Bancroft's Tourist's Guide Yosemite Part 4

Another half mile, and the rocky walls close together, shut us in and bar our further progress. The canon narrows to a point, over whose right hand wall, close to the very angle of meeting, the same river, the main Merced, plunges its whole volume in the famous

Nevada Fall,

seven hundred feet high, seventy-five feet wide at the brink, and one hundred and thirty below. This fall is, in all respects, one of the grandest in the world. In height, in width, in purity and volume of water during the early summer, in graceful peculiarities and in grandeur of surrounding scenery, it is simply stupendous. Other falls, though few, surpa.s.s it in the single element of height, but in surrounding grandeur, in the harmony of beauty and magnificence, none equal this. None brings the visitor oftener to its foot, detains him with greater delight, or sends him away with more profound satisfaction.

The exact statement of the height of this fall is hindered by causes similar to those at the Vernal, viz: the constant and blinding spray around the bottom, and the consequent uncertainty as to the exact spot where the water strikes.

The rock beneath this fall is not vertical, but rather steeply inclined, having a slope of about eighty-five degrees through its upper half and not far from seventy-five degrees through its lower.

Hence in summer, when tourists usually see it, the diminished force of the current causes the water rather to slide down the slope, than to shoot out over and fall clear of it, as in the spring. Thus, from June to November the Nevada is more properly a chute or slide than a fall.

During this season the friction of the rock breaks the stream into a white froth; hence the name, Nevada, or Snowy Fall.

When the water is very low, the fittest thing to which one could liken it would be to myriads of white lace or gauze veils hung over the face of the cliff, waving and fluttering in the wind. A party of ladies originated this figure, and it occurred also to Mr. Bowles in his fine descriptions of Yosemite wonders.

As one stands in the canon below gazing at the Nevada, the Snowy Fall, away upon his left, about a third of a mile back from the brink of the northeast wall of the canon, rises

Mt. Broderick,

or the Cap of Liberty, whose general outline suggests its name. Its rounded summit lifts its smooth, weather-polished granite two thousand feet above the fall and nearly five thousand above the main valley. It bears upon its crown a single juniper of enormous diameter.

Away to the right of the canon, just peeping above the edge of the cliff, and nearly two miles south-southeast of the Nevada Fall, rises the steep, conical summit of the South Dome, or

Mt. Starr King,

reaching an estimated height of one mile above the valley. Next to the wonderful half-dome, this is the steepest and smoothest cone in the region. Indian name, See-wah-lam, meaning not known. Its exact height, like that of its great namesake, has never been satisfactorily settled.

Clambering back down this canon, depositing our oiled or rubber suits, and experiencing an immediate sense of relief and lightness, we retrace the trail up which we came, bear away to the right, that is, going nearly northwest, proceed nearly or quite a mile round the base of a lofty b.u.t.tress, and open the

Tenaya Canon,

stretching away northeast nearly in a continuous line with the main valley itself.

About one mile up this canon towers Yosemite's sheerest and loftiest isolated cliff, the

Half-Dome

itself. It is a bare crest of naked granite, four thousand seven hundred and forty feet high, cleft straight down in one vast vertical front on the Tenaya, or northwest side, while on the back, that is, toward the southeast, it swells off and rounds away with a dome-like sweep that utterly dwarfs the grandeur of a thousand St. Peters in one.

Following still on up the Tenaya Canon, nearly two miles beyond the dome, and a thousand feet higher, rises the

Clouds' Rest,

a granite ridge, long, bare and steep, having its axis parallel with that of the valley, and falling away along its southeastern slope into the rocky mountain wilderness of the High Sierras. This is one of the few points about the valley which the Geological Survey has not yet measured. They estimated its height one thousand feet above that of the Half Dome, which would make its summit ten thousand feet, or nearly two miles above the sea level.

Beyond this, little of note invites the traveler's delay, so we make our way northwesterly straight across this canon from the base of its southeasterly wall toward that of the opposite cliff. On the way, however,

Mirror Lake

arrests and enchants us. Surely water reflections were never more perfect. The Indian name Ke-ko-too-yem, Sleeping Water, was never more happily bestowed. Imagine a perfect water mirror nearly eight acres in extent, and of a temperament so calm and deep and philosophic that it devotes its whole life to the profoundest reflection. A mile of solid cliff above, a mile of seeming solid cliff beneath; for though the mind knows the lower to be only an image, the eye cannot, by simple sight alone, determine which is the solid original and which the shadowy reflection.

Twin mountains, base to base, here meet the astonished eye; One towers toward heaven in substance vast, One looms below in shadow cast, As grand, as perfect as its peer on high.

In early morning, when no breeze ripples the lake, its reflections are, indeed, marvelously life-like. So exactly is every line and point repeated that the photographic view has puzzled hundreds to tell which mountain is in the air and which is in the water. The spectator who takes the photogram in his hand for the first time often hesitates for several minutes before he can determine which side up the picture should be held. The depth of the lake is from eight to twenty feet.

One sufficiently vigorous and persevering may push on up the Tenaya creek till he finds the

Tenaya Lake,

over a mile long, snugly nestled in among the mountains. This lies beyond the usual limit of tourists' excursions, but well repays a visit.

Nearly a mile northwest of the lake, and about a third of a mile back from the edge of the cliff, the

North Dome

lifts its rounded granite bulk three thousand five hundred and seventy feet above the valley. It looks as if built of huge, concentric, overlapping, hemispherical domes, piled one upon another, and having their overlapping edges irregularly broken away. On the valley side, that is, toward the south and southeast, it is so steep that no human foot has ever climbed it. In the rear, however, that is, toward the north and west, it falls away in a vast ridge or spine, along which one can easily gain the very summit of the dome itself. The Indian name was To-coy-ah, meaning the shade of an Indian baby basket.

Pa.s.sing three quarters of a mile still down, we reach the angle or turn between the Tenaya canon and the valley proper. In this turn, in fact forming the angle, stands the

Washington Column,

a rounded, columnar rock tower, partially standing forth from the ab.u.t.ting cliff behind. This reaches the height of two thousand five hundred feet.

Immediately beyond this, large ma.s.ses of the huge concentric, overlapping plates, have cracked off, slipped away and fallen, leaving rough bas-relief arches several hundred yards long, and projecting some scores of feet, like rudely-drawn gigantic eyebrows. These are commonly called the

Royal Arches,

or the Arched Rocks, but the Indian name, Hun-to, "The Watching Eye,"

will better satisfy the poetical visitor, unless, indeed, his Masonic proclivities quite overpower his poetic appreciation, in which case he will undoubtedly prefer the former t.i.tle.

For the next mile and a half northwest nothing of special wonder for Yosemite detains us.

The relief is fitting and needful, not only that we may recover in some degree from the continued effect of the marvels already past, but, more especially, that we may rally in preparation for the most stupendous wonder of them all, the great

Yosemite Fall

itself. Here language ceases and art quite fails. No words nor paintings, not even the photogram itself, can reproduce one t.i.the of the grandeur here enthroned. A cataract from heaven to earth, plunging from the clouds of the sky to bury itself among the trees of the forest. The loftiest waterfall yet known upon the face of the globe.

Don't mention figures yet, please. When a man is overwhelmed with the sublime, don't plunge him into statistics. By and by, when we have cooled down to a safe pitch, we may condescend to hear the calm calculator project his inexorable mathematics into the very face of nature's sublimity and triumphantly tell us just _how_ great this surpa.s.sing wonder is. But after all his exactest calculations, his absolute measurements and his positive a.s.surances, one _feels_ how small the fraction of real greatness which figures can express or the intellect apprehend. A cataract half a mile high, setting its forehead against the stars and planting its feet at the base of the eternal hills. Gracefully swaying from side to side in rhythmical vibration, swelling into grandeur in earlier spring, and shrinking into beauty under the ardency of summer heat; towering far above all other cataracts, it calmly abides, the undisputed monarch of them all.