All the Tuolumne Meadow country is sheer delight, for mountaineer, fisherman, naturalist, and lover of the out-of-doors whose tastes are unspecific; well has John Muir called it "the grand central camp-ground of the Sierras." It is a vast meadow, hemmed in by a mountain region beyond compare for expeditioning, with legions of royal trout ready for the fly, and a vast flower garden maintained enticingly by Dame Nature during the summer sunshine season.
The trip we took from the Meadows, again without trail, was down the Tuolumne to Hetch-Hetchy Valley. The journey's start literally was flower-strewn, and we tramped carefully lest we crush over-many of the purple daisies and tiny violets dotting the dewy grass, while lupin offered gentle resistance to our progress. First came the canyon of Conness Creek, shaded with groves of hemlock, and neighbored by three falls, the first of the countless cataracts which mark the wild river's course through the rockbound gorge, to the valley of our destination, miles below.
Beyond the falls the stream flows quietly for a space, between banks lined with pines and deciduous trees. As Marion Randall Parsons has quoted, here,
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs forever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
And standing beside the white waters with the ground shaking underfoot to the tune of their mighty onrush, with the meadows, trees, and flowers round about, the awesome cliffs for guardians, and the bright blue sky over all, it requires no visionary to conjure up legendary cities at this river's end, for but half lend yourself to the notion and the glorious Sierran stream becomes a beckoning highway to a land of pleasant dreams.
"A vast flower garden maintained enticingly by Dame Nature"
Copyright 1912 by Kiser Photo Co., Portland, Ore.
Light and shadow in Yosemite
Of the Tuolumnic canyon journey this same lover of the Sierras, Mrs. Parsons, has sketched the following description: