La Casa Nevada
For fifteen years after the coming of visitors, the wonders of the Merced Canyon above Happy Isles were accessible only to those hardy mountaineers who could scramble through the boulder-strewn gorge without the advantage of a true trail. In 1869-70 one Albert Snow completed a horse trail from Yosemite Valley to the flat between Vernal and Nevada falls, and there opened a mountain chalet, which was to be known as “La Casa Nevada.” The popularity of the saddle trip to the two great falls of the Merced was immediate, and the pioneer trail builder, John Conway, extended the trail from Snow’s to Little Yosemite Valley the next year. It then was usual for all tourists to ascend the Merced Canyon to La Casa Nevada and Little Yosemite. Some hikers undertook the trip from Little Yosemite to Glacier Point, but another fifteen years were to elapse before Glacier Point was made accessible by a truly good horse trail from Nevada Fall.
Snow’s was opened on April 28, 1870. One of the prized possessions of the Yosemite Museum is a register from this hostelry, which dates from the opening to 1875. Upon its foxed pages appear thousands of registrations and numerous comments of more than passing interest. Among these is a very interesting two-page manuscript by John Muir, describing an 1874 trip to Snow’s via Glacier Point and the Illilouette. P. A. H. Laurence, once editor of the Mariposa Gazette, contributed to its value by inscribing within it an account of his visit to Yosemite Valley in 1855, years before the chalet was built.
A party with N. H. Davis, United States Inspector General, commented upon their destination and added: “This party defers further remarks until some further examinations are made.” Under the date of the original entry is a significant second autograph by a member of the General’s party: “A preliminary examination develops an abundance of mountain dew.”
A great pile of broken containers, which had once held the “mountain dew,” is about the only remnant of La Casa Nevada which may be viewed by present-day visitors, for the chalet was destroyed by fire in the early ’nineties.