248 



Sierra Club Bulletin 



El Portal was hot. After taking luncheon in the hotel, we 

 packed our civic dress away in suit cases, wondering what 

 it would look like after a month of such confinement, and 

 packed ourselves into automobile busses for the seventeen- 

 mile journey along the cliff and through the forests to Yo- 

 semite village and our camp beyond. It continued to be 

 hot. The leather on the back of the seats was too heated 

 to be touched by bare hands. But the world was beauti- 

 ful. Below us, over its rocks, with fierce impetuosity, 

 foamed the Merced river, which we were to see through 

 much of our adventuring in so many moods and guises, even 

 then still eloquent of the wild loveliness of Bridal Veil, 

 the stormy power of Nevada, the crash of mountain catar- 

 act, and the cold purity of the melting snow of its earlier 

 courses. Then came shady forests, and icy springs from 

 which to drink, and at last the vision of El Capitan, Bridal 

 Veil, and Yosemite Falls, all as overwhelmingly beautiful 

 to those who see them for the first time as if they had 

 never been the theme of countless descriptions and picture 

 postals : as freshly marvelous to those who view them the 

 hundredth time as at first. 



Our Sierra Club Camp was on the north bank of the 

 river, .wide- here and smooth of surface, green, swirling, 

 and swift. A great flag showed gorgeous above it, stretched 

 from the Commissary to the opposite shore. Gay Japanese 

 lanterns swung among the trees. Here day succeeded day, 

 and daily the party grew larger. The active prepared for 

 the "high trip" by climbs to Glacier Point, North Dome, 

 Eagle Peak, and Clouds' Rest ; and the less active prepared, 

 too, by walking as far as Happy Isles and by sleeping on 

 the ground at night. 



Ornithological wonders abounded in our midst. A Sierra 

 hermit thrush so far forgot her name as to live among a 

 group of five Siern ns, placidly brooding her eggs over 

 the bed of one. baby black-headed grosbeak regularly 

 hopped into another camp group for a matutinal ration of 

 cheese. A humming bird came along on another day 

 and, spying a bri ^ht bandana handkerchief scattered with 

 triple sprigs of r.red and black flowers, darted hopefully 

 toward it. Into each flower of each sprig he industriously 



