could not have been chance which set off the filmy Bridal Veil against
El Capitan's bulk; which designed the Gothic climax of Sentinel Rock;
which wondrously proportioned the consecutive masses of the Three
Brothers; which made El Capitan, now looked back upon against a new
background, a new and appropriate creation, a thing of brilliance and
beauty instead of bulk, mighty of mass, powerful in shape and poise, yet
mysteriously delicate and unreal. As we pass on with rapidly increasing
excitement to the supreme climax at the Valley's head, where gather
together Glacier Point, Yosemite Falls of unbelievable height and
graciousness, the Royal Arches, manifestly a carving, the gulf-like
entrances of Tenaya and the Merced Canyons, and above all, and pervading
all, the distinguished mysterious personality of Half Dome, presiding
priest of this Cathedral of Beauty, again there steals over us the
uneasy suspicion of supreme design. How could Nature have happened upon
the perfect composition, the flawless technique, the divine inspiration
of this masterpiece of more than human art? Is it not, in fact, the
master temple of the Master Architect?
[Illustration: _From a photograph by J.T. Boysen_
EL CAPITAN, SURVIVOR OF THE GLACIERS
Looking eastward up the Yosemite Valley, Half Dome is seen on the right
horizon]
To appreciate the Valley we must consider certain details. It is eight
miles long, and from half a mile to a mile wide. Once prehistoric Lake
Yosemite, its floor is as level as a ball field, and except for
occasional meadows, grandly forested. The sinuous Merced is forested to
its edges in its upper reaches, but lower down occasionally wanders
through broad, blooming opens. The rock walls are dark pearl-hued
granite, dotted with pines wherever clefts or ledges exist capable of
supporting them; even El Capitan carries its pine-tree half way up its
smooth precipice. Frequently the walls are sheer; they look so
everywhere. The valley's altitude is 4,000 feet. The walls rise from
2,000 to 6,000 feet higher; the average is a little more than 3,000 feet
above the valley floor; Sentinel Dome and Mount Watkins somewhat exceed
4,000 feet; Half Dome nearly attains 5,000 feet; Cloud's Rest soars
nearly 6,000 feet.
Two large trench-like canyons enter the valley at its head, one on
either side of Half Dome. Tenaya Canyon enters from the east in line
with the valley, looking as if it were the Valley's upper reach. Merced
Canyon enters from the south after curving around the east and south
sides of Half Dome. Both are extremely deep. Half Dome's 5,000 feet form
one side of each canyon; Mount Watkin's 4,300 feet form the north side
of Tenaya Canyon, Glacier Point's 3,200 feet the west side of Merced
Canyon. Both canyons are superbly wooded at their outlets, and lead
rapidly up to timber-line. Both carry important trails from the Valley
floor to the greater park above the rim.
To this setting add the waterfalls and the scene is complete. They are
the highest in the world. Each is markedly individualized; no two
resemble each other. Yet, with the exception of the Vernal Fall, all
have a common note; all are formed of comparatively small streams
dropping from great heights; all are wind-blown ribbons ending in clouds
of mist. They are so distributed that one or more are visible from most
parts of the Valley and its surrounding rim. More than any other
feature, they differentiate and distinguish the Yosemite.
The first of the falls encountered, Bridal Veil, is a perfect example of
the valley type. A small stream pouring over a perpendicular wall drops
six hundred and twenty feet into a volume of mist. The mist, of course,
is the bridal veil. How much of the water reaches the bottom as water is
a matter of interesting speculation. This and the condensed mists reach
the river through a delta of five small brooks. As a spectacle the
Bridal Veil Fall is unsurpassed. The delicacy of its beauty, even in the
high water of early summer, is unequalled by any waterfall I have seen.
A rainbow frequently gleams like a colored rosette in the massed chiffon
of the bride's train. So pleasing are its proportions that it is
difficult to believe the fall nearly four times the height of Niagara.
[Illustration: _From a photograph by J.T. Boysen_
HALF DOME, YOSEMITE'S HOODED MONK
Rising nearly four thousand feet above the valley floor; the view is up
Tenaya Canyon to the High Sierra]
The Ribbon Fall, directly opposite Bridal Veil, a little west of El
Capitan, must be mentioned because for a while in early spring its
sixteen hundred foot drop is a spectacle of remarkable grandeur. It is
merely the run of a snow-field which disappears in June. Thereafter a
dark perpendicular stain on the cliff marks its position. Another minor
fall, this from the south rim, is that of Sentinel Creek. It is seen
from the road at the right of Sentinel Rock, dropping five hundred feet
in one leap of several which aggregate two thousand feet.
Next in progress come Yosemite Falls, loftiest by far in the world, a
spectacle of sublimity. These falls divide with Half Dome the honors of
the upper Valley. The tremendous plunge of the Upper Fall, and the
magnificence of the two falls in apparent near continuation as seen from
the principal points of elevation on the valley floor, form a spectacle
of extraordinary distinction. They vie with Yosemite's two great rocks,
El Capitan and Half Dome, for leadership among the individual scenic
features of the continent.
The Upper Fall pours over the rim at a point nearly twenty-six hundred
feet above the valley floor. Its sheer drop is fourteen hundred and
thirty feet, the equal of nine Niagaras. Two-fifths of a mile south of
its foot, the Lower Fall drops three hundred and twenty feet more. From
the crest of the Upper Fall to the foot of the Lower Fall lacks a little
of half a mile. From the foot of the Lower Fall, after foaming down the
talus, Yosemite Creek, seeming a ridiculously small stream to have
produced so monstrous a spectacle, slips quietly across a half mile of
level valley to lose itself in the Merced.
From the floods of late May when the thunder of falling water fills the
valley and windows rattle a mile away, to the October drought when the
slender ribbon is little more than mist, the Upper Yosemite Fall is a
thing of many moods and infinite beauty. Seen from above and opposite at
Glacier Point, sideways and more distantly from the summit of Cloud's
Rest, straight on from the valley floor, upwards from the foot of the
Lower Fall, upwards again from its own foot, and downwards from the
overhanging brink toward which the creek idles carelessly to the very
step-off of its fearful leap, the Fall never loses for a moment its
power to amaze. It draws and holds the eye as the magnet does the iron.
Looking up from below one is fascinated by the extreme leisureliness of
its motion. The water does not seem to fall; it floats; a pebble dropped
alongside surely would reach bottom in half the time. Speculating upon
this appearance, one guesses that the air retards the water's drop, but
this idea is quickly dispelled by the observation that the solid inner
body drops no faster than the outer spray. It is long before the
wondering observer perceives that he is the victim of an illusion; that
the water falls normally; that it appears to descend with less than
natural speed only because of the extreme height of the fall, the eye
naturally applying standards to which it has been accustomed in viewing
falls of ordinary size.
On windy days the Upper Fall swings from the brink like a pendulum of
silver and mist. Back and forth it lashes like a horse's tail. The gusts
lop off puffy clouds of mist which dissipate in air. Muir tells of
powerful winter gales driving head on against the cliff, which break the
fall in its middle and hold it in suspense. Once he saw the wind double
the fall back over its own brink. Muir, by the way, once tried to pass
behind the Upper Fall at its foot, but was nearly crushed.
By contrast with the lofty temperamental Upper Fall, the Lower Fall
appears a smug and steady pigmy. In such company, for both are always
seen together, it is hard to realize that the Lower Fall is twice the
height of Niagara. Comparing Yosemite's three most conspicuous features,
these gigantic falls seem to appeal even more to the imagination than to
the sense of beauty. El Capitan, on the other hand, suggests majesty,
order, proportion, and power; it has its many devotees. Half Dome
suggests mystery; to many it symbolizes worship. Of these three, Half
Dome easily is the most popular.
Three more will complete the Valley's list of notable waterfalls. All
of these lie up the Merced Canyon. Illilouette, three hundred and
seventy feet in height, enters from the west, a frothing fall of great
beauty, hard to see. Vernal and Nevada Falls carry the Merced River over
steep steps in its rapid progress from the upper levels to the valley
floor. The only exception to the valley type, Vernal Fall, which some
consider the most beautiful of all, and which certainly is the
prettiest, is a curtain of water three hundred and seventeen feet high,
and of pleasing breadth. The Nevada Fall, three-fifths of a mile above,
a majestic drop of nearly six hundred feet, shoots watery rockets from
its brink. It is full-run, powerful, impressive, and highly
individualized. With many it is the favorite waterfall of Yosemite.
In sharp contrast with these valley scenes is the view from Glacier
Point down into the Merced and Tenaya Canyons, and out over the magical
park landscape to the snow-capped mountains of the High Sierra. Two
trails lead from the valley up to Glacier Point, and high upon the
precipice, three thousand feet above the valley floor, is a picturesque
hotel; it is also reached by road. Here one may sit at ease on shady
porches and overlook one of the most extended, varied and romantic views
in the world of scenery. One may take dinner on this porch and have
sunset served with dessert and the afterglow with coffee.
Here again one is haunted by the suggestion of artistic intention, so
happy is the composition of this extraordinary picture. The foreground
is the dark, tremendous gulf of Merced Canyon, relieved by the silver
shimmer of Vernal and Nevada Falls. From this in middle distance rises,
in the centre of the canvas, the looming tremendous personality of Half
Dome, here seen in profile strongly suggesting a monk with outstretched
arms blessing the valley at close of day. Beyond stretches the horizon
of famous, snowy, glacier-shrouded mountains, golden in sunset glow.
III
Every summer many thousands of visitors gather in Yosemite. Most of
them, of course, come tourist-fashion, to glimpse it all in a day or two
or three. A few thousands come for long enough to taste most of it, or
really to see a little. Fewer, but still increasingly many, are those
who come to live a little with Yosemite; among these we find the lovers
of nature, the poets, the seers, the dreamers, and the students.
Living is very pleasant in the Yosemite. The freedom from storm during
the long season, the dry warmth of the days and the coldness of the
nights, the inspiration of the surroundings and the completeness of the
equipment for the comfort of visitors make it extraordinary among
mountain resorts. There is a hotel in the Valley, and another upon the
rim at Glacier Point. There are three large hotel-camps in the Valley,
where one may have hotel comforts under canvas at camp prices. Two of
these hotel-camps possess swimming pools, dancing pavilions, tennis
courts electrically lighted for night play, hot and cold-water tubs and
showers, and excellent table service. One of the hotel-camps, the
largest, provides evening lectures, song services, and a general
atmosphere suggestive of Chatauqua. Still a third is for those who
prefer quiet retirement and the tradition of old-fashioned camp life.
Above the valley rim, besides the excellent hotel upon Glacier Point,
there are at this writing hotel-camps equipped with many hotel comforts,
including baths, at such outlying points as Merced Lake and Tenaya Lake;
the former centering the mountain climbing and trout fishing of the
stupendous region on the southwest slope of the park, and the latter the
key to the entire magnificent region of the Tuolumne. These camps are
reached by mountain trail, Tenaya Lake Camp also by motor road. The
hotel-camp system is planned for wide extension as growing demand
warrants. There are also hotels outside park limits on the south and
west which connect with the park roads and trails.
The roads, by the way, are fair. Three enter from the west, centering at
Yosemite Village in the Valley; one from the south by way of the
celebrated Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias; one from El Portal,
terminus of the Yosemite Railway; and one from the north, by way of
several smaller sequoia groves, connecting directly with the Tioga Road.
Above the valley rim and north of it, the Tioga Road crosses the
national park and emerges at Mono Lake on the east, having crossed the
Sierra over Tioga Pass on the park boundary. The Tioga Road, which was
built in 1881, on the site of the Mono Trail, to connect a gold mine
west of what has since become the national park with roads east of the
Sierra, was purchased in 1915 by patriotic lovers of the Yosemite and
given to the Government. The mine having soon failed, the road had been
impassable for many years. Repaired with government money it has become
the principal highway of the park and the key to its future development.
The increase in motor travel to the Yosemite from all parts of the
country which began the summer following the Great War, has made this
gift one of growing importance. It affords a new route across the
Sierra.
But hotels and hotel-camps, while accommodating the great majority of
visitors, by no means shelter all. Those who camp out under their own
canvas are likely to be Yosemite's most appreciative devotees. The
camping-out colony lives in riverside groves in the upper reaches of the
Valley, the Government assigning locations without charge. Many families
make permanent summer homes here, storing equipment between seasons in
the village. Others hire equipment complete, from tents to salt-cellars,
on the spot. Some who come to the hotels finish the season under hired
canvas, and next season come with their own. An increasing number come
in cars, which they keep in local garages or park near their canvas
homes.
Living is easy and not expensive in these camp homes. Midday
temperatures are seasonable, and nights are always cool. As it does not
rain, tents are concessions to habit; many prefer sleeping under the
trees. Markets in the village supply meats, vegetables, milk, bread, and
groceries at prices regulated by Government, and deliver them at your
kitchen tent. Shops furnish all other reasonable needs. It is not
camping out as commonly conceived; you are living at home on the banks
of the Merced, under the morning shadow of Half Dome, and within sight
of Yosemite Falls.
From these Valley homes one rides into the High Sierra on horses hired
from the government concessioner, tours to the Tuolumne Meadows or the
Mariposa Grove by automobile, wanders long summer afternoons in the
Valley, climbs the great rocks and domes, picnics by moonlight under the
shimmering falls or beneath the shining tower of El Capitan, explores
famous fishing waters above the rim, and, on frivolous evenings, dances
or looks at motion pictures at the greater hotel-camps.
No wonder that camp homes in the Yosemite are growing in popularity.
IV
The trail traveller finds the trails the best in the country, and as
good as the best in the world; they are the models for the national
system. Competent guides, horses, supplies, and equipment are easy to
hire at regulated prices in the village.
As for the field, there is none nobler or more varied in the world.
There are dozens of divides, scores of towering, snow-splashed peaks,
hundreds of noble valleys and shining lakes, thousands of cascading
streams, great and small, from whose depths fighting trout rise to the
cast fly. There are passes to be crossed which carry one through
concentric cirques of toothed granite to ridges from which the High
Sierra spreads before the eye a frothing sea of snowy peaks.
Such a trip is that through Tuolumne Meadows up Lyell Canyon to its
headwaters, over the Sierra at Donohue Pass, and up into the birth
chambers of rivers among the summit glaciers of Lyell and McClure--a
never-to-be-forgotten journey, which may be continued, if one has time
and equipment, down the John Muir Trail to Mount Whitney and the Sequoia
National Park. Or one may return to the park by way of Banner Peak and
Thousand Island Lake, a wonder spot, and thence north over Parker and
Mono Passes; trips like these produce views as magnificent as the land
possesses.
Space does not permit even the suggestion of the possibilities to the
trail traveller of this wonderland above the rim. It is the summer
playground for a nation.
Second in magnificence among the park valleys is Hetch Hetchy, the
Yosemite of the north. Both are broad, flowered and forested levels
between lofty granite walls. Both are accented by gigantic rock
personalities. Kolana Rock, which guards Hetch Hetchy at its western
gateway as El Capitan guards Yosemite, must be ranked in the same class.
Were there no Yosemite Valley, Hetch Hetchy, though it lacks the
distinction which gives Yosemite Valley its world-wide fame, would be
much better known than it now is--a statement also true about other
features of the national park.
Hetch Hetchy is now being dammed below Kolana Rock to supply water for
San Francisco. The dam will be hidden from common observation, and the
timber lands to be flooded will be cut so as to avoid the unsightliness
usual with artificial reservoirs in forested areas. The reservoir will
cover one of the most beautiful bottoms in America. It will destroy
forests of luxuriance. It will replace these with a long sinuous lake,
from which sheer Yosemite-like granite walls will rise abruptly two or
three thousand feet. There will be places where the edges are forested.
Down into this lake from the high rim will cascade many roaring streams.
The long fight in California, in the press of the whole country, and
finally in Congress, between the advocates of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir
and the defenders of the scenic wilderness is one of the stirring
episodes in the history of our national parks. At this writing, time
enough has not yet passed to heal the wounds of battle, but at least we
may look calmly at what remains. One consideration, at least, affords a
little comfort. Hetch Hetchy was once, in late prehistoric times, a
natural lake of great nobility. The remains of Nature's dam, not far
from the site of man's, are plain to the geologist's eye. It is possible
that, with care in building the dam and clearing out the trees to be
submerged, this restoration of one of Nature's noble features of the
past may not work out so inappropriately as once we feared.
[Illustration: _From a photograph by J.T. Boysen_
THE CLIMAX OF YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK
Mount Lyell and its glacier from Lyell Fork]
[Illustration: THE GREATEST WATERWHEEL OF THE TUOLUMNE
It is fifty feet in height and seventy-five feet long; Yosemite National
Park]
The Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, through which the river descends from
the level of the Tuolumne Meadows almost five thousand feet to the Hetch
Hetchy Valley, possesses real Yosemite grandeur. Much of this enormous
drop occurs within a couple of amazing miles west of the California
Falls. Here the river slips down sharply tilted granite slopes at
breathless speed, breaking into cascades and plunging over waterfalls at
frequent intervals. It is a stupendous spectacle which few but the
hardiest mountaineers saw previous to 1918, so steep and difficult was
the going. During that season a trail was opened which makes accessible
to all one of the most extraordinary examples of plunging water in the
world.
The climax of this spectacle is the Waterwheels. Granite obstructions in
the bed of the steeply tilted river throw solid arcs of frothing water
fifty feet in air. They occur near together, singly and in groups.
V
The fine camping country south of the Yosemite Valley also offers its
sensation. At its most southern point, the park accomplishes its forest
climax in the Mariposa Grove. This group of giant sequoias (Sequoia
washingtoniana) ranks next, in the number and magnificence of its trees,
to the Giant Forest of the Sequoia National Park and the General Grant
grove.
The largest tree of the Mariposa Grove is the Grizzly Giant, which has a
diameter of twenty-nine feet, a circumference of sixty-four feet, and a
height of two hundred and four feet. One may guess its age from three
thousand to thirty-two hundred years. It is the third in size and age of
living sequoias; General Sherman, the largest and oldest, has a diameter
of thirty-six and a half feet, and General Grant a diameter of
thirty-five feet, and neither of these, in all probability, has attained
the age of four thousand years. General Sherman grows in the Sequoia
National Park, seventy miles or more south of Yosemite; General Grant
has a little national park of its own a few miles west of Sequoia.
The interested explorer of the Yosemite has so far enjoyed a wonderfully
varied sequence of surprises. The incomparable valley with its towering
monoliths and extraordinary waterfalls, the High Sierra with its
glaciers, serrated cirques and sea of snowy peaks, the Grand Canyon of
the Tuolumne with its cascades, rushing river and frothing Waterwheels,
are but the headliners of a long catalogue of the unexpected and
extraordinary. It only remains, to complete this new tale of the Arabian
Nights, to make one's first visit to the sequoias of Mariposa Grove. The
first sight of the calm tremendous columns which support the lofty roof
of this forest temple provokes a new sensation. Unconsciously the
visitor removes his hat and speaks his praise in whispers.
The sequoias are considered at greater length in the chapter describing
the Sequoia National Park, which was created especially to conserve and
exhibit more than a million of these most interesting of trees. It will
suffice here to say that their enormous stems are purplish red, that
their fine, lace-like foliage hangs in splendid heavy plumes, that their
enormous limbs crook at right angles, the lowest from a hundred to a
hundred and fifty feet above the ground, and that all other trees, even
the gigantic sugar pine and Douglas fir, are dwarfed in their presence.
Several of the sequoias of the Mariposa grove approach three hundred
feet in height. The road passes through the trunk of one.
VI
The human history of the Yosemite is quickly told. The country north of
the Valley was known from early times by explorers and trappers who used
the old Mono Indian Trail, now the Tioga Road, which crossed the divide
over Mono Pass. But, though the trail approached within a very few miles
of the north rim of the Yosemite Valley, the valley was not discovered
till 1851, when Captain Boling of the Mariposa Battalion, a volunteer
organization for the protection of settlers, entered it from the west in
pursuit of Indians who had raided mining settlements in the foothills.
These savages were known as the Yosemite or Grizzly Bear Indians.
Tenaya, their chief, met their pursuers on the uplands and besought them
to come no further. But Captain Boling pushed on through the heavy
snows, and on March 21, entered the valley, which proved to be the
Indians' final stronghold. Their villages, however, were deserted.
The original inhabitants of the Valley were called the Ahwahneechees,
the Indian name for the Valley being Ahwahnee, meaning a deep grassy
canyon. The Ahwahneechees, previous to Captain Boling's expedition, had
been decimated by war and disease. The new tribe, the Yosemites, or
Grizzly Bears, was made up of their remainder, with Monos and Piutes
added.
Captain Boling's report of the beauty of the valley having been
questioned, he returned during the summer to prove his assertions to a
few doubters. Nevertheless, there were no further visitors until 1853,
when Robert B. Stinson of Mariposa led in a hunting-party. Two years
later J.M. Hutchings, who was engaged in writing up the beauties of
California for the _California Magazine_, brought the first tourists;
the second, a party of sixteen, followed later the same year.
Pleasure travel to the Yosemite Valley may be said to have commenced
with 1856, the year the first house was built. This house was enlarged
in 1858 by Hite and Beardsley and used for a hotel. Sullivan and Cushman
secured it for a debt the following year, and it was operated in turn by
Peck, Longhurst, and Hutchings until 1871. Meantime J.C. Lamon settled
in 1860, the first actual resident of the valley, an honor which he did
not share with others for four years.