42 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



various packages, as I did not dare to venture all my 

 belongings on a single leap with those two hungry "pot 

 holes" lashing themselves into foaming eddies so near. The 

 possibility of catching a cramp in one of my cold journeys 

 across the lower swirling pool was always in view, while 

 jumping back across the roaring stream seven feet hori- 

 zontally and three feet vertically, with little or no "run," 

 was beyond my skill. If there had been two in the party, 

 one to pitch and one to catch, this would have been an 

 easy passageway. 



I tried to bridge this bad link in the trail and found a 

 suitable drift log a few hundred yards away, but it 

 weighed about two hundred pounds, and I soon tired of 

 the effort of carr}dng it on the uncertain footing. Then I 

 sought the river's help, but the log promptly lodged 

 among the boulders of the rapids. I freed it once at 

 considerable risk when it stuck at the brink of a waterfall 

 entirely inaccessible to me. 



The other trail on the south side, looking like a way 

 that a bear or deer would choose, after a waist-high ford 

 through rapids at the outlet of Lost Valley, goes high up 

 over the spur through loose granite slabs and considerable 

 brush. I later found that these south outlets would both 

 have led me safely into Little Yosemite, but I followed 

 neither. 



On the north side I found two ways through, one the 

 better and the best of the four. Some pioneer had marked 

 out a route by recent "due" rocks through the talus and 

 brush high up near the line dividing the foot of the dome 

 from the brush. This way is feasible by an expenditure 

 of some lost cuticle, considerable ruined raiment, rather 

 much ill-temper, and a superfluity of exertion, and I 

 followed it ; but would not do so again, as it obliges one 

 to fight two long stretches of virgin brush about shoulder 

 high, besides some large boulders. 



The trail that I would advise would lead from Lost 

 Valley along the stepping-stones in the bed of the shallow 

 branch of the river on the north side of the island to 



