Trail Builders
When Yosemite National Park was created in 1890, the U. S. Army took over the administration of the federal area which almost surrounded the state reservation. To aid patrolling in the park, a full program of exploration and mapping was launched. Capt. Alexander Rodgers, Col. Harry G. Benson, Major W. W. Forsyth, and Lts. N. F. McClure and Milton F. Davis made particularly important contribution to the work.
The existing fine system of trails so important to protection and enjoyment of Yosemite National Park had its inception in the plan of the U. S. Army. Almost at once after assuming responsibility for the care of the park, commanding officers initiated construction of trails, and at this juncture the location of primitive Indian trails was no longer a prime consideration in defining routes. The story of trail building by the U. S. Army will be told in a later part of this chapter.
It was inevitable that in the exploration for trails and passes, certain peaks should be climbed. The first recorded ascents of Yosemite’s peaks are attributed to members of the various survey parties. Perhaps the first was the ascent of Mount Hoffmann in 1863 by Whitney, Brewer, and Hoffmann. King climbed it in 1864 and with Gardiner climbed Mount Conness that same year, following with an ascent of Mount Clark, not without adventure, in 1866. Muir climbed Mounts Dana and Hoffmann, and far more difficult Cathedral Peak, three years later. Probably the first Yosemite ascent for the challenge of it by a casual tourist was that of Mount Lyell, highest peak in the park, in 1871. According to Hutchings:
Members of the State Geological Survey Corps having considered it impossible to reach the summit of this lofty peak, the writer was astonished to learn from Mr. A. T. Tileston [John Boies Tileston] of Boston, after his return to the Valley from a jaunt of health and pleasure in the High Sierra, that he had personally proven it to be possible by making the ascent. Incredible as it seemed at the time, three of us found Mr. Tileston’s card upon it some ten days afterward.
Mr. Tileston, writing to his wife from Clark and Moore’s after the climb on Mount Lyell, explained that he ascended nearly to the snow line on August 28, 1871, and next morning “climbed the mountain and reached the top of the highest pinnacle (‘inaccessible, according to the State Geological Survey’) before eight.” (Tileston, 1922, pp. 89-90.)
John Muir reached the summit of Mount Lyell later that year. Muir undoubtedly climbed in part as a response to the challenge of summits but could hardly be considered a casual tourist.
Four years later another summit, of which Whitney had said, it “never has been, and never will be trodden by human foot,” was ascended by a man climbing merely for the fun of it. In 1875, George G. Anderson, continuing where John Conway, a valley resident, had been stopped by difficulty and danger, tackled the climb of Half Dome with ideas of his own. According to Muir:
Anderson began with Conway’s old rope, which had been left in place, and resolutely drilled his way to the top, inserting eye-bolts five or six feet apart, and making his rope fast to each in succession, resting his feet on the last bolt while he drilled a hole for the next above. Occasionally some irregularity in the curve, or slight foothold, would enable him to climb a few feet without the rope, which he would pass and begin drilling again, and thus the whole work was accomplished in less than a week.
Anderson’s climb was the beginning of a search for routes to prominent heights in Yosemite that continues today. The fame of Yosemite’s wonders was spreading through the world, and the advent of stage roads brought a multitude of visitors who preferred to see the region without having to drill to do so. It was imperative that officials in charge of the state reservation improve and multiply the faint Indian trails in order that eager visitors might reach the valley rim and the High Sierra beyond.
Because appropriations made by the state legislature for the use of the Yosemite Valley Commission were too small to enable that executive body to undertake a program of trail building, toll privileges were granted to certain responsible individuals in return for the construction of some of the much-needed trails. Albert Snow, John Conway, James McCauley, Washburn and McCready, and James Hutchings were prominent in this contractual arrangement with the Yosemite commissioners.
Two trails antedate the regime of the Yosemite Valley Commissioners—the trail to Mirror Lake and the Vernal Fall Trail. No record exists identifying the builders of these pioneer trails. Albert Snow, 1870, built a horse trail from “Register Rock” on the Vernal Fall Trail, via Clark Point, to his “La Casa Nevada” on the flat between Vernal and Nevada falls. In 1871, John Conway, working for McCauley, started construction of the Four Mile Trail from the base of Sentinel Rock to Glacier Point. The project was completed in 1872. The old Mono Trail of the Indians between Little Yosemite and Glacier Point was followed by Washburn and McCready when they constructed their toll route here in 1872. In 1874, James Hutchings met the cost of a horse trail up Indian Canyon, which by 1877 already had fallen into such disrepair as to make it accessible only to hikers. The disintegration progressed rapidly, and the “improved” aboriginal route to the north rim found use during a comparatively few years of Yosemite tourist travel. Geographically and topographically it has much to commend it; in the current master plan of Yosemite National Park it is carried as the trail proposal calculated “to provide the best all-year access to the upper country on the north side of the valley.” Early action is expected which will place it on the map again. The Yosemite Falls Trail, started by John Conway in 1873 and completed to the north rim in 1877, was carried by its builder and owner still higher to the summit of Eagle Peak, highest of the Three Brothers. John Conway’s homemade surveying instruments used in trail building are preserved in the Yosemite Museum.
By Ralph Anderson, NPS Present-day Trail Work—Oiling the Eleven-Mile Trail
Gabriel Sovulewski in 1897
By Ralph Anderson, NPS Mount Maclure and Its Glacier
By Ralph Anderson, NPS Measuring the Mount Lyell Glacier
By 1882 the State Legislature initiated a program of purchasing and maintaining the Yosemite trails which had been privately built and operated on a toll basis. The Four Mile Trail to Glacier Point was first on the docket. A number of the other toll trails reverted to the state at this time through the expiration of leases. In 1886 rights to all remaining trails and to those portions of the Coulterville and Big Oak Flat roads within the boundary of the Yosemite Grant were purchased by the state and made free to the public.
At the time Yosemite National Park was established a great part of the northern section of the reservation was quite unknown except to cattlemen, sheepmen, and a few prospectors and trappers. As previously mentioned, the U. S. Army officers responsible for the administration of the national park at this time opened a new era in High Sierra trail development. From 1891 to 1914 a succession of officers, with a number of troops of cavalry, worked with diligence and with great ingenuity in locating trails, in contracting for their construction, and in counteracting the forces of exploiters who looked upon this great mountain domain as their own. At that time the back country trails were limited to the Tioga Road, which had deteriorated to the status of a horse trail; a trail along the southern boundary from Wawona to Crescent and Johnson lakes and Chiquito Pass, thence to Devils Postpile; the old Indian route from Wawona to Tuolumne Meadows via Cathedral Pass; two trails to Hetch Hetchy and Lake Eleanor from Hog Ranch, near the present Mather Ranger Station; and a trail from Tuolumne Meadows to Mount Conness. This dearth of marked routes was corrected quickly. Regular patrol routes for protective purposes were established, and the soldiers located, marked, and supervised the construction of the trails needed in policing the area. The large “T” blazed on the trees along the routes of the cavalrymen remain as evidences of the Army’s activities and are still familiar signs in much of the Yosemite back country.
By the time of the return of the Yosemite Grant and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees to Federal administration in 1906, the Army had worked wonders in providing a system of trails. C. Frank Brockman (1943, p. 96) summarizes the story as follows:
The original trail system of 1891 had been extended to include a trail up Little Yosemite Valley to Merced Lake, Vogelsang Pass and thence down Rafferty Creek to Tuolumne Meadows, a route that is familiar to all High Sierra hikers of the present day. The Isberg Pass trail to the east boundary of the park had been marked and Fernandez Pass, farther to the south, had also been rendered accessible by a trail that branched from the original trail along the southern boundary. The present trail from Tuolumne Meadows up the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne to Donohue Pass also dates from this period. From Tuolumne Meadows a trail also reached out into the remote northern portion of the park to the vicinity of Glen Aulin, thence up Alkali Creek to Cold, Virginia, and Matterhorn canyons. From the latter point this route continued westward to Smedberg Lake, down Rogers Canyon, eventually passing through Pleasant Valley and over Rancheria Mountain to Hetch Hetchy Valley. The Ten Lakes area was accessible by means of a trail originating on the Tioga Road near White Wolf, and from Hetch Hetchy Valley trails radiated to Tiltill Mountain, Miguel Meadow, Lake Eleanor, Vernon Lake, and up Moraine Ridge to a point near what is today known as the “Golden Stairs,” overlooking the lower portion of Jack Main Canyon. A route approximating the present Forsythe trail from Little Yosemite around the southern shoulder of Clouds Rest to Tenaya Lake had been established, and from Tenaya Lake the point now known as Glen Aulin could be reached by the McGee Lake trail. The routes taken by these early trails were essentially the same as those of the present day and points mentioned will be familiar to all who enjoy roaming about the Yosemite back country.
When the National Park Service came into existence in 1916, the broad design of the trail system was essentially as it is at present. The more important trails constructed during the last years of Army administration and in the first years of the National Park Service regime include the Tenaya zigzags built in 1911; the Glen Aulin-Pate Valley route, 1917-1925; the Babcock Lake Trail; the Yosemite Creek-Ten Lakes Trail; the Ledge Trail to Glacier Point, 1918; the Harden Lake-Pate Valley Trail, 1919; Pate Valley-Pleasant Valley Trail, 1920; and the Ottoway Lakes-Washburn Lake Trail in 1941.
Gabriel Sovulewski, who for more than thirty years supervised the construction of Yosemite trails, once outlined for me the amazing story of the evolution of the trail system from Indian routes and sheep trails (Sovulewski, 1928, pp. 25-28). Mr. Sovulewski stated, “Most of these improvements were made on my suggestion, and sometimes at my insistence, yet it is necessary to bear in mind that the credit is not all due to me, even though I did work hard. I share the credit with all superintendents under whom I have served. They gave me freedom to do the work which I have enjoyed immensely.”
Col. H. C. Benson, one of the superintendents referred to by Mr. Sovulewski, wrote in 1924:
The successful working out of the trails and the continuation of developing them is due largely to the loyalty and hard work of Mr. Gabriel Sovulewski. Too much credit can not be given to this man for the development of Yosemite National Park. (Brockman, 1943, p. 102.)