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Sierra Club Bulletin. 



Then a hotel concession should be granted, including a 

 series of way-stations in the greater park, as Tuolumne 

 Meadows, Hetch-Hetchy Valley, the base of Mount Lyell, 

 Lake Tenaya, Lake Eleanor, and many other points. 



Also the Government should say a resolute "No" to all 

 predatory schemes, however plausible. Its recent weak 

 acquiescence in the plan of the San Francisco Board of 

 Supervisors, who wish to convert the Hetch-Hetchy Val- 

 ley into a reservoir, sets a vicious precedent and should 

 be revoked. The concession is wholly unnecessary, since 

 an adequate supply of the coveted Sierra water could be 

 obtained elsewhere at a slight increase of cost; and if it 

 is fulfilled, a Httle garden of paradise, the focal point 

 of many trails, and the jewel-casket of the upper park, 

 will be destroyed forever. 



Something will be lost, no doubt, when many pilgrims 

 follow the mountain trails — when this wilderness, like 

 Switzerland, is smoothed and carved for the foot of man 

 and dotted with lodges for his comfort. It must be, 

 and on the whole it is best; but the facile tourists of the 

 future will be less happy than we adventurers, who found 

 nature virgin and inviolate, and braved her beauty and 

 terror in the mood and manner of the pioneers. 



A week in the Valley initiated us. We grew accus- 

 tomed to nights in a sleeping-bag, with only tree-tops be- 

 tween us and the stars ; to days of climbing up and down 

 the Valley trails, and tramping back and forth along the 

 dusty road. We got acquainted with new friends in the 

 Club, and with their open-hearted, free-spirited way of 

 taking everything for granted and making light of dis- 

 comforts and accidents. We bathed in the icy river at 

 sunrise, and squirmed into our clothes, there in the 

 women's camp, behind any improvised curtain we could 

 rig up out of a cloak or blanket fastened to the trees. 

 We passed "down the line" for breakfast beside the long 

 plank tables of the commissary department, getting our 

 granite-ware plates from the pile, then tin spoons and 

 cups and steel knives and forks from boxes, and lastly 



