98 



Sierra Club Bulletin 



National authorities in co-operation, and the heavy grades along the por- 

 tion of the road just west of Crane Flat will be eliminated. $20,000 is be- 

 ing asked for the improvement of this road for next year. Congress is 

 also being asked for $110,000 to make the road between El Portal and 

 the Yosemite Valley a surfaced boulevard, with a width of twenty-eight 

 feet. If this amount is obtained, tourists will be landed in the Valley with 

 far greater comfort than before. The Department is also asking for 

 $4,000 for the construction of a trail to the Waterwheel Falls of the Tu- 

 olumne River, which will make these wonderful falls readily accessible 

 from Lake Tenaya. 



Concessions have been given to the Desmond Commissary Company 

 for a new hotel to be erected in the Valley at a cost of approximately 

 $150,000, and a new hotel at Glacier Point to cost approximately $35,000, 

 and the establishment of at least four chalet camps in the upper Park 

 country. One of these is to be located at Harden Lakes, from which 

 point a view of the superb Tuolumne Cafion can readily be obtainable; 

 another at Lake Tenaya, and one each at Lake Merced and in the Little 

 Yosemite Valley. These are to be followed in later seasons by the es- 

 tablishment of additional camps for the accommodation of tourists at 

 low rates. The Desmond Company will establish an auto service between 

 El Portal and the Valley, as well as on the Big Oak Flat and Tioga 

 roads. In fact, it is planned to maintain an auto service on the Tioga 

 Road as far as the Sierra Club camp at the Soda Spring in Tuolumne 

 Meadows. If plans under way are developed, the service will also be 

 maintained from Tuolumne Meadows by way of Mono Lake and Bridge- 

 port to Lake Tahoe. A good saddle and pack horse service will also be 

 maintained between the various camps established by the Desmond 

 Company. Camps Curry, Lost Arrow and Ahwanee in the Yosemite Val- 

 ley will be maintained as heretofore. 



Mr. Mark Daniels, for the past year general superintendent and 

 landscape engineer of National Parks, has given much personal work to 

 the development of plans for the new Yosemite Village, which will cen- 

 ter around the new hotel to be built under the shadow of Yosemite 

 Falls and directly across the river from the present Sentinel Hotel. Mr. 

 Daniels is deserving of much credit for the artistic work that he has 

 given in the development of his plan. 



I want to thank the officers of the Sierra Club, particularly your 

 president. Professor Joseph N. Le Conte, and your secretary, Mr. Wil- 

 liam E. Colby, for the assistance they have given me in working out the 

 varied problems of this Park. Their intimate acquaintance and knowl- 

 edge of the Valley have made their suggestions and recommendations 

 of great value. 



In Sequoia National Park little was done in the way of important 

 improvements during the past year, but for the next fiscal year the De- 

 partment is taking an important step in asking for an appropriation of 

 $50,000 to be expended by the Secretary of the Interior in the purchase 



