Now scarcely an icicle remains, and the falls are in their glory. I had never dreamt of anything so lovely.... Here we stand in the glorious sunlight, among pine-trees a couple of hundred feet in height; and they are pigmies like ourselves in presence of even the lowest step of the stately fall, which leaps and dashes from so vast a height that it loses all semblance of water. It is a splendid bouquet of glistening rockets, which, instead of rushing heavenward, shoot down as if from the blue canopy, which seems to touch the brink nearly 2,700 feet above us.
Like myriad falling stars they flash, each keeping its separate course for several hundred feet, till at length it blends with ten thousand more, in the grand avalanche of frothy, fleecy foam, which for ever and for ever falls, boiling and raging like a whirlpool, among the huge black boulders in the deep cauldron below, and throwing back clouds of mist and vapour.
The most exquisite moment occurs when you reach some spot where the sun’s rays, streaming past you, transform the light vapour into brilliant rainbow-prisms, which gird the falls with vivid iris-bars. As the water-rockets flash through these radiant belts, they seem to carry the colour onwards as they fall; and sometimes it wavers and trembles in the breeze, so that the rainbow knows not where to rest, but forms a moving column of radiant tri-colour.
So large a body of water rushing through the air, naturally produces a strong current, which, passing between the face of the rock and the fall, carries the latter well forward, so that it becomes the sport of every breeze that dances through the valley; hence this great column is forever vibrating from side to side, and often it forms a semi-circular curve.
The width of the stream at the summit is about twenty to thirty feet, but at the base of the upper fall it has expanded to a width of fully 300 feet; and, as the wind carries it to one side or the other, it plays over a space of fully 1,000 feet in width, of a precipitous rock-face 1,600 feet in depth. That is the height of the upper fall.
As seen from below the Yo-semité, though divided into three distinct falls, is apparently all on one plane. It is only when you reach some point from which you see it sideways, that you realize that the great upper fall lies fully a quarter of a mile farther back than the middle and lower falls, and that it rushes down this space in boiling cascades, till it reaches a perpendicular rock, over which it leaps about 600 feet, and then gives a third and final plunge of about 500, making up a total of little under 2,700 feet.
When we came to the head of the valley, whence diverge the three rocky canyons, we bade adieu to the green meadows, and passing up a most exquisite gorge, crossed the Illillouette by a wooden bridge, and followed the main fork of the Merced, up the central canyon. I do not anywhere know a lovelier mile of river scenery than on this tumultuous rushing stream, leaping from rock to rock, sweeping around mossy boulders and falling in crystalline cascades—the whole fringed with glittering icicles, and overshadowed by tall pine-trees, whose feathery branches fringe the steep cliffs and wave in the breeze.
Presently a louder roar of falling water told us that we were nearing the Vernal Falls, and through a frame of dark pines we caught a glimpse of the white spirit-like spray-cloud. Tying up my pony, we crept to the foot of the falls, whence a steep flight of wooden steps has been constructed, by which a pedestrian can ascend about 400 feet to the summit, and thence resume his way, thus saving a very long round. But of course four-footed creatures must be content to go by the mountain; and so the pony settled our route, greatly to our advantage, for the view thence, looking down the canyon and across to Glacier Point, proved to be about the finest thing we had seen, as an effect of mountain gloom.
Just above the Vernal Falls comes a reach of the river known as The Diamond Race,—a stream so rapid and so glittering, that it seems like a shower of sparkling crystals, each drop a separate gem. I have never seen a race which, for speed and dazzling light, could compare with these musical, glancing waters.
For half a mile above it, the river is a tumultuous raging flood, rushing at headlong speed down a boulder-strewn channel. At the most beautiful point it is crossed by a light wooden bridge; and on the green mountain-meadow just beyond, stands the wooden house, to which a kindly landlord gave us a cheery, hearty welcome.