Half Dome in white
You may take in the Yosemite as a visiting tourist, in which five or six days may suffice you for sightseeing, or you may settle down as a camper or hotel guest, in which case days and weeks slip by, and you soon lose all sense of time in the sweet repose of the Valley. For the greater number a touring visit is all that is possible. You tell me that you are here for a few days. How may you best occupy them? It is not necessary for me to answer your question in detail, for the affairs of the Valley have been systematized in a most businesslike fashion, and all such information is ready to hand. You can obtain schedules of trips for two, three, four, and on up to nine and ten days. The United States Government has done and is doing a good work in developing this great natural recreation park, and all the Government asks of us is that we will take advantage of it. The attitude of Uncle Sam is expressed in the legends posted on trees throughout the Valley, all of which mean in substance: “This beautiful park is yours. Help us to preserve it and make it attractive.”
Evening in the Valley
We have come up from Merced in the morning, and we have arrived in the Valley at three o’clock. Let us make the most of the remainder of this fair summer afternoon. We walk out across the green meadow for a closer view of Yosemite Falls. The shadows of El Capitan and the Three Brothers are already creeping over the valley, and the air has a touch of evening cool as we enter the woods. The walk is longer than we thought. The tall, sheer cliffs make the falls seem nearer than they are. At length, after pursuing the path for some distance through the woods, we come upon an open spot from which we can gaze up and drink in the beauty of the three white leaps of water. This is the favorite spot—the choice viewpoint of artists and photographers. A short climb brings us to the foot of the lower falls, and there we rest and watch the seething basin while the soft mist plays upon our faces. The woods about us are in deep shadow and odorous of pine. Above us goes the trail that leads up through a narrow gorge to a point at the summit of the falls. We are seated in the very sanctuary of the Yosemite. It is an hour to remember.
Photograph by A. C. Pillsbury
THE ZIG ZAG
On the Glacier Point Trail
On returning, we pause a moment by the roadside on the meadow at the concrete bench placed there in memory of Galen Clark, a lover and student of the Yosemite, and discoverer of the giant trees of the Mariposa Grove. Galen Clark apparently drew vitality from his aged tree friends, for he lived to be 96 years old. He is buried in the Valley, and the concrete bench is placed on the spot where he frequently sat to gaze on the falls. Though it is now evening and the sun has disappeared, the Valley is suffused with soft reflected light from the huge flat, mirror-like face of Half Dome. In the course of an hour the golden glow on that great oval surface of rock far above us turns to shimmering silver, and then to a ghostly gray that finally gives way to night.
