frost-torn

Updated: July 28, 2026

Here, too, crumble to ruins the old Franciscan missions, each in its own fair valley, passing monuments of California's first page of written history. Inland rises the great Sierra, with spreading ridge and foothill, like some huge, sprawling centipede, its granite back unbroken for a thousand miles. Frost-torn peaks, of every height and bearing, pierce the blue wastes above.

David Starr Jordan - California and the Californians