#mountain meadows

Deep inside Olympic National Park, August 2020

Paradise Valley and Mt. Rainier by Chrissy Wiley

Looking back toward East Pinnacle Lakes Basin. John Muir Wilderness, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA Photo by Van Miller

Tatoosh Range - M.R.N.P.

Grassy meadows of the Gibbon River, Yellowstone National Park: (c) riverwindphotography

Once commonly called the “Mormon Meadows Massacre,” the political correctness which applies to descriptions of the radical right and its lunatic fringe religious cults has replaced “Mormon Meadows” with the anodyne “Mountain Meadows.” In September 1857 on the site below the memorial a group of Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) terrorists attacked and brutally slaughtered about 130 members of a party from Arkansas migrating to Southern California. Some children, including several who were severely injured, survived the massacre. The middle memorial is to the women and children slaughtered, while the bottom photo is the general memorial. A few of the terrorists were eventually punished for the mass murder. This act of terrorism was one of the events linked to the mormon cult  which kept the effectively theocratic state of Utah from admission to the union until 1896, long after territories with smaller populations had already been admitted as states. For discussion of and insight into the mormon cult in its early days, read Mark Twain’s comments!

But the world, well stands beneath your scars