In the morning we were on our way to the Big Trees. We decided to leave our car at a humble but very pleasant little forest inn called Fish Camp Hotel, presided over by some Maine people who long ago left the pines of Maine for the pines of California. They have a mountain ranch which they leave in the summer to come up into the higher forests and to keep a little hostel and grocery store. It is a long walk from Fish Camp Hotel to the boundary fence of the National Park where the famous Big Trees are. If one prefers to drive one's car over a somewhat rocky but perfectly passable mountain road and to leave it just outside the fence, one can do so. In this way, one's walking powers are kept fresh for the memorable expedition among the Big Trees. One needs a long day in which to see the Trees. We felt sorry for the tourists who were being driven about and who had only an allotted time in which to see the Trees. We had our luncheon with us and were independent. We walked miles along the Park drives. We stood under the Trees, of which there are some five hundred, gazing up at their distant tops. We amused ourselves by measuring their enormous girths with our arms. Most of the time we simply gazed at them from one vantage point and another, lost in wonder at their height, so much greater than we had dreamed, and at their bulk, so enormous as to be difficult to take in. The Big Trees were far bigger, far grander, far more beautiful in their coloring than we had been prepared for. When the afternoon sunlight struck their trunks and they glowed with the wonderful soft, deep red which is their color, we were enchanted. We felt awed, too, not only by their great size, but by their great age. We were in the presence of hoary old men, a detached little company of Ancients who were living long, long before our generation ever came upon the scene, and who had passed through much of the world's history. It was with a glowing sense of satisfaction and happiness and wonder that we came away from our leisurely day among the Trees. Some day we hope to go back and to repeat that experience. [Illustration: 1. Camp Ahwahnee, Yosemite Valley. 2. Grizzly Giant, Mariposa Big Trees. 3. Yosemite Falls. 4. Cabin in Mariposa Grove.] We met later a gentleman who said that he had spent such a day, had had a supper with the forest keeper who sells photographs and souvenirs in his little cottage, and then had lain down to sleep on the pine needles under the great Trees themselves. "I saw the stars pinnacled in their branches," said he.