Meltdown
John Muir
"You should stop a while...a little below the head of the fall beside the enthusiastic
throng of starry, comet-like waters to learn something of their strength, their
marvelous variety of form, and above all, their glorious music, gathered and
composed from the snow-storms, hail-, and rain- and wind-storms that have fallen
on their glacier-sculptered, domey, ridgy basin."
-John Muir, The Yosemite, "How Best to Spend One's Yosemite Time"
The high-country snowpack is Yosemite's
reservoir. As the snow melts in the spring,
torrents of water cascade over Yosemite
Falls (on the cliff before you) and over
dozens of other waterfalls.
Upstream, shallow soil on granite slopes
absorbs very little water. Once the snow
is gone, usually by late summer, most of
Yosemite's waterfalls quickly dwindle.
