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Updated 07/24/10
 Joseph Rutherford Walker was the second white man to cross the Sierra Nevada and the first to do it in an east-to-west direction. When he left California the following year, he made a southerly crossing over a relatively low Sierra pass that still bears his name. While crossing the Sierra Nevada in 1833 Walker and his party were the first white men to gaze upon the Yosemite Valley. They were also the first to see the huge redwood trees that became known as "Sequoia gigantea." Walker was born in Tennessee in 1798 and raised on the Missouri frontier. In 1832 he joined a party of 110 hunters and trappers under the command of B.L.E. de Bonneville. Bonneville was a French-born U.S. Army officer who was detached from active service and ordered to lead a military intelligence gathering expedition through the far west. Bonneville's adventures during the escapade were chronicled colorfully by Washington Irving in the Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A., published in 1837. The captain's two most important accomplishments were the leading of wagons through the South Pass and sending Walker to spy on the Mexicans in California. 
Walker's detachment consisted of 70 men, including Zenas Leonard, his second-in-command, clerk, and journal keeper. Walker's orders were to find a way to the
Pacific through the "unknown country to the west." Walker did not follow Jedediah Smith's route to California, however. Instead of striking south from the Wasatch
Mountains, Walker led his men on a westward arc around the north shores of the Great Salt Lake to the headwaters of the Humboldt River, then known as "Mary's River."Walker followed the Humboldt River to its sink, where he was confronted by 800-900 Paiute Indians. When warning shots failed to disperse the braves, Walker's men fired into them, killing 39. The following year, having made a southerly exit from the Sierra Nevada, Walker's group was again confronted by hostile Paiutes, and 14 more braves were slain by Walker's muskets. These battles may have contributed to the endemic hostilities of the southern route. Historians are not sure where Walker and his men crested the Sierra Nevada, and a great deal of speculation has been indulged in. The most likely ascent was along a route that led to and over the Sierra Nevada in the vicinity of the Tioga Pass. This conclusion follows from the fact that after cresting the Sierra the expedition worked its way west along the divide between the Tuolumne and Merced rivers. This in turn is supported by Leonard's description of the rugged terrain they crossed, the sighting of the Yosemite from the northern rim of the valley, and their observations of the redwoods in the lower foothills. Furthermore, according to Zenas Leonard's account of the journey, the ascent of the eastern Sierra Nevada was made relatively quickly once the expedition headed west into the range. It is steep and rugged but relatively short, and it could be climbed by men on horses in two to three days. It also is aligned with the trails over which Walker probably traveled that ultimately developed into the Tioga Road. 
The only other thing that can be said with certainty is that Walker's descent from the Sierra crest was longer and more difficult than the ascent. During the descent
Walker lost 24 horses, 17 of which provided nourishment for his famished followers. They were traveling more or less blind. But their route had its rewards. "In
two or three days," Leonard recorded, "we arrived at the brink of the mountain. This at first was a happy sight, but when we approached close, it seemed to be so
near perpendicular that it would be folly to attempt a descent." Walker took out his spyglass and inspected the "plain" (i.e., valley) below. Leonard had no need of
a spyglass. "On looking on the plain below with the naked eye," he wrote, "you have one of the most singular prospects in nature. From the great height of the
mountain ... we found ... a beautiful plain stretched out toward the west until the horizon presents a barrier to the sight. From the spot where we stood to the plain
beneath, must at least be a distance of three miles. As it is almost perpendicular, a person cannot look down without feeling as if he was wafted to and fro in the air,
from the giddy height."Gazing at the grandeur of the valley, Walker considered descending into the plain below to make his way west from there. The descent was obviously too steep and precipitous, however. Men and horses would have to be lowered over two thousand feet by ropes. Working their way west from the rim of the Yosemite Valley, Walker and his men finally made their way into the foothills. There they came upon groves of sequoia gigantea, the huge redwood trees that are the largest plants on earth. "Big trees," they called them, recording another historic first. Emerging from the Sierra Nevada into the San Joaquin Valley, Walker's party worked its way north by following the San Joaquin River. Walker eventually came to Yerba Buena and San Francisco Bay. This route is consistent with Walker's military orders, as the Mexicans staffed a presidio at Yerba Buena. He then turned south and traveled down the Peninsula to the Santa Clara Valley, where he turned west and climbed over the Santa Cruz mountains. The expedition came out of the mountains on the coast near Point Ano Nuevo. Walker's expedition then made its way down the coast to another presidio at Monterey. His interest in coastal settlements is further evidence of the military character of his expedition. 
The irony of Walker's group is that unlike the Smith and Pattie parties, who were entirely innocent but treated as hostile, the Mexicans welcomed Walker and his
men warmly with open arms. There was considerable friction and rivalry between the Mexican civil officials at San Diego and the military dons at Monterey,
however, and it occasionally ripened into rebellion.Don Juan Bautista Alvarado, the military governor at Monterey, offered Walker a large land grant, which Walker politely refused, no doubt mindful of the touching irony of being offered the olive branch by the unwitting victim of his espionage. When Walker left Monterey, however, several of his men remained behind to become expatriate dons. Walker left Monterey to rendezvous with Bonneville in the Rocky Mountains on Feb. 14, 1834. He was disinclined to return the way he had come, however, so he and his group worked their way south along the eastern edge of the San Joaquin Valley. Eventually Walker discovered a relatively low-lying pass (5,250 feet) through the mountains by ascending the Sierra Nevada up the gorge of the Kern River to Lake Isabella, then moving along the South Fork of the Kern River to the pass, which is located south of Owens Peak. From the pass the Walker party descended the eastern Sierra Nevada into the Owens Valley. The pass through which Walker took his eastbound expedition is named for him. It can be found in Kern County along California Highway 178 about 10 miles east of its intersection with Highway 14 near the town of lnyokern. 
The adventures of Walker and his group were recorded by Zenas Leonard and published by him in 1839 as the Narrative of Zenas Leonard. Leonard later settled
down as a fur trader and storekeeper in Missouri, but Walker continued his trips to and from California. In 1843 Walker led another expedition to California in
company with Joseph Chiles, who had first entered California with the Bidwell party in 1841. The two men hoped to lead the first wagon train into California, and
they selected Walker's Pass as the best way to crest the Sierra Nevada with wagons. The approach was too rugged, however, and the settlers were forced to
abandon their wagons in the Owens Valley before going into the mountains. The group traveled west through the Central Valley and wound up in southern Santa
Clara Valley near the present city of Gilroy.Walker also served as a guide for Charles Fremont's second and third expeditions (1844-1846). During the third expedition in 1846 Walker was more than a scout, however. While Fremont parleyed with the Mexicans at Monterey, Walker was in charge of the main body of Fremont's small army, which had been left in the Santa Clara Valley. He was also with Fremont when the aggressive pathfinder assumed a defensive position at the top of Mt. Gavilan for the Hawk's Peak Incident, where Fremont all but dared Alvarado to come and get him. When the Mexican general approached Hawk's Peak with overwhelming force, Fremont and his men quietly slid down the backside of the mountain and headed back to the Sacramento Valley where Fremont would help foment the Bear Flag Rebellion. After the Mexican War, Walker continued his expeditions, and he is regarded as an important explorer of the southwest. He died in 1876 in Contra Costa County, where he had spent the last 10 years of his life. On his tombstone is engraved his discovery of Yosemite. |
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