An August Outing in Upper Merced Canon. 45 



prove a popular substitute for the campers when driven 

 out of the fine camping-grounds at Lake Eleanor and in 

 Hetch-Hetchy Valley. The scenery, pasturage, and fish- 

 ing in the canon are all attractive, the accessibility only is 

 less. 



An unburdened, ambitious athlete, ready to wade, swim, 

 or jump, could make the trip from Merced Lake to the 

 Yosemite Valley via the canon in one day easily, as it is 

 practically downhill all the way.* In this short trip, count- 

 ing the charms of Yosemite, he would feast his eyes on 

 mountain views of water, rock, and forest effects the 

 equal of which can probably not be found in any other 

 one day's course in the park, even in the royal Tuolumne 

 Canon trip itself. 



I had a guide and three animals carry me and my 

 twenty-five-pound ten-day outfit of bed and knapsack 

 from Yosemite Valley up to the top of the ridge on the 

 trail leading down into the Merced Canon near Sunrise 

 Mountain at about 9,100 feet elevation. 



From here I spent nine days alone, loafing, fishing, 

 reconnoitering, etc., down to the stage again in Yosemite 

 Valley, and I had a delightfully comfortable, exhilarating, 

 restful time, thrilling with the joy of living in that suc- 

 cession of perfect California Sierra sunny days and 

 moonlit nights among such congenial and harmonious 

 surroundings. 



I saw five deer, numerous coveys of mountain quail, 

 one grouse, and two coyotes, but no bears, mountain 

 lions, or rattlesnakes, and I readily caught the few trout 

 that I wanted to complete my Sierra menu. I experi- 

 enced more pretty touches of Nature than my space 

 permits me to describe. 



One morning at Echo Creek at daybreak I rose on my 

 elbow in my sleeping-bag and in choice and emphatic 

 English told Mr. Gray Squirrel what I thought of 

 him for helping himself to my cold corn-meal mush, 



* The writer of the article of the Bulletin of June, 1905, states that 

 his trip was made in July, 1904, a month earlier than the present writer's; 

 so that the stage of the water might account for the different conclusions. 

 He adds that he was not so ready at swimming in the Merced River. 

 — Editor. 



