uld carry us over. But the hour
passed and the crossing of the shelf disclosed, not the glowing valley
of the South Fork across the pass, but still a vaster, nobler cirque
above, sublime in Arctic glory!

How the vast glaciers that cut these titanic carvings must have swirled
among these huge concentric walls, pouring over this shelf and that,
piling together around these uplifting granite peaks, concentrating
combined effort upon this unyielding mass and that, and, beaten back,
pouring down the tortuous main channel with rendings and tearings
unimaginable!

[Illustration: _From a photograph by Herbert W. Gleason_

EAST VIDETTE FROM A FOREST OF FOXTAIL PINES

This is one of the great granite peaks of the proposed Roosevelt
National Park]

Granite Pass is astonishing! We saw no less than four of these vast
concentric cirques, through three of which we passed. And the Geological
Survey map discloses a tributary basin adjoining which enclosed a group
of large volcanic lakes, and doubtless other vast cirque-like chambers.

We took photographs, but knew them vain.

A long, dusty descent of Copper Creek brought us, near day's end, into
the exquisite valley of the South Fork of the Kings River, the Kings
River Canyon.

Still another Yosemite!

It is not so easy to differentiate the two canyons of the Kings. They
are similar and yet very different. Perhaps the difference lies chiefly
in degree. Both lie east and west, with enormous rocky bluffs rising on
either side of rivers of quite extraordinary beauty. Both present carved
and castellated walls of exceptional boldness of design. Both are
heavily and magnificently wooded, the forests reaching up sharp slopes
on either side. Both possess to a marked degree the quality that lifts
them above the average of even the Sierra's glacial valleys.

But the outlines here seem to be softer, the valley floor broader, the
river less turbulent. If the keynote of the Tehipite Valley is wild
exuberance, that of the Kings River Canyon is wild beauty. The one
excites, the other lulls. The one shares with Yosemite the distinction
of extraordinary outline, the other shares with Yosemite the distinction
of extraordinary charm.

There are few nobler spots than the junction of Copper Creek with the
Kings. The Grand Sentinel is seldom surpassed. It fails of the
personality of El Capitan, Half Dome, and Tehipite, but it only just
fails. If they did not exist, it would become the most cel