In the Shade of Eternity: Sierra Nevada

“There was a Buffalo Soldier
In the heart of America
Stolen from Africa, brought to America
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival”

A year before his death at age 36, Jamaican reggae icon Bob Marley recorded these lines about African American soldiers who fought in the “Indian Wars” of the 18th and 19th centuries. Depending on which narrative one reads, these wars may either be criticized as the westward expansion of the United States to seize Native lands and relocate tribes to reservations through the “Trail of Tears,” or praised as the pursuit of the “Manifest Destiny” of Americans to spread Christianity and democracy from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. The Buffalo Soldiers (arguably a pejorative) of the U.S. Army—African American regiments who “protected settlers” after the Civil War—were also, interestingly, deployed as the first park rangers in Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks before the creation of the National Park Service in 1916.

The Sierra Nevada (Spanish for “snowy mountains”) in eastern California is essentially a massive granite block roughly 640 km long and 100 km wide, that has been cut, shaped, carved and polished by glaciers and rivers since the Ice Ages. It hosts both Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks. Its numerous rivers are primarily fed by snowmelt, cascading into splendid waterfalls across its valleys, peaks, canyons, gorges, meadows, and lakes, making the Sierra a crucial “water tower” for California and neighboring regions. ‘Indian tribes’ (a phrase that always makes me cognitively dissonant as an Indian national) such as the Yokuts, Miwok, and Paiute have lived in this region for at least 1,500 years, until many were pushed off their lands during the California Gold Rush of the 1850s.

The Sierra Nevada range in California (Image courtesy: Dicklyon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Several ‘attractions’ and trailheads in today’s Sequoia National Park bear the name of one Hale Tharp, a Gold Rush miner who ventured into this area in the hope of making a fortune and settled into cattle ranching. His log cabin and barn are featured as the must-see “Cattle Cabin” in the park’s leaflets, while his dwelling made from a hollowed tree log, judiciously named “Tharp's Log,” is noted as a prominent contribution and a ‘historic site.’ Tharp also appears on information boards at various points in the park, including one at Moro Rock, a granite dome with a 2 km elevation, informing readers about the ‘explorer Tharp,’ who was the first person to ascend this prominent structure in 1861, ‘guided’ by two Indians.

History is written by the victors and is replete with narratives of their grace, legitimacy, and divine favor over so-called rebels and infidels. These labels shift, get rinsed, and are repeated every few hundred years. North Africans enslaved swathes of Christian Europeans across the Mediterranean; the Ottomans did the same with white Europeans from the Balkans; and the Crimeans went in the Russian hinterlands to capture white slaves. Europeans themselves did the same with Africans, turning it into the most profitable business of all. Religion, meanwhile, played a recurring role as the banner of legitimacy in these human pursuits of profit over the few hundred years of written history that we know.

And history is what reverberates as the theme across the enchanted landscape of Sierra Nevada.

“The Sentinel” is a majestic, 2,200-year-old giant sequoia in Sequoia National Park’s Giant Forest—the most famous and largest grove of these trees in the world. Sequoias are massive, routinely reaching 80–90 meters in height (comparable to a 25-story building), and grow slowly over centuries in ‘rings’ around the existing trunk. These rings archive history like etched grooves on a vinyl record. Each ring in the cross-section of a sequoia trunk, roughly representing a year of growth, can reveal wet and dry years, pest infestations, and occurrences of fire. John Muir, the naturalist credited with the birth of the U.S. National Park system, once described sequoias as “the greatest of living things.” Standing beneath a sequoia that has been alive for two to three millennia silently dwarfs you and your place in the world—physically and existentially.

The Sentinel (Image courtesy: m01229 from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Sentinel began its life around 225 BCE, a time when much of Europe was tribal. Alexander’s vast, hard-won territory from Darius’s Persia had largely disintegrated. The Romans were expanding and consolidating power as a significant force on the Italian peninsula. Mauryan King Ashoka’s vast empire in the Indian peninsula had begun to fragment. The first unification of China under the Qin Dynasty was underway. And amidst all this, religion—the most profitable of human enterprises—had an entirely different fervor. The polytheistic Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians were worshipping a pantheon of gods and goddesses. Zoroastrianism was dominant in Persia, while Judaism was just past its early stages. Buddhism, having expanded significantly under Ashoka, was a major force in the East. Classical Hinduism was evolving from its Vedic roots, and the Bhagavad Gita was yet to be composed. The Mayan civilization was just beginning. Christianity and Islam did not yet exist. From its silent perch in a North American forest, unknown to the major powers of that Old World, The Sentinel was witnessing it all—quietly recording history while outliving empires. Standing before such an old tree, with its cinnamon-red bark storing all this history inside, makes you feel insignificant, yet strangely connected to the milieu of life beyond wars and conquests for temporary human dominance over nature. The sequoias’ silence hits you differently; despite their shallow roots and fire-dependent reproduction, they endure—in humbling contrast to human impermanence.

And further back in the arc of history, there are the rivers—the sculptors of Yosemite and Sequoia. Roaring through the canyons, they patiently chiseled the Sierra Nevada’s granite heart over millions of years. The entire range was born of molten magma that cooled and formed the soaring cliffs of Yosemite’s El Capitan and the gorges of the Kaweah. And the handiwork of these rivers resulted in the picturesque waterfalls and canyons we see today. Yosemite hosts the eponymous Yosemite Falls (the tallest in North America), Bridalveil Fall, and Vernal Fall, among many others—each framed by jagged granite cliffs, their mist swaying in the breeze and drenching onlookers. Sequoia features Grizzly Falls and Roaring River Falls, among others, cooling the air, their mist mingling with the scent of wildflowers. Despite the roar—much more pronounced in the spring when flows peak—these falls hold a quiet power, an intimacy with the rocks through which they plummet, thunder, and dissolve time. Occasionally, a double rainbow arches across the spray—a fleeting, timeless crown. In the deep, hardened soul of the granite, it is the rivers that have nurtured diverse ecosystems across the ages. A sign just outside Roaring River Falls reminds us of human fragility in this seemingly eternal world: Do not go near the rocks. People drown in this river every year.

Grizzly Falls in Kings Canyon (Image courtesy: Alexander Migl, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Among granite peaks and ancient waters, the wildlife of the Sierra Nevada tells another tale of survival and loss through history. For more than two million years, grizzly bears were the lords of Yosemite and Sequoia, but were driven to extinction in California in less than a century by the traps and rifles of ‘settlers’ in the 19th century. Today, black bears still forage—often struggling futilely with modern bear-proof food storage boxes scattered throughout campgrounds and guest accommodations in the park. There are also mule deer, bighorn sheep, marmots, and even mountain lions and cougars—thankfully difficult to spot for entertainment’s sake in the park’s vast wilderness. Apparently, eleven woodpecker species inhabit this region, and watching one patiently at work on a tall oak tree was a delight.

To a modern-day visitor, Yosemite and Sequoia offer more than a thousand kilometers of marked hiking trails, a highway system with scenic vistas, campgrounds, and comfortable lodging options with reliable internet service—fruits of late-stage capitalism. It’s heartening to see how modern narratives in their visitor centers and information panels do at least partial justice to history, and how conservation programs strive to preserve the beauty and timelessness of this land that vastly predates—and will likely outlast—human stories.

Quoting Bob Marley again:

“If you know your history
Then you would know where you coming from”

On my way back from the Sierra Nevada, with sequoias’ shadows in my rearview, I thought a little about where I came from. And offered a silent prayer—grateful for the providence and amazing fortunes of my life.