Yosemite Valley Sep 3d 1843
Dear Sister Sarah,
I have just returned from the longest & hardest trip I have ever made in the mtns., having been gone over five weeks. I am weary but resting fast, Sleepy but sleeping deep & fast, hungry but eating much – For two weeks I explored the glaciers of the summits east of here, sleeping among the snowy mtns without blankets & with but little to eat on account of its being so inaccessible. After my icy experiences it seems strange to be down here in so warm & flowery a climate.
I will soon be off again determined to use all the season in prosecuting my researches — will go next to Kings river a hundred miles south, then to Lake Tahoe & adjacent mtns. & in winter work in Oakland with my pen. The Scotch are slow but some day I will have the results of my mountain studies in a form in which you all will be able to read & judge of them. In the mean time I write occaisonally for the Overland Monthly but neither these magazine articles nor my first book will form any finished part of the scientific contribution that I hope to make. Here is clipping that you will like to read please return it when you are done with it.
The mountains are calling & I must go & I will work on while I can, studying incessantly.
My love to you all, David & the children & Mrs Galloway who though shut out from sunshine yet dwells in Light
I will write again when I return from Kings River Canon. The leaf sent me from China is for Cecelia
Farewell with love everlasting