EL CAPITAN, YOSEMITE
From painting by H. H. Bagg
Into Yosemite by Motor
When the writer of this book first visited Yosemite a few years ago, no motor car was allowed to intrude in its sylvan solitudes and it was freely alleged by the stage drivers that the time would never come when this noisy, dust-raising demon would be permitted to frighten their horses and disturb their equanimity. Their attitude was one of decided hostility, though they affected to laugh at the suggestion—the roads were too crooked and narrow and the grades too steep for “automobeels”—no, sir, you’d never see them in Yosemite. Besides, the horses in the park had never seen these pesky machines; they would simply go crazy and dump the coaches over the cliffs. All of which seemed reasonable enough at the time and nothing was farther from my mind than the idea of piloting a car through the devious trails that serve for roads in this sylvan wonderland.
But “tempora mutantur,” indeed. Motor cars in California increased in geometrical ratio and the owners banded themselves together in the live and efficient organization known as the Automobile Club of Southern California. This club contended that no good reason could be urged against admitting motor cars to Yosemite and after a dint of effort succeeded in bringing the Secretary of the Interior to the same point of view. True, the decree was issued with apparent fear and hesitation and the venturesome motorist who wished to explore the park was hedged about with restrictions and hampered with endless red tape regulations. The cars came, nevertheless, though probably as many were deterred by the stringent rules as by the forbidding roads.
The dire results so freely predicted by the stage men did not materialize in any great degree. There were few serious accidents and the motors, as a rule, met with little difficulty in negotiating the roads to and within the park. As a consequence, the rules were relaxed with each succeeding year and many of the most annoying regulations abandoned or reduced to mere formalities. We made our trip in September of the Panama-Pacific year, and during the previous months of the season nearly two thousand cars had preceded us into the park. We did not have to demonstrate that “either set of brakes would lock the wheels to a skid;” in fact, I am very dubious on this point. We did not have to get up at an unearthly hour to enter or leave the park and the time schedule imposed on us was so reasonable that none but the speed maniac would care to exceed it, even had no severe penalty been attached. It was all simple enough and our trials in doing Yosemite by motor lay in a different direction than the rules and regulations, as will appear in due course of my narrative.
There are several routes by which one may enter and leave the park pending the happy day longed for by the Auto Club when a broad, smooth road—“no grades exceeding five per cent”—shall convey the joyful motorist to this Earthly Paradise of the Sierras. You can go from Fresno via Coarse Gold, from Merced via Coulterville, from Stockton via Chinese Camp, or from Madera via Raymond. You can now even reach the park from the east by the new Tioga road, branching off the Sierra Highway at Mono Lake, should you be seeking the wildest and most difficult route of all.
We decided, for reasons which may become apparent as I proceed, to make our entrance by the Madera route and to leave the park with Stockton as our objective. We still have reason to believe that as things stood at the time—or even now—these routes were the most satisfactory and we are quite sure that whatever improvement may be made, the tourist interested in pioneer days of California and fond of wild and impressive scenery should choose the Stockton road at least one way.
We did not get away from Fresno, where we passed the night preceding our start for Wawona, until late in the afternoon. A swift run over the splendid new highway brought us to Madera about four in the evening, but there remained little hope of covering sixty miles of unknown mountain road to Wawona before nightfall. A glance at our maps revealed Raymond, about twenty-five miles farther on—the terminal of a branch railroad from Madera. We decided that Raymond would make a good stopping-point for the night; an early start would easily enable us to reach Yosemite the next day. So we set out over a choppy and very dusty dirt road which was conducive to anything but speed and comfort, but which nevertheless brought us to our objective in the course of an hour.