214 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



the summit, changing to the varied forms of cloudHke 

 drapery. Near the bottom the width of the fall has 

 increased from about twenty-five to a hundred feet. 

 Here it is composed of yet finer tissues, and is still 

 without a trace of disorder — air, water, and sunlight 

 woven into stuff that spirits might wear. 



So fine a fall might well seem sufficient to glorify 

 any valley; but here as in Yosemite Nature seems in 

 no wise moderate, for a short distance to the eastward of 

 Tueeulala booms and thunders the great Hetch-Hetchy 

 fall, Wapama, so near that you have both of them in 

 full view from the same standpoint. It is the counter- 

 part of the Yosemite Fall, but has a much greater volume 

 of water, is about 1,700 feet in height, and appears to 

 be nearly vertical though considerably inclined, and is 

 dashed into huge outbounding bosses of foam on the 

 projecting shelves and knobs of its jagged gorge. No 

 two falls could be more unlike — Tueeulala out in the 

 open sunshine descending Hke thistledown; Wapama in 

 a jagged shadowy gorge roaring and thundering, pound- 

 ing its way with the weight and energy of an avalanche. 

 Besides this glorious pair there is a broad massive fall 

 on the main river a short distance above the head of 

 the valley. Its position is something like that of the 

 Vernal in Yosemite, and its roar as it plunges into a 

 surging trout-pool may be heard a long way, though 

 it is only about twenty feet high. There is also a chain 

 of magnificent cascades at the head of the valley on a 

 stream that comes in from the northeast, mostly silvery 

 plumes, like the one between the Vernal and Nevada 

 falls of Yosemite, half-sliding, half-leaping on bare 

 glacier-polished granite, covered with crisp clashing 

 spray into which the sunbeams pour with glorious effect. 

 And besides all these a few small streams come over the 

 walls here and there, leaping from ledge to ledge with 

 birdlike song and watering many a hidden cliff-garden 

 and fernery,, but they are too unshowy to be noticed 

 in so grand a place. 



