1. Driving Home the Cows. 2. Meeting in the Great American Desert. 3. Bridal Veil from Artist's Point, Yosemite Valley.
"A year ago," says Mr. Curry, "we put up 10,000 lunches—that meant 20,000 wooden plates, and some 50,000 pieces of white tissue paper. You can see how necessary it is to burn or bury your luncheon papers when you have eaten your lunch on the trails, or in the forests."
Never in any other place in the United States have I heard so much talk of tramps and trails as at Camp Curry in the Yosemite Valley. Most Americans seem to be too indolent or too unused to walking to have the enthusiasm of the trampers and the mountain climbers whom one meets in Europe. But I felt that I was back in the atmosphere of the Tyrol and of Switzerland when I reached Camp Curry and saw the people starting off in the morning for long days of walking and climbing. "I arrived at Camp Curry late in the afternoon just as the people were coming from their day's walks," said a young lady to me. "I thought I had never seen such disreputable looking people. Their boots were muddy, their hair was dishevelled, their faces were flushed and sunburnt. But in a day or two I was coming in from long walks in just the same condition myself." But who that can walk and climb would forego the thrilling pleasure of the long climb to Glacier Point, and the long climb past Nevada and Vernal Falls, and down again into the Valley? Who would miss the long climb up to the Yosemite Falls, where one from a perilous and yet protected vantage point just above the Falls sees that great volume of water launch itself for the awful plunge into the air, and so down into the Valley? Fortunately, there are sturdy mules and horses, sure-footed and plodding, for those who prefer riding to climbing. No one need miss the truly grand experience of the view from Glacier Point, where by staying over night at the hotel one may have both sunset and sunrise. What a world of mountains one looks out upon! There is Half Dome, looking as if a gigantic hand had thrust it up through the earth and into the air, leaving its other half far, far below. There stretches before one a vast, upper country of irregular table lands and peaks, many still white with snow. One is really looking far out over the remote regions of the snowy, pine-covered, high Sierras.
1. Royal Arches, Yosemite Valley. 2. View into Yosemite Valley. 3. Dome and Half Dome, Yosemite Valley.
We took a day for a long excursion to Cloud's Rest. This meant twenty-two miles of mule riding, but it also meant an even more comprehensive and exalted view from the mountain's top, of frozen lakes below, deep canyons, lofty mountain peaks where storms were raging far away, and solitary table lands. Only people of endurance can take such a jaunt, as one's joints grow very weary and aching from the slow riding hour after hour. When we were at Camp Curry, a party of some forty Germans, men and women, were there for the pleasure of "doing" the entire Valley. No climb was too hard for them. They were known as the "German climbing bunch." Every morning one might see them with their paper bags of luncheon and their climbing-sticks, walking gaily along to the beginning of some one of the mountains trails. They entertained us at the evening camp fire with their German songs, and were altogether an energetic and genial company.
The open air life and the grandeur of the trails were very hard to leave, but we came away one noon and once more drove back to Wawona. There we were detained for a week by a break in the car. We started out one morning when the rain was pouring to take the Mariposa road. We found that with no chains and with the machine slipping and sliding on the steep clay road, progress would be impossible. I tried to help the matter by putting freshly cut branches of odorous balsam fir under the wheels to help them grip. I walked behind the machine with a log, throwing it under the wheels as they advanced foot by foot, T. fighting at the steering wheel like the pilot of a drifting ship. But it was impossible to make headway. We met some teamsters who had evidently been taking something hot to counteract the discomfort of their wet exteriors. One said solemnly of the sun when we expressed a wish that it would appear, "Yes, the sun is our father, and our step-father." Then he added, "I'd worship the sun if I were a heathen. I kinder do, now." He went on irrelevantly, "I do think Roosevelt's one of the best men we've got. I do think so. I do so." We were close to a deserted logging camp, which looked doubly melancholy in the falling rain. There was the deserted runway, there were the empty cottages, with broken windows and doors swinging open. Back of the cottages were piles of tin cans. One cottage still bore its old name, "Idle Burg." All about were blooming columbines and the odorous balsam.