Notes and Correspondence 



355 



many of them, if ungently handled, availed of swift currents to thresh 

 themselves free. You must fish a river to appreciate it. Standing on its 

 edges, leaping from rock to rock, slipping thigh deep at times, wading 

 recklessly to reach some pool or eddy of special promise, searching the 

 rapids, peering under the alders, testing the pools; that's the way to 

 make friends with a river. You study its moods and its ways as those 

 of a mettlesome horse. And after a while its spirit seeps through and 

 finds your soul. Its personality unveils, A sweet friendliness unites 

 you, a sense of mutual understanding. There follows the completest 

 detachment that I know. Years and the worries disappear. You and 

 the river dream away the unnoted hours. 



The approach to Granite Pass en route from the Tehipite Valley to 

 the Kings River Canon was nothing short of magnificent. We entered 

 a superb cirque studded with lakelets. It was a noble setting. We 

 could see the pass ahead of us on a fine snow-crowned bench. We as- 

 cended the bench and found ourselves, not in the pass, but in the en- 

 trance to another cirque, also lake-studded, a loftier, nobler cirque en- 

 circling the one below. 



But surely we were there. Those inspiring snow - daubed heights 

 whose sharply serrated edges cut sharply into the sky certainly marked 

 the supreme summit. Our winding trail up sharp rocky ascents pointed 

 straight to the shelf which must be our pass. An hour's toil would carry 

 us over. The hour passed and the crossing of the shelf disclosed, not 

 the glowing valley of the South Fork across the pass, but still a vaster, 

 nobler cirque, sublime in Arctic glory ! 



How the vast glaciers that cut these titanic carvings must have swirled 

 among these huge concentric walls, pouring over this shelf and that, pil- 

 ing together around these uplifting granite peaks, concentrating com- 

 bined effort upon this unyielding mass and that, and, beaten back, pour- 

 ing down the tortuous main channel with rendings and tearings unimag- 

 inable ! Granite Pass is astonishing! We saw no less than four of 

 these vast concentric cirques, through three of which we passed. And 

 the Geological Survey map discloses a tributary basin to the east in- 

 closing a group of large volcanic lakes and doubtless other vast cirque- 

 like chambers. We took photographs, but knew them vain. 



A long, dusty descent of Copper Creek, which McCormick correctly 

 diagnosed as something fierce, brought us, near day's end, into the ex- 

 quisite valley of the South Fork of the Kings River — the Kings River 

 Canon, Still another Yosemite ! 



It is not so easy to differentiate the two canons of the Kings. They 

 are similar and yet very different. Perhaps the difference lies chiefly in 

 degree. Both lie east and west, with enormous rocky bluffs rising on 

 either side of rivers of quite extraordinary beauty. Both present carved 

 and castellated walls of exceptional boldness of design. Both are heavily 

 and magnificently wooded, the forests reaching up sharp slopes on either 

 side. Both possess to a marked degree the quality that lifts them above 



