surpass those of any
other canyon in the Sierra. The most showy and interesting of them are
mostly in the upper part of the canyon, above the point of entrance of
Cathedral Creek and Hoffman Creek. For miles the river is one wild,
exulting, on-rushing mass of snowy purple bloom, spreading over glacial
waves of granite without any definite channel, gliding in magnificent
silver plumes, dashing and foaming through huge boulder-dams, leaping
high into the air in wheel-like whirls, displaying glorious enthusiasm,
tossing from side to side, doubling, glinting, singing in exuberance of
mountain energy.

Every one who is anything of a mountaineer should go on through the
entire length of the canyon, coming out by Hetch Hetchy. There is not
a dull step all the way. With wide variations, it is a Yosemite Valley
from end to end.

Besides these main, far-reaching, much-seeing excursions from the main
central camp, there are numberless, lovely little saunters and scrambles
and a dozen or so not so very little. Among the best of these are to
Lambert and Fair View Domes; to the topmost spires of Cathedral Peak,
and to those of the North Church, around the base of which you pass
on your way to Mount Conness; to one of the very loveliest of the
glacier-meadows imbedded in the pine woods about three miles north of
the Soda Springs, where forty-two years ago I spent six weeks. It trends
east and west, and you can find it easily by going past the base of
Lambert's Dome to Dog Lake and thence up northward through the woods
about a mile or so; to the shining rock-waves full of ice-burnished,
feldspar crystals at the foot of the meadows; to Lake Tenaya; and, last
but not least, a rather long and very hearty scramble down by the end of
the meadow along the Tioga road toward Lake Tenaya to the crossing of
Cathedral Creek, where you turn off and trace the creek down to its
confluence with the Tuolumne. This is a genuine scramble much of the way
but one of the most wonderfully telling in its glacial rock-forms and
inscriptions.

If you stop and fish at every tempting lake and stream you come to, a
whole month, or even two months, will not be too long for this grand
High Sierra excursion. My own Sierra trip was ten years long.

Other Trips From The Valley

Short carriage trips are usually made in the early morning to Mirror
Lake to see its wonderful reflections of the Half Dome and Mount
Watkins; and in the afternoon many ride down the V