User:Mahna Mahna Muppet/Clarence King

Original
By May 1863, King, Gardiner and an acquaintance named William Hyde traveled by railroad to Missouri and then joined a wagon train, which they left at Carson City, Nevada. King and Gardiner soon continued on to California,

King's Trip West
As Gardiner and King started to quickly plan for their journey, their final destination being San Francisco, another friend named William Hyde became interested and decided to join them. So, they all met in April 1863 at Niagra, New York, and boarded a train. On the train King met the Speers family and being the friendly person, he was known to be, he decided to entertain the Speers children while they traveled to St. Joseph, Missouri. The Speers’ grateful for King’s help with entertaining their children invited King, Gardiner, and Hyde to join their wagon party. The three men would be provided food as long as they helped care for the livestock that the Speers were bringing.

On May 1st, 1863, with St. Joseph as their starting point the three men officially started to travel west. 5 days later just past Troy, Kansas the party succeeded in hunting two buffalo, which was a welcomed treat. Near Fort Kearny, 200 miles into their journey, King tried hunting buffalo, but he did not succeed ending up with a wounded leg and a dead horse. On May 29th, the traveling party passed the very large 325-foot landmark called Chimney Rock in northwest Nebraska and a few days after that they arrived at Fort Laramie in what is now Wyoming. On June 29th the party crested the ridge of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah to see the Great Salt Lake below them, a place of refuge before they began to travel across the desert to the west of the lake. More than a month later, on August 6th, the wagon train arrived at Carson City, Nevada which is when King, Gardiner, and Hyde decided to leave the wagon party to head towards Gold Hill a town nearby because Hyde’s dad owned a ranch and foundry there.

That night the foundry caught on fire burning everything the three guys owned including King’s letter to Brewer at the California Geologic Survey. As they helped rebuild the foundry King and Gardiner were able to save up enough supplies to continue on while Hyde decided to stay with his father. Planning to walk the rest of the way by foot, Gardiner and King left Gold Hill near the end of August 1863. On September 1st, the two friends boarded a steamboat heading towards San Fransico. While on the steamboat King met Brewer and explained to him what happened to the letter which then led to them spending the evening trading stories with Brewer. King during this time expressed his willingness to work for the survey without pay because he liked Brewer and knew it would be a good experience. Little did King know at the time but joining the California Geological Survey was a good choice because it ended up being the first step in King’s career.

Original #2
In July 1864, King and Cotter made the first ascent of a peak in the Eastern Sierra that King named Mount Tyndall in honor of one of his heroes. From there they discovered several higher peaks, including the one that came to be named Mount Whitney.

King's Early Days in The California Geologic Survey
Once Gardner and King arrived at the California Geological Society’s office, they met the director of the survey Josiah Whitney. In 1863, with the permission of Whitney, King was asked by Brewer to accompany him on his exploration of the northern part of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range. While King is on this expedition, Gardner would stay in San Fransisco. On this trip with Brewer and King was a mule packer named John Hoesch. As the group traveled, they passed through the Sierra gold fields, and at a creek named Genesee, Brewer found fossils of the Jurassic or Triassic age. This find would help them pinpoint the age of the Mother Lode gold belt, which was one of their goals on this journey. Near Lassen Peak in northern California, Brewer and King investigated hot springs and other thermal features. At nights around the campfire, geologic concerns such as the young Cascade volcanoes, the age of gold veins, and the action of glaciers was discussed. During one of these conversations, Brewer brought up Whitney’s plan to propose a geologic study across the continent, and King thought that there may be a chance of funding this because as Whitney noted railroad companies would really benefit from it. King learned a lot from this two-month journey with Brewer.

As soon as he got back from this first expedition of his, King immediately began preparing to do another one. This time he was traveling with a mining engineer named William Ashburner, and a topographer named Charles Hoffmann. The trio’s job was to survey the Mariposa Estate, a place that was one of the most important gold-vein regions in the area. During this job, King had a habit of staring at views as opposed to working like he was supposed to which irritated his fellow team members. Eventually, after his coworkers brought their concerns to him, he refocused on his assigned work for the rest of the job. King’s next big job would be a scientific exploration into the southern Sierra mountains.

Leaving in May 1864, the party consisted of Brewer, Hoffmann, Gardner, King and a man named Dick Cotter. During the early stages of this journey, in Visalia, King was able to acquire a new horse, a decision that would later save his life. Leaving Visalia, the team ended up at what is the present site of Sequoia Lake, where they stayed for a week studying the Sequoia trees. The party used triangulation as their main method of mapping the areas they traveled through. At one point they reached a spot where the animals could not continue so they made base at an unknown mountain lake. The next day Hoffmann and Brewer climbed the unknown peak nearby (now known as Mount Brewer) and soon they sadly discovered that they were not on the main Sierra Nevada Crest like they thought they were. Brewer and Hoffmann also named Mount Tyndall, Mount Goddard, and Mount Whitney while they were up there. King upon hearing what Hoffmann and Brewer saw begged to be allowed to backpack up Mount Whitney with Cotter. In King's own words, "It was a trying moment for Brewer when we found him and volunteered to attempt a campaign for the top of California, because he felt a certain fatherly responsibility over our youth." Brewer eventually gave his permission even though King had no real plan. The duo, however, started to run out of provisions before they even made it to Mount Whitney so, they had to turn back. After reuniting back at camp, they discover that Brewer is suffering from an awful toothache, so King took him to Visalia to get it pulled. During this King got permission to attempt to climb Mount Whitney again but he had to rendezvous with the main group in two weeks at Clark’s Station. King did not end up making it to the top on this expedition, which greatly disappointed him. On his way to the meeting point, King ran into some trouble with bandits but his new horse was able to outrun them saving his life. He made it to the rendezvous point on time, but the rest of the group ran into trouble and was three weeks late. Both Gardner and King were unpaid volunteers for this expedition, but they had helped create the first topographic, botanical, and geologic survey of a vast area.