102 



Sierra Club Bulletin 



Divide — the Snowy Range in name and fact. Two hundred lakes grace 

 this rocky paradise, and bear and bighorn inhabit its fastnesses. It has 

 an area of 350 square miles and lies only 70 miles from Denver. Many 

 hotels lie at the feet of these mountains and three railroads skirt their 

 sides. 



This is Colorado's second national park, the other being Mesa Verde, 

 where this department, with the assistance of Dr. Jesse Walter Fewkes, 

 of the Smithsonian Institution, has uncovered during the last summer 

 prehistoric ruins of unprecedented scientific interest. 



Oregon has but recently completed a great highway along the Colum- 

 bia River. This should be connected by road with Mount Hood and a 

 portion of the present forest reserve converted into a park. The limits 

 of Sequoia Park, in California, the home of the great redwoods, should 

 be so extended as to include the Kern River Canon, a most practicable 

 project today, but tomorrow may be too late because of the lumber in- 

 terests. The Grand Canon is not yet part of the park system, although 

 as part of a national forest it comes under the control of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, 



There is no reason why this Nation should not make its public health 

 and scenic domain as available to all its citizens as Switzerland and 

 Italy make theirs. The aim is to open them thoroughly by road and trail 

 and give access and accommodation to every degree of income. In this 

 belief an effort has been made this year as never before to outfit the 

 parks with new hotels which should make the visitor desire to linger 

 rather than hasten on his journey. One hotel was built on Lake Mc- 

 Dermott, in Glacier Park, one is to be built immediately on the shoulder 

 of Mount Rainier, in Paradise Valley, another in the valley of the Yose- 

 mite, with an annex high overhead on Glacier Point, while more mod- 

 est chalets are to be dotted about in the obscurer spots to make access- 

 ible the rarer beauties of the inner Yosemite, For with the new Tioga 

 road, which, through the generosity of Mr. Stephen T, Mather and a 

 few others, the Government has acquired, there is to be revealed a new 

 Yosemite, which only John Muir and others of similar bent have seen. 

 This is a Yosemite far different from the quiet, incomparable valley. It 

 is a land of forests, snow and glaciers. From Mount Lyell one looks, 

 as from an island, upon a tumbled sea of snowy peaks. Its lakes, many 

 of which have never been fished, are alive with trout. And through it 

 foams the Tuolumne River, which in a mile drops a mile, a water spec- 

 tacle destined to world celebrity. Meeting obstructions in its slanting 

 rush, the water now and again rises nearly perpendicularly, forming 

 upright foaming arcs sometimes 50 feet in height. These "water wheels," 

 a dozen or more in number, will be accessible next summer by a trail to 

 be built when the snow melts in June. 



While as the years have passed we have been modestly developing the 

 superb scenic possibilities of the Yellowstone, nature has made of it the 

 largest and most populous game preserve in the Western Hemisphere. 

 Its great size, its altitude, its vast wilderness, its plentiful waters, its fa- 



