How Best to Spend One’s Yosemite Time
One-Day Excursions
No. 1.
If I were so time-poor as to have only one day to spend in Yosemite I
should start at daybreak, say at three o’clock in midsummer, with a
pocketful of any sort of dry breakfast stuff, for Glacier Point,
Sentinel Dome, the head of Illilouette Fall, Nevada Fall, the top of
Liberty Cap, Vernal Fall and the wild boulder-choked River Cañon. The
trail leaves the Valley at the base of the Sentinel Rock, and as you
slowly saunter from point to point along its many accommodating zigzags
nearly all the Valley rocks and falls are seen in striking,
ever-changing combinations. At an elevation of about five hundred feet
a particularly fine, wide-sweeping view down the Valley is obtained,
past the sheer face of the Sentinel and between the Cathedral Rocks and
El Capitan. At a height of about 1500 feet the great Half Dome comes
full in sight, overshadowing every other feature of the Valley to the
eastward. From Glacier Point you look down 3000 feet over the edge of
its sheer face to the meadows and groves and innumerable yellow pine
spires, with the meandering river sparkling and spangling through the
midst of them. Across the Valley a great telling view is presented of
the Royal Arches, North Dome, Indian Cañon, Three Brothers and El
Capitan, with the dome-paved basin of Yosemite Creek and Mount Hoffman
in the background. To the eastward, the Half Dome close beside you
looking higher and more wonderful than ever; southeastward the Starr
King, girdled with silver firs, and the spacious garden-like basin of
the Illilouette and its deeply sculptured fountain-peaks, called “The
Merced Group”; and beyond all, marshaled along the eastern horizon, the
icy summits on the axis of the Range and broad swaths of forests
growing on ancient moraines, while the Nevada, Vernal and Yosemite
Falls are not only full in sight but are distinctly heard as if one
were standing beside them in their spray.
The views from the summit of Sentinel Dome are still more extensive and
telling. Eastward the crowds of peaks at the head of the Merced,
Tuolumne and San Joaquin Rivers are presented in bewildering array;
westward, the vast forests, yellow foothills and the broad San Joaquin
plains and the Coast Ranges, hazy and dim in the distance.
From Glacier Point go down the trail into the lower end of the
Illilouette basin, cross Illilouette Creek and follow it to the Fall
where from an outjutting rock at its head you will get a fine view of
its rejoicing waters and wild cañon and the Half Dome. Thence returning
to the trail, follow it to the head of the Nevada Fall. Linger here an
hour or two, for not only have you glorious views of the wonderful
fall, but of its wild, leaping, exulting rapids and, greater than all,
the stupendous scenery into the heart of which the white passionate
river goes wildly thundering, surpassing everything of its kind in the
world. After an unmeasured hour or so of this glory, all your body
aglow, nerve currents flashing through you never before felt, go to the
top of the Liberty Cap, only a glad saunter now that your legs as well
as head and heart are awake and rejoicing with everything. The Liberty
Cap, a companion of the Half Dome, is sheer and inaccessible on three
of its sides but on the east a gentle, ice-burnished, juniper-dotted
slope extends to the summit where other wonderful views are displayed
where all are wonderful: the south side and shoulders of Half Dome and
Clouds’ Rest, the beautiful Little Yosemite Valley and its many domes,
the Starr King cluster of domes, Sentinel Dome, Glacier Point, and,
perhaps the most tremendously impressive of all, the views of the
hopper-shaped cañon of the river from the head of the Nevada Fall to
the head of the Valley.
Returning to the trail you descend between the Nevada Fall and the
Liberty Cap with fine side views of both the fall and the rock, pass on
through clouds of spray and along the rapids to the head of the Vernal
Fall, about a mile below the Nevada. Linger here if night is still
distant, for views of this favorite fall and the stupendous rock
scenery about it. Then descend a stairway by its side, follow a dim
trail through its spray, and a plain one along the border of the
boulder-dashed rapids and so back to the wide, tranquil Valley.
One-Day Excursions
No. 2.
Another grand one-day excursion is to the Upper Yosemite Fall, the top
of the highest of the Three Brothers, called Eagle Peak on the
Geological Survey maps; the brow of El Capitan; the head of the Ribbon
Fall; across the beautiful Ribbon Creek Basin; and back to the Valley
by the Big Oak Flat wagon-road.
The trail leaves the Valley on the east side of the largest of the
earthquake taluses immediately opposite the Sentinel Rock and as it
passes within a few rods of the foot of the great fall, magnificent
views are obtained as you approach it and pass through its spray,
though when the snow is melting fast you will be well drenched. From
the foot of the Fall the trail zigzags up a narrow cañon between the
fall and a plain mural cliff that is burnished here and there by
glacial action.
You should stop a while on a flat iron-fenced rock a little below the
head of the fall beside the enthusiastic throng of starry comet-like
waters to learn something of their strength, their marvelous variety of
forms, and above all, their glorious music, gathered and composed from
the snow-storms, hail-, rain- and wind-storms that have fallen on their
glacier-sculptured, domey, ridgy basin. Refreshed and exhilarated, you
follow your trail-way through silver fir and pine woods to Eagle Peak,
where the most comprehensive of all the views to be had on the
north-wall heights are displayed. After an hour or two of gazing,
dreaming, studying the tremendous topography, etc., trace the rim of
the Valley to the grand El Capitan ridge and go down to its brow, where
you will gain everlasting impressions of Nature’s steadfastness and
power combined with ineffable fineness of beauty.
Dragging yourself away, go to the head of the Ribbon Fall, thence
across the beautiful Ribbon Creek Basin to the Big Oak Flat stage-road,
and down its fine grades to the Valley, enjoying glorious Yosemite
scenery all the way to the foot of El Capitan and your camp.
Two-Day Excursions
No. 1.
For a two-day trip I would go straight to Mount Hoffman, spend the
night on the summit, next morning go down by May Lake to Tenaya Lake
and return to the Valley by Cloud’s Rest and the Nevada and Vernal
Falls. As on the foregoing excursion, you leave the Valley by the
Yosemite Falls trail and follow it to the Tioga wagon-road, a short
distance east of Porcupine Flat. From that point push straight up to
the summit. Mount Hoffman is a mass of gray granite that rises almost
in the center of the Yosemite Park, about eight or ten miles in a
straight line from the Valley. Its southern slopes are low and easily
climbed, and adorned here and there with castle-like crumbling piles
and long jagged crests that look like artificial masonry; but on the
north side it is abruptly precipitous and banked with lasting snow.
Most of the broad summit is comparatively level and thick sown with
crystals, quartz, mica, hornblende, feldspar, granite, zircon,
tourmaline, etc., weathered out and strewn closely and loosely as if
they had been sown broadcast. Their radiance is fairly dazzling in
sunlight, almost hiding the multitude of small flowers that grow among
them. At first sight only these radiant crystals are likely to be
noticed, but looking closely you discover a multitude of very small
gilias, phloxes, mimulus, etc., many of them with more petals than
leaves. On the borders of little streams larger plants
flourish—lupines, daisies, asters, goldenrods, hairbell, mountain
columbine, potentilla, astragalus and a few gentians; with charming
heathworts—bryanthus, cassiope, kalmia, vaccinium in boulder-fringing
rings or bank covers. You saunter among the crystals and flowers as if
you were walking among stars. From the summit nearly all the Yosemite
Park is displayed like a map: forests, lakes, meadows, and snowy peaks.
Northward lies Yosemite’s wide basin with its domes and small lakes,
shining like larger crystals; eastward the rocky, meadowy Tuolumne
region, bounded by its snowy peaks in glorious array; southward
Yosemite and westward the vast forest. On no other Yosemite Park
mountain are you more likely to linger. You will find it a magnificent
sky camp. Clumps of dwarf pine and mountain hemlock will furnish resin
roots and branches for fuel and light, and the rills, sparkling water.
Thousands of the little plant people will gaze at your camp-fire with
the crystals and stars, companions and guardians as you lie at rest in
the heart of the vast serene night.
The most telling of all the wide Hoffman views is the basin of the
Tuolumne with its meadows, forests and hundreds of smooth rock-waves
that appear to be coming rolling on towards you like high heaving waves
ready to break, and beyond these the great mountains. But best of all
are the dawn and the sunrise. No mountain top could be better placed
for this most glorious of mountain views—to watch and see the deepening
colors of the dawn and the sunbeams streaming through the snowy High
Sierra passes, awakening the lakes and crystals, the chilled plant
people and winged people, and making everything shine and sing in pure
glory.
With your heart aglow, spangling Lake Tenaya and Lake May will beckon
you away for walks on their ice-burnished shores. Leave Tenaya at the
west end, cross to the south side of the outlet, and gradually work
your way up in an almost straight south direction to the summit of the
divide between Tenaya Creek and the main upper Merced River or Nevada
Creek and follow the divide to Clouds Rest. After a glorious view from
the crest of this lofty granite wave you will find a trail on its
western end that will lead you down past Nevada and Vernal Falls to the
Valley in good time, provided you left your Hoffman sky camp early.
Two-Day Excursions
No. 2.
Another grand two-day excursion is the same as the first of the one-day
trips, as far as the head of Illilouette Fall. From there trace the
beautiful stream up through the heart of its magnificent forests and
gardens to the cañons between the Red and Merced Peaks, and pass the
night where I camped forty-one years ago. Early next morning visit the
small glacier on the north side of Merced Peak, the first of the
sixty-five that I discovered in the Sierra.
Glacial phenomena in the Illilouette Basin are on the grandest scale,
and in the course of my explorations I found that the cañon and
moraines between the Merced and Red Mountains were the most interesting
of them all. The path of the vanished glacier shone in many places as
if washed with silver, and pushing up the cañon on this bright road I
passed lake after lake in solid basins of granite and many a meadow
along the cañon stream that links them together. The main lateral
moraines that bound the view below the cañon are from a hundred to
nearly two hundred feet high and wonderfully regular, like artificial
embankments covered with a magnificent growth of silver fir and pine.
But this garden and forest luxuriance is speedily left behind, and
patches of bryanthus, cassiope and arctic willows begin to appear. The
small lakes which a few miles down the Valley are so richly bordered
with flowery meadows have at an elevation of 10,000 feet only small
brown mats of carex, leaving bare rocks around more than half their
shores. Yet, strange to say, amid all this arctic repression the
mountain pine on ledges and buttresses of Red Mountain seems to find
the climate best suited to it. Some specimens that I measured were over
a hundred feet high and twenty-four feet in circumference, showing
hardly a trace of severe storms, looking as fresh and vigorous as the
giants of the lower zones. Evening came on just as I got fairly into
the main cañon. It is about a mile wide and a little less than two
miles long. The crumbling spurs of Red Mountain bound it on the north,
the somber cliffs of Merced Mountain on the south and a
deeply-serrated, splintered ridge curving around from mountain to
mountain shuts it in on the east. My camp was on the brink of one of
the lakes in a thicket of mountain hemlock, partly sheltered from the
wind. Early next morning I set out to trace the ancient glacier to its
head. Passing around the north shore of my camp lake I followed the
main stream from one lakelet to another. The dwarf pines and hemlocks
disappeared and the stream was bordered with icicles. The main lateral
moraines that extend from the mouth of the cañon are continued in
straggling masses along the walls. Tracing the streams back to the
highest of its little lakes, I noticed a deposit of fine gray mud,
something like the mud corn from a grindstone. This suggested its
glacial origin, for the stream that was carrying it issued from a
raw-looking moraine that seemed to be in process of formation. It is
from sixty to over a hundred feet high in front, with a slope of about
thirty-eight degrees. Climbing to the top of it, I discovered a very
small but well-characterized glacier swooping down from the shadowy
cliffs of the mountain to its terminal moraine. The ice appeared on all
the lower portion of the glacier; farther up it was covered with snow.
The uppermost crevasse or “bergeschrund” was from twelve to fourteen
feet wide. The melting snow and ice formed a network of rills that ran
gracefully down the surface of the glacier, merrily singing in their
shining channels. After this discovery I made excursions over all the
High Sierra and discovered that what at first sight looked like
snowfields were in great part glaciers which were completing the
sculpture of the summit peaks.
Rising early,—which will be easy, as your bed will be rather cold and
you will not be able to sleep much anyhow,—after visiting the glacier,
climb the Red Mountain and enjoy the magnificent views from the summit.
I counted forty lakes from one standpoint an this mountain, and the
views to the westward over the Illilouette Basin, the most superbly
forested of all the basins whose waters rain into Yosemite, and those
of the Yosemite rocks, especially the Half Dome and the upper part of
the north wall, are very fine. But, of course, far the most imposing
view is the vast array of snowy peaks along the axis of the Range. Then
from the top of this peak, light and free and exhilarated with mountain
air and mountain beauty, you should run lightly down the northern slope
of the mountain, descend the cañon between Red and Gray Mountains,
thence northward along the bases of Gray Mountain and Mount Clark and
go down into the head of Little Yosemite, and thence down past the
Nevada and Vernal Falls to the Valley, a truly glorious two-day trip!
A Three-Day Excursion
The best three-day excursion, as far as I can see, is the same as the
first of the two-day trips until you reach Lake Tenaya. There instead
of returning to the Valley, follow the Tioga road around the northwest
side of the lake, over to the Tuolumne Meadows and up to the west base
of Mount Dana. Leave the road there and make straight for the highest
point on the timber line between Mounts Dana and Gibbs and camp there.
On the morning of the third day go to the top of Mount Dana in time for
the glory of the dawn and the sunrise over the gray Mono Desert and the
sublime forest of High Sierra peaks. When you leave the mountain go far
enough down the north side for a view of the Dana Glacier, then make
your way back to the Tioga road, follow it along the Tuolumne Meadows
to the crossing of Budd Creek where you will find the Sunrise trail
branching off up the mountain-side through the forest in a
southwesterly direction past the west side of Cathedral Peak, which
will lead you down to the Valley by the Vernal and Nevada Falls. If you
are a good walker you can leave the trail where it begins to descend a
steep slope in the silver fir woods, and bear off to the right and make
straight for the top of Clouds’ Rest. The walking is good and almost
level and from the west end of Clouds’ Rest take the Clouds’ Rest Trail
which will lead direct to the Valley by the Nevada and Vernal Falls. To
any one not desperately time-poor this trip should have four days
instead of three; camping the second night at the Soda Springs; thence
to Mount Dana and return to the Soda Springs, camping the third night
there; thence by the Sunrise trail to Cathedral Peak, visiting the
beautiful Cathedral lake which lies about a mile to the west of
Cathedral Peak, eating your luncheon, and thence to Clouds’ Rest and
the Valley as above. This is one of the most interesting of all the
comparatively short trips that can be made in the whole Yosemite
region. Not only do you see all the grandest of the Yosemite rocks and
waterfalls and the High Sierra with their glaciers, glacier lakes and
glacier meadows, etc., but sections of the magnificent silver fir,
two-leaved pine, and dwarf pine zones; with the principal alpine
flowers and shrubs, especially sods of dwarf vaccinium covered with
flowers and fruit though less than an inch high, broad mats of dwarf
willow scarce an inch high with catkins that rise straight from the
ground, and glorious beds of blue gentians,—grandeur enough and beauty
enough for a lifetime.
The Upper Tuolumne Excursion
We come now to the grandest of all the Yosemite excursions, one that
requires at least two or three weeks. The best time to make it is from
about the middle of July. The visitor entering the Yosemite in July has
the advantage of seeing the falls not, perhaps, in their very flood
prime but next thing to it; while the glacier-meadows will be in their
glory and the snow on the mountains will be firm enough to make
climbing safe. Long ago I made these Sierra trips, carrying only a
sackful of bread with a little tea and sugar and was thus independent
and free, but now that trails or carriage roads lead out of the Valley
in almost every direction it is easy to take a pack animal, so that the
luxury of a blanket and a supply of food can easily be had.
The best way to leave the Valley will be by the Yosemite Fall trail,
camping the first night on the Tioga road opposite the east end of the
Hoffman Range. Next morning climb Mount Hoffman; thence push on past
Tenaya Lake into the Tuolumne Meadows and establish a central camp near
the Soda Springs, from which glorious excursions can be made at your
leisure. For here in this upper Tuolumne Valley is the widest,
smoothest, most serenely spacious, and in every way the most delightful
summer pleasure-park in all the High Sierra. And since it is connected
with Yosemite by two good trails, and a fairly good carriage road that
passes between Yosemite and Mount Hoffman, it is also the most
accessible. It is in the heart of the High Sierra east of Yosemite,
8500 to 9000 feet above the level of the sea. The gray, picturesque
Cathedral Range bounds it on the south; a similar range or spur, the
highest peak of which is Mount Conness, on the north; the noble Mounts
Dana, Gibbs, Mammoth, Lyell, McClure and others on the axis of the
Range on the east; a heaving, billowing crowd of glacier-polished rocks
and Mount Hoffman on the west. Down through the open sunny
meadow-levels of the Valley flows the Tuolumne River, fresh and cool
from its many glacial fountains, the highest of which are the glaciers
that lie on the north sides of Mount Lyell and Mount McClure.
Along the river a series of beautiful glacier-meadows extend with but
little interruption, from the lower end of the Valley to its head, a
distance of about twelve miles, forming charming sauntering-grounds
from which the glorious mountains may be enjoyed as they look down in
divine serenity over the dark forests that clothe their bases. Narrow
strips of pine woods cross the meadow-carpet from side to side, and it
is somewhat roughened here and there by moraine boulders and dead trees
brought down from the heights by snow avalanches; but for miles and
miles it is so smooth and level that a hundred horsemen may ride
abreast over it.
The main lower portion of the meadows is about four miles long and from
a quarter to half a mile wide, but the width of the Valley is, on an
average, about eight miles. Tracing the river, we find that it forks a
mile above the Soda Springs, the main fork turning southward to Mount
Lyell, the other eastward to Mount Dana and Mount Gibbs. Along both
forks strips of meadow extend almost to their heads. The most beautiful
portions of the meadows are spread over lake basins, which have been
filled up by deposits from the river. A few of these river-lakes still
exist, but they are now shallow and are rapidly approaching extinction.
The sod in most places is exceedingly fine and silky and free from
weeds and bushes; while charming flowers abound, especially gentians,
dwarf daisies, potentillas, and the pink bells of dwarf vaccinium. On
the banks of the river and its tributaries cassiope and bryanthus may
be found, where the sod curls over stream banks and around boulders.
The principal grass of these meadows is a delicate calamagrostis with
very slender filiform leaves, and when it is in flower the ground seems
to be covered with a faint purple mist, the stems of the panicles being
so fine that they are almost invisible, and offer no appreciable
resistance in walking through them. Along the edges of the meadows
beneath the pines and throughout the greater part of the Valley tall
ribbon-leaved grasses grow in abundance, chiefly bromus, triticum and
agrostis.
In October the nights are frosty, and then the meadows at sunrise, when
every leaf is laden with crystals, are a fine sight. The days are still
warm and calm, and bees and butterflies continue to waver and hum about
the late-blooming flowers until the coming of the snow, usually in
November. Storm then follows storm in quick succession, burying the
meadows to a depth of from ten to twenty feet, while magnificent
avalanches descend through the forests from the laden heights,
depositing huge piles of snow mixed with uprooted trees and boulders.
In the open sunshine the snow usually lasts until the end of June but
the new season’s vegetation is not generally in bloom until late in
July. Perhaps the best all round excursion-time after winters of
average snowfall is from the middle of July to the middle or end of
August. The snow is then melted from the woods and southern slopes of
the mountains and the meadows and gardens are in their glory, while the
weather is mostly all-reviving, exhilarating sunshine. The few clouds
that rise now and then and the showers they yield are only enough to
keep everything fresh and fragrant.
The groves about the Soda Springs are favorite camping-grounds on
account of the cold, pleasant-tasting water charged with carbonic acid,
and because of the views of the mountains across the meadow—the Glacier
Monument, Cathedral Peak, Cathedral Spires, Unicorn Peak and a series
of ornamental nameless companions, rising in striking forms and
nearness above a dense forest growing on the left lateral moraine of
the ancient Tuolumne glacier, which, broad, deep, and far-reaching,
exerted vast influence on the scenery of this portion of the Sierra.
But there are fine camping-grounds all along the meadows, and one may
move from grove to grove every day all summer, enjoying new homes and
new beauty to satisfy every roving desire for change.
There are five main capital excursions to be made from here—to the
summits of Mounts Dana, Lyell and Conness, and through the Bloody Cañon
Pass to Mono Lake and the volcanoes, and down the Tuolumne Cañon, at
least as far as the foot of the wonderful series of river cataracts.
All of these excursions are sure to be made memorable with joyful
health-giving experiences; but perhaps none of them will be remembered
with keener delight than the days spent in sauntering on the broad
velvet lawns by the river, sharing the sky with the mountains and
trees, gaining something of their strength and peace.
The excursion to the top of Mount Dana is a very easy one; for though
the mountain is 13,000 feet high, the ascent from the west side is so
gentle and smooth that one may ride a mule to the very summit. Across
many a busy stream, from meadow to meadow, lies your flowery way;
mountains all about you, few of them hidden by irregular foregrounds.
Gradually ascending, other mountains come in sight, peak rising above
peak with their snow and ice in endless variety of grouping and
sculpture. Now your attention is turned to the moraines, sweeping in
beautiful curves from the hollows and cañons, now to the granite waves
and pavements rising here and there above the heathy sod, polished a
thousand years ago and still shining. Towards the base of the mountain
you note the dwarfing of the trees, until at a height of about 11,000
feet you find patches of the tough, white-barked pine, pressed so flat
by the ten or twenty feet of snow piled upon them every winter for
centuries that you may walk over them as if walking on a shaggy rug.
And, if curious about such things, you may discover specimens of this
hardy tree-mountaineer not more than four feet high and about as many
inches in diameter at the ground, that are from two hundred to four
hundred years old, still holding bravely to life, making the most of
their slender summers, shaking their tasseled needles in the breeze
right cheerily, drinking the thin sunshine and maturing their fine
purple cones as if they meant to live forever. The general view from
the summit is one of the most extensive and sublime to be found in all
the Range. To the eastward you gaze far out over the desert plains and
mountains of the “Great Basin,” range beyond range extending with soft
outlines, blue and purple in the distance. More than six thousand feet
below you lies Lake Mono, ten miles in diameter from north to south,
and fourteen from west to east, lying bare in the treeless desert like
a disk of burnished metal, though at times it is swept by mountain
storm winds and streaked with foam. To the southward there is a well
defined range of pale-gray extinct volcanoes, and though the highest of
them rises nearly two thousand feet above the lake, you can look down
from here into their circular, cup-like craters, from which a
comparatively short time ago ashes and cinders were showered over the
surrounding sage plains and glacier-laden mountains.
To the westward the landscape is made up of exceedingly strong, gray,
glaciated domes and ridge waves, most of them comparatively low, but
the largest high enough to be called mountains; separated by cañons and
darkened with lines and fields of forest, Cathedral Peak and Mount
Hoffman in the distance; small lakes and innumerable meadows in the
foreground. Northward and southward the great snowy mountains,
marshaled along the axis of the Range, are seen in all their glory,
crowded together in some places like trees in groves, making landscapes
of wild, extravagant, bewildering magnificence, yet calm and silent as
the sky.
Some eight glaciers are in sight. One of these is the Dana Glacier on
the north side of the mountain, lying at the foot of a precipice about
a thousand feet high, with a lovely pale-green lake a little below it.
This is one of the many, small, shrunken remnants of the vast glacial
system of the Sierra that once filled the hollows and valleys of the
mountains and covered all the lower ridges below the immediate
summit-fountains, flowing to right and left away from the axis of the
Range, lavishly fed by the snows of the glacial period.
In the excursion to Mount Lyell the immediate base of the mountain is
easily reached on meadow walks along the river. Turning to the
southward above the forks of the river, you enter the narrow Lyell
branch of the Valley, narrow enough and deep enough to be called a
cañon. It is about eight miles long and from 2000 to 3000 feet deep.
The flat meadow bottom is from about three hundred to two hundred yards
wide, with gently curved margins about fifty yards wide from which rise
the simple massive walls of gray granite at an angle of about
thirty-three degrees, mostly timbered with a light growth of pine and
streaked in many places with avalanche channels. Towards the upper end
of the cañon the Sierra crown comes in sight, forming a finely balanced
picture framed by the massive cañon walls. In the foreground, when the
grass is in flower, you have the purple meadow willow-thickets on the
river banks; in the middle distance huge swelling bosses of granite
that form the base of the general mass of the mountain, with fringing
lines of dark woods marking the lower curves, smoothly snow-clad except
in the autumn.
If you wish to spend two days on the Lyell trip you will find a good
camp-ground on the east side of the river, about a mile above a fine
cascade that comes down over the cañon wall in telling style and makes
good camp music. From here to the top of the mountains is usually an
easy day’s work. At one place near the summit careful climbing is
necessary, but it is not so dangerous or difficult as to deter any one
of ordinary skill, while the views are glorious. To the northward are
Mammoth Mountain, Mounts Gibbs, Dana, Warren, Conness and others,
unnumbered and unnamed; to the southeast the indescribably wild and
jagged range of Mount Ritter and the Minarets; southwestward stretches
the dividing ridge between the north fork of the San Joaquin and the
Merced, uniting with the Obelisk or Merced group of peaks that form the
main fountains of the Illilouette branch of the Merced; and to the
north-westward extends the Cathedral spur. These spurs like distinct
ranges meet at your feet; therefore you look at them mostly in the
direction of their extension, and their peaks seem to be massed and
crowded against one another, while immense amphitheaters, cañons and
subordinate ridges with their wealth of lakes, glaciers, and
snow-fields, maze and cluster between them. In making the ascent in
June or October the glacier is easily crossed, for then its snow mantle
is smooth or mostly melted off. But in midsummer the climbing is
exceedingly tedious because the snow is then weathered into curious and
beautiful blades, sharp and slender, and set on edge in a leaning
position. They lean towards the head of the glacier and extend across
from side to side in regular order in a direction at right angles to
the direction of greatest declivity, the distance between the crests
being about two or three feet, and the depth of the troughs between
them about three feet. A more interesting problem than a walk over a
glacier thus sculptured and adorned is seldom presented to the
mountaineer.
The Lyell Glacier is about a mile wide and less than a mile long, but
presents, nevertheless, all the essential characters of large,
river-like glaciers—moraines, earth-bands, blue veins, crevasses, etc.,
while the streams that issue from it are, of course, turbid with
rock-mud, showing its grinding action on its bed. And it is all the
more interesting since it is the highest and most enduring remnant of
the great Tuolumne Glacier, whose traces are still distinct fifty miles
away, and whose influence on the landscape was so profound. The McClure
Glacier, once a tributary of the Lyell, is smaller. Thirty-eight years
ago I set a series of stakes in it to determine its rate of motion.
Towards the end of summer in the middle of the glacier it was only a
little over an inch in twenty-four hours.
The trip to Mono from the Soda Springs can be made in a day, but many
days may profitably be spent near the shores of the lake, out on its
islands and about the volcanoes.
In making the trip down the Big Tuolumne Cañon, animals may be led as
far as a small, grassy, forested lake-basin that lies below the
crossing of the Virginia Creek trail. And from this point any one
accustomed to walking on earthquake boulders, carpeted with cañon
chaparral, can easily go down as far as the big cascades and return to
camp in one day. Many, however, are not able to do his, and it is
better to go leisurely, prepared to camp anywhere, and enjoy the
marvelous grandeur of the place.
The cañon begins near the lower end of the meadows and extends to the
Hetch Hetchy Valley, a distance of about eighteen miles, though it will
seem much longer to any one who scrambles through it. It is from twelve
hundred to about five thousand feet deep, and is comparatively narrow,
but there are several roomy, park-like openings in it, and throughout
its whole extent Yosemite natures are displayed on a grand scale—domes,
El Capitan rocks, gables, Sentinels, Royal Arches, Glacier Points,
Cathedral Spires, etc. There is even a Half Dome among its wealth of
rock forms, though far less sublime than the Yosemite Half Dome. Its
falls and cascades are innumerable. The sheer falls, except when the
snow is melting in early spring, are quite small in volume as compared
with those of Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy; though in any other country
many of them would be regarded as wonders. But it is the cascades or
sloping falls on the main river that are the crowning glory of the
cañon, and these in volume, extent and variety surpass those of any
other cañon in the Sierra. The most showy and interesting of them are
mostly in the upper part of the cañon, above the point of entrance of
Cathedral Creek and Hoffman Creek. For miles the river is one wild,
exulting, on-rushing mass of snowy purple bloom, spreading over glacial
waves of granite without any definite channel, gliding in magnificent
silver plumes, dashing and foaming through huge boulder-dams, leaping
high into the air in wheel-like whirls, displaying glorious enthusiasm,
tossing from side to side, doubling, glinting, singing in exuberance of
mountain energy.
Every one who is anything of a mountaineer should go on through the
entire length of the cañon, coming out by Hetch Hetchy. There is not a
dull step all the way. With wide variations, it is a Yosemite Valley
from end to end.
Besides these main, far-reaching, much-seeing excursions from the main
central camp, there are numberless, lovely little saunters and
scrambles and a dozen or so not so very little. Among the best of these
are to Lambert and Fair View Domes; to the topmost spires of Cathedral
Peak, and to those of the North Church, around the base of which you
pass on your way to Mount Conness; to one of the very loveliest of the
glacier-meadows imbedded in the pine woods about three miles north of
the Soda Springs, where forty-two years ago I spent six weeks. It
trends east and west, and you can find it easily by going past the base
of Lambert’s Dome to Dog Lake and thence up northward through the woods
about a mile or so; to the shining rock-waves full of ice-burnished,
feldspar crystals at the foot of the meadows; to Lake Tenaya; and, last
but not least, a rather long and very hearty scramble down by the end
of the meadow along the Tioga road toward Lake Tenaya to the crossing
of Cathedral Creek, where you turn off and trace the creek down to its
confluence with the Tuolumne. This is a genuine scramble much of the
way but one of the most wonderfully telling in its glacial rock-forms
and inscriptions.
If you stop and fish at every tempting lake and stream you come to, a
whole month, or even two months, will not be too long for this grand
High Sierra excursion. My own Sierra trip was ten years long.
Other Trips From The Valley
Short carriage trips are usually made in the early morning to Mirror
Lake to see its wonderful reflections of the Half Dome and Mount
Watkins; and in the afternoon many ride down the Valley to see the
Bridal Veil rainbows or up the river cañon to see those of the Vernal
Fall; where, standing in the spray, not minding getting drenched, you
may see what are called round rainbows, when the two ends of the
ordinary bow are lengthened and meet at your feet, forming a complete
circle which is broken and united again and again as determined by the
varying wafts of spray. A few ambitious scramblers climb to the top of
the Sentinel Rock, others walk or ride down the Valley and up to the
once-famous Inspiration Point for a last grand view; while a good many
appreciative tourists, who slave only day or two, do no climbing or
riding but spend their time sauntering on the meadows by the river,
watching the falls, and the relay of light and shade among the rocks
from morning to night, perhaps gaining more than those who make haste
up the trails in large noisy parties. Those who have unlimited time
find something worth while all the year round on every accessible part
of the vast deeply sculptured walls. At least so I have found it after
making the Valley my home for years.
Here are a few specimens selected from my own short trips which walkers
may find useful.
One, up the river cañon, across the bridge between the Vernal and
Nevada Falls, through chaparral beds and boulders to the shoulder of
Half Dome, along the top of the shoulder to the dome itself, down by a
crumbling slot gully and close along the base of the tremendous split
front (the most awfully impressive, sheer, precipice view I ever found
in all my cañon wanderings), thence up the east shoulder and along the
ridge to Clouds’ Rest—a glorious sunset—then a grand starry run back
home to my cabin; down through the junipers, down through the firs, now
in black shadows, now in white light, past roaring Nevada and Vernal,
flowering ghost-like beneath their huge frowning cliffs; down the dark,
gloomy cañon, through the pines of the Valley, dreamily murmuring in
their calm, breezy sleep—a fine wild little excursion for good legs and
good eyes—so much sun-, moon- and star-shine in it, and sublime,
up-and-down rhythmical, glacial topography.
Another, to the head of Yosemite Fall by Indian Cañon; thence up the
Yosemite Creek, tracing it all the way to its highest sources back of
Mount Hoffman, then a wide sweep around the head of its dome-paved
basin, passing its many little lakes and bogs, gardens and groves,
trilling, warbling rills, and back by the Fall Cañon. This was one of
my Sabbath walk, run-and-slide excursions long ago before any trail had
been made on the north side of the Valley.
Another fine trip was up, bright and early, by Avalanche Cañon to
Glacier Point, along the rugged south wall, tracing all its far outs
and ins to the head of the Bridal Veil Fall, thence back home, bright
and late, by a brushy, bouldery slope between Cathedral rocks and
Cathedral spires and along the level Valley floor. This was one of my
long, bright-day and bright-night walks thirty or forty years ago when,
like river and ocean currents, time flowed undivided, uncounted—a fine
free, sauntery, scrambly, botanical, beauty-filled ramble. The walk up
the Valley was made glorious by the marvelous brightness of the morning
star. So great was her light, she made every tree cast a well-defined
shadow on the smooth sandy ground.
Everybody who visits Yosemite wants to see the famous Big Trees. Before
the railroad was constructed, all three of the stage-roads that entered
the Valley passed through a grove of these trees by the way; namely,
the Tuolumne, Merced and Mariposa groves. The Tuolumne grove was passed
on the Big Oak Flat road, the Merced grove by the Coulterville road and
the Mariposa grove by the Raymond and Wawona road. Now, to see any one
of these groves, a special trip has to be made. Most visitors go to the
Mariposa grove, the largest of the three. On this Sequoia trip you see
not only the giant Big Trees but magnificent forests of silver fir,
sugar pine, yellow pine, libocedrus and Douglas spruce. The trip need
not require more than two days, spending a night in a good hotel at
Wawona, a beautiful place on the south fork of the Merced River, and
returning to the Valley or to El Portal, the terminus of the railroad.
This extra trip by stage costs fifteen dollars. All the High Sierra
excursions that I have sketched cost from a dollar a week to anything
you like. None of mine when I was exploring the Sierra cost over a
dollar a week, most of them less.