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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r r Coverr r

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• Title and front matterr
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• Table of Contentsr
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• r 1. Discovering Yosemite for Yourselfr
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• r 2. Highlights of the Yosemite Storyr
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  • r 1. The Indians of Ahwahnee and the Medicine Man’s Prophecyr
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  • r 2. Discovery of the Yosemiter
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  • r 3. Return of the Mariposa Battalion and Death of Tenayar
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  • r 4. Enter the Touristr
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  • r 5. Stage Coaches and Banditsr
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  • r 6. Old-Timers and Pioneersr
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• r 3. In the Beginningr
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• r 4. Making a National Parkr
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• r 5. Big and Little Trees of Yosemiter
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• r 6. Travelling the Trailsr
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• r 7. Indian Legendsr
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About the Author

r Katherine Ames was born April 8, 1895 in Michigan.r She married Frank J. Taylor June 30, 1919r and they had 3 sons.r Katherine Ames Taylor wrote books for H. S. Crocker Co.,r which include:r

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• r r Lights and Shadows of Yosemite (1926). Yosemite Indian folklore and photographs by Ansel Adams, George E. Stone, Bert Studio, Charles Hiller, F. J. Taylor, and others. Reprinted 2004.
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• Los Angeles Tripbook (1928). Sightseeing guide
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• Romance of Stanford (1927). Camera studies by George E. Stone
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r Her husband Frank J. Taylor was a newspaper reporter and author.r He was born October 8, 1894 in South Dakota.r His photographs appeared in her 1926 book.r Frank J. Taylor also wrote The Yosemite Trip Book (1929, 1938),r co-wrote Oh Ranger! with NPS Director Horace Albright in 1929,r and also wrote several other books, mostly travel and history,r and magazine articles.r During World Wars I and II he was a war correspondent.r He died October 23, 1972.r His biography appears in Gale’s Contemporary Authors.r

r Katherine Ames Taylor died July 5, 1979 in Santa Clara Co., California,r but was residing at Arcade, Sacramento Co., California at her death.r

Bibliographical Information

r Katherine Ames Taylor (1895-1979),r Yosemite Tales and Trailsr (H. S. Crocker Co., Inc., 1934),r Photographs by Ansel Adams (1902-1984).r Copyright 1934 by Katherine Ames Taylor.r LCCN 35030043.r 5+78 pages, illustrated, 28 cm.r Bound in green cloth-covered board.r Library of Congress call number F868.Y6 T26.r

r Stanford University Press published a second, expanded edition of this book,r renamed Yosemite Trails and Tales, in 1948.r The copyright for the latter edition, but not the first, was renewedr (in 1976).r

r Converted to HTML by Dan Anderson, November 2007,r from a copy at UCSD.r These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose,r provided this notice is left intact.r
r     —Dan Anderson, www.yosemite.ca.usr

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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

r YOSEMITEr
r Tales and Trailsr

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r After the storm Yosemite Valley emergesr r in its rarest mood, flooded with lights andr r shadows and fleeting fragments of rainbowsr r

r YOSEMITEr
r Tales and Trailsr

r BYr
r KATHERINE AMES TAYLORr

r  r

r SAN FRANCISCOr
r H. S. CROCKER CO., INC.r
r 1934r

r COPYRIGHT 1934 BYr
r KATHERINE AMES TAYLORr

r ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHSr
r BYr
r r ANSEL ADAMSr r
r SAN FRANCISCOr

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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

r YOSEMITEr
r Tales and Trailsr
r r

r TABLE OF CONTENTSr
r r

Chapter One

r r DISCOVERING YOSEMITE FOR YOURSELFr

Chapter Two

r r HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YOSEMITE STORYr r
r r 1. The Indians of Ahwahnee and the Medicine Man’s Prophecyr r
r r 2. Discovery of Yosemiter r
r r 3. Return of the Mariposa Battalion and Death of Tenayar r
r r 4. Enter the Touristr r
r r 5. Stage-Coaches and Banditsr r
r r 6. Old-Timers and Pioneersr r

Chapter Three

r r IN THE BEGINNINGr r

Chapter Four

r r MAKING A NATIONAL PARKr r

Chapter Five

r r BIG AND LITTLE TREES OF YOSEMITEr r

Chapter Six

r r TRAVELING THE TRAILSr r

Chapter Seven

r r INDIAN LEGENDSr r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r Against a sky of cobalt blue,r r Sentinel Rock raises its turretsr r above a world of dazzling whiter r

r WHY CLIMB A MOUNTAIN?r
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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r El Capitan, the Chief, guardsr r the entrance to Yosemite Valleyr r

r CHAPTER ONEr
r DISCOVERING YOSEMITE FOR YOURSELF

r IF THERE is anything of the discoverer in you, by all means go to Yosemite!r For there, in the heart of the Sierras, straddling the top of the world, lies ar land of sky and water, green forests and granite domes, waiting for you tor discover it.r

r No matter, of course, how many have preceded you. No matter that almost ar century has passed since the first white man looked down into the depths of thatr valley. Yosemite, like the Grand Canyon, happens individually to everyone.r

r So buckle on your seven-league boots and be off to the largest single mountainr in the world, the Sierra Nevada, one long granite block which piles its peaksr four hundred and fifty miles along the eastern boundary of California. In itsr western flank are tucked two of the great National Parks of the West—Sequoiar and Yosemite—all but lost in the magnitude of this mountain, towering so highr that even the rain-clouds cannot clear its crests. Greedily the western slopesr absorb all the rain, clothing themselves handsomely in forests of fir and pine,r while over the ridge to the east lies the parched desert of Mono.r

r Yosemite, you will discover, is one vast land of such opposites and contrasts.r When Nature carved a granite mountain a mile high, at its base she hid wildr strawberries and wood-violets. On her heights she planted pigmy pines, clingingr like matted moss to the wind-swept cliffs, while in her valleys grow the giantr Sequoias, beneath whose lowest branches a cathedral could stand. With her rightr hand she traced the course of a clear mountain stream, with her left a bubblingr soda spring. Humming-birds and eagles soar in this Park, and over her wallsr water and fire fall!r

r Even the climate plays tricks in Yosemite. Contrary to the usual laws ofr Nature the north side of the Valley is the warm and sunny side, and plants andr flowers thrive there which are usually found far to the south. Under the southernr wall it is cool and shady, because of the deep shadows cast by the cliffs, andr naturalists were puzzled to find flowers there which ordinarily grew at a muchr higher altitude. Taking their cue from the flora, even the people of Yosemiter r r have transplanted themselves, moving their old village with its administrationr offices from a southern to a northern exposure that they might have sun in winter!r

r Within the boundaries of the Park, with an elevation ranging from 3,500 feetr to 10,000, you can generally find two seasons at a time. When the oaks arer budding in the Valley you can still ski in the High Sierras; when it is summerr below, up above the aspens have turned to gold, and dogwood flickers like ar flame along the river’s edge. Calendar months mean little where you can stepr from one season to another as you would cross a state boundary line.r

r And Yosemite is practically a state within a state. About the size of Rhoder Island, it has its own administrators who determine its policies. Its capital isr Yosemite Valley. Few realize yet, however, that the Valley comprises but eightr square miles out of a grand total of one thousand one hundred and twenty-six,r leaving something like one thousand one hundred and eighteen square milesr still to discover.r

r Yet without all the rest of the Park the Valley would always remain a rarer bargain in scenery. Architecturally it is a masterpiece of beauty and balance.r No builder could improve upon it, with El Capitan commanding one end of ther Valley and Half Dome the other. An inner and an outer guard, placed with anr eye for the greatest effectiveness of either. Rising from flat, open meadows, ther strength and massiveness of The Chief is emphasized, while Half Dome is sor placed that it catches the afterglow of the setting sun on its dome each day liker a valedictory blessing.r

r Even the waterfalls are nicely distributed. With great impartiality Bridalr Veil is festooned over one wall, while Yosemite crashes over another. On ther third, and perhaps because there is no fourth wall, Vernal and Nevada are piledr capriciously one above the other in a grand gesture, and a scenic climax. To ar Californian, to whom water is the breath of life, such prodigality seems almostr vulgar!r

r Each has its own beauty and its own charms, but somehow the glory ofr Yosemite Falls dominates all the others. Born of snow-fields, high in the shadowr of Mount Hoffman, it idles its way over glacial rock, through fragrant forests forr r r eighteen miles, to the very brink of its great plunge. Gathering itself togetherr in a deep cut just above the rim of the Valley, it leaps with amazing suddennessr 1,430 feet in the upper falls. That is two hundred feet more than the height of ther tallest building in the world, the Empire State Building of New York. Anr elevator going up the face of the cliff would travel more than one hundred andr two stories paralleling the upper falls alone.r

r In a series of foaming cascades, hidden for the most part, it drops anotherr six hundred feet before making its final tumble of 320 feet in the lower falls.r Its Big Moment over, it slips unobtrusively away across the floor of the Valleyr to lose itself in the Merced River, and to end, eventually and prosaically, byr watering the prune and pear orchards of the San Joaquin Valley. The booming ofr these falls fills every hour of the day and night and every day and night of ther early season, setting the tempo for the whole Yosemite symphony.r

r Robert Sterling Yard tells of a woman tourist he encountered once standingr transfixed at the foot of Yosemite Falls. She turned and asked him if it were truer that these were the highest falls in the world. He assured her that they were. Thenr he called her attention to the apparent deliberateness of the water’s fall, a trick ofr the senses resulting from failure to realize height and distance. For everythingr is so exaggerated in Yosemite nothing seems exaggerated at all. Unimpressed,r she mused again:r

r “To think they are the highest in the world!”r

r He then went on, in a friendly way, to tell her how the water had carved ther valley, and estimated roughly for her the ages since the Merced River flowed atr the level of the cataract’s brink. To all of which she replied dreamily:r “I have seen the tallest building in the world and the longest railroad, ther largest lake and the biggest department store, and now I have seen the highestr waterfall! Just think of that!”r

r And a thoroughly satisfied customer left Yosemite Park that day.r

r John Muir points out how much Yosemite owes to its “floods of water andr floods of light.” The voice of Yosemite is in her rivers and waterfalls; her spirit isr in her ever-changing lights and shadows. Without one she would be inarticulate;r r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r Happy Isles, where the waters of ther r Merced River and Illilouette Creekr r rush together in perpetual songr r

r Once I saw Yosemite clear after a snow-storm, and a gray world give way tor one of dazzling blue and white. The blue of that sky, arching above snow cliffsr streaked with black shadows, was unbelievable, indescribable. It was the blue ofr Crater and Como lakes combined. Everywhere beneath it was the glitter andr dazzle of ice particles, caught on pine-needles, on rock castles, on furry fences,r reflecting like prisms a rainbow of light. With the first glint of sun Yosemiter was radiant, quivering with light and with life.r

r Beyond the walls of Yosemite lie the High Sierras, landscaped on a lavishr scale. Up there, waiting for you, is a land of far-flung mountain peaks, of skyr meadows and rushing rivers. There is a playground for giants, a home forr valkyries. Swooping from pinnacle to peak, how their haunting cry would resoundr as they bore mortals like you and me from an everyday world to that promisedr Valhalla!r

r Up there is a Public Domain you will find strangely private as you wanderr among its solitudes, with only the sound of the wind and the water to distractr you. A Public Domain you will he glad to share with your fellow men at nightr as you gather about the High Sierra campfires, to exchange tales of prowessr which would do justice to the bards of old. Only Yesterday’s dragons haver become Today’s trout; Yesterday’s moats, Today’s mountains!r

r Up there is enough beauty to engulf you for weeks. To the north, in this Highr Country, is the Tuolumne Meadows, well known to fishermen and mountainr climbers of the West. And the Tuolumne Canyon, with its swirling, acrobaticr river, which tosses water in huge arcs to make the celebrated waterwheel fallsr of the Tuolumne, a breath-taking spectacle. Not far away is Hetch-Hetchy, ther changeling. Once a valley it was turned, ages ago, into a lake by the meltingr glaciers. After long centuries it became a valley once more, only to be convertedr again into a man-made lake that the people of San Francisco, hundreds of milesr away, may drink and bathe. There are hundred-mile panoramas in the Highr r r Sierras, spattered with snowy peaks, shining lakes, and flowery meadows,r where you can lose yourself, skimping well on dollars but not on days.r

r Up there, somewhere, is a new world to discover, a new frontier to explore.r Nobody can describe it to you, for what one person sees, another might miss.r What appears most beautiful to you on one trip may be utterly eclipsed on ther next. So go and find Yosemite for yourself. With all the zest of its first discovererr explore its canyons and its peaks. Cast out your trout flies in the very streamsr the Indians once fished, and hike over prehistoric pavement made by crushingr tons of glacial ice. Wherever you wander, whatever you see, you will discover,r like the multitude before you, and the multitudes to come, that to have livedr apart, even for an hour or so, among the Big Trees or on a mountain top, adds ar touch of the immortal to the most prosaic of lives.r

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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

r CHAPTER TWOr
r 2. HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YOSEMITE STORY

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1. r The Indians of Ahwahnee and the Medicine Man’s Prophecyr
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2. r Discovery of the Yosemiter
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3. r Return of the Mariposa Battalion and Death of Tenayar
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4. r Enter the Touristr
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5. r Stage Coaches and Banditsr
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6. r Old-Timers and Pioneersr
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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

YOSEMITE INDIANS

r THE STORY of Yosemite begins back generations ago when a larger and prosperous race of Indians known as the Ahwaneechees lived inr the “deep, grassy Valley” they called Ahwahnee. In this Indian Paradise acorns grew in abundance. Sweet clover and tender grassesr covered the floor of the valley. Fish were plentiful in the streams and the forestsr were alive with game. It was Yosemite’s heydey.r

r Every fall the Ahwaneechees held a great hunting festival in the Valley, tor which they invited their neighbors, the Monos and the Paiutes, from across ther Skye Mountains. Down from the crests of the Sierras they came, three and fourr hundred strong, to exchange their flints and salt and larvae paste for the acornsr of Yosemite, and reeds for weaving baskets. For weeks at a time the braves huntedr while the women gathered acorns and ground them into meal. Between hunts theyr played games of chance and skill, and at night, about the council fires, they toldr stories about the spirits which inhabited the rocks and the waterfalls, and ther great chiefs swore undying fidelity to each other with an oratory which made ther very walls ring.r

r Then came a mysterious illness, or “black sickness,” which spread throughr Ahwahnee and all but exterminated the tribe. Those who survived fled from ther Valley, fearing the wrath of the gods they must have offended. And for yearsr Yosemite was avoided. No human being went near it, and it was the golden erar for the grizzly bears and the black-tailed deer.r

r Among those who escaped the epidemic was the great chief of the Ahwaneechees, who took refuge with the Mono Indians and was adopted into their tribe.r His son, Tenaya, was born of a Mono woman and lived when a boy among hisr mother’s people.r

r When he reached manhood he was persuaded by the Medicine Man of hisr father’s tribe to return to the valley of his ancestors, taking with him the fewr descendants of the Ahwaneechees and outcasts from other tribes, and establishr r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r Winter makes magicr r in Yosemite Valleyr r

r Returning to Ahwahnee with Tenaya, the old Medicine Man prophesied that asr long as the young Chief retained possession of the Valley his tribe would flourishr and increase. That if he befriended those who sought his protection no other triber would come to make war upon him or attempt to drive him from his stronghold.r That if he obeyed the patriarch’s counsel he would put a spell upon Ahwahneer which would hold it sacred to him and to his people alone, so that none wouldr dare to intrude there. But he solemnly warned Tenaya against the horsemen of ther lowlands, and declared that should they ever enter his valley his tribe would soonr be scattered and destroyed, his people taken captive, and he, himself, would ber the last chieftain in Ahwahnee.r

r Arrogant though he was, this warning of the Medicine Man disturbed Tenaya,r and the dread of its fulfillment obsessed him, leading, ironically enough, to hisr downfall—and to the discovery of Yosemite!r

r For with the discovery of gold in California and the arrival of the gold-diggersr in the foothills of the Sierras, trouble with the Indians began. The white men, theyr claimed, with their hogs and cattle were destroying their acorn crops. They werer plowing under fields of grass and clover to plant their own seeds. They fished outr the streams and frightened off the wild game.r

r To retaliate, the natives stole horses and cattle from the miners. They plundered and burned their trading posts. Incited and aroused by the anxious Tenaya,r whom they feared, Indians from other tribes joined the Yosemites in plaguingr their common enemy, the white man, in an open effort to drive him from ther country.r

r Among the early settlers in that region was one James D. Savage, who hadr befriended the Indians. It was the burning of his trading post on the Fresno Riverr and the cold-blooded murder of his three assistants there which led to the organization of the Mariposa Battalion to punish and prevent such outrages.r

r Commissioners were sent out from Washington to try to treat with the Indians,r r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r Clouds’ Rest and Half Dome asr r they burst upon you, in winter, fromr r the new tunnel road into Yosemiter r

r But the prophecy of the Medicine Man weighed heavily on Tenaya’s mind.r When his runners brought word that the attack upon Savage was leading tor reprisals, and that the Mariposa Battalion was then on its way into Yosemite tor bring him and his people into the Commissioner’s camp, the wily Chief mader one last desperate effort to keep the white man out of his valley. He shrewdly decided to conciliate the Americans by taking his tribe into the White Father’s campr to make peace, intending, always, to return to the mountains as soon as the excitement from the recent outbreaks had subsided.r

r A few days earlier and he might have succeeded in this strategem. But he delayed too long. Major Savage and his troops were already encamped where Wawona stands today, and there Tenaya encountered them. The old Chief said her had come to give himself up, and that his people were on their way in, but had beenr delayed by a snow-storm, which had made travel difficult.r

r For three days Major Savage waited for the Yosemites to appear, then becoming impatient and suspicious he decided to go on. Tenaya did all he could tor restrain him, explaining that if the Indians could not get out of the Valley, ther horsemen could never get through the drifts to get in. But Savage turned a deafr ear and gave the order to march on, with Tenaya as their guide.r

r Half-way between their camp and the Valley they met a little band of Indians,r men, women, and children, plodding wearily through the deep drifts, silent andr disheartened. They were Tenaya’s people. Savage counted seventy-two as theyr filed past.r

r “Where are the rest of them?” he asked their chief.r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r From Glacier Point the flash ofr r Yosemite Falls and the sound of itsr r thunder dominate the entire Valleyr r

r Tenaya shook his head, indicating that was all that was left of his tribe. Ther rest, he said, had scattered and gone back to their own people. But Major Savager had learned something of the ways of the Yosemites. Observing that there werer no young braves among the band, he gave the order to proceed, sending a grim andr disgruntled Tenaya back into camp with the guards and their captives.r

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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

DISCOVERY OF YOSEMITE

r Those men of the Mariposa Battalion, approaching Yosemite for the first time,r had only the vaguest idea of what lay ahead of them. In an effort to keep the whiter men out of their mountains the Yosemites had painted a lurid picture of theirr valley.r

r “It must be the very devil of a place!” one of the soldiers commented as her listened to the gloomy recital of Tenaya.r

r “A hell of a hole!” opined another, his appetite whetted to see this inferno.r

r So it was with the worst possible expectations that these discoverers ofr Yosemite first looked down into the Valley from Inspiration Point.r

r For long hours the troops had marched over rugged passes and through deepr defiles covered with snow, suffering from the cold and exposure, liable to a surprise attack from Indians at any time, slipping on the edge of precipices wherer one misstep meant almost certain death. Floundering through the drifts theyr stumbled out upon Inspiration Point late in the afternoon of March 25, 1851,r and Yosemite Valley lay below them, half veiled in a bluish haze.r

r What a moment in human history! Yet, only one out of all that company of menr stopped to give the view more than a passing thought. One look and the rest werer away already swinging down the trail with their minds full of a camp to make,r supper to prepare, wood to cut, horses to feed, and possible Indians to round upr before nightfall. If there was any thrill connected with the first look it was largelyr one of curiosity satisfied and triumph at reaching, at last, the old Chief’s hide-out.r Not for one moment did they suspect that in entering Yosemite that day they werer making history or fulfilling a prophecy.r

r Only Dr. Lafayette Bunnell had any real appreciation of that moment. Dismountingr r r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r Yosemite Falls is not only oner r of the highest in the world,r r but one of the most beautifulr r

r That night, late in March, white men pitched their first camp in Yosemite, notr far from Bridal Veil Falls and across the meadows from El Capitan. A bronzer plaque marks the spot today near a large overhanging rock on the banks of ther Merced River. That rock, blackened by countless campfires since, still poignantlyr suggests the blaze about which those men gathered that night, tired but good-natured, joking with each other as they sprawled on the ground, while not farr away hostile and stealthy Indians watched their every move.r

r It was that night, too, around the campfire, that the Valley was given a name.r Doctor Bunnell suggested they call it Yosemite, for the Indians who lived there.r Several protested “honoring the devils who caused us all this trouble” and offeredr “Paradise Valley” and a number of Biblical and foreign names. But Doctor Bunnell’s suggestion carried, and Yosemite was christened in high spirits and withr fire-water.r

r The next day a thorough search of the Valley was made, and although there wasr evidence everywhere of Indians having hastily abandoned their villages, withr embers still warm from fires of the night before, only one Indian was found, ar decrepit old squaw, crouched in a cave near the Royal Arches. Too old to scrambler up the rocks with her kinsmen, she had been left behind, “thrown away,” asr Tenaya nonchalantly put it. Hostile and taciturn she would give no informationr about the tribe.r

r So Major Savage and his men had to content themselves on that visit withr burning the several villages they found scattered throughout the Valley, destroyingr the large caches of acorns they found, hoping to starve the defiant Indians intor the reservations.r

r The second night they made their camp in the Indian Caves, where so manyr barbecues are held now, and the men compared notes on what they had seen in ther r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r There is a sense of power andr r excitement about the Nevada Fallsr r which is tremendously exhilaratingr r

r The general verdict seemed to be that the Indians had not greatly exaggeratedr their stories. Yosemite was gloomy indeed, and the men were not sorry to leave.r Major Savage admitted, however, that they were in no condition to judge ther Valley fairly. The annoyances and disappointments of a fruitless search, togetherr with their many wettings, overcast skies, and an approaching snow-storm, wouldr dampen the ardor of more enthusiastic men than they pretended to be. Nevertheless, they were glad to have seen for themselves this much-vaunted refuge of ther Yosemites, and they were cheered by the thought of all the destruction theyr had wrought there.r

r The following day they were back in camp at Wawona, and during that threer days’ absence from headquarters, as Doctor Bunnell points out, they had entered,r named, and partially explored one of the geographical wonders of the world.r And little except the exploration of Yosemite was accomplished by that firstr expedition, for on returning to camp they learned that between Wawona and ther Commissioner’s camp all of the seventy-two Indians the battalion had capturedr had escaped from their guards, made over-confident by the Indians’ seemingr resignation and desire to make peace, and had returned with Tenaya to theirr snow-bound “grassy Valley.”r

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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

RETURN OF THE MARIPOSA BATTALION

r Several months passed before any effort was made to recapture the Yosemites.r But by early May of that same year all of the Indian tribes except Tenaya’s hadr made treaties with the Commissioners. Secure in his mountains once more, vainr and arrogant because no immediate disaster had overtaken him by the invasion ofr his valley, he refused to deal with the Commissioners. And as long as ther Yosemites remained at large there was always the danger of their stirring up discontentr r r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r Vernal Falls is remarkable for itsr r symmetry and volume of water and for ther r rainbow mists which foam at its feetr r

r Again the Mariposa Battalion was ordered out to bring the Yosemites to terms.r There were many in that second battalion who had been with the first, and on theirr first day in the Valley they surprised and captured five Indians, three being sonsr of Chief Tenaya. Not long after, the old Chief himself was captured up in ar narrow canyon, where he was busily rolling stones upon his pursuers. Two weeksr later the rest of the tribe were surrounded where they camped on the shores ofr Lake Tenaya and taken prisoners before they could escape. Pursued into theirr final refuge, far above the floor of the Valley where they felt sure no white manr would ever come, the disheartened Yosemites put up little resistance as they werer herded down into the reservation on the Fresno River.r

r But this seeming submission did not last. Chief Tenaya was so unhappy on ther reservation and pined so for his mountain home, his acorn and grasshopper diet,r that he was released upon promise of good behavior, swearing eternal friendlinessr to the white man. In a short time his loyal followers quietly slipped away fromr the reservation, too, and rejoined him. No effort was made to bring them back,r for it was believed they had learned their lesson and would no longer molest ther white settlers.r

MURDER IN YOSEMITE

r For a year all was quiet, then trouble broke out once more. A party of eightr prospectors, made bold by reports of the friendliness of the Indians, made their wayr into Yosemite Valley looking for gold. Dr. Carl Russell, Field Naturalist in ther National Parks Service, publishes in his “100 Years in Yosemite” a thrillingr account of what took place there.r

r The miners, it seems, camped for the night where the Mariposa Battalion firstr camped, near the foot of Bridal Veil Falls. Early in the morning, as five of themr left to prospect for gold, they were attacked by Indians and two of them werer killed. The others fled through a shower of arrows to a narrow ledge in the wall,r where, partially protected from the rocks the Indians hurled from above and ther r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r There is a delicacy and fragilityr r about the Bridal Veil Falls whichr r distinguishes it from all the othersr r

r “We could see the old Chief Tenaya way up in the valley, in an open space,r with fully one hundred and fifty Indians around him to whom he gave his ordersr which were passed to another chief just below us. These two directed thoser around them, and shouted orders to those on the top of the bluff who were rollingr rocks over on us. Fully believing ourselves doomed men we never relaxed ourr vigilance, but with two rifles we still kept them at bay, determined to sell ourr lives as dearly as possible.r

r “We were crowded together beneath this little projecting rock, every nerver strung to its highest tension. I was wounded with an arrow through my sleeve,r and another through my hat. All of a sudden, the chief just below us, about fiftyr yards distant, suddenly threw up his hands and with a terrible yell fell overr backwards, a bullet through his body. Immediately the firing of arrows ceased, andr the savages were thrown into confusion. Notes of alarm were sounded andr answered far up the Valley, and from the high bluffs above us. They began tor withdraw, and we could hear the twigs crackle as they crept away.”r

r After nightfall the surviving six made their way painfully and cautiously upr the cliff and escaped.r

r Tenaya, established, apparently, with quite a band once more, had broken hisr word to the white man. But it was his last offense. For a punitive expedition wasr dispatched at once into Yosemite, where five Indians were seized, all wearingr articles of clothing of the dead miners, and they were summarily shot. Thoroughlyr frightened now, the rest of the tribe fled to the protection of their allies at Monor Lake, and the Yosemites as a tribe disappeared forever.r

r DEATH OF TENAYAr

r There are two versions of the death of old Chief Tenaya, neither a glorious norr romantic ending for an Indian chief, son of a chief. Until recently the story wentr that, after a long stay with the Monos, the Yosemites returned to their valley.r r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r Half Dome rears its granite crest morer r than a mile above the floor of the Yosemiter r Vatley, surviving the storms of the agesr r

r For this gross breach of etiquette the Monos returned the call of the Yosemitesr —in war-paint and head-feathers! Finding their erstwhile guests stuffed andr stupid from gorging on stolen horse-flesh, the incensed Monos attacked and stonedr to death Tenaya and all but eight of his band, who escaped down the canyonr of the Merced River.r

r Not long ago, however, Mr. Russell talked with “Maria” Lebrado, last of ther Yosemite Indians. She was one of that small band of seventy-two that Majorr Savage encountered on his first trip into Yosemite Valley with the Mariposar Battalion, and was with that last remnant of Indians captured on the shores ofr Lake Tenaya. Only a child then, she was as old as the squaw the soldiers found inr the Indian Caves when she talked to Mr. Russell. She denied the story of the stolenr horses, and declared Tenaya was not killed in the Valley at all, but that whiler visiting the Monos, after the murder of the miners, an argument arose in the heatr and excitement of a hand game and Tenaya was killed in the brawl by a rockr hurled by an angry Mono.r

r Whatever the truth may be, and there is little to choose between them, ther prophecy of the Medicine Man was all fulfilled. Horsemen from the lowlandsr entered Ahwahnee, and from that time on Tenaya’s tribe was scattered, or takenr captive, and he was, in truth, the last chief of the Yosemites.r

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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

TOURIST TRAVEL

r The year 1854 is interesting in Yosemite history for being the only year sincer its discovery in which no white man visited it. Frightened by the murder of ther miners, and absorbed in their own affairs, Californians forgot it for that briefr interval of time.r

r It was not until 1855 that the first pleasure party entered the Valley. Vaguer and almost incredible reports of this region had been circulated by the Mariposar Battalion and members of the punitive expedition. Some of these stories hadr reached the ears of James M. Hutchings, publisher of the California Magazine.r r r Scenting good material here for his periodical he hired a well-known San Franciscor artist, Thomas Ayers, to go with him and several friends on that first tourist partyr into Yosemite.r

r He engaged two Yosemite Indians to guide him to the very place their old chiefr had tried to keep hidden. Trails, of course, were indistinct and difficult tor follow, and it took three days of hard riding to reach Yosemite from Stockton, ar trip which can be made in little over three hours today. Yet the party felt wellr rewarded. For in Yosemite Hutchings found a scoop whose possibilities he wasr quick to realize. After five days of “scenic banqueting” the men returned, burstingr to broadcast the wonders of that valley. The lyric descriptions of Mr. Hutchingsr and the amazing pictures of Thomas Ayers inaugurated Yosemite’s first publicityr campaign. They did much to arouse widespread interest in the region. Ten ofr the originals of those first sketches of Yosemite are now on display in the Yosemiter Museum, the first efforts of any man to convey a picture of those walls and waterfalls to a skeptical world.r

r But even this new evidence of an “eighth wonder” in their own state failed tor fire the imagination of the people, and for years only a few stragglers led that long,r long procession of tourists who have been trekking to Yosemite ever since.r Californians were too busy creating miracles to view them. They had neither ther time nor the money for pleasure jaunts. Gold and the Civil War were the concerns of the day. There was, too, the instinctive fear of being “sold.” Too manyr amazing tales had been told. Any story which smacked of exaggeration was received with great skepticism, and cliffs a mile high and waterfalls of a thousandr feet were certainly classed as exaggerations, if not outright “whoppers.” Consequently, nine-tenths of those earlier visitors to Yosemite were recruited eitherr from Europe or from the Atlantic seaboard. Men would cross an ocean and ar continent to visit such a place, and return home to spread the gospel of Yosemite.r Horace Greeley was one of these. He visited Yosemite in 1857, suffering terrificr discomfort, but returned East one of its most ardent boosters.r

r SADDLE DAYSr

r Dr. Carl Russell has estimated that the first 12,000 visitors to Yosemite wentr either on horseback or afoot. It was almost a quarter of a century after its discoveryr before a wagon road was completed into the Valley, and a trip to Yosemite inr those days was something of an Odyssey. Only the hardiest undertook it, and ther annual average for the first ten years was thirty or forty visitors. Three long days inr the saddle over ungraded trails was hard going, and one can sympathize with ther muscle-bound pilgrim who sighed wearily at the end of her trip, too stiff to dismount, “Can’t you just hold me up, perhaps, and sort of shove the horse out fromr under?”r

r About the time the Civil War was ending, in 1864, Congress made Yosemite ar State Park and attracted some attention to it. In that year the number of visitorsr increased to 147. And from then on until 1875, when the first wagon road wasr built, the number grew by fifty or a hundred each year. In 1875, three thousandr visitors registered in the Park. Yosemite had arrived!r

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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

STAGE-COACHES—BANDITS!

r Not so long ago a cry was heard in the wilderness, “What Yosemite needs isr one good carriage road the entire length of the Valley!” and immediately ther answer came hack, “Impossible! That would spoil Yosemite! Make it toor civilized!”r

r Nevertheless, this dream was realized, and by 1875 there was not only oner good carriage road extending the length of the Valley, but there were three roadsr into the Valley over which stage-coaches might travel. Lurching, swaying,r creaking, dust-enveloped or rain-soaked, Concord Coaches or “Mud-Wagons,”r those were the days of real sport, the days of the Cannonball Express, and ther days of bandits!r

r Travel on wheels was really de luxe and one writer tells enthusiastically ofr improved transportation facilities which enabled one to reach Yosemite in threer days from San Francisco, the round trip costing only sixty dollars! And thoser r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r Up in the Yosemite ski countryr r anyone can blaze his own trailr r through a landscape of virgin snowr r

r Until the Horseshoe Route was established the trip took two days fromr Stockton, cutting down the saddle days by one. But with the coming of ther Cannonball Express, via the Horseshoe Route, this time was reduced to one day,r though a long and strenuous one. Horses were changed at ten-mile intervals alongr the entire route, which is followed today by the Horseshoe Auto Stages. Hurtlingr down mountain sides, over perilous roads, fording rivers with the water hub-deep,r thumping and bumping a chained log behind down the steepest gradesr where brakes alone would not hold, flashing around hairpin turns to encounter ar freight wagon on a narrow road, those are some of the thrills tourists to Yosemiter are spared today.r

r Though the hold-ups on those stages were not frequent, they occurred oftenr enough to spice the trip with real adventure. And their conversational value, forr ever after, was well worth the cost of the experience. The Bad Men of the West inr that day had something of an operatic charm about them which often compensatedr for the inconvenience of being robbed. For example, a bandit holding up oner Yosemite stage remarked, generously, before taking up his collection:r

r “Boys, if any of you haven’t got more than fifteen dollars you can keep it, forr I’ve got that much myself!”r

r A story is told of one highwayman who, alone, held up a string of five Yosemiter stages. After he had thoroughly fleeced his victims he presented each with hisr card, on which was printed “The Black Kid.”r

r “Thanks!” remarked one of the passengers wryly, “always nice to know wherer to get hold of a professional.”r

r “Black Bart,” one of the most famous bandits of the early eighties, made hisr last hold-up in the Yosemite region. He always worked alone, but one of hisr favorite stunts was to prop the muzzles of empty guns over the top of surroundingr rocks, and talk occasionally to these supposed confederates as he robbed the stages.r His last hold-up occurred three miles out of Copperopolis. He robbed a stage of ar Wells Fargo treasure-box containing $5,000. But in his escape he dropped hisr r r handkerchief, which contained a laundry mark. This led to his identification. Withr a record of twenty-eight hold-ups to his credit he had never taken a single life,r and usually operated with a sawed-off shotgun which was unloaded.r

r AUTOMOBILESr

r Before the novelty and comparative comfort of stage-coaches had worn off, a railroad had been built into Yosemite, and soon after automobiles began rolling in.r Not rolling, perhaps, but chugging. For those earliest automobiles were littler short of the wonders they had come to see.r

r In 1907 the Yosemite Valley Railroad was completed and an end had come tor the stage-coach era, but it was another six years before the Government allowedr automobiles to drive into the Valley. In 1900 one intrepid motorist had enteredr Yosemite, but no others were allowed until 1913. Even after pressure had beenr brought to bear and the Government had removed the ban against them, theyr were admitted very grudgingly and regarded with frank disfavor. Immediatelyr they appeared in the Valley they were pounced upon and chained to a log for ther duration of their stay.r

r The Commandments regarding automobiles were very strict. Five minutes werer allowed for the loading and unloading of passengers and baggage, after which ther car was rushed, like an infectious case, to the garage, or out of the Park.r

r No person could smoke while driving an automobile in the Park.r

r Speed limit was six miles an hour, except on straight stretches, where, if nor approaching team was visible, ten miles was tolerated.r

r On the El Portal road the speed limit was five miles an hour inbound and sixr outbound!r

r Pioneers of the Covered-Wagon Days were no braver than the drivers of ther first automobiles into Yosemite. Our worst mountain roads today are probablyr better than the best then. The small light cars of those days could neither straddler nor ride in the wagon ruts. Roads were so narrow that I know of one instance,r at least, where two motorists met and before they could pass each had to unscrewr his license plate. Another motorist tells of reaching the Valley on her last gallon ofr r r gasoline and having to wait in Yosemite for three weeks before anyone would riskr bringing more in on a freight wagon, fearing it would explode. Others tell ofr pouring sardine oil into the carburetors and White Rock water into the radiatorr to finish that long last mile into camp.r

r One by one the difficulties governing travel into Yosemite have been overcomer until today, with the choice of a train, luxurious motor buses, a paved All-Yearr Highway over which you can drive your own car any day of the year, a landingr field at Wawona for airplanes, and the shortened and improved road to the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, registration of visitors to the Park has mounted fromr that original tourist party of five to half a million annually—and the number isr always increasing.r

r The whole Yosemite story is told in its transportation system. For everyr moving thing across the Sierras has left its trail. First the rivers, which carvedr the valleys. Next the glaciers, slow-moving ice packs which left behind them ther shining pavements of the High Sierras. After them came the wild-game trails,r faintest traces through the forests. In time these were widened by Indian feet, andr later, pounded deeper by horses’ hoofs. Next came the wagon ruts, then ironr rails, and finally the smooth paved highways for automobiles; and at the end theser pavements peter out again into horse trails, horse trails to footpaths, footpaths tor game trails, back to the shining glacial pavements where travel all began.r

r The Yosemite cycle is complete.r

r YESTERDAY IN YOSEMITEr

r Though the early tourists to Yosemite may have had to put up with such discomfortsr as muslin curtains between the bedrooms instead of walls, their lot wasr not such a hard one. There were compensations in royal breakfasts of brook trout,r venison, and bowls of wild strawberries, which the Indians used to gather, and inr the ten dollars a week one used to pay for room and board at Hutchings House.r

r In the Valley then there was that friendliness and informality which you stillr find around the High Sierra Camps. For the camaraderie of shipboard is equaledr only by that found out upon the open trail, or fostered around a crackling campfire.r r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r Cathedral Spires suggest the ruinsr r of some mighty temple of the godsr r

r A glance at the Grand Register of the old Cosmopolitan Hotel, loaned to ther Yosemite Museum, will prove what a magnet the Park was for all kinds and conditions of people. This register is one of the great relics of Yosemite’s Past. A footr in thickness, morocco-bound and silver-mounted, it was made to order for ther proprietor of the Cosmopolitan Hotel by H. S. Crocker Company of San Francisco in 1873. In it are the names of four United States Presidents, U. S. Grant,r R. B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and Theodore Roosevelt. Under the signatures ofr Isabelle Jones or Tommy Black are those of distinguished generals, foreign lords,r counts and dukes, including Duke Alex of Russia, and Lily Langtry, London’sr darling. Yosemite attracted them all, even as it does now, and there was no tellingr what kind of adventure might be sitting to the right or left of you in those days ofr rude shelter and general baths. And after all the other glories of Yosemite had beenr admired, there wasn’t anything more appreciated than those bathtubs and full-length mirrors of the Cosmopolitan Hotel which had all been carried in on mule-back over fifty miles of mountain trails.r

r In the winter of 1932 a fire destroyed this famous old hotel, which for years hadr been used as company general offices in the “Old Village.” Along with Black’sr and Leidig’s, Barnard’s and Stoneman House, Casa Nevada and the old Hutchingsr House, it is now only a memory. Yet in its day the Cosmopolitan Hotel was ther Ahwahnee of Yosemite Valley, and who knows what will succeed the presentr Ahwahnee Hotel fifty years from now!r

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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

OLD-TIMERS

r Every region has its Grand Old Men who have shaped its histories and sharedr in its fortunes, and in Yosemite the roster is a long and illustrious one.r

r J. M. HUTCHINGSr

r Among the first of these was J. M. Hutchings, for forty-seven years one of ther Park’s most enthusiastic publicists. Besides organizing the first tourist party intor r r the Valley, he owned and operated a hotel there, Hutchings House, which he mader famous in his day. A part of this building still stands, now called Cedar Cottage,r oldest building in the Valley. Its hand-hewn timbers were put up during Lincoln’sr administration in 1858, and one room completely encloses the trunk of a large,r growing cedar tree, where Hutchings and his guests used to gather in the eveningr to discuss the Civil War, the height of Half Dome, and the fish they would catchr on the morrow.r

r It was in Hutchings’ sawmill, which he erected to cut lumber to replace ther flimsy curtains which partitioned off his bedrooms, that John Muir once worked.r Hutchings was one of the most famous and enthusiastic guides the Valley has everr known and he wrote one of the earliest books on Yosemite. Another living reminder of him today is the row of elm trees which border the road crossingr Sentinel Meadows. He planted these from Massachusetts seeds and they are oner of the few exotic species permitted in the Park today. He was killed in the Valleyr he loved so well, on the zigzags of the Big Oak Flat road while driving with hisr wife, and now lies in the little cemetery in the Valley.r

r J. C. LAMONr

r Another planter of trees in Yosemite was J. C. Lamon, who laid out the firstr orchard and garden patch in this Indian retreat. Many had come to look, but Lamonr was the first who remained to live. The smoke curling up from the chimney of hisr log cabin near the Camp Curry stables was the first sign of permanent humanr habitation in the Valley since the desertion of the Indian villages and the destruction of their wigwams. He helped build Cedar Cottage and while so engagedr built his own cabin in 1859 and became Yosemite’s first winter resident. Thatr winter he spent entirely alone in the Valley, without even a dog for companionship. Curious to think now, with all the gayety and excitement of winter sportr enthusiasts in the Valley, what that lone winter must have been like, with evenr the waterfalls hushed and not a human being within miles and miles of the Valley.r

r The apple orchards Lamon set out in that early day still bear fruit. Abloom inr the springtime, or weighted with snow on a moonlight night, those trees add ar r r human touch to the grandeur of their setting which has endeared them to generations of tourists. Visitors were always welcome in Lamon’s gardens. If the proprietor was not at home to sell his fruit it was understood that any comer mightr pick and eat as much as he could stow away inside, but not carry any off ther premises otherwise, leaving a silver quarter or half dollar on the window sill,r according to his capacity!r

r For fourteen years Lamon lived in Yosemite, first homesteader and neighbor,r and when he died, he too was laid to rest in the little cemetery in the good fellowship of Galen Clark, Hutchings, and other Yosemite pioneers.r

r GALEN CLARKr

r Perhaps Galen Clark, more than any other, deserves the title of The Grand Oldr Man of Yosemite. He was first Guardian of the Valley, and held that post forr fourteen years, and for twenty-four years he served on the Board of Commissionersr who were custodians of the Park.r

r He visited Yosemite the same year Hutchings did, and seeing the possibilitiesr of tourist trade he established a camp at Wawona, known then as Clark’s Station,r where he accommodated travelers on their way in and out of the Valley. Sufferingr from a serious infection of the lungs he built his cabin in the forest in 1857, hopingr to prolong his life. He succeeded quite admirably in this, living to the vigorousr old age of ninety-six.r

r At ninety years of age he turned author, and wrote three authoritative booksr about Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, which, undoubtedly, her knew and loved better than anyone of his time. Though not the actual discovererr of the Mariposa Grove, he made it known to the world. He built the trail fromr his camp to the grove, and conducted hundreds of people to the Big Trees, whichr were one of the absorbing elements of his life, and from which he drew great peacer and quiet strength.r

r He lived for fifty years in the Valley of Wawona, and spent twenty summers inr Yosemite Valley, knowing it first as public lands, then as a State Park, and finallyr as a National Park. He lies now in a plot he selected in the Yosemite cemetery,r r r shaded by the sequoia seedlings he himself planted twenty years before he wasr laid to rest beneath them. Neither rude nor crude, he was a “very perfect gentler knight” of the High Sierras. Across the meadows from the Sentinel Hotel, commanding a fine view of Yosemite Falls, a stone bench has been placed as ar memorial to him.r

r JOHN MUIRr

r The bard of Yosemite was John Muir. Just as he made Yosemite his, so doesr Yosemite claim him for her own. A man who could ride on snow avalanches andr explore behind waterfalls! Who roamed through the Sierras with a piece of dryr bread in his pocket, adventuring where no man had ventured before. He was anr explorer and discoverer of the first order, who left behind him for posterity ar thrilling record of what he read there in that “great page of mountain manuscript.”r

r He first came to Yosemite in 1868 for a brief visit, tending sheep in the lowlandsr for a living, working when he could in Hutchings’ sawmill to provide bread forr his long jaunts in the Sierras when the day’s work was done. As president of ther Sierra Club for twenty-two years, he fought constantly to save Yosemite and allr the wilderness from wanton destruction by mining, lumber, and sheep interests.r

r He had something of the physical endurance of the Sierra peaks, something ofr the mental energy and crystal clearness of Yosemite Falls. The spot where hisr cabin stood on the Lost Arrow trail, near the foot of Yosemite Falls, is now ar shrine to all lovers of John Muir, all lovers of the out-of-doors. Not content merelyr to live by the side of the stream, he deflected it a bit so it might flow throughr one corner of his cabin, that he might listen more closely to its song.r

r W. P. Bartlett, in “An Afternoon With John Muir,” tells of how this poet ofr the Sierras once kidnapped President Theodore Roosevelt from under the noses ofr an official party and played hookey with him in the woods.r

r When Roosevelt announced his intentions of visiting Yosemite a committeer hastily prepared an elaborate program for him—banqueting, speeches, and all.r It was even proposed to light up Yosemite Falls, but Roosevelt vetoed that asr “nature-faking.”r

r All went according to plan until the stages bearing the President and his partyr r r arrived at Chinquapin summit, where all alighted for a rest. But when the stagesr went on again, the President was missing. Each auto load supposed he was in ther car ahead, and not until they were well out of sight did Mr. Roosevelt and Johnr Muir emerge from behind a stable where two horses and a packed mule had beenr waiting for them, and like mischievous schoolboys they galloped off on the trailr for Glacier Point.r

r The President was not missed until the party arrived in the Valley, and whiler the chagrined banqueters solemnly ate without their guest of honor, he andr John Muir were squatting happily about a campfire in the forests, reveling in thickr porterhouse steaks and corn pones buttered in the pan.r

r “This is bully!” chuckled Roosevelt, thinking delightedly of the pompousr party in the Valley below.r

r For three and a half days the two of them wandered contentedly through ther Sierras before rejoining the party. And as a result of this clandestine outing,r Roosevelt during his term in office set aside vast areas of virgin timber for forestr reserves and doubled the number of National Parks.r

r MR. AND MRS. DAVID A. CURRYr

r Mr. and Mrs. D. A. Curry were Mine Hosts of Yosemite. With the establishment of Camp Curry, known the world over, they became the founders of a newr hotel system, an informal camp entertainment which has become one of ther attractions of Yosemite.r

r Their beginning was humble. “D. A.” and his wife were both school-teachers,r who had learned to make their vacations pay by managing small camping tours inr the summer. One of their first experiments was made in Yellowstone Park. Ther following year they decided to try the system nearer home, and in 1899 theyr ventured into Yosemite, bearing with them seven tents, a paid cook, and a brand-new idea in camp hotels. Despite the many difficulties of transportation, for itr took freight wagons two weeks to make the round trip from Merced, the experiment succeeded beyond their fondest hopes. Two hundred and ninety-two guestsr registered that first year.r

r The famous Camp Curry bonfire is still built on the very spot of that first fire.r Although the entertainment is more elaborate now than those earlier faggotr parties, where a guest threw a small piece of wood on the fire and told a storyr while it burned, there is still a friendliness and ease about those gatheringsr which dates back to the beginning.r

r Though “D. A.” did not originate the firefall, he was the first to use itr regularly. At the end of the evening’s entertainment he would raise his prodigiousr voice, which earned him the name of the Stentor, and call to the Irishman on ther cliff above:r

r “Let ‘er go, Gallagher!” which is the origin of that well-known phrase.r

r Camp Curry grew until it had accommodations for about 1,300 guests. In 1925r the “Curry Camping Company” consolidated with the “Yosemite Nationalr Park Company” to form the “Yosemite Park and Curry Company,” which company now operates all hotels in the Park as well as transportation lines, stables,r stores, etc. The Curry family continue in the active management of the consolidated company, and in the last year they have purchased the hotel at Wawonar and have built a new lodge in the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees where Galenr Clark’s humble cabin once stood.r

r “Mother Curry,” as she is affectionately known to hundreds of thousands ofr Camp Curry guests, still carries on where David Curry left off. In spite of itsr mushroom growth, Camp Curry is still her especial interest, which she continuesr to supervise and manage. When there is any matter of importance to take up withr the authorities in Washington, D. C., Mother Curry is first consulted. Small,r gentle, and white-haired, she is beloved by all, and reigns undisputedly asr Yosemite’s one and only Grand Lady.r

r GABRIEL SOVULEWSKIr

r Last of the Grand Old Men who belong definitely to Yosemite, and only survivor today, is Gabriel Sovulewski, trail-blazer! In the push of civilization to ther edge of a continent, and the top of a mountain range, Mr. Sovulewski has played anr r r important and thrilling part. Under his supervision were built most of the sixr hundred miles of trails which now spider-web Yosemite Park.r

r Mr. Sovulewski first came to Yosemite in 1895 as quartermaster-sergeant inr the United States Army. In 1906 he returned to the Park as a civilian employe ofr the United States Army. In 1908-09 and again in 1914 he was acting Superintendent of the Park. For twenty-eight years he has been actively engaged inr making all parts of Yosemite’s 1,125 square miles accessible, and in keepingr them so. He came into that thousand square miles of wilderness with no maps,r and few reliable guides, with only cattle and sheep trails, and burro passes zigzagging through the forests, threading their way over granite peaks. From theser bare beginnings he has constructed veritable mountain highways, half a hundredr avenues by which city-wearied people can escape on horseback, or afoot, into suchr glamorous realms as Cloud’s Rest, Ten Lakes, Pate Valley, and Forsythe Pass. Ar trail-blazer who pushes his way around mountains and across rivers, overcomingr insurmountable obstacles, cajoling his crews, loved by his men, that is Gabrielr Sovulewski, who has earned the gratitude of thousands who travel the trails ofr Yosemite each year.r

r When his work is done, Gabriel Sovulewski will need no momument, for hisr trails and roads will go marching on.r

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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r On Mount Lyell still remain remnantsr r of ancient glaciers which once sweptr r down into the canyons of Yosemite, reshaping the mountains as they movedr r

r CHAPTER THREEr
r IN THE BEGINNING

r ALL of the human history of Yosemite can be compressed into a triflingr two or three centuries, but the drama of its creation stretches grandlyr over millions and multi-millions of years. All that man has done andr seen in Yosemite, from Indian days until now, is but a paragraphr in that more colossal story. From a handful of rocks taken from the summitr and the base of a mountain and from a study of its fissures, scientists haver unfolded a story of mountain-making and canyon-carving in the Sierras whichr staggers the imagination.r

r Long ago, they say, in our dim geologic past, a great block of the earth’s crustr was tilted up on edge due to some tremendous internal pressure, making ther Sierra Nevada, one solid granite block three hundred miles long and eightyr miles wide. Like a cement sidewalk which has been upended by an earthquake,r one side of this mountain rose sharp and steep, while the other sloped graduallyr towards the west. Accompanying this lift came a sinking and caving in the earth’sr central portion, which finally settled thousands of feet below its outer edge,r making the Great Basin of California.r

r This pushing up of a mountain range caused the rivers which had been flowingr lazily across the plains to tilt too and become raging mountain torrents whichr cut deeply into their former channels. In this way river-beds were converted intor small canyons and small canyons, in thousands of years, widened out intor mountain valleys.r

r The two largest of these rivers in the Yosemite region were the Merced andr the Tuolumne, which immediately began a race against each other and againstr Time. Deeper and deeper they scoured and sandpapered their way into ther mountain’s side.r

r By the end of a hundred thousand years or so they had run their first lap andr slowed down a bit. Water is always seeking its own level and eventually theser two rivers had cut their way through the mountain until they were flowing morer horizontal than vertical. Then Nature gave another lurch and tilted them up oncer r r more, starting the race again, setting the rivers to cutting deeper and fasterr through the granite walls. A third time this happened, and that final convulsionr hoisted the crest of the Sierras eight thousand feet in one series of movements,r twice the height of Half Dome as it towers above the floor of the Valley!r

r For thousands and thousands of years then the old battle for supremacy between land and water was waged in the Sierras. Rivers ground down and pulverized mountain peaks, only to carry the sediment in mountain dust down into ther ocean, where, layer upon shifting layer, new mountains were slowly being builtr up again. Out over the ocean the rain-clouds were born which dropped theirr moisture in the mountains, swelling the rivers, which carried the earth into ther sea again. It is a battle which goes on forever.r

r Then water in another form came to complete the story of Yosemite. Snowsr packed on the summits of the Sierras, year after year, gradually turned into icer and spread in great tongues down into the canyons, filling the channels wherer water once flowed with rivers of sluggishly moving ice. Ice, ice, everywhere!r Like a wrinkled cloak it covered all the Sierras except the loftiest peaks, pushingr and grinding down into the valleys.r

r Tenaya, Illilouette, and Merced canyons all had their own glaciers whichr met and formed one of the first Yosemite mergers, at the upper end of the Valley,r packing it from wall to wall with its weight of grinding ice and embedded rockr as it flowed slowly towards El Portal. And as it moved, that clumsy, frozen sear fashioned of a rugged, humpy mountain a splendor of pinnacles, spires, domes, andr arches. Scraping at the base of cliffs, plucking away the less resistant quartz andr slate which overlay the granite core of the world, it loosened disjointed rocks,r planing and chiseling as it went until it broadened the Valley from the letter Vr to a U. Sloping walls were smoothed perpendicular, and cascades were turnedr into plunging waterfalls.r

r Picture the scene! Somber gray skies above a world of ice, with here and therer a stark granite peak like Half Dome or El Capitan thrusting through! Ice andr stone, and not a living thing, a twisted tree or a blade of grass, as far as the eyer could see! That was Yosemite in the making!r

r Two and probably three major glaciers visited Yosemite Valley, with longr intervals of milder climate between. For the seasons in Yosemite then were onlyr two, the ice years and the nice years. One of these glaciers which filled ther Valley ended in Bridal Veil Meadows, stopped by El Capitan on one side andr Cathedral Rock on the other. The second pushed through these barriers almost asr far as El Portal. And as they came and went they cut giant stairways in the river-beds. Vernal and Nevada Falls are a splendid example of these steps, with ar hollow or tread beneath each which once held a lake as the ice melted andr receded. Tenaya Canyon descended in four levels, in each of which a lake oncer stood, the lowest and longest being Mirror Lake, which is slowly filling in nowr with sediment brought down by the river. Little Yosemite Valley, like Yosemiter Valley itself, was once filled to the brim with water left in the wake of ther melting glaciers. The High Sierras are still dotted with glacial tarns which arer slowly giving way to meadows. Infinitesimal changes become drastic when theyr accumulate through thousands of years. Marshes become meadows, and meadowsr give way to the forests, which in turn climb up the granite peaks. Time is unmeasured in the mountains, where Nature moves majestically, a hundred years tor one of Man’s brief days.r

r Roughly speaking, then, Yosemite was formed first by an uplift which mader the Sierras, then by stream erosion which cut the Valley, and finally by ice,r which carved it deeper and scraped it smoother. But in its final analysis ther features of Yosemite as we know them today, Cathedral Spires, Three Brothers,r El Capitan, and the Royal Arches, were determined by the very substance ofr which they are made, their rocky structure, or “bones.”r

r Granite is one of the hardest substances in the world, pushed up from the veryr heart of the earth. Where the rock was pushed up in great solid masses, withr few fissures, or cracks, it was better able to stand erosion, grinding, and weathering, and by the tearing away of less resistant rocks around them such masses asr El Capitan and Sentinel Rock were etched out against the skyline.r

r Where those fissures or cleavage joints were vertical, great slabs of stone werer more easily plucked out, forming the sheer, straight cliffs. Where the joints werer r r curved we find the domes and spires and arches of Yosemite, which resisted ther glacial plucking. Hummocks, too, have been rounded into domes by the actionr of water freezing in the joint cracks, causing expansion and the shaling off ofr thick layers of rock like a peeling.r

r “What happened to Half Dome?”r

r Everyone wonders that, of course, for there is something so fragmentary aboutr its shape it is difficult to believe it wasn’t formed by some special cataclysm.r The Indians tried to explain it through their legends. Scientists have explainedr it repeatedly, but for a long time they could not agree upon which explanation tor accept! Rangers have even explained it to credulous tourists by telling them itr was made by a glacier, which has gone back now for the other half!r

r But the simple explanation seems to be that Half Dome is made up of twor systems of joints, one curved, the other vertical. Double-jointed! And so it presents a flat surface on one side, smoothed off by the glaciers, and a rounded oner on the other, which, through long weathering, has cast off successive shells, liker an onion, or an artichoke.r

r This process of exfoliation is going on all the time, and some day the world willr awaken to discover that the overhang or eyebrow on Half Dome has vanished, forr that, scientists believe, is the next scale to fall. But when this happens it will nor longer concern us, or our children, and probably not even our children’s children.r

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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

r CHAPTER FOURr
r MAKING A NATIONAL PARK

r NATIONAL PARKS don’t just grow. They are made at tremendousr cost and effort. Few realize, perhaps, the obstacles which have beenr overcome, the battles fought, that we might roll into these Nationalr Wildernesses today, over good highways or railroads, to find perfectr accommodations, plenty of food, Rangers to guide us, trails to follow, a telephone,r even, on some mountain top to connect us with home a thousand miles away.r Creating a National Park is a long and painful process, and the story lies not onlyr in what has been accomplished, but in the many evils which have been prevented.r

r In Yosemite, for example, it has been proposed, at one time or another, to:r

r 1. Dam the valley and flood it with water, like Hetch-Hetchy, to furnishr power for the Mariposa region.r

r 2. To raffle the valley off for a dollar a chance.r

r 3. To surrender it to homesteaders who would have exploited it with toll-roads, bridges, and trails, and overrun it with chickens and live stock.r

r 4. To relinquish the High Sierras to the sheep-herders for range for their flocks.r

r 5. To erect a great hotel on the top of Half Dome, letting the Vernal Fallsr furnish power to run elevators through tunnels to the top!r

r All of these enterprises, and many others, have been thwarted, but it has meantr fighting every step of the way. Everything accomplished in Yosemite has beenr bitterly and violently opposed by some faction, and the wonder is we have anyr National Park at all.r

r Trouble began first with the homesteaders. Several families were already established and living in the Valley when, with the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees,r it was set aside as a State Park. Among these were J. M. Hutchings and J. C. Lamon.r And though the Government offered to lease a hundred and sixty acres to each ofr them at a nominal rent, they refused, and fought ten years to maintain their holdings. Eventually the courts won out and they came to terms, receiving compensation for their claims. But the delay and the wrangles had created bad feeling,r making the people of California either hostile or indifferent to the fate of the Park.r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r A unique close-up of Half Dome, showingr r the formation of this monumental rockr r

r As a State Park, Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove were governed by ar board of commissioners who appointed Galen Clark as guardian of these wonders.r But for all the gold which had been taken from the state and from that very region itr was always a problem to wrest sufficient funds from the legislature to make ther most necessary improvements in Yosemite, or even to pay the guardian’s wages,r which were small but often ran years in arrears.r

r Sheep-herders presented the next problem. For years sheep- and cattlemen hadr been grazing their flocks and their herds in the High Sierra meadows, leaving ar trail of destruction behind them. Not only did these animals denude the forestsr and meadows, like the “hooved locusts” John Muir called them, but the sheep-herders were careless about their campfires, and forest fires were a constant menace, ravaging whole mountain sides. It was even suspected that many of these firesr were set deliberately to assure a plentiful grass crop the following spring.r

r It was sheep, then, as Doctor Carl Russell points out, which were largelyr responsible for the creation of a National Park. For years John Muir and Robertr Johnson, editor of Century Magazine, fought to have that country immediatelyr adjacent to the State Park set aside as a National Forest or Reservation to preserve and protect it from the depredations of the sheep- and cattlemen. In 1890r they succeeded, and Congress established a Reservation which included mostr of the Park of today, a region of forests, glaciers, mountain peaks, and lakesr surrounding Yosemite Valley.r

r For sixteen years following there were really two Yosemite Parks one, ther Valley and the Mariposa Grove, state owned; the other, surrounding it, ar National Park. Military troops patrolled and administered one; State Commissioners and a Guardian patrolled and operated the other. And the result, ofr course, was constant friction and trouble.r

r Galen Clark never became reconciled to Uncle Sam’s troops, who made theirr headquarters at Wawona, on the site of his former camp. When a fire broke out inr Yosemite there was usually an argument as to whether it was the duty of ther state or Federal government to put it out, and while they argued the fire burned.r Galen Clark thought little of the troopers as fire-fighters. He tells of one fire whichr r r burned in the Park Reservation for six weeks one summer, running over a territoryr thirty-five miles square. For the whole six weeks the Valley was full of smoker and tourists who came could see little of it. Finally the fire burned into Galenr Clark’s region. He took ten men, and in three days put it out.r

r “With a dozen of these California foothill boys,” he declared, “I can do everything five hundred soldiers with a brigadier general in command of ‘em can do,r and do it a blamed sight better, too!”r

r He tells a story, too, about the way the troops enforced and prevented poachingr in the National Park. Five soldiers caught an old-timer one day who had been deer-hunting. They disarmed the hunter and started marching him into camp. On ther way a deer crossed their path, and each of the soldiers in turn shot at it andr missed!r

r “If you want that deer,” laconically remarked their prisoner, “give me my gunr and I’ll get him for you.”r

r Amusedly the soldiers handed the gun over. One shot, and the deer was dead.r

r “Keep your gun,” remarked the leader admiringly, “and hike out.”r

r Yet life was not all hunting and fishing and fire-fighting for Uncle Sam’sr troops. Mr. Sovulewski, who was with that early unit, tells of the difficultiesr they had in covering that thousand of square miles of territory, with practicallyr no trails, and only inadequate maps to guide them. Underpaid as these men were,r they were often in the saddle sixteen to twenty hours a day, covering sixty milesr of riding in the day’s work. It was not easy going, for their problem was to outwitr men who knew every foot of the country, and drive them from the Park.r

r Even after they caught these trespassers the law provided no punishment forr them. But the troopers solved that matter very ingeniously. They would escortr the guilty herder across the mountains to some far boundary of the Park and letr him go, turning his sheep loose at an equally distant point. By the time the two gotr together again the sheep-herder had suffered enough losses to realize it wasr cheaper to find another range.r

r The duplication in effort and expense incurred by this dual administrationr finally convinced the people of California that they would be better off if theyr r r receded Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove back to the Government to ber administered as one National Park. This was accomplished in 1905, but onlyr after another long, long battle led again by John Muir and the Sierra Club ofr California, to whom the world owes a great debt of gratitude.r

r In 1906 Congress formally accepted the State Park and the following yearr Major Benson moved his troops from Wawona into the Valley and establishedr Fort Yosemite where the Yosemite Lodge stands today.r

r For seven years the military continued to govern the Park, keeping the troopsr there during the spring and summer and early fall. In the winter the park wasr abandoned, except for Galen Clark and a civilian assistant or so. Under the abler administration of Colonel Benson the beginnings of our present road and trailr systems were laid and much was accomplished in the way of mapping the terrainr to make it more accessible.r

r In 1916 the National Park Service was created as a division of the U. S.r Department of the Interior, with Stephen T. Mather as first Director of all ther National Parks. Since that time Yosemite has been under the direction of a civilianr superintendent representing the National Park Service, in charge of a force ofr civilian rangers, engineers, and other employes. Their task is a big one, that of maintaining order and protecting the wild life, building roads and bridges, keepingr others in repair, providing water, electricity, telephone service, and sanitary facilitiesr for the tens of thousands who make Yosemite their temporary home each year.r

r And they continue to fight our battles for us. Through their unremitting effortsr they have succeeded in taking over all of the toll-roads into the Valley and makingr them free. They have accomplished miracles in buying up private holdings in ther Park, or trading National Forest stands for those they could not buy outright.r Mr. Mather, when he failed to get the appropriations he needed to save somer special tract, frequently dipped into his own pocket to provide the funds. In thisr way he gave the Tioga road to the Government and saved large groves of Bigr Trees in Sequoia National Park. He spent more than twice the amount of hisr salary to provide a personnel to work with and for him on this great job ofr preserving the wilderness.r

r And his successor, Horace M. Albright, has followed faithfully in his footsteps. Largely through his efforts in 1930 alone fifteen thousand five hundred andr seventy acres of private holdings were returned to the Government at the cost ofr $3,300,000. Half of this cost was assumed by one man, John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,r the remainder coming from Congress.r

r Having achieved these National Parks for you, the administration’s policy nowr is to make them as enjoyable as possible. To their many other duties they haver added that of educating the public to what lies in these preservations. A Rangerr Naturalist Service has been inaugurated to take any who are interested on naturer trips of one, two, or three days, studying geologic formations, wild life, andr wild flowers. The Yosemite Museum is a treasure-house of exhibits which willr make Yosemite’s Past and Present many times more vivid and real to you.r

r The next time you pay your taxes, then, console yourself a bit by the knowledger that you have one investment in the National Parks which will always bringr returns. To clip a coupon just take to the high trails of any one of these and your will find you have a country estate no king could own!r

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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

r CHAPTER FIVEr
r BIG AND LITTLE TREES OF YOSEMITE

r EVER so often do you feel a hankering for trees, a fever for the sight andr the sound and the smell of them? Do cities crowd upon you, elevators andr office buildings, asphalt and cement, until it seems as if you had to escaper to some forest where the pine-needles are spongy underfoot and the windr soft overhead?r

r When you feel the first symptom of this tree-itis breaking out in you it is timer to be off to the Sierras. For Horace Greeley once said, “They surpass anyr mountains I ever saw in wealth and grace of trees. Look down from almost any ofr their peaks and your range of vision is filled, bounded, satisfied by what might ber termed a tempest-tossed sea of evergreens, filling every upland valley, coveringr every hillside, crowning every peak but the highest with their unfading luxuriance. I have never enjoyed such a tree feast before.”r

r Man’s interest in trees is an old one. It goes back to that day in the Garden ofr Eden when Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge. According to Darwin, itr goes back even farther! But from whatever it springs, in Yosemite you can satisfyr that tree hunger completely, for you will find there nearly every species of treer which grows in the Sierras, from the stunted, tortured growths at timberline tor the Giant Sequoias in the canyons.r

r Those trees at timberline tell a tremendous story. Beaten by gales, burned byr the sun, bowed beneath blankets of snow, they are the hardy survivors who haver fought their way to the very summit of the Sierras, to that last frontier beyondr which even the most venturesome dare not go. Up there, near timberline, you willr find species of the scrub pine, spruce, fir, aspen, birch, willow, and juniper. Gaunt,r gnarled, and grotesque, those doughty old warriors command as much admirationr and respect as the giants which tower in the valleys below. Clinging precariouslyr to rocky ridges they have held their own for hundreds of years in the face ofr overwhelming odds.r

r Many of those gnomes at timberline are as old as the majestic yellow and sugarr pines which grow in more sheltered places. Enos Mills examined one dwarf pine,r r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r The Big Tines Lodge lies in ther r shadow of giant Sequoias whichr r were old when this nation was bornr r

r Many of those trees up there, like human beings, look older than they arer because of the storms they have weathered. But the juniper tree, most spectacularr of all, has been known to live a thousand and even two thousand years. Sturdy andr storm-enduring it clings to rocky domes and ridges seven to ten thousand feetr above sea-level. It is a solitary and individual tree, never grows in forests andr seldom in groves. When killed, the juniper is said to waste away about as slowlyr as granite. In early days it was believed that the shadow it cast was harmful tor human beings, yet its berries were a panacea for all ills. That belief must survive,r for today they are used chiefly for the flavoring of gin! The wood of the juniperr was a symbol of faith, for its heart was always sound, and its branches were oftenr burned on funeral pyres. Indians used the tough, stringy bark to weave mattingr and coarse cloth. A useful and historic tree, the juniper.r

r From this outpost of pines, silver firs, hemlock, humpbacked juniper, andr tamarack, the trees straggle down from the timberline, becoming larger andr more imposing as they go. In the more temperate, middle regions of the Sierras,r the real monarchs of the forest are found, the sugar pine, the yellow pine, ther Douglas fir, live oaks, bays, cottonwood, aspens, dogwood, maples, cedars,r and king of all trees, the Sequoia Gigantea.r

r The yellow pine, “clad in thick bark like a warrior in mail,” is a nomad amongr trees, for it is found anywhere from British Columbia to the Mexican border, fromr the Pacific Ocean to the Black Hills of Dakota. Like the true traveler it is, itr accommodates itself to granite slopes, lush valley bottoms, hot sands, and dryr highlands. It is a grand old tree with bark like an alligator’s skin, which peels offr in small segments, or scales, like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. One of the finestr specimens of yellow pine stands not far from Sentinel Rock in Yosemite Valley.r It is more than five hundred years old and was standing there long before Columbusr was born, and will probably continue to watch over Yosemite destinies for centuriesr r r to come. The trunk of this tree is twenty-five feet around, and its branchesr form a canopy one hundred and three feet across. Yet it is doubtful if one out ofr twenty visitors to Yosemite even knows of its existence.r

r The yellow pine has a rival in popularity in the sugar pine, which is generallyr conceded to be the largest and noblest of the seventy or eighty species of pine treesr in the world. That puts it, in majesty, second only to the Sequoia. Curiouslyr enough the flowers of this mighty tree are no larger than those on the puny dwarfr pines at timberline, and far less showy. So Nature distributes her favors! Johnr Muir has said that a pine forest in bloom is a rare treat, but one few people everr enjoy because when the tree blooms the high mountain passes are still chokedr with snow.r

r The Douglas spruce is a relative of the well-known Norway spruce, which,r because of its long, straight shaft, has been used so long in making masts. Fromr the depths of distant forests the trunks of these trees have gone out to sail ther seven seas. Our term “spruce-looking” may well have come from this trim, neatr shaft.r

r The incense cedar is interesting not only because it grows to a venerable oldr age, but because of a peculiarity it has of blooming months ahead of its fellow trees.r Late in the autumn, or in early winter, it puts out masses of yellow blossoms whichr often poke up through snow on its branches, and is said to resemble a golden-rod against a snowy background.r

r The oak trees of the Sierras were the pantry shelves of the Indians. They depended a lot upon the harvest of acorns to get them through the winter and it wasr a good or a bad season according to the yield of acorns. They formed one ofr the chief products of barter and trade with the other tribes, and because of ther number of oak trees in Ahwahnee the Yosemite Indians had a corner on thisr commodity. The two most common species of oak are the white, or live, oak andr the black, or deciduous, oak, which drops its leaves in the fall after turning yellow,r rust, and orange to add to the glory of fall.r

r The quaking aspen is another of the triumphs of a fall in the Sierras, or ther Rockies, or wherever you may find them. Its leaves turn the yellow of gold andr r r flaunt their colors like gay scarfs draped over the mountain’s shoulder, trailingr through shadowy forests, reflecting themselves again in the streams and lakes.r According to the Highlanders of Scotland the cross on which Christ was crucifiedr was made of aspen, and a curse was laid upon the tree, causing its leaves to trembler until they dropped from the branches. Whether quaking in terror or tremblingr with joy, the aspen’s leaves are always astir, twinkling, murmuring, rustling,r even on the stillest day. And whatever the cause of their movement there is anr excitement about their fluttering which lifts the spirit a bit and always attractsr more attention to them than to the more dignified companions standing staid andr erect beside them.r

r Mary Austin claims that all the trees of the Sierras have a voice of their own.r Each has a characteristic note, she says, by which a traveler in the dark of ar mountain night can learn to know his way among them as other men do by ther street noises of their own city. There is the creaking of the firs, the sough of ther long-leaved pines, the whispering whistle of the lodge-pole pine, and the delicater frou-frou of the redwoods in the wind, each as different as the voice of a companion once you have learned to distinguish between them.r

r THE SEQUOIA GIGANTEAr

r In the deep peace of the solemn old woods stand the Big Trees, the Sequoiasr Gigantea, just as they have stood from time immemorial, defying the storms ofr thousands of years, impervious to the rise and fall of ant-like nations, living,r growing, blossoming and germinating again, century upon century. They are ther ancients of the world, ageless, raceless, for all time and all peoples. Mary Curryr Tresidder, in her “Trees of Yosemite,” says of these oldest living things: “Theyr were seedlings when Alexander sighed for more worlds to conquer, had becomer mere saplings when Christ was born, and had attained the grandeur of their primer long before Columbus set eyes upon this continent. It is not merely an ordinaryr tree raised to the nth power, but is the apotheosis of a tree.”r

r And still they stand, high priests of the Sierras, that we of the twentiethr r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r The Grizzly Giant, monarch of the Mariposar r Grove of Big Trees, measures ninety-four feet atr r its base, and towers two hundred feet high. It mayr r have been living when the pyramids were builtr r

r At one time the genus of this tree spread over three continents, Europe, Asia,r and North America, but all have perished now except those two species found inr California, the Sequoia Gigantea and the Sequoia Sempervirens, or Coastr Redwood.r

r There are three groves of Big Trees in Yosemite Park—the Mariposa Grove, ther largest and best known, containing something over two hundred giants; ther Tuolumne Grove, on the Big Oak Flat road, with twenty-five of the larger trees;r and the Merced Grove, near Hazel Green, with twenty or more.r

r There have been many controversies over the age of the Big Trees and a conservative estimate seems to be that the oldest have lived between three and fiver thousand years, with unlimited life ahead. It is certain, according to Colonelr White, of Sequoia National Park, that they live four thousand years, reasonablyr certain that they can live five thousand or six thousand years, probable that theyr may live seven thousand or eight thousand years, and not improbable that theyr may live ten thousand years if protected. At any rate they are older now than anyr other living thing on earth, having long outlived the dinosaurs and the ichthyosaurs of their youth, and appear to be as vigorous now as they were in theirr first thousand of years.r

r It is amazing to think that a tree the size of the Grizzly Giant, largest ofr Yosemite trees, sprang from a seed no larger than a spinach seed. From that infinitesimal germ grew a tree which measures ninety-four feet at the base of itsr trunk and stands two hundred feet high. The General Sherman tree in Sequoiar National Park is 102 feet at its base and towers 273 feet towards the sky. Such ar tiny seed, as Colonel White and Judge Fry point out in their book “Bigr Trees,” can produce a tree which contains enough lumber to build a village of oner hundred and fifty houses of five rooms each!r

r One of the great beauties of the Big Tree is its deeply fluted, reddish brownr trunk which rises so straight and free of encumbering branches to a height of ar hundred feet or more. As the tree ages it drops its lower branches and thoser r r remaining often become as large around as the trunk of an ordinary tree. The barkr which protects the heart of these monarchs is often a foot and a half in thickness.r As it is the outer and most important defense of the tree it was especiallyr designed by Nature to resist fire, insects, and disease. For all its thickness it isr spongy and almost as light and resistant to fire as asbestos because it containsr so little resin. It is filled, too, with a dust which has a high percentage of tanninr in it. This discourages the inroads of insects and helps to insulate the tree againstr extremes of heat and cold.r

r The Big Tree is certainly an outstanding example of the survival of the fittest.r For of the millions of seeds each tree sows every year only a very few germinate.r And of these few still fewer survive the ravages of birds, cutworms, wood-ants,r rodents, and forest fires. Literally the first hundred years are the hardest withr the Sequoias!r

r Lofty and aloof these trees stand in dignified stateliness. No fantastic, wind-blown contours here, or picturesquely gnarled branches. Their great trunks riser like fluted columns, and though the crowns of most of the oldest have beenr damaged by fire they maintain a majesty which makes them one of the wonders ofr the world. There lives a world beneath them and a world above. Deer and bearr and a kingdom of smaller, scuttling animals live and die at their feet, while abover their heads birds soar and sing, and die; clouds gather, storms rage, still ther Sequoia stands calm and mysterious, in a green eternity, with its head in ther clouds and its roots deep, deep in the soil, a link between heaven and earth.r

r And as you wander through the aisles of the Big Tree forests you understandr why the ancient priests and philosophers chose the groves for their first temples,r planting trees in a circle to make their amphitheaters. While Pliny and his followers were meditating in some distant woods the Big Trees were alreadyr growing on the slopes of the Sierras, gathering their peace and quiet andr strength to share with all who walk beneath them.r

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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

r CHAPTER SIXr
r TRAVELING THE TRAILS

r WHEN YOU start collecting road maps and tracing High Sierrar Camps with a blue pencil, you might just as well wind ther office clock, tear a week or a month off the calendar, and be onr your way. For, to all intents and purposes, you have begunr traveling the trails of Yosemite.r

r That is the magic of maps. Cause and effect become blurred, and it is only ar step from following a dotted black line across white paper, looking like a feverr or population chart, to jogging along a mountain trail, skirting the skyline ofr the Sierras, or sauntering down by some still, forgotten lake.r

r The call of the trail is irresistible, as Horace Albright points out in his chapterr on “Hikers” in “Oh, Ranger!” “Some lingering spark from the days when ourr ancestors were trail-blazing flares up in each of us once or twice or thrice a year,r and there burns that longing for the winding trail that leads now over mountainr passes, now through fragrant forests, now by rushing waters, or past rampartsr of rocks.”r

r Hikers, like all Gaul, they divide into three parts. There are the mountainr climbers, who come either in bevies and clubs, or as free-lances, and adopt somer mountain temporarily and cannot rest until they have scaled its peak, beforer going on to conquer new heights. There are the nature-lovers who don’t care ar hang what is on top of the mountain, who are lured by a trail not because itr leads to the earth’s high spots, but because it winds through woods and meadowsr and dells, across carpets of blossoms where wild flowers and wild animals can ber stalked and studied at leisure. And “there is the plain and lowly hiker, withr his camera in his hand and perspiration on his brow, who outnumbers all the aforementioned gentry of the trail something like four to one. They are the ordinaryr folk, sick of the sight of old brick walls, longing for a look at the wilderness,r hoofing it along a narrow path for no other reason than the sheer fun of it. All her asks is a well-marked trail, leading somewhere at the end of the day. All ther service he demands is an extra pair of socks, a roll of adhesive tape, a big biter r r of lunch, and a camera to shoot the stag which stares pop-eyed at him from ther azaleas.”r

r After the hikers go the trail-riders, those aristocrats of the mountains whor travel first class where travel de luxe is still aboard the broad back of a trail ponyr or mountain mule. As they pass the plodding hikers along the way, each feels ar peculiar superiority to the other, and each a sneaking envy. For as David Curryr used to say, when he announced about the Curry campfire that reservations werer being made for horses leaving in the morning for the Glacier Point trail, “Thoser of you who walk will probably wish you had ridden, and those of you who rider will wish you had walked.”r

r But they are all brothers under the dust, and it is a great fellowship that camaraderie of the trail. When they gather about the same board at night, hiker, trail-rider, or motorist (low caste though he is!) or share their bread and campfirer in some sequestered spot, world politics and economic depressions are of littler importance as compared to the number of miles covered that day, the steepnessr of the climb planned for the morrow, or the number and variety of wild flowersr blooming along the Pohono trail at that time of year.r

r Motorists, too, have a fraternity of their own in the Sierras, with an A and Br grading. Those B motorists who whiz-bang through the country, boasting of having made the Lee Vining grade in high, or of having covered more territory inr less time than anyone in camp, are not popular with the “Poison-Oakers,” orr experienced mountaineers, who have just humped over some stupendous passr under their own steam. But that great motor caravan of campers who use roadsr as they are intended to be used, as a means of getting into the wilderness to enjoyr it at leisure, are admitted into the clan of trail buddies on an almost equalr footing. Only circumstances set them a little below the one hundred per centr hikers, who, of course, really own the mountains.r

r The old cry still echoes through the canyons that automobile roads are spoilingr the wilderness and ruining Americans for walking. Yet for every mile of highway which penetrates those wildernesses two miles of trail are made morer accessible. As roads push farther and farther into the forests, trails push ahead ofr r r them, opening new hinterlands of beauty which have never been explored. Justr look at the map of Yosemite. In spite of the six hundred miles of trail whichr crisscross the Park, consider the thousands of acres of grandeur which have notr yet been scratched. So that great and growing company of trail-trekkers will ber safe for many years to come. Uncle Sam is attending to that. For he has limitedr the number of roads which can be built into any National Park, while increasingr the trail projects. The balance of beauty still lies with the hiker, and he has onlyr to shoulder his pack and swing up the trail to lose himself in an hour in as profound a solitude as the Lord ever created in his six days of world-making.r

r Yet to anyone who feels keenly on this subject of roads, I recommend just oner trip over the new highway into Yosemite by way of Wawona and the Mariposar Grove of Big Trees. There’s a road which is, in reality, a glorified trail. It windsr its way in broad curves through one of the finest stands of timber in America, andr its approach to Yosemite Valley is without equal. You emerge from a mile-longr mountain tunnel, a wonder in itself, and the Valley bursts upon you. One momentr it is not there, and the next it is, in all its entirety. It is like the first view ofr Death Valley from Dante’s Point, or the sudden stepping out upon the rim ofr the Grand Canyon. You have no preparation, no fugitive glimpses. There it is,r abrupt and breath-taking. And it is a grand way to step onto the Yosemite stager for the first time, very much as it happened to those first discoverers of ther Valley who first saw it from practically the same vantage-point. It is a momentr you will be glad to store in the archives of memory. And one which may convertr you to road-making.r

r Before you start traveling the trails in Yosemite, it is a good idea to visit ther Museum in the Valley and study the relief map of the Park. You will find it interesting to trace your route over mountain and through canyons, beside rivers andr across meadows. And you will go with a much more vivid idea of the sort ofr country you are planning to discover. Then, when you return, visit the mapr again and you will find that impersonal black line leading across ridges andr dipping into hollows has taken on new meaning, conjuring up pictures of scallopedr peaks against a sunset sky, wooded valleys filled with the sound of rushing waters,r r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r At Merced Lake trail-riders leaver r the workaday world far behindr r

r Up there in the Sierras time is the coin of the realm. You are rich or poor, notr according to the dollars, but to the days and the nights you have to spend. So hoardr your hours like a miser, till you arrive, then spend them like a mountain millionaire, paying out a day to stroll across the roof of the world, an hour to lie beneathr a tree which has taken three thousand years in the growing! Budget your time,r so that none of it is squandered, then spend like a prodigal, and your interestr will be compounded every year for the rest of your life.r

r You will have to allow quite a bit of time for the Valley itself. Before your leave to skirmish on high, explore the Indian Caves under the Royal Arches,r where the first and only Yosemite Indian was found by the Mariposa Battalion.r Mono chiefs once smoked the pipe of peace there with the Ahwaneechees. Majorr Savage and the men of his battalion spent a night there.r

r If it is spring, or early summer, look for water-ouzels bobbing along the rocksr which border Happy Isles as the Merced River rushes by, flashing white diamondsr in the air. In late afternoon drive down to the foot of Bridal Veil Falls to seer the ethereal rainbow arching across the water. If it is summer, and the moon isr full, climb to the bottom of Yosemite’s upper falls to see the lunar rainbow.r Then, if you can turn your back on this moon enchantment, look down upon ther Valley where the twinkling lights flicker in the trees below like myriad fireflies.r Along the banks of the Merced River, near Pohono Bridge, the dogwood isr loveliest in the spring and brilliant again in October. In June azaleas bloom inr El Capitan meadows, filling the air with their fragrance. On a moonlit winterr night, Lamon’s apple orchard, white with snow, is a vision you will never forget.r

r It is fun to prowl among the camp grounds in the evening, stopping now andr then at some friendly fireside, to exchange data with the campers. You will learnr that the roads are good, and the roads are bad. Fishin’ is fine, or there’s nor fishin’ at all! Bears at the feeding ground are one thing, bears feeding in yourr own camp are another.r

r There are nice, flat rocks near the foot of Yosemite Falls where you can lier r r and listen to the water as you watch the stars in their courses. There is ther Lost Arrow trail, where you can wander in the freshness of the early morning,r cooking bacon, if you have permission, in the rocky stream-bed. And there is ther museum, chock-full of treasures, where you can identify that strange bird orr flower which puzzled you along the trail. Every morning and every afternoonr there is an auto caravan tour of the Valley which you make in your own car withr the aid of a guide who explains the interesting features of Yosemite.r

r Then there are the trails! The long ones and the short ones. The steep ones,r and the steeper ones. The most traveled from the floor of the Valley are those tor Vernal and Nevada Falls, the Four-Mile trail to Glacier, and the Ledge trail.r Fewer seem to know about the Sierra Point trail, which is a fairly steep scramble,r but a most rewarding one. It branches off from the Vernal Falls trail just abover Happy Isles and spirals upward for three-quarters of a mile to a rocky promontoryr opposite Illilouette Falls, with Vernal and Nevada tumbling to the left of you,r Yosemite plunging to the right. You are suspended, as it were, between heavenr and earth, looking down upon the Valley, looking up to the Sierra peaks. For ar short hike it is one of the most comprehensive and satisfying of all.r

r Another easy half-day jaunt is up Tenaya Canyon to the Cascades. There is littler climbing on this trail as it follows the river closely and is well shaded all ther way. It begins at Mirror Lake and meanders through the canyon for severalr wooded miles.r

r “If you had only one day in Yosemite what would you do?”r

r I heard a tourist ask a Ranger this question, and he shook his head sadly andr answered, “Madam, I’d weep!”r

r But if I had only one day in Yosemite, I think I would drive to Glacier Pointr twenty-eight miles over an oiled highway, taking about an hour and a half eachr way. There I would climb to Sentinel Dome, a short ten minutes’ drive from ther main road. And under that curiously wind-blown Jeffrey Pine, hundreds of yearsr old, I would settle down for one hour’s contemplation of the roof of the world.r For nowhere will you find such an unsurpassed view of the High Sierras. “Cycler upon cycle of Sierra peaks, lonely looking, though so many.” Rolling ridges ofr r r stone, stretching off into illimitable space. Some are snow-crowned, some arer cloud-shadowed. Battalion after battalion they march across the sky, files ofr pinnacles, domes, and ragged crests. There is lots of room to breathe in up there,r lots of time to think. And as you look to the horizon on every side of you, recallr those lines—r

r I inhale great draughts of space,r
r And the East and the West are mine,r
r And the North and the South are mine.r

r And after a while I would wander back to Glacier Point, for the comfort ofr people, and standing on the top of that sheer cliff which rises straight from ther floor of the Valley to the soles of my shoes, almost a mile above it, I would lookr down into that canyon carved by the silver trickle of water, spilling now overr Vernal and Nevada Falls, and marvel that human beings could matter in ar universe planned on such a scale.r

r From Glacier Point I would back-track a little on my way to the Mariposar Grove of Big Trees. I would plan to arrive there late in the afternoon when ther shadows were long enough to cast “sun-dogs,” or streamers of light through ther trees, and I would walk quietly among them till sundown, as you would walk inr the presence of Patriarchs. I would not bother about their size or their age orr their cubic contents. I would simply enjoy their peace and their beauty. Andr after supper on the terrace made from mosaics of Sequoia, I would listen to ther wind stir in their needles, so high above, and watch their silhouettes appearr against the starlight or moonlight before returning to the Valley in time to seer the firefall from the very point at Glacier on which I had stood that morning.r And that would be a day of days.r

r If you have two days in Yosemite you could plan a trip to the Big Trees in ther morning and go on to Glacier Point to spend the night. You could have a sunsetr then from Sentinel Dome or Glacier Point, when the whole world is bathed inr color, and in the evening you could participate in that ceremony of shoving ther firefall over the cliff, and hearing the embers tinkle as they dropped. In ther morning you could return to the Valley either by way of Vernal and Nevadar r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r In the Tuolumne Canyon through firr r forests, beside rushing waters, trails leadr r from one High Sierra camp to anotherr r

r You cannot sit and watch Yosemite Falls booming over the cliffs withoutr feeling the urge to climb to the top and peer behind the scenes. Particularly ifr you have seen the canyon of Yosemite Creek from the Pohono trail, tracing ther river from the falls back to where it was born on Mount Hoffman. So if you have ar third day in Yosemite, don’t miss that experience. There is no way of describingr the sensation you have as you stand beside that deafening roar of falling waterr where it slips over the brink of the precipice. It terrifies and exhilarates. Andr there is no better way to gauge the height of the cliffs than to climb up or downr that trail in the shadow of those towering walls. From the top of Yosemite Fallsr it is about a mile to Yosemite Point, a rise which gives a more extended view ofr the Valley. A supper on Yosemite Point, when the shadows descend on ther Valley engulfing it bit by bit, then a hike down the trail in the moonlight is anr adventure you’ll boast of for many long years to come.r

r From the top of Yosemite Falls a trail leads to the summit of Eagle Peak,r highest of the Three Brothers, through forests, like those of the Pohono trail,r through gardens of wild roses, evening primroses, lupins, shooting-stars, Mariposar lilies, larkspur, and penstamons.r

r Half Dome is a challenge to both seasoned and tenderfoot hikers alike. Itsr very bulk and its polished dome seem to defy them. So, to assert man’s superiority, they feel compelled to scale it, even as George Anderson did, back in 1875,r when he so laboriously cut steps in the granite to insert the iron pegs by whichr r r he eventually hauled himself by means of a rope ladder to its untrodden top.r Since then, the egg-shells of thousands of picnickers have blown down its crevices,r and still it stands beckoning. On the top of its rounded dome there are aboutr eight acres of flat surface. A few scrubby tree bushes have found root-hold andr here and there a tiny alpine lichen relieves the starkness of its barren dome. It isr eight miles to the top of Half Dome, and eight miles down again!r

r Supposing, though, you did not have to count your days by twos or threes.r Then what a bit of traveling you could do! You could roll up a map, and a bitr of moleskin for blistered heels, and start off on a tour of the High Sierra Camps.r You could hike it or ride it, with or without companions, allowing six days,r or sixty, according to your blessings.r

r There are five of these High Sierra Camps, established just a comfortabler day’s jaunt apart, approximately ten miles, where simple but highly appreciatedr food and shelter are provided for a dollar a meal, a dollar a night. And when your have completed a tour of those camps, from Yosemite Valley to Lake Merced,r Vogelsang Pass to Tuolumne Meadows, Glen Aulin to Tenaya Lake, and fromr Tenaya Lake back to the Valley, you have had one of the finest vacations thatr money can buy. At the top of every mountain pass you have somehow dropped ar worry. Fresh winds from the four corners of the earth have blown the cobwebsr from your mind. You have burned your nose and hardened your body. You haver seen the glories of a mountain morning, heard the music of wind and water, smelledr the fragrance of pine forests. In short, you have been places and seen things.r

r Merced Lake Camp lies in a high, wooded valley on the shores of a beautifulr lake, where the fishing is excellent. Because of its ideal location, and its proximity to other fishing streams, it is one of the favorite High Sierra Camps.r

r Vogelsang Camp is the highest of all, perched on the top of a pass at anr altitude of 10,000 feet above sea-level. It lies above timberline, stark and impressive in its austere beauty, up where the winds and the clouds are born.r Above the camp and one mile to the east lies Bernice Lake, cradled in an amphitheater of rock, and several hundred feet above is a chain of lakes where the troutr flash temptingly.r

r Tuolumne Meadows is known to all lovers of the Sierras. It is the hub of ther High Sierras, a sort of Grand Concourse from which many trails radiate. Liker the Grand Central Station in New York, if you stay there long enough you willr encounter all of your trailside buddies. Surrounded by such imposing peaks asr Dana, Mount Conness, Lyell, Cathedral, Echo, and McClure, crossed by ther mighty Tuolumne River, twin to the Merced, the Meadows attracts thousands ofr fishermen, mountain climbers, campers, and hikers each year. As in Yosemiter Valley, there in the heart of the Sierras you will find that combination of almostr forbidding grandeur and ethereal beauty; noble ranges and fantastically shapedr peaks, granite knobs, polished to shining glory, rising out of wild-flowerr meadows and sylvan groves. And through it all races the Tuolumne River, “one ofr the most songful rivers in the world,” as John Muir declares.r

r Glen Aulin is beautifully located beside the White Cascade Fall on ther Tuolumne River. It is one of the newer camps to be established, opening to newr worshipers each season miles of that tumultuous canyon where the Waterwheelr Falls leap in the air. Fishing is extraordinarily good in this region, and ther aspens, in the late season, are a sight for your soul.r

r From Glen Aulin it is only a little over seven miles to Lake Tenaya, “Laker of the Shining Rocks,” as the Indians named it. Wooded on one side, with a tree-fringed shore on the other, and glacial domes rising from its waters to brush ther skies, this is one of those ideal pictures with which vacation pamphlets lurer you. Here the last of Tenaya’s tribe were surrounded and captured by governmentr soldiers. The waters of this lake seem particularly blue, perhaps because of ther glacial dust. For as dust makes the sunsets by light reflection and refraction, sor does finely powdered rock in the mountain lakes account in part for their intenser blues and greens. The trip from Glen Aulin to Tenaya Lake passes not far fromr May Lake, at the base of Mount Hoffman, where a winter camp for ski enthusiastsr is being planned.r

r From Tenaya Lake you return to the Valley by way of Tenaya Canyon and ther zigzags. But if you can manage to commandeer a ride down the Tioga road, for ar few miles, to the junction of the Yosemite Falls trail, you will have a gloriousr r r hike along Yosemite Creek, through magnificent forests, to the top of Yosemiter Falls, then down into the Valley. That is as grand a finale for such a tour as ther most exacting could ask.r

r When you have toured the High Sierra Camps, however, you have only made ar bowing acquaintance with the Park. For there is just as much more in comparisonr to what you have seen, as you have now seen in comparison to those who neverr left the floor of the Valley. Over every ridge you passed lies another ridge.r Beyond every lake and stream gleams another. There is Pate Valley and Hetch-Hetchy, Benson Lake and the Devil’s Post Pile. There is the Isberg Pass and ther Forsythe trail, the Sunrise trail and Thousand Island Lake. There is Cold Canyonr trail and Babcock Lake trail, and trails too numerous to mention. And there isr Shadow Lake and Shadow Creek, Ten-Mile Meadows and Jackass Mountain,r Piute Creek and Matterhorn Canyon. Names to conjure with, places to explore!r

r But once you get the bacilli in your blood stream rest assured you will be back.r For there is no cure for mountain-itis except mountains; no allaying that trail-fever except by trail-trekking. And of all the treatments under the sun and ther stars, there is none easier to take than that of traveling the trails of Yosemite!r

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r r Contentsr • Previous: Traveling the Trailsr r

Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

r CHAPTER SEVENr
r INDIAN LEGENDS

r PRIMITIVE MAN has always had a reverence for stone. It was his firstr oracle and god, his first token of a life longer than his own. For manr grasped the immortality of stone images before he dared dream ofr immortality for himself. Even today we make much of our Rock ofr Ages, our Gibraltar, our Sugar Loaf, our Diamond Head, and our pyramids.r

r So it is not surprising that the Indians should have deified Half Dome, Elr Capitan, and Sentinel Rock. Anything a savage can not understand he fears andr worships. In his effort to explain the granite cliffs and the mountain peaks, woods,r valleys, streams, and waterfalls, he peopled them with spiritual occupants, andr attributed to them supernatural powers second only to those of the Great Spirit.r And then about them he wove many legends.r

r Through many repetitions these legends have become so embroidered andr embellished by the white man that only a flavor of the original remains. Includedr in the following pages are a few of the most characteristic of these stories stillr current in the Valley. And because the different versions of the same legend varyr so in detail, in one or two instances a composite of the various accounts hasr been made, adhering always to the underlying motif, while risking the embroidering of one more eyelet in this fabric of fancy.r

r THE LEGEND OF TU-TOK-A-NU-LA AND TIS-SA-ACKr

r [Editor’s note:r this “legend” “was almost certainly fabricated”r according to NPS Ethnologist Craig D. Bates.r It was first published in Hutchingsr “The Great Yo-Semite Valley” (1859)r and reprinted in Hutchingsr r Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity (1862)r andr r In the Heart of the Sierras (1888)r —dea.]r

r If you look closely upon the massive face of El Capitan, you will see there ther fancied likeness of a man, in flowing robes, hastening westward. The Indiansr know him as Tu-tok-a-nu-la and have woven about him the following legend:r

r When the Great Spirit first made Ah-wah-nee, known today as Yosemite, andr led the children of the sun into it, he placed the great god Tu-tok-a-nu-la on hisr granite tower as guardian of the Valley, to watch over and care for them.r

r Tu-tok-a-nu-la intervened with the Great Spirit to bring rains when theyr were needed to ripen the acorns and fatten the tender grass-roots. He drove ther deer from their thickets that the hunters might bring home venison to theirr r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r Mount Lyell and Mount Maclure fromr r Mount Dana, an empire of stark graniter r peaks tumbled together in desolate grandeurr r

r Then one morning at dawn he heard a voice in the breeze, calling to him inr tones as sweet as the ripple of water.r

r “Tu-tok-a-nu-la! ”r

r And as he looked in wonder, he saw, for a fleeting moment, a beautifulr maiden, not like the dark children of Ah-wah-nee, but radiant and fair, withr eyes blue as the mountain lakes, and hair golden as sunlight. Eagerly he reachedr out to her, but she vanished in a mist, and he knew her to be Tis-sa-ack, whor dwelt upon Half Dome.r

r From that day he could think of nothing but this vision. As he roamed ther mountain peaks and the forests, in search of her, neglect and desolation fell uponr Ah-wah-nee. His people called to him in vain, imploring him to bring rain tor revive the parched earth. The streams shriveled up and the fishermen returnedr empty-handed. No longer did the deer come from the mountains, and sicknessr and starvation came to the Ah-wah-nee-chees.r

r Still Tu-tok-a-nu-la forgot them. He was consumed only with a desire to seer Tis-sa-ack once more. But she had vanished, and when she returned and saw ther distress that Tu-tok-a-nu-la’s love for her had brought upon his people, her heartr was heavy, and she called upon the Great Spirit to bring rain to Ah-wah-nee.r

r At once there came an answer to her prayer, for with a mighty crash ther Great Spirit split in two the throne rock upon which she had stood, and waterr flowed from its sides, filling the streams and the Valley. And Tis-sa-ack’s tearsr flowed down the cleft rock, leaving at its foot a little lake, so that the streamsr might ever be replenished. And Tis-sa-ack was banished forever into the mistsr which often hover about her throne rock.r

r Tu-tok-a-nu-la returned at last from his vain searchings, and with his hunting-knife he carved his face upon El Capitan to show the people he had gone Westr again, always seeking his vanished Tis-sa-ack, leaving only his image to guard inr his absence the Gates of Ah-wah-nee.r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r At Vogelsang Pass, high abover r the timberline, the trail crossesr r the backbone of the Sierrasr r

r And occasionally, it is said, just as the last rays of the sun creep over ther crest of Half Dome, Tis-sa-ack comes back, wreathed in a cloud, to gaze oncer more into the valley she loved so well and to make sure that the children ofr Ah-wah-nee still live in peace and plenty.r

r LEGEND OF PO-HO-NOr

r Savages, it seems, were seldom able to trace to themselves the cause of theirr misfortunes, so they conveniently fixed the responsibilities and the sufferingsr upon the evil spirits. A spirit which had incurred the wrath of the Great Spiritr was obliged to serve a term of expiation upon this earth. But if one of these demonsr could lure another to destruction, the victim had to serve as a proxy in place ofr the original, who was thus released to join his family.r

r Particularly dreaded by the Indians of Yosemite was that region directly belowr Bridal Veil Falls which was infested with those spirits. Even on the warmestr days a capricious wind is often felt there, which the Indians called “Po-ho-no,”r or “Evil Wind.” And while thousands of visitors pause there to admire the gossamer veil of spray, the Indian hurries past, face averted, a dread fear in hisr heart because of the following myth:r

r One soft spring day, while the women of Ah-wah-nee were gathering grassesr for basket-weaving above the top of Po-Ho-No, or Bridal Veil Falls, one of ther maidens ventured near the edge of the water to pick an overhanging grass. Sher stepped upon a mossy rock, set there to entrap her, by Po-Ho-No, the Evil Oner who inhabits the mist, and in a twinkling she was snatched into the falls never tor return. Her companions, horrified, and fearing the same fate, hastened back tor the Valley to spread the alarm. Instantly a band of young braves sped to the footr of the falls. But no sign of the maiden was to be found. Her spirit, with manyr others, was imprisoned in the water by Po-Ho-No, there to stay until she hadr lured some other victim to its doom, and not until then would it be released tor wander on to the home of the Great Spirit in the West.r

r And that is why an Indian shudders as he feels the breath of Po-Ho-No uponr r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r On the Glacier Point Trail one looksr r down upon the top of Yosemite Fallsr r and up towards mountains higherr r

r Mr. Bunnell, in his “Discovery of Yosemite” claims, however, that when ther Mariposa Battalion first entered the Valley they found an Indian Village locatedr not far from the foot of the falls. So he is inclined to think that their fear ofr the region occurred after that, and that the vicinity became haunted groundr after the murder there of the two unfortunate miners, because of the death andr disaster which promptly followed the commission of that crime.r

r LEGEND OF HUM-MO, THE LOST ARROWr

r [Editor’s note:r this “legend” “is almost certainly fictitious”r according to NPS Ethnologist Craig D. Bates.r It was first printed in Hutchingsr In the Heart of the Sierras (1888)r —dea.]r

r A little to the left of the upper Yosemite Falls, standing alone from the edger of the cliff, is a great shaft of granite rock which the Indians explained as follows:r

r It was the day of the marriage of Tee-hee-nay, fairest of Ah-wah-nee-cheer maidens, to Kos-soo-kah, bravest of the warriors. But before the bride could gor with the bridegroom to his lodge, there must be a great feast, and all day longr Ah-wah-nee was astir with preparations.r

r Early in the morning Kos-soo-kah gathered about him the strongest of hisr young braves to hunt with him for the marriage feast. He parted from his belovedr with the promise that, at the end of the day’s hunt, he would drop an arrow fromr the cliff above the falls. By the number of feathers it bore Tee-hee-nay shouldr tell what the kill had been.r

r The day sped quickly while Tee-hee-nay and her women gathered acorns andr young grasses, and when the long shadows stretched across the meadows she mader her way with a light heart to the foot of Yosemite Falls to receive the messager from Kos-soo-kah.r

r The shadows deepened to night, but still Tee-bee-nay received no sign fromr her lover. Becoming fearful, she climbed the cliff to meet him, and there, at ther top of the cliff, she saw fresh footprints in the moist earth which led over ther cliff—but failed to return!r

r Slowly she crept to the edge of the rock, and leaning far over she saw on ar mound of fallen rock the motionless body of Kos-soo-kah, spent how in hand.r r r r

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r

r r Dana Meadows on the Tioga Road, wherer r you will find “The four far corners of space,r r wind on the mouth, clouds in the face”r r

r By means of a signal fire she brought the old men from the Valley to her, andr the young warriors from the woods, bearing on their backs Kos-soo-kah’sr kill for the wedding feast. Slowly she was lowered over the cliff to his side, forr she would allow no others to go.r

r As they were both raised to the cliff above, there beneath the stars of herr wedding night she fell quietly forward upon his breast and the spirit of Tee-hee-nay followed that of Kos-soo-kah’s.r

r The arrow was never found, but in its stead appeared the granite shaft to ther left of Yosemite Falls, in token of Kos-soo-kah’s last message to Tee-hee-nay,r and it was called by the children of Ahwahnee Hum-mo, or Lost Arrow.r

r LEGEND OF TIS-SA-ACKr

r Long, long ago, before the Great Spirit had peopled Ahwahnee, an Indianr woman, called Tis-sa-ack, and her husband, Nangas, left the plains of ther Merced Valley to cross the high mountains before them. Weary from long days ofr climbing and laden with burdens, they reached Ah-wah-nee at last, parched forr water, and eagerly they stumbled on to Ah-wei-ya, or Mirror Lake, to refreshr themselves.r

r Tis-sa-ack, arriving first, set her papoose in its basket on the ground besider her and bending over drank thirstily from the lake. Again and again she filled herr basket and drank deeply from it. So great was her thirst that by the time herr husband arrived not a basketful of water remained.r

r In great anger, Nangas turned upon his wife and began to beat her. Tis-sa-ackr in fright ran from him, but he pursued her, striking as he ran. At last in pain andr humiliation Tis-sa-ack turned upon her husband and threw her burden-basket atr him.r

r The Great Spirit, angered by all this tumult in his peaceful Ah-wah-nee,r straightway turned them all to stone. Nangas became Washington Column. Ther upturned burden-basket, hurled by his weeping wife, became Basket Dome. Ther forgotten papoose, in his basket, became the Royal Arches, while Tis-sa-ackr r r herself became that great monument, Half Dome, which is still streaked with ther tears of shame which streamed down her face at her husband’s beating.r

r Just what relation this Tis-sa-ack has to the maiden of the other legend hasr never been explained, but the two stories run concurrently in the Valley today.r

r LEGEND OF TU-TOK-A’NAr

r “When El Capitan was but a boulder,” is an expression sometimes heard inr Yosemite. This refers to a time before Tu-tok-a-na distinguished himself amongr all the wild folk of Yosemite. El Capitan, according to legend, was not alwaysr the massive cliff it is today. Mythically speaking, it achieved its growth, as wellr as its name, in the following manner:r

r One warm, summer day, when there were only animal people in the world, twor little bear cubs ran away from their home to go swimming. Scrambling out of ther water they lay upon a warm rock to dry. The sun, and their swim, made themr drowsy, and they soon fell fast asleep, in what later proved to be a regular Ripr Van Winkle sleep. For while they were sleeping the rock upon which they layr began to grow. It grew and grew until it towered up into the very clouds, withr the bear cubs asleep on its top.r

r When the mother bear learned what had happened she was overcome withr grief. All the animals in the woods gathered about the foot of the great rock andr each in turn tried to scale it. One after another they failed, even to the agiler cougar and the powerful grizzly bear. Finally the Measuring-Worm, humblestr of all the mountain people, began to climb up the face of the cliff. Inch by inchr he made his way until he reached the top. There he found the bear cubs and tookr them back to their waiting mother. Overjoyed by the rescue, the animalsr hereafter called the cliff by the name of the valiant measuring-worm, and it isr still known as Tu-tok-a-na.r

r A sequel to this story, no less amazing, is that Tu-tok-a-na, elated by hisr prowess, began now to “show off” a bit. He climbed again to the top of ther cliff and stretching himself clear across the Valley drew himself over. Then her returned, repeating his acrobatics until he so weakened the walls of the Valleyr that they caved in, thus widening the canyon at this point quite noticeably!r

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Yosemite Tales and Trails (1934) by Katherine Ames Taylor

r r r r r [click to enlarge]r r Coverr r

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• Title and front matterr
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• Table of Contentsr
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• r 1. Discovering Yosemite for Yourselfr
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• r 2. Highlights of the Yosemite Storyr
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  • r 1. The Indians of Ahwahnee and the Medicine Man’s Prophecyr
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  • r 2. Discovery of the Yosemiter
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  • r 3. Return of the Mariposa Battalion and Death of Tenayar
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  • r 4. Enter the Touristr
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  • r 5. Stage Coaches and Banditsr
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  • r 6. Old-Timers and Pioneersr
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• r 3. In the Beginningr
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• r 4. Making a National Parkr
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• r 5. Big and Little Trees of Yosemiter
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• r 6. Travelling the Trailsr
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• r 7. Indian Legendsr
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About the Author

r Katherine Ames was born April 8, 1895 in Michigan.r She married Frank J. Taylor June 30, 1919r and they had 3 sons.r Katherine Ames Taylor wrote books for H. S. Crocker Co.,r which include:r

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• r r Lights and Shadows of Yosemite (1926). Yosemite Indian folklore and photographs by Ansel Adams, George E. Stone, Bert Studio, Charles Hiller, F. J. Taylor, and others. Reprinted 2004.
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• Los Angeles Tripbook (1928). Sightseeing guide
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• Romance of Stanford (1927). Camera studies by George E. Stone
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r Her husband Frank J. Taylor was a newspaper reporter and author.r He was born October 8, 1894 in South Dakota.r His photographs appeared in her 1926 book.r Frank J. Taylor also wrote The Yosemite Trip Book (1929, 1938),r co-wrote Oh Ranger! with NPS Director Horace Albright in 1929,r and also wrote several other books, mostly travel and history,r and magazine articles.r During World Wars I and II he was a war correspondent.r He died October 23, 1972.r His biography appears in Gale’s Contemporary Authors.r

r Katherine Ames Taylor died July 5, 1979 in Santa Clara Co., California,r but was residing at Arcade, Sacramento Co., California at her death.r

Bibliographical Information

r Katherine Ames Taylor (1895-1979),r Yosemite Tales and Trailsr (H. S. Crocker Co., Inc., 1934),r Photographs by Ansel Adams (1902-1984).r Copyright 1934 by Katherine Ames Taylor.r LCCN 35030043.r 5+78 pages, illustrated, 28 cm.r Bound in green cloth-covered board.r Library of Congress call number F868.Y6 T26.r

r Stanford University Press published a second, expanded edition of this book,r renamed Yosemite Trails and Tales, in 1948.r The copyright for the latter edition, but not the first, was renewedr (in 1976).r

r Converted to HTML by Dan Anderson, November 2007,r from a copy at UCSD.r These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose,r provided this notice is left intact.r
r     —Dan Anderson, www.yosemite.ca.usr

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