In the second winter he built a winter cabin under the Royal Arches,
where he enjoyed more sunshine. But no matter how he praised the weather
he could not induce any one to winter with him until 1864.
He liked to describe the great flood of 1867, the year before I reached
California, when all the walls were striped with thundering waterfalls.
He was a fine, erect, whole-souled man, between six and seven feet high,
with a broad, open face, bland and guileless as his pet oxen. No
stranger to hunger and weariness, he knew well how to appreciate
suffering of a like kind in others, and many there be, myself among the
number, who can testify to his simple, unostentatious kindness that
found expression in a thousand small deeds.
After gaining sufficient means to enjoy a long afternoon of life in
comparative affluence and ease, he died in the autumn of 1876. He sleeps
in a beautiful spot near Galen Clark and a monument hewn from a block of
Yosemite granite marks his grave.
Chapter 15
Galen Clark
Galen Clark was the best mountaineer I ever met, and one of the kindest
and most amiable of all my mountain friends. I first met him at his
Wawona ranch forty-three years ago on my first visit to Yosemite. I had
entered the Valley with one companion by way of Coulterville, and
returned by what was then known as the Mariposa trail.
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