An August Outing in Upper Merced Canon. 43 



the heavy talus at the end of the valley. Through or 

 around this first obstruction the way is easy, over piles 

 of drift-wood to the stones at the edge of the river 

 again and along to a second wall of enormous granite 

 blocks. Here the pioneer has "due" rocked his trail 

 high up through the brush, as explained, but I found by 

 moving a few boulders I could contrive a passage under 

 the great rocks about three or four feet high by six or 

 eight feet wide, easily passable on hands and knees and 

 leading back to the river again at the base of a triple 

 falls, thus avoiding practically all the brush and talus 

 gymnastics and expletives. From this point, by making 

 wise use of the crevices in the granite and walking 

 slowly and cautiously on the dry moss-covered and de- 

 composed rock surfaces, one can rapidly work one's way 

 down to a view of the jump passage referred to and to 

 the entrance to the gorge. 



Leaving the gorge, one can ascend the spur by the 

 same careful tactics to meet the pioneer's ''due" rocks 

 which lead safely and quickly down alongside another 

 magnificent "silver apron" and "emerald pool" into Little 

 Yosemite. There is a climb here of about fifty feet, as 

 against five hundred feet, as I remember it, at Muir 

 Gorge in the Tuolumne Canon. 



Part way down the Little Yosemite a third long, wide 

 "silver apron" is met, any one of the three far surpassing 

 in extent and beauty the one in Yosemite Valley proper. 



From Merced Lake to Little Yosemite the river makes 

 an almost continuous succession of "silver aprons," rapids, 

 cascades, "staircase falls," "pot holes," etc., as it rushes 

 along in its deep glacier-worn bed. It is guarded by 

 lofty granite domes on either side, rising to Clark Moun- 

 tain, 11,500 feet, near by, and relieved by pretty groves 

 of quivering aspens and pines. 



If any one should find difficulty from unwillingness or 

 conditions in the outlined passage from Lost Valley to 

 Little Yosemite, it is only a 400- or 500-foot climb up 

 the north sloping brush-covered wall of the cafion. A 



