Part 10

We passed hundreds of people of all ages walking through the valley. In visiting the Yosemite you do not realize that the valley is several miles long, and has an average width of about one-half a mile. The great height of the surrounding walls dwarfs your idea of distance. Even the trees, many of which are of great size, look small and puny.

The Happy Isles.

We drove to the Happy Isles, small islands covered with trees, around which the river surges in foaming masses. Standing at the upper end of the one of the Happy Isles, one gets a splendid impression of the cascade effect of the waters, rushing madly down a steep rocky channel, with an irresistible, terrifying force. The descent of the bed of the stream is very marked. The waters come over submerged, rocky masses. Just as you think that maddened torrent must sweep over the island, engulfing you in its course, the stream divides, half of it passing to the right, and half to the left. These divided waters unite again farther down the valley.

On our return from this short excursion, Francis, Dr. Macleish and Harry, taking their lunch with them, walked up to the top of the Yosemite Falls. They stood beneath the flag at Yosemite Point and got a comprehensive view of the entire valley. They reported the trip a heart-breaking one.

Military Government.

The valley has a military government. What Major Forsyth says goes. There are no saloons in the Yosemite, nor are there any cats. The Major saw a cat catch a young gray squirrel. He issued an edict that the cats must go or be killed. They went.

Excursion to Glacier Point.

The next day all of our party, except Mrs. Graves, who had made the journey some years before, went to the top of Glacier Point. We took a stage to the Happy Isles and there mounted mules for the trail. The climb is a steady one. Soon we got our first view of the Vernal Falls. To my mind they are the most perfect waterfalls in the Valley. The water flows over the cliffs an unbroken mass, one hundred feet wide. The initial drop is three hundred and fifty feet. The effect can not be imagined by one who has not seen the actual descent of this great mass of water. The emerald pond above the falls, in which the waters assume an emerald hue, and appear to seek a momentary rest before taking the final plunge over the cliffs, is one of the Valley's beauty spots. The roar of the falling waters, striking the rocks below, is loud and reverberating. Great clouds of spray and mist float off in falling masses, appearing more like smoke than water.

After passing Vernal Falls you come to the Diamond Cascades. They are below the Nevada Falls. The long flowing waters from the Nevada Falls have cut a channel deep into the bed rock. You cross this channel on a bridge. Under and below the bridge the water flows with such velocity that great volumes of it are hurled into the air in long strings, one succeeding the other. The sunlight on these strings of water makes them flash like diamonds. The effect is as if some one were sowing diamonds by the bushel above the water. A similar effect is noticed, though not so pronounced, just above the Nevada Falls. The latter are something like a mile above Vernal Falls. They are six hundred feet high. They seem to come over the cliff like the Yosemite Falls, through a broken or distorted lip, and the water is lashed to foam and looks for all the world like the smoke of some mighty conflagration, upon which a score of modern fire engines are playing. Near the top of the Nevada Falls is a fir tree more than ten feet in diameter, said to be the largest tree in the Yosemite Valley. Just above the falls we again crossed the river on a bridge. Near the bridge, on the rocks is plain evidence of glacial scourings. A glacial deposit is left in patches on the rocks which is today as smooth as plate glass.

Abandoned Eagle's Nest.

Above Vernal Falls we skirted the base and climbed partly around the side of Liberty Cap, one of the great granite domes of the valley, until we reached the top of the cliff over which the Nevada Falls plunge. Well up on the side of this cliff, in an inaccessible retreat, our guide, who had traversed this route for twenty-two years, showed me an ancient but now abandoned eagle's nest. The noble birds, in late years, not liking the coming of the thousands of excursionists who passed that way daily, forsook their home for some other locality.

The trail now winds around the mountainsides, finally crossing the canyon above the Illiouette Falls. In a short time we are at Glacier Point. As you go out to the iron railing erected on the outer edge of a flat rock on the extreme edge of the cliff, and look down into the valley below you, you can not help a shrinking feeling, and you are only too glad soon to move back and get a view from safer quarters.

Overhanging Rock.

The celebrated overhanging rock is at this point. It is a piece of granite, say four or five feet wide, flat on top, but with rounding edges. It sticks out from the cliff several feet. Foolhardy people walk out to the edge of it and make their bow to imaginary audiences over three thousand feet below. One of the guides with our party, wearing heavy "chaps" (bear-skin overalls) walked out upon this rock, took off his hat, waved it over his head, posed for his photograph, even took a jig step or two, stood on one foot and peered into the abyss below with apparent unconcern. Earlier in life I might have taken a similar chance, but it would be a physical impossibility for me to do it now. We feasted our eyes on the magnificent view.

We were now nearly level with the Half Dome (our elevation was seven thousand one hundred feet), below us the beautiful valley with its winding river, bright meadows and stately forests. Horses staked out on the meadow looked like dogs; people, like ants. The Yosemite, Vernal, Nevada and Illilouette Falls, Mirror Lake, the roaring cascades above, the Happy Isles, all the peaks of the upper end of the Valley, and mountains for miles and miles beyond, snowcapped and storm-swept, were in plain sight.

After an appetizing lunch at the hotel, we took the short trail for the valley. It is three and a half miles long, almost straight up and down, and is hard riding or walking. But the journey was soon ended, and that night we again slept the sleep of the joyously tired.

Morning came too soon, ushering in another perfect mountain day. We simply loafed around, never tiring of looking at the river or falls in sight, or the everlasting cliffs above us. We put in an hour or two watching a moving-picture outfit photographing imitation Indians.

Views Through A "Claude Lorraine Glass."

That evening as the daylight waned, while sky and stream, trees, mountains and jagged peaks were still gloriously tinted with the sun's last rays, Mr. Chris. Jorgenson, the artist, brought out a "Claude Lorraine glass." We stood upon the bridge of the Merced river and caught upon the glass the Half Dome, bathed in mellow light; the Yosemite Falls with its great mass of falling waters exquisitely illuminated; Sentinel Peak, the swiftly moving river fringed with green trees, the grassy meadows and the fleecy clouds. The picture of reflected beauty so produced, such tints and colors, such glints of stream and forest, such a glorified reproduction of the beauties of the Valley can only be imagined, they can not be described.

There were enough Los Angeles people in the Yosemite at the time to have voted a bond issue. They were all out for a good time, and were having it.

Our Return to Wawona.

Not wishing to undergo the torture of the noon-day ride back to Wawona, a party of us chartered a stage to leave the Valley at six o'clock a. m. We got off next morning at six-forty and had a delightful drive, making Wawona before noon. Thus a few hours' difference in the time of starting made a pleasure of what otherwise would have been a torment. While we were in the Valley some Los Angeles friends had arrived at Wawona and were in camp near the hotel.

Signal Peak.

We rested at Wawona several days. During one of these I went with the boys on horseback to Signal Peak, whose elevation is seven thousand and ninety-three feet. The San Joaquin valley was enveloped in haze, but the mountain ranges east of us were in plain sight. We could see all the peaks from Tallac at Lake Tahoe to Mt. Whitney. Mt. Ritter, Mt. Dana, Mt. Hamilton, Galen Clarke, Star King, Lyell, the Gale Group, and others whose names I do not now recall, stood out in bold relief, encased in snowy mantles. The view from Signal Peak is well worth the trip. We enjoyed it so much that we persuaded Mrs. Graves and some ladies to take it next day by carriage, which is easily done.

On June twenty-third the boys went to Empire Meadows, some eleven miles distant, with a fishing party. They had fair luck, the entire party taking nearly two hundred eastern brook trout.

Homeward Bound.

On the morning of June twenty-fourth, at six o'clock, we started on our homeward journey. We had carburetor trouble coming up--we still had it going out, until at last our driver discovered that one of the insulating wires had worn through its covering and, coming in contact with metal, had resulted in a short circuit. When this was remedied our troubles were over, and our machine performed handsomely. The first forty-four miles to Raymond were all downhill, over a very rough road, with sharp turns and depressions every one hundred feet or so, to allow the rainwater to run off of the road, which rendered the going very slow. We were three hours and a half reaching Raymond. Passing this point we sped into Madera, then to Firebaugh. During the morning we saw a stately pair of wild pigeons winging their swift flight in and out of some tall pine trees.

Water High in San Joaquin Valley.