Notes and Correspondence 



353 



mental vision perhaps in more stupendous relief than any other feature. 

 At this time I was drawing my knowledge from books and men ; as yet 

 I had visited no national parks ; and the men were enthusiasts. 



Almost from the first I learned of the great country between Yosemite 

 and Sequoia, which ought to be a national park some day. In fact that 

 is what I called it, the Ought-to-be-Sequoia, before the name Greater 

 Sequoia was devised. Before I knew anything definite about any other 

 valley in our national parks besides the Yosemite Valley, I was familiar 

 with the fact that the Kings River Canon and the Tehipite Valley were, 

 next to Yosemite, the grandest valleys on this continent. My teacher 

 was Robert Bradford Marshall, Chief Geographer of the United States 

 Geological Survey, and chief lover of national parks. His splendid en- 

 thusiasm kindled the fires in me. 



Few whom I had then met had yet seen these valleys, and few I have 

 met since have seen them. They are almost unknown today outside of 

 California, and little known there. Not even Muir, so far as I know, 

 described them, though I have found various references to both in his 

 writings. Yet they are destined to become celebrated next to Yosemite's 

 incomparable valley. I expect to see the day when the three shall in- 

 evitably be mentioned together. 



Both originate in the everlasting snows of the Sierra summits. The 

 Middle Fork and the South Fork of the Kings River, respectively, have 

 carved them from the living granite. Each lies east and west, a short day's 

 journey, as the trail winds, apart. It was my great fortune to see both 

 last summer, and I can best picture them by reading brief extracts from 

 a record of that trip. (Reads:) 



Time will not dim our memory of Tehipite or the august valley or the 

 leaping, singing river as we saw them on that charmed day. Well short 

 of Yosemite, in the kind of beauty that startles and bewilders, the Tehi- 

 pite Valley nevertheless far excels it in bigness and power and majesty. 

 Lookout Point, a couple of miles south, afforded our first sensation. 

 Here the rising trail emerged upon a broken mass of rock standing well 

 out over the head of the cafion and 3000 feet above it, disclosing Tehipite 

 Dome iri full relief. It is one of the great views, in fact it is one of the 

 very greatest of all our views, and by far the grandest valley view I have 

 looked upon, for the rim view into Yosemite by comparison is not so 

 grand as it is beautiful. The canon revealed itself to the east as far as 

 Mount Woodworth, its lofty diversified walls lifting precipitously from 

 the heavy forests of the floor and sides, and, from our high viewpoint, 

 yielding to still greater heights above. Enormous cliffs abutted, Yosemi- 

 telike, at intervals. South of us, directly across the canon, rose the 

 strenuous heights of the Monarch Divide, Mount Harrington towering 

 1000 feet higher above the valley floor than Clouds Rest above the 

 Yosemite. 



Down the slopes of the Monarch Divide, seemingly from its turreted 

 summits, cascaded many frothing streams. Happy Gap, the Eagle Peaks 



