IN THE SIERRA NEVADA 



405 



On the evening before leaving Se- 

 quoia we unpacked our provisions and 

 cooking utensils and arranged them in 

 saddlebags. As we were going to sleep 

 under roof that night we rolled and 

 roped our bedding into shape for the 

 pack animals. We then piled everything 

 in order for morning and retired, leav- 

 ing orders to be called for breakfast at 4 

 o'clock. 



It was not yet sun-up when we had 

 finished breakfast, got our horses in 

 readiness, and took the trail out of Se- 

 quoia. During the forenoon we rode 

 through tall timber. The slope was gen- 

 tle and there was scarcely a hundred 

 yards of the trail over which we could 

 not have trotted our horses. Numerous 

 streams crossed our path, and these 

 were heavily bordered with flowering 

 shrubs. The dogwood blossom appeared 

 in great profusion. In the low flat places 

 were meadows, the grass upon which 

 was so tall that it brushed our feet. We 

 stopped for lunch in a very pretty little 



meadow known as Aspen Valley. It de- 

 rives its name from a thicket of aspen 

 trees at the upper end. 



There was scarcely any perceptible 

 change in the country until late in the 

 afternoon, when we began to approach 

 the granite. We camped that night at a 

 point known to mountaineers as White 

 Wolf. As there is not, and never was, 

 a human habitation here, it seems hard 

 to understand why there should have 

 been any necessity for naming it. Our 

 guide, however, explained that the 

 mountaineers had given names to dif- 

 ferent localities without any seeming 

 rhyme or reason. The distance covered 

 this day was 21 miles. 



On the following day we traveled 

 through granite mountains, reaching 

 Lake Tenaya, a beautiful body of water 

 out of which flows the stream which en- 

 ters Yosemite Valley at the west end 

 through the impassable Tenaya Canon. 

 This lake is entirely surrounded by 

 great mountains of granite. On the 



BREAKFAST IN WHITE CANYON 



A 20-POUND STRING 



