The Book of the National Parks

Part 1

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Transcriber's Note

The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

The photograph "The Rainbow Natural Bridge, Utah", facing page 8, is missing from the source document even though presented in the List of Illustrations.

THE BOOK OF

THE NATIONAL PARKS

ZOROASTER FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE GRAND CANYON

Nature's greatest example of stream erosion]

THE BOOK OF THE NATIONAL PARKS

ROBERT STERLING YARD

CHIEF, EDUCATIONAL DIVISION, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AUTHOR OF "THE NATIONAL PARKS PORTFOLIO" "THE TOP OF THE CONTINENT," ETC.

WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1919

PREFACE

In offering the American public a carefully studied outline of its national park system, I have two principal objects. The one is to describe and differentiate the national parks in a manner which will enable the reader to appreciate their importance, scope, meaning, beauty, manifold uses and enormous value to individual and nation. The other is to use these parks, in which Nature is writing in large plain lines the story of America's making, as examples illustrating the several kinds of scenery, and what each kind means in terms of world building; in other words, to translate the practical findings of science into unscientific phrase for the reader's increased profit and pleasure, not only in his national parks but in all other scenic places great and small.

At the outset I have been confronted with a difficulty because of this double objective. The rôle of the interpreter is not always welcome. If I write what is vaguely known as a "popular" book, wise men have warned me that any scientific intrusion, however lightly and dramatically rendered, will displease its natural audience. If I write the simplest of scientific books, I am warned that a large body of warm-blooded, wholesome, enthusiastic Americans, the very ones above all others whose keen enjoyment I want to double by doubling their sources of pleasure, will have none of it. The suggestion that I make my text "popular" and carry my "science" in an appendix I promptly rejected, for if I cannot give the scientific aspects of nature their readable values in the text, I cannot make them worth an appendix.

Now I fail to share with my advisers their poor opinion of the taste, enterprise, and intelligence of the wide-awake American, but, for the sake of my message, I yield in some part to their warnings. Therefore I have so presented my material that the miscalled, and, I verily believe, badly slandered "average reader," may have his "popular" book by omitting the note on the Appreciation of Scenery, and the several notes explanatory of scenery which are interpolated between groups of chapters. If it is true, as I have been told, that the "average reader" would omit these anyway, because it is his habit to omit prefaces and notes of every kind, then nothing has been lost.

The keen inquiring reader, however, the reader who wants to know values and to get, in the eloquent phrase of the day, all that's coming to him, will have the whole story by beginning the book with the note on the Appreciation of Scenery, and reading it consecutively, interpolated notes and all. As this will involve less than a score of additional pages, I hope to get the message of the national parks in terms of their fullest enjoyment before much the greater part of the book's readers.

The pleasure of writing this book has many times repaid its cost in labor, and any helpfulness it may have in advancing the popularity of our national parks, in building up the system's worth as a national economic asset, and in increasing the people's pleasure in all scenery by helping them to appreciate their greatest scenery, will come to me as pure profit. It is my earnest hope that this profit may be large.

A similar spirit has actuated the very many who have helped me acquire the knowledge and experience to produce it; the officials of the National Park Service, the superintendents and several rangers in the national parks, certain zoologists of the United States Biological Survey, the Director and many geologists of the United States Geological Survey, scientific experts of the Smithsonian Institution, and professors in several distinguished universities. Many men have been patient and untiring in assistance and helpful criticism, and to these I render warm thanks for myself and for readers who may benefit by their work.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE vii

THE BOOK OF THE NATIONAL PARKS

ON THE APPRECIATION OF SCENERY 3

I. THE NATIONAL PARKS OF THE UNITED STATES 17

THE GRANITE NATIONAL PARKS

GRANITE'S PART IN SCENERY 33

Part 2

II. YOSEMITE, THE INCOMPARABLE 36

III. THE PROPOSED ROOSEVELT NATIONAL PARK 69

IV. THE HEART OF THE ROCKIES 93

V. MCKINLEY, GIANT OF GIANTS 118

VI. LAFAYETTE AND THE EAST 132

THE VOLCANIC NATIONAL PARKS

ON THE VOLCANO IN SCENERY 145

VII. LASSEN PEAK AND MOUNT KATMAI 148

VIII. MOUNT RAINIER, ICY OCTOPUS 159

IX. CRATER LAKE'S BOWL OF INDIGO 184

X. YELLOWSTONE, A VOLCANIC INTERLUDE 202

XI. THREE MONSTERS OF HAWAII 229

THE SEDIMENTARY NATIONAL PARKS

XII. ON SEDIMENTARY ROCK IN SCENERY 247

XIII. GLACIERED PEAKS AND PAINTED SHALES 251

XIV. ROCK RECORDS OF A VANISHED RACE 284

XV. THE HEALING WATERS 305

THE GRAND CANYON AND OUR NATIONAL MONUMENTS

ON THE SCENERY OF THE SOUTHWEST 321

XVI. A PAGEANT OF CREATION 328

XVII. THE RAINBOW OF THE DESERT 352

XVIII. HISTORIC MONUMENTS OF THE SOUTHWEST 367

XIX. DESERT SPECTACLES 385

XX. THE MUIR WOODS AND OTHER NATIONAL MONUMENTS 404

ILLUSTRATIONS

Zoroaster from the depths of the Grand Canyon Frontispiece FACING PAGE

The Rainbow Natural Bridge, Utah 8

Middle fork of the Belly River, Glacier National Park 12

Part 3

General Grant Tree 18

The Giant Geyser--greatest in the world 22

The Yosemite Falls--highest in the world 26

El Capitan, survivor of the glaciers 44

Half Dome, Yosemite's hooded monk 46

The climax of Yosemite National Park 56

The greatest waterwheel of the Tuolumne 56

Tehipite Dome, guardian rock of the Tehipite Valley 82

East Vidette from a forest of foxtail pines 84

Bull Frog Lake, proposed Roosevelt National Park 90

Under a giant sequoia 90

Estes Park Plateau, looking east 96

Front range of the Rockies from Bierstadt Lake 96

Summit of Longs Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park 110

The Andrews Glacier hangs from the Continental Divide 114

A Rocky Mountain cirque carved from solid granite 114

Mount McKinley, looming above the great Alaskan Range 128

Archdeacon Stuck's party half-way up the mountain 128

The summit of Mount McKinley 128

In Lafayette National Park 134

Sea caves in the granite 134

Frenchman's Bay from the east cliff of Champlain Mountain 140

Lassen Peak seen from the southwest 152

Lassen Peak close up 152

Southeast slope of Mount Rainier 162

Mount St. Helens seen from Mount Rainier Park 166

Mount Adams seen from Mount Rainier Park 166

Sluiskin Ridge and Columbia Crest 172

Part 4

Mount Rainier seen from Tacoma 172

Mount Rainier and Paradise Inn in summer 174

Winter pleasures at Paradise Inn, Mount Rainier 174

Dutton Cliff and the Phantom Ship, Crater Lake 190

Sunset from Garfield Peak, Crater Lake National Park 190

Applegate Cliff, Crater Lake 194

Phantom Ship from Garfield Peak 194

The Excelsior Geyser which blew out in 1888; Yellowstone 216

One of the terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone 216

Yellowstone Valley from the upper fall to the lower fall 220

The lower fall and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone 220

The Teton Mountain from Jackson Hole, south of Yellowstone 228

The lava landscape of the Yellowstone and Gibbon Falls 228

The Kilauea Pit of Fire, Hawaii National Park 238

Within the crater of Kilauea 238

The Great Gable of Gould Mountain 272

The Cirque at the head of Cut Bank Creek 272

Ptarmigan Lake and Mount Wilbur, Glacier National Park 276

Scooped both sides by giant glaciers 276

Showing the Agassiz Glacier 282

Beautiful Bowman Lake, Glacier National Park 282

Prehistoric pottery from Mesa Verde 298

Sun Temple, Mesa Verde National Park 302

Spruce Tree House from across the canyon 302

On Hot Springs Mountain, Hot Springs of Arkansas 308

Bath House Row, Hot Springs of Arkansas 308

Sunset from Grand View, Grand Canyon National Park 340

Camping party on the South Rim 344

Part 5

Down Hermit Trail from rim to river 344

Through the Granite Gorge surges the muddy Colorado 346

When morning mists lift from the depths of the Grand Canyon 346

El Gobernador, Zion National Monument 362

Zion Canyon from the rim 364

The Three Patriarchs, Zion Canyon 364

Casa Grande National Monument 374

Prehistoric cave homes in the Bandelier National Monument 374

Tumacacori Mission 376

Montezuma Castle 376

Roosevelt party in Monument Valley 386

Rainbow Bridge in full perspective 386

The Petrified Forest of Arizona 396

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