A1^ August Outing in Upper Merced Canon. 47 



canon visitors when served promptly decamped with the 

 viands for some storehouse elsewhere or a hungry brood 

 at home. Sometimes I felt that I had more company up 

 in the mountains than I had in the city, and that I had 

 come to the wrong place for the rest cure. 



I enjoyed three delicious fresh vegetable salads, and 

 eagerly devoured several mouthfuls of strawberries, black 

 raspberries, thimbleberries, elderberries, gooseberries, and 

 chokecherries. I saw many flowers that looked charm- 

 ingly sweet and pretty in their unexpected little colonies 

 amid discouraging surroundings — crimson pentstemons, 

 yellow snapdragons, red tigerlilies, black-eyed Susans, 

 purple primroses, white wood violets, pink and blue 

 morning-glories, etc. 



It was certainly a very interesting trip for an observing 

 city man, who is not consumed with ambition to climb 

 to the top of everything and who likes to commune 

 quietly with Nature alone and in his own way. 



Of course, the same facilities that permit a tramper to 

 follow the canon from Merced Lake to Yosemite Valley 

 permit the return trip. Animals could go and have gone 

 from Yosemite Valley nearly to the gorge at the eastern 

 end of Little Yosemite, and they could go from Merced 

 Lake to Clark Canon, but not between Clark Canon and 

 Little Yosemite gorge. A bridge in Lost Valley and a 

 little trail-building on both sides would open up the canon 

 to pack-animals beautifully, save the present steep climb 

 via Sunrise trail, and provide additional pictures of inter- 

 est for sightseeing wanderers and havens for campers. 

 Possibly, it would be better to keep the trail entirely on 

 the south side when passing Lost Valley and locate the 

 bridge or ford in Little Yosemite. 



It might then be possible to make the round trip on 

 horseback from Yosemite Valley (4,000 feet) to Merced 

 Lake (7,200 feet) and return in one day, with no more 

 difficulty than the round-trip is now made to Clouds Rest 

 (9,925 feet) and return on the same day. In the course 

 of the Club outing of 1909 to Tuolumne Meadows it 



