Down Tenaya Canon. 



153 



DOWN TENAYA CANON 

 By S. L. Foster. 



When vacation time came around this year the call of 

 the Sierras led the writer off for another trip among their 

 charms and delights. This time the trail went up from 

 Yosemite Valley through the forests, the snow plants, the 

 Mariposa tulips, and the little Alpine lilies of Indian 

 Canon, through the mountain gardens and lingering 

 snows of Snow Flat, May Lake and the flanks of Mount 

 Hoffman to the top of this peak near the center of the 

 great Yosemite National Park and overlooking almost the 

 whole of it, returning to the valley down the Tenaya 

 Canon via Tenaya Lake. 



In response to a preliminary letter of inquiry a Yosemite 

 Valley guide stated that there was a "straight, impassable 

 wall a thousand or fifteen hundred feet high" in Tenaya 

 Canon. He also reported trout in the creek. The first 

 bit of information was optimistically discounted and the 

 second gladly received. A search through the files of the 

 Sierra Club Bulletin revealed an article published in 

 February, 1901, entitled "The Descent of the Tenaya 

 Canon," by George Gibbs. 



This article states that Mr. Muir is reported to have 

 made this trip and that Mr. Galen Clark, the Guardian of 

 the Valley in 1894, reported it made by two other men. 

 When the author reached Yosemite Valley at the begin- 

 ning of the trip he gained little information about Tenaya 

 Canon, except that three men with one hundred and fifty 

 feet of rope had made the trip down some years ago and. 

 that two Indians had started to make the trip up. From: 

 these facts it was decided that the trip was feasible and 

 safe. Ten men had made the trip, and no fatalities had 

 been reported. Further, it seemed clear that there must 

 be a practicable trail down the canon, as the deer and 

 bears come down and they do not carry ropes. 



