeffreyi--all three, of course,
repressed and storm-beaten. The alpine spiraea grows here also and
blossoms profusely with potentilla, erigeron, eriogonum, pentstemon,
solidago, and an interesting species of onion, and four or five species
of grasses and sedges. None of these differs in any respect from those
of other summits of the same height, excepting the curious little
narrow-leaved, waxen-bulbed onion, which I had not seen elsewhere.
Notwithstanding the enthusiastic eagerness of tourists to reach the
crown of the Dome the views of the Valley from this lofty standpoint are
less striking than from many other points comparatively low, chiefly on
account of the foreshortening effect produced by looking down from so
great a height.
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