HISTORY
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Crow's Range
Introduction: Major Forces That Have Shaped the Sierra Nevada Here are some environmental basics about the Sierra to get to a common starting point. Another historian might favor a different set, but I chose these because they figure significantly in the range's human history and at the same time provide a good introduction to what makes the Sierra Nevada unique. By most accounts, the Sierra Nevada has been forming for at least 600 million years, and it has taken many shapes during its complex geological history. In its current form -- the product of a massive uplift on a fault along its eastern flank-- many geologists say that the Sierra is likely to be from 1 to 3 million years old. That makes it a relatively young mountain range when compared with such hoary counterparts as the Appalachians on the other side of the North American continent. Even so, the range's human environ- mental history, which began only some 10,000 years ago, represents a brief fraction of the Sierra's life span. During this phase, geology, climate, natural history, and fire have interacted with human activity, technology, and worldview to produce recognizable patterns in its landscape and resource use. [1]
The Sierra Nevada is always changing, making and remaking itself under the influence of powerful natural forces. Poet and Sierra Nevada resident Gary Snyder, referring to such mountain creating forces, put it this way: Erosion always wearing down; shearing, thrusting, deep plates crumpling, still uplifting-ice-carved cirques dendritic endless fractal streambed riffs on hillsides ...Streams and mountains never stay the same. [2] When humans first entered the Sierra, along ice age was temporarily releasing the range from its frozen grip. But the ice would return later in what has been called a mini-ice age, a last gasp that produced some small glaciers that have managed to hold on into the historical present. [3] It is troubling to consider that what is referred to as "settlement" by European Americans began about 1850 to 1870, at the end of that mini-ice age. All the development and planning of the reservoirs that keep California and northern Nevada alive today occurred late in the last brief century and a half when the current warmer and wetter climate pattern emerged. For many of the years of the range's life before that time, very long cycles of drought or cooling produced very different climate patterns. How many years of drought could California's or Nevada's urban centers and commercial agriculturists survive if old patterns reemerge? [4] The shape-shifting nature of the range has affected its human inhabitants in - different ways. Tectonic changes, often of interest only to geologists and geomorphologists, have also impinged upon the human history of the Sierra. Consider an example from the eastern side of the range. Thousands of earthquakes have rattled the eastern Sierran community of Mammoth Lakes, California, since 1979. In that year a magnitude 5.8 quake occurred. It was followed the next year by four magnitude 6 temblors in a one three-day period. In the fall of 1997, quakes came with such frequency that they attracted national attention. Eight thousand quakes above 1.2 magnitude occurred between October and December. Thirty small quakes occured in just four days the following April. Such periods of intense earthquake activity are called "quake swarms" by the United States Geological Survey scientists monitoring them, almost as if the tremors were a cloud of bothersome stinging insects. But some of the quakes of this swarm were substantial, reaching magnitude 5. Responding to the increased activity, the USGS prepared a notice of possible volcanic hazard to heighten public awareness of potential risk. Merchants in the area promptly complained that the notice could frighten away fainthearted tourists and skiers, the lifeblood of the community.[5] Clearly, this was a classic case of conflict between Mammon and science in a mountain enclave. In March of 1990, the subsurface volcanic activity triggering these earthquakes nearly turned deadly. A United States Forest Service supervisor seeking shelter in a March snowstorm entered a snowbound cabin near Mammoth and nearly died from breathing carbon dioxide. The odorless gas had been accumulating inside the structure, released from a volcano directly underneath. Both the cabin and Mammoth are located within the Long Valley Caldera. This valley was created 760,000 years ago in a previous eruption. Below the surface at Long Valley a new mass of molten magma was forming, pushing up a dome. One of the forces that created the Siena Nevada was still very much at work.[6] For residents of the Mammoth area, the trembling in Long Valley was a troubling reminder. Natural forces have a way of disrupting everyday life for those who have chosen this mountain environment. The veneer of civilization that modern technologies have built there is no guarantee of security. Can you imagine how you would feel in an earthquake swarm? How many earthquakes would it take to make you concerned? The imposition of urban patterns on a natural landscape such as the Sierra Nevada brings potential risks. The geological forces that molded the Sierra Nevada -- faulting, uplifting, earthquakes, erosion, volcanism, and glaciation -- shouldn't be spoken of in the past tense. These influences have varied in intensity over the mil- lions of years it has taken to shape the range, but .they remain with us.[7] Mammoth stands as a useful metaphor for human contact with the Sierra Nevada. For over 10,000 years, people have had to cope with all the complex environmental and climatic variety that the range has imposed. This relationship of humans with the Sierra has been not only long, but dynamic. People have been involved in an intense and conscious shaping of the Sierran landscape and the use of its resources from the beginnings of human settlement. Collectively they have greatly altered the Sierra Nevada's "natural" systems. For thousands of years, waves of human occupation have left their imprint: native, Spanish Mexican, European American. But in the end, the Sierra Nevada still remains a force to be reckoned with in the lives of its occupants.[8] Similar geological forces create different responses and actions in different cultural contexts. Prehistoric Northern Paiute people and suburban Mammoth Lake residents alike have coped with Sierran geology in their own ways. Obsidian was a by-product of volcanism. In prehistoric times the Paiutes used it to fashion projectile points for hunting, and also traded it with other Sierran natives who lacked this valuable mineral resource. But because the Paiutes did not build permanent structures and lived there only seasonally, the effects of quake activity would have had limited physical significance to them. For example, Paoha Island rose in nearby Mono Lake from a huge volcanic eruption sometime in the 1700S. The Mono Paiute oral tradition was undoubtedly enriched with the explanations that the event inspired. But my guess is that volcanic activity is far more troublesome to current Mammoth residents and commercial interests than to their prehistoric predecessors, what with the millions of dollars invested in urban infrastructure in that recreation community today.[9]
The Sierra is best seen as a whole-a single mountain range.[10] But as with anything as huge and complex as the Sierra Nevada, it is hard to take it all in with a brief, though accurate, descriptive phrase. It would help to consider some of its aspects from several angles, especially its physical characteristics and life zones. Putting the two together will help in understanding how its human history has developed. The Sierra Nevada that the Yokuts attribute to the master builder Crow is both majestic and unique. Most often recognized for its splendid peaks, it is also distinguished by its forest-covered ridges, river and glacial valleys, lake basins, deep midrange western canyons filled with magnificent mixed-conifer forests, and of course its alpine meadows. It rises from its base on its eastern side some 11,000 feet from the Owens Valley floor to the summit of Mount Whitney at 14,495 feet. This is a far greater rise in elevation than the Rocky Mountains, which lift up only 9,000 feet above the Great Plains. One of the elements that makes the Sierra Nevada so unique is its granitic core, pushed up as a single block. Because this great granite mass sparkled and shone in the sun, John Muir called the Sierra Nevada the "Range of Light."[11] The Sierra is massive, stretching some 430 miles along its north to south axis. It begins where the earliest rock formations of the range are overlaid by the Cascades' volcanic flows. From there it stretches far to the south to Tehachapi Pass. From the beginnings of its western foothills to the bottom edge of its steep eastern escarpment the range is around eighty miles wide. It is one of the three most dominant geomorphic features within California, along with the Central Valley and the Coast Range. And though mostly in California, the range flanks roughly a third of Nevada's long western border.[12] Its existence shapes climate and life forms on both of its flanks. Pity poor Nevada, because the Sierra cuts off most of the Pacific storms that water the range. The Sierra Nevada can generate massive amounts of snow and rain seasonally. This water, when trapped by dams, is distributed within a complex, modern hydraulic system. It provides the basis of life for the farms of the Central Valley in California and northern Nevada. The largest cities of California and northern Nevada could not exist without it.[13] If it were possible to cut the Sierra Nevada in half and observe it in profile on some gigantic laboratory table, another characteristic of the range would be revealed-the asymmetrical shape that resulted from the creative forces of upthrust and tilting. The eastern half of the range is marked by a steep escarpment along a prominent fault line. Observed from Owens Valley at its southeastern end, the jagged 14,000-foot peaks of that part of the range appear to rise almost straight out of the level valley floor. This escarpment is one of the most impressive in the world. Extending nearly the whole length of the range, it has acted as a barrier to weather as well as making human entry difficult. The western slope of the range, rising more gradually from California's Central Valley, appears tame by comparison, although many of the middle and southern peaks viewed from their western crest lines are impressive.[14] If we were still observing the Sierra Nevada on that imaginary laboratory table, but now viewing it in a north-to-south perspective, another aspect of the range would become apparent. The Sierra Nevada rises steadily in elevation from around 6,000 to 7,000 feet at its northern end to 13,000 feet in its center around Yosemite, then reaches heights of over 14,000 feet in the south before finally descending to around 6,500 feet at its southern terminus.[15] There is a rough continuity in the single crest line of the northern two- thirds of the Sierra Nevada. It lies well to the east of the center of the range because of the long and gently rising western slope. The area immediately around Lake Tahoe is an exception to this general pattern. There a graben or subsidence occurred, causing a deep depression to form along a prominent fault line. This created not only the lake that is neatly 1,600 feet deep,[16] but also a dual crest that soon rejoins to the south. The area surrounding the lake remains geologically active.[17] Continuing down into the southern one-third of the range, another transformation in the crest line becomes apparent. In the area south of the Kings River, the Sierra Nevada forms a prominent double crest. The highest peaks of the main ridge remain to the east, but a second or parallel crest referred to as the "Great Western Divide" rises to its west, Within this complex geological area lies Kings Canyon. It is the deepest river canyon in the United States at 8,240 feet-yes, even deeper than the Grand Canyon-and contains the longest river in the Sierra Nevada.[18] This description of attributes of the range should make clear that no single human response to it is possible. Ways of life that might work in the western foothills are not possible on its eastern fringe. Population densities from pre-European settlement times to the present, for example, have always been greater on the western California flank.[19] Life Zones and Forests The Sierra Nevada is immense. It extends between 36 degrees to 40 degrees north latitude and by its sheer length encompasses several climatic or life zones. Other factors that contribute to shaping these zones and their floral inhabitants are elevation, latitude, rain shadow, soil composition, and slope effect. The distribution of vegetation in the Sierra Nevada generally follows these climate zones in clear patterns, John Muir, in describing these zonal differences on the western flank, went beyond the bare scientific terminology to describe four horizontal, colored bands, blending from one into the next. From an imaginary prospect on the crest of the Coast Range facing east, he saw the "torrid foothills" as belonging to the "rose-purple" spectrum, followed by a transition to the "dark purple" of the lower montane, then the "blue" of the upper montane, and finally the "pearl-white" of the subalpine and alpine zones.[20] Elevation has a major influence on Sierran vegetation. For every gain in elevation of 1,000 feet, it is as if you had moved 300 miles in a northerly direction. Elevation gains generally bring with them lower temperatures, increasing precipitation, shallower soils, less oxygen, and higher winds, all of which have an effect on the plant communities within them. The areas that mark the transition from one zone to the next, referred to as "ecotones," are not distinct, but instead flow into each other as vegetation mixes. These transition zones are generally richer in species number and variety as a result of this mingling.[21] The vegetation zones of the range include not only forests, but also a great diversity of other forms, among them meadows, chaparral shrubs, woodlands, savannas, canyons, and alpine habitats. The greatest diversity in Sierran plants occurs on the western side at the foothill elevation.[22] Before the onset of European settlement, the Sierra Nevada was richer and more diverse in its vascular plant life. The vegetation of the montane regions was arrayed in a complex mixture shaped by such disturbances as fire (natural and human-caused), storms, insects, disease, avalanches, and flooding. This interplay of forces created a mosaic that has no modern counter- part. In the forested zones, trees developed in a succession, affected by the constant disturbances, until they achieved a stage known as "late successional," or more popularly, "old growth." Each of the forested stands had its own complex history.[23] John Muir, in The Mountains of California, captured the beauty and diversity of the lower west-side montane forests in 1894: In many places, especially in the middle region of the western flank of the range, the main canons widen into spacious valleys or parks, diversified like artificial landscape-gardens, with charming groves and meadows, and thickets of blooming bushes, while lofty, retiring walls, infinitely varied in form and sculpture, are fringed with ferns, flowering- plants of many species, oaks, and evergreens, which find anchorage on a thousand narrow steps and benches. ... Here, too, in the middle region of deepest canons are the grandest forest-trees, the Sequoia, king of conifers, the noble Sugar and Yellow Pines, Douglas Spruce, Libocedrus, and the Silver Firs, each a giant of its kind, assembled together in one and the same forest, surpassing all other coniferous forests in the world, both in the size and beauty of its trees.[24] Once the crest is reached, the prospect to the east is very different from what ecologist Elna Bakker called the "Great Green Wall," her memorable term for the western coniferous forests.[25] From the north-central portion of the summit, a view to the east takes in the Lahontan Basin, named after a Pleistocene-epoch lake that long ago disappeared. The forested areas of the eastern side were never as dense or complex as on the west, even before they were cut over to serve Nevada mining and urban development.[26] The forests of the Sierra Nevada have been a center of concern for California and Nevada political officials and conservationists from at least the 1860s. Today these forests, on both public and private lands, continue to generate controversy and are the subject of major initiatives to manage them in an environmentally sustainable manner.[27] Sierran Water To respected geologist Francois Matthes, Yosemite was the "Incomparable Valley." As he made clear, though, its beauty came not just from the massive granite walls and glaciated domes, but also from the "splendor and variety of its falling waters.”[28] Mark Twain expressed a similar view of the beauty of Sierran water when he first saw Lake Tahoe: “As it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface I thought it must surely be the finest picture the whole world affords."[29] Both Matthes and Twain, separated though they are by time, place, and perspective, pro- vide us with an understanding of what makes the Sierra Nevada unique amongst mountain ranges. The synergy created when its waterfalls, rivers, and lakes combine with its rock formations, forests, and meadows may not be found anywhere else in the world. Sierran rivers and streams are renowned for their beauty. But Sierran waters have also been put to many practical uses since human occupation of the range began. Native use, while longer in duration than that which followed European American settlement, had less impact upon the Sierran water systems. Fishing weirs and some irrigation diversions amounted to ephemeral modifications that were often swept away in times of spring runoff.[30] Mining, grazing, and logging in the nineteenth century led to more permanent alteration. The development of dams to generate electricity or impound water for urban and agricultural uses has exponentially expanded human influence. About 60 percent of the water used by Californians today comes from the Sierra Nevada.[31] The rivers and streams of the Sierra Nevada are included in five of the nine major hydrologic systems of California. Three of these, the Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Tulare Lake systems, capture all of the stream flow of the western Sierra Nevada. These systems are heavily influenced by the orographic, or rain shadow, effect of the range, which causes the warm and moist Pacific winds to shed their moisture content in the form of rain and snow as the wind currents sweep up the western side of the range. The combined runoff from snowpack, rain, and the base flow from the Sierra's vegetated watersheds creates many streams that run year round. The two major hydrologic systems of the eastern Sierra Nevada reflect the arid conditions engendered by the rain shadow. They are the North and South Lahontan (the latter sometimes referred to as the northernmost part of the Death Valley system).[32] Because of the orographic effect, most streams of the range are found on its western slope. There are fourteen major rivers. Most of these have numerous tributaries and forks higher up slope. All of the major rivers and many of their tributaries have been significantly altered in historic times by mining and the construction of dams. The rivers of the northern and west-central Sierra Nevada include tributaries of the Sacramento, the Feather, Yuba, Bear, American, Cosumnes, Mokelumne, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced. The southern Sierran rivers are the San Joaquin, Kings, Kaweah, and the Kern. The rivers of the north and central-west slope of the Sierra eventually all join the Sacramento and flow into the Delta. The rivers of the south, with the exception of the Kern, which in prehistoric and early historic times flowed into Lake Buena Vista, all join into the San Joaquin. It then merges in the Delta with the Sacramento, which in turn empties into San Francisco Bay.[33] The rivers and drainage systems of the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada are fewer, generally do not have as many large tributaries, and contain less water. Even though there is less water, some of the drainage systems, such as that of Lake Tahoe, are very complex. Tahoe's system contains sixty-three creeks. All of the eastern Sierran rivers flow into separate Great Basin lakes that have no outlets to the Pacific Ocean. Because of this condition, several of these lakes are extremely saline, Mono Lake being the most extreme example. The rivers of the eastern side include the Truckee, which originates in Lake Tahoe; the Carson, Walker, and the Mono drainage that includes Lee Vining and Rush Creeks; and the Owens.[34] The Sierra Nevada contains thousands of lakes. Many originate in cirques created by melting glaciers. Other lakes and ponds result from rain and melting snow. These lakes vary in size from surface areas of 300 square miles to very small glacial tarns. As with its rivers, the western Sierra Nevada has the more numerous natural lakes. In Yosemite National Park alone, for ex- ample, there are 429 small lakes. While numerous, these western lakes are generally small. There are fewer lakes on the eastern flank because of the steepness of the escarpment and because precipitation is limited by the rain shadow. The lakes of the arid eastern side, ironically, are generally larger than their western counterparts. Of these eastern lakes, the most magnificent is Tahoe. It is one of the largest and deepest mountain lakes in the world, twenty-two miles long, twelve miles across, and nearly 1,600 feet deep.[35] Fire and the Sierra Nevada Since the time when the modern or so-called Mediterranean climate pattern of dry summers and winter rains became the norm in California, fire has been a constant factor in the shaping of the Sierra Nevada.[36] The summer always brings thunderstorms, and these create lightning strikes and fires wherever vegetation and weather conditions allow. While many observers of the range have rioted this truth, naturalist Verna Johnston perhaps said it best of all: "Lightning fires are thus a natural climatic feature of the Sierran environmental scene, and rate as an important landscape architect of the past-as far back as similar climate prevailed, throughout the eons of time when fire suppression and control measures of today were totally lacking in the summer-dry forests.”[37]\ Well before humans entered the Sierra, fires were frequent. Their frequency varied according to such factors as weather conditions and climate, elevation, topography, and vegetation type. Before the arrival of humans, Sierran landscapes experienced fire once or several times during the lifetime of the dominant plant species, and these species' survival and reproduction were often dependent upon fire. Fire in the Sierra Nevada was not a problem -- it was a necessity.[38] A few examples can demonstrate fire's complex function in the Sierra. Fire stimulates seed germination in several plant species, such as deer brush. It promotes rapid growth in other plants, so that their life cycles can be completed before the next fire cycle begins. It prompted the evolution of fire- resistant buds, twigs, and bark in certain conifers. Other species, such as oaks, developed adventitious or ancillary buds to replace those that might become fire-damaged. Fire stimulates seed release in various pines and the giant sequoia, and flowering in plants such as soaproot. It regulates accumulation of forest debris, thus allowing certain seeds to take hold in relatively clear ground. In general, it has helped shape the pattern or mosaic of vegetation, promoting uneven-aged stands, varied vegetation types, and gaps in forest cover, reducing the danger of crown fires.[39] With the advent of humans, culture added new dimensions to fire's role in shaping the range's environment. Cultural perspective is all-important. As with the other powerful shaping forces in the Sierra Nevada, fire can be viewed as either destructive or creative. For those generations of Americans raised on Smokey Bear's warning that only you can prevent forest fires, wildfire is seen as the enemy. For over a century, conservationists and forest managers have stressed the need to exclude or suppress it if possible. Consider the novel Fire by California writer George Stewart. Personified as a character, "Spitfire," the wildfire that drives the action of the novel is treated as a wily adversary from its infancy to its death as firefighters, consumed fuel, and changing weather conditions prevail to end its rampage of destruction. Stewart treats it as a natural, living force: Like a man, afire exists in time. First as a tiny spark, it lives faintly. A breath of wind might blow it out; some drops of water quench it. But if born in happy circumstances, it feeds lustily and grows. It takes shape and develops structure, growing in fresh air along the ground, throwing off smoke and consumed air skywards. Where once it scarcely crept, now suddenly it walks and runs. The vigor and power of youth rises within it. It grows adult, and casts out sparks to kindle new fires. Yet, even as it sweeps ahead in power and glory, the shadow lies over it. ...Failing to find food, rained upon, blown by contrary winds, fire loses vigor. Grown weaker, it searches less strongly for food, and so grows weaker still. It lies in the quiet of old age. At last, quickly or slowly, it dies.[40] For Sierran Native Americans, fire in the forest and woodlands they occupied was seen very differently than by their fire-hating successors. Fire was a natural force to be respected and used effectively, not suppressed. Sierran natives preferred open conditions that fire helped sustain in forests. Fire made travel easier, gave them better protection from ambush, promoted the growth of food-producing plants and trees such as oaks, encouraged the growth of basketry materials, and enhanced the growth of deer browse-the list of things natives used fife to promote is long.[41] In the decades that followed the coming of miners, stockmen, and lumbermen to the Sierra, fire continued to play a role in shaping the range. Large blocs of forestland were cut. Fires were caused through loggers' carelessness or planned by the sheepherders to open more ground for grazing. The forests remained open, as in the native period. But in the century that came after, the goal of the new managers and conservationists was to exclude wildfire where possible. And they were to prove to be remarkably effective.[42] Between the 1880s and the 1960s, the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, and California Division of Forestry developed the skills and organization necessary to effectively suppress most wildfires. But if fire could be controlled in many cases, the resulting addition of fuel in the form of denser forest and brush cover created conditions that allowed huge, forest-destroying fires that lay beyond the best abilities of the federal and state agencies to suppress. In the 1950S and 1960s, experiments using "prescribed burning" to reduce understory thickets of small trees and the duff and needles that collected proved that fire had a place in the Sierra Nevada's forests. Not only could forests be returned to a more “fireproof” condition, but trees such as white firs that had grown in the wake of fire suppression and were in some instances crowding out the reproduction of sequoias and oaks could be controlled as well. In a draft of a plan to manage the forests of the Sierra Nevada, the Forest Service advocated prescribed burning as one method of reducing overly dense forest cover that had resulted from earlier fire-suppression policies. Fire again, as in prehuman and native times, was accepted as a necessary force in shaping healthy forests.[43] The Other Shaping Force: Human Influence The people who have interacted with the Sierra Nevada have molded it in distinct patterns. These people include 'the native inhabitants who originally occupied and changed the range, early Hispanic American interlopers whose contact first brought European influences and catastrophic disease to the foothills, and the later European American and other occupiers who began the systematic exploitation of its resources and ushered in successive waves of changing uses. Environmental history involves analysis of the interaction of human beings with the natural environment over time. The patterns of change in the Sierran environment reflected the worldview, technology and economy, and population size of successive human groups. Effects of these three elements have in turn brought changes in the geography, hydrology, and biology of the Sierra. For an aging white male professional historian living in a postmodern culture, it was difficult to fully understand the native worldview in what has aptly been called the "Natural World of the California Indians."[44] I have relied not only upon professional anthropologists and geographers, but also on accounts from descendants of Sierran Native Americans to help give me insight into the lives of those early residents of the Sierra Nevada and their role in shaping the range. Writing about the worldview of the non-native successors who shaped the Sierra following the displacement of native control was also difficult. But a unifying theme emerged from study of the data. The key lies in understanding how attitudes toward the range clearly changed during its human history and how these perceptions actually contributed to alterations in the landscape. They evolved from the defensive and tentative approaches of the Californios and early European American immigrants through the more aggressive actions of the gold miners and resource developers and onward to the successive stages of conservationists, public agency managers, and environmentalists into the twenty-first century. Public attitudes and the public policies they produced interacted to play an important part in shaping the Sierra. The interaction of attitudes shaped by land-use laws with actions that encouraged rapid and unregulated re- source development lay behind the opening of the Sierra during the time from 1848 to the 1880s. Concern about this unregulated use led to the rise of conservation in California and the nation, defining a new view of natural spaces even if no one knew how to go about protecting them. Since the turn of the twentieth century, most of the Sierra Nevada's land has come to be managed by public entities, ranging from the National Forest and Park Services to municipal water agencies and local irrigation districts. These agencies' views also evolved over time, influenced by changes in public attitudes toward the range. INTRODUCTION: MAJOR FORCES THAT HAVE SHAPED THE SIERRA NEVADA Notes 1. James G. Moore, Exploring the Highest Sierra {Stanford,CA: Stanford University Press, 2000) , 6-7; Hill, Geology of the Sierra Nevada, 38-49; Paul Webster, The Mighty Sierra: Portrait of a Mountain World {New York: Weathervane Books, 1972),24; Jeffrey P. Schaffer, The Geomorphic Evolution of the Yosemite Valley and the Sierra Nevada Landscapes {Berkeley: Wilderness Press, 1997),6-8,322,332; Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, Final Report to Congress, vol. I, Assessment Summaries and Management Strategies {Davis: University of California, Centers for Water and Wildland Resources, 1996) [hereafter cited as SNEP, vol. I], 8; Stine, "Climate, 1650-1850," 25: Allan A. Schoenherr, A Natural History of California {Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992),69-166; M. Kat Anderson and Michael J. Moratto, "Native American Land- Use Practices and Ecological Impacts," in SNEP, vol. 2, 187; Carolyn Merchant, ed., Major Problems in American Environmental History {Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1993), viii; J. R McBride, W. Russell, and S. Kloss, "Impact of Human Settlement," in SNEP, vol. 2, 1193. 2. Gary Snyder, Mountains and Rivers without End {Washington, DC: Counter- point, 1996), 143. 3. Wallace B. Wolfenden, "Quaternary Vegetation History," in SNEP, vol. 2, 47; Schaffer, Geomorphic Evolution of the Yosemite Valley and the Sierra Nevada Landscapes, 106. 4. Stine, "Climate, 1650-1850," 25. 5. "California Volcano Starts to Stir," Science News, December 20, 1997,396; USGS Volcano Hazards Program, Recent Earthquakes in California and Nevada, Long valley Special Map, April 26, 1998, Internet source; Jennifer Bowles, "Ski Town's Wish," Sacramento Bee, November 26, 1997, B3 and following. 6. "California Volcano Starts to Stir," 396; Sandra Blakeslee, "Volcano in California Springs Unusual Carbon Dioxide Leak," New York Times, July 23, 1996, C4. 7. Hill, Geology of the Sierra Nevada, 1-5; Schaffer, Geomorphic Evolution of the Yosemite Valley and Sierra Nevada Landscapes, 277,301,332. 8. Farquhar, History of the Sierra Nevada, 1-70; Anderson and Moratto, "Native American Land-Use Practices and Ecological Impacts," 187; SNEP, vol. I, 14. 9. Catherine S. Fowler and Sven Liljeblad, "Northern Paiute," Handbook of North American Indians, vol. II, Great Basin, ed. Warren L. D' Azevedo (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1986), 435-38; John Hart, Storm over Mono: The Mono Lake Basin and the California Water Future {Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996),14. 10. Hill, Geology of the Sierra Nevada, 42. 11. Verna Johnston, Sierra Nevada {Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970) , 2; Norman Hinds, Evolution of the California Landscape {San Francisco: State of California, Division of Mines, Department of Natural Resources, December 1952),13; SNEP; vol. 1,6; Muir, Mountains of California, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8. 12. SNEP; vol. I, 6. 13. Hinds, Evolution of the California Landscape, 1I-13; Johnston, Sierra Nevada, 2; SNEP; vol. 1,8; Schoenherr, Natural History of California, 69; Norris Hundley Jr., The Great Thirst; Californians and Water; 1770s-1990s {Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 406-22. 14. Schoenherr, Natural History of California, 69, 73-92. 15. Hinds, Evolution of the California Landscape, 13; Johnston, Sierra Nevada, 2-3; Farquhar, History of the Sierra Nevada, 1-2, 23-50. 16. Carrie Peyton, "Tahoe's Depth Ranking Secure," Sacramento Bee, August 30, 1998 BI. According to a survey carried out by the U.S. Geological Survey in the summer of 1998 and reported in the Sacramento Bee, the currently accepted depth of Lake Tahoe is 1,590 feet, making it the second-deepest lake in North America. 17. Two newspapers near Tahoe also ran stories on the earthquake activity at the lake in November of 1998. See Grass Valley Union, November 12, 1998, AI, AII, and Sacramento Bee, November 12, 1998, B3. 18. Dilsaver and Tweed, Challenge of the Big Trees, 1-3; Strong, Tahoe, 1-4; Palmer, Sierra Nevada, ix, 250; Hill, Geology of the Sierra Nevada, 42; George Wuerthner, Californias Sierra Nevada {Helena, MT: American and World Geographic, 1993),6-8. 19. Timothy P. Duane, "Human Settlement, 185O-2040," in SNEP; vol. 2, 235-36. 20. John James, "Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada," in The Mountainous West; Explorations in Historical Geography, ed. William Wyckoff and Lary Dilsaver {Lin- coln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 335; Hinds, Evolution of the California Landscape, 13; Schoenherr, Natural History of California, 92; M. Barbour et al., Californias Changing Landscapes {Sacramento: California Native Plant Society, 1993),99; Muir, "Peaks and Glaciers of the High Sierra," I; SNEP; vol. I, 5. 21. Schoenherr, Natural History of California, 92-94; Barbour et al., Californias Changing Landscapes, 99-121; Johnston, Sierra Nevada, 4:.-57,243. 22. SNEP; vol. I, IO-12. 23. Ibid., 13. 24. Muir, Mountains of California, 3-4. 25. Elna S. Bakker, An Island Called California; An Ecological Introduction to Its Natural Communities, 2d ed. {Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 195. 26. Samuel G. Houghton, A 1race of Desert Waters; The Great Basin Story {Salt Lake City: Howe Brothers, 1986), 51-71, 85-108. 27. David Beesley, "Reconstructing the Landscape: An Environmental History, 1820-1960," in SNEP; vol. 2,5-8; Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics [hereafter cited as FSEEE], Restoring Our Forest Legacy; Blueprint .for Sierra Nevada National Forests {Eugene, OR: FSEEE, 2000), 7-21; "Late Successional Old-Growth Forest Conditions," in SNEP; vol. I, 92-1I1. 28. Francois Marthes, The Incomparable Valley: A Geologic Interpretation of the Yosemite, ed. Fritiof Fryxel1 {Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956),80. 29. Mark Twain, Roughing It, vol. 2 of The Works of Mark Twain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 163. 30. John Walton, in his useful study of the Owens Valley, noted that the Owens Valley Paiute had developed a "self-sufficient agrarian society" that the early historic American settlers of the valley later built on. See Walton, Western Times and Water Wars, 15-16. 31. Elizabeth Hogan, ed., Rivers of the West (Menlo Park, CA: Lane, 1974),17, 180; Diana Jacobs et al., California Rivers: A Public Trust Report (Sacramento: California State Lands Commission, 1993), 1-2, 6; Jeffrey Mount, California Rivers and Streams: The Conflict between pluvial Process and Land Use (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 4-6; Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, "New Sierra Management Plan Needs to Address Many Important Issues," Stand 2, no.3 (summer/fall 1998): I, 12-13. 32. Mount, California Rivers and Streams, 178, 180, 182; Houghton, Trace of Desert Waters, 51, 127. 33. Mount, California Rivers and Streams, 4-5; Bakker, Island Called California, 144-45; Hinds, Evolution of the California Landscape, 15; Palmer, Sierra Nevada, 306; Dilsaver and Tweed, Challenge of Big Trees, i. 34. Palmer, Sierra Nevada, 306; Mount, California Rivers and Streams, 5; Hart, Storm over Mono, 7. 35. George Hinkle and Bliss Hinkle, Sierra Nevada Lakes (Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill, 1949) , 19-20; Hinds, Evolution of the California Landscape, 21; Strong, Tahoe, xiii. 36. Carl N. Skinner and Chi-Ru Chang, "Fire Regimes, Past and Present," in SNEE: vol. 2, 104I. 37. Johnston, Sierra Nevada: The Naturalists Companion, 75. 38. Kat Anderson, Indian Fire-Based Management in the Sequoia-Mixed Conifer Forests of the Central and Southern Sierra Nevada (Yosemite National Park: Yosemite Research Center, July 15,1993),1-30; Kevin S. McKelvey et al., '~ Overview of Fire in the Sierra Nevada," in SNEP: vol. 2, 1033; Skinner and Chang, "Fire Regimes," 104I. 39. Skinner and Chang, "Fire Regimes," 1047. 40. George R. Stewart, Fire (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948),137. 41. Skinner and Chang, "Fire Regimes," 1042; Johnston, Sierra Nevada: The Naturalists Companion, 73-74. 42. Beesley, "Reconstructing the Landscape," 5-:-9; McKelvey et al., "Overview of Fire in the Sierra," 1034; Skinner and Chang, "Fire Regimes," 1057-58. 43. Beesley, "Reconstructing the Landscape,"9-17; Skinner and Chang, "Fire Regimes," 104I, 1059-62; Johnston, Sierra Nevada: Naturalists Companion, 80-85; Harold Biswell, Prescribed Burning in California Wildlands Vegetation Management (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989),1-3,43-45,49-50,53-55; USDA, Forest Service, Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment: Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Pacific Southwest Region: U.S. Forest Service, April 2000), 15. 44. Heizer and Elsasser, Natural World of the California Indians, 202, define world view as "a people's vision of the world they live in and how they relate to the environment, to others, and to the cosmos. Thus does world view form a people's pattern of day-to-day living."  |