Sierra Club Bulletin. 



Vol. VII. San Francisco, June, 1909. No. 2 



CAMPING ABOVE THE YOSEMITE— A SUMMER 

 OUTING WITH THE SIERRA CLUB.* 



By Harriet Monroe. 



When the State of California, in March, 1905, deeded 

 back to the nation the valley wonderful which she had 

 long held in trust, the Yosemite National Park absorbed 

 the little State park and became a unit. Eleven hundred 

 square miles of white granite mountains and green val- 

 leys, of giant forests and clear lakes and rushing waters, 

 are now the property of the nation, to be used as a 

 pleasure-ground forever. In the heart of the Sierras the 

 valley lies, so remote and the greater part of it so inac- 

 cessible, that the people in general have no conception 

 of the treasure they possess. 



One recent summer the California Sierra Club gave 

 its members and a few of its friends the opportunity of 

 exploring this wilderness. Every year these mountain- 

 eers take a month in the open, far beyond the reach of 

 inns and stages ; and this Yosemite year it was my happy 

 fortune to follow — with one hundred and forty of its 

 campers, attended by packers and cooks and a long train 

 of heavily loaded pack-animals — the rocky trails of the 

 National domain. Park we scarcely ventured to call it, 

 for the Government has not yet even made a road or 

 built a lodge, and he who climbs out of and beyond the 

 Valley must carry his bed and provisions with him. 



It was a fine morning late in June when my friend of 

 the Club and I took the six-horse Yosemite stage from 

 Merced, on the Santa Fe Railroad, for that beautiful, 



* Copyright, 1909, by Putnam's Monthly Company. All rights reserved. 

 Reprinted by courtesy of Putnam's Magazine. 



