who is free
to go and see for himself.

The action of flowing ice, whether in the form of river-like glaciers or
broad mantles, especially the part it played in sculpturing the earth,
is as yet but little understood. Water rivers work openly where people
dwell, and so does the rain, and the sea, thundering on all the shores
of the world; and the universal ocean of air, though invisible, speaks
aloud in a thousand voices, and explains its modes of working and its
power. But glaciers, back in their white solitudes, work apart from men,
exerting their tremendous energies in silence and darkness. Outspread,
spirit-like, they brood above the predestined landscapes, work on
unwearied through immeasurable ages, until, in the fullness of time, the
mountains and valleys are brought forth, channels furrowed for rivers,
basins made for lakes and meadows, and arms of the sea, soils spread for
forests and fields; then they shrink and vanish like summer clouds.

Chapter 12

How Best to Spend One's Yosemite Time

One-Day Excursions

No. 1.

If I were so time-poor as to have only one day to spend in Yosemite I
should start at daybreak, say at three o'clock in midsummer, with a
pocketful of any sort of dry breakfast stuff, for Glacier Point,
Sentinel Dome, the head of Illilouette Fall, Nevada Fall, the top of
Liberty Cap, Vernal Fall and the wild boulder-choked River Canyon. The
trail leaves the Valley at the base of the Sentinel Rock, and as
you slowly saunter from point to point along its many accommodating
zigzags nearly all the Valley rocks and falls are seen in striking,
ever-changing combinations. At an elevation of about five hundred feet a
particularly fine, wide-sweeping view down the Valley is obtained, past
the sheer face of the Sentinel and between the Cathedral Rocks and
El Capitan. At a height of about 1500 feet the great Half Dome comes
full in sight, overshadowing every other feature of the Valley to the
eastward. From Glacier Point you look down 3000 feet over the edge of
its sheer face to the meadows and groves and innumerable yellow pine
spires, with the meandering river sparkling and spangling through the
midst of them. Across the Valley a great telling view is presented of
the Royal Arches, North Dome, Indian Canyon, Three Brothers and El
Capitan, with the dome-paved basin of Yosemite Creek and Mount Hoffman
in the background. To the eastward, the Half Dome close beside you
looking higher and more wond