THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 



351 



From the Lyell Fork on to the floor of the Canyon of 

 the Merced River, the trail is well built and easily 

 negotiated. It reaches the River at the Junction with the 

 McClure Fork, at which point the trail forks, one branch 

 leading to the Yosemite Valley and the other leading a 

 few miles up the river to Washburn Lake. If fishing 

 grounds are one of the objectives, the Washburn Lake 

 Fork is by all means worth taking. 



The Lake lies in the bottom of a great granite canyon 

 protected from nearly all winds so that its smooth sur- 

 face looks like the polished facet of a sapphire. The 

 banks are sufficiently free of growth in places to make 

 fishing, even for the amateur, a delight by obviating the 

 necessity of climbing trees to release vagrant fish hooks. 



The trip down the Merced Canyon passes along Merced 

 Lake, another and larger sheet of water, climbs the 

 shoulder of the upper end of the Little Yosemite Valley, 

 skirts the base of the towering tops of Cloud's Rest 

 and Half Dome and enters the Valley by the way of 

 Ne\ada and Vernal Falls, alongside which the trail drops 

 through an altitude of over two thousand feet in about 

 a mile and a half. 



Photograpli by Mark Daniels. 



MERCED RIVER CANYON 



The view across the upper reaches of the canyon shows Mt. Clark, Gray 

 Peak and Red Peak towering between three and four thousand 

 leet above the river. While they are not as high as the peaks of 

 the main ridge, they present a most imposing spectacle from the 

 east side of the canyon. 



This circuit, properly taken, should occupy from six 

 to eight days in order that the scenery along the route 

 may be properly appreciated and when it is realized that 

 after such a trip only a very small portion of the Park 

 indeed has been seen, some conception of the magni- 

 tude of the area of the Yosemite National Park can be 

 oljtained. In addition to this trip, there is the circuit 

 which leads one over the Tuolumne Pass down into the 

 Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River, with a side trip to 

 the Mt. Lyell Glaciers and back to the Valley by the 



way of Tenaya Lake. If a fifteen or twenty-day trip is 

 wanted, there is the northeastern corner of the Park 

 and the Tiltill Mountain district away to the north of the 

 grand canyon of the Tuolumne and the Hetch Hetchy 

 Valley, where few people ever go. And there is the 

 circuit that skirts the upper rim of the grand Tuolumne 

 Canyon, the easy trip either by motor or horseback to 

 the Hetch Hetchy Valley, the motor or saddle-horse trip 

 to the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees and almost 

 innumerable others. 



Pliotocnath by Mark Daniels. 



TWO FAIR TOURISTS 



An unnamed lake at the foot of Buena Vista crest. Fortunately some 

 of the beauties of this park have escaped the fate in names that 

 befell "Rafferty Peak" and "Isberg Pass." What the future 

 holds is a matter of conjecture. 



The fact, however, that these trips necessitate the 

 employment of a pack train, cook ami horse wranglers 

 makes their cost prohibitive to many. As a result, only 

 an extremely small percentage of those whose foot- 

 steps lead them to the Yosemite National Park ever see 

 much more of the Park than the Yosemite Valley itself. 

 This condition of affairs has really been tantamount to 

 making two parks out of the Yosemite National Park, 

 one for the poor people, which is the Valley itself, and 

 the great hinterland of the Park, which is only for those 

 whose purses are well lined. The concessionaires, until 

 recently, have taken full advantage of this state of affairs, 

 and have dictated not only to the tourist, but to the 

 Government, as to who, when and how they would take 

 tourists into the remote regions of the Park. There 

 being no one in Washington who was thoroughly familiar 

 with conditions, it was a simple matter for the conces- 

 sionaires to make plausible excuses for lack of service, and 

 combinations were made amongst concessionaires to the 

 end that one should perform a service in one district 

 and another in another. 



Two years ago Secretary Lane took it upon himself 

 to investigate conditions and determine whether or not 

 something practical could be done in the way of open- 



