Guide to Yosemite: A handbook of the trails and roads of Yosemite valley and the adjacent regionHall, Ansel F. (Ansel Franklin)
History
Guide to Yosemite: A handbook of the trails and roads of Yosemite valley and the adjacent region
Hall, Ansel F. (Ansel Franklin)
Yosemite Valley (Calif.) -- Guidebooks
~Tenaya Lake~ (Alt. 8141) is one of the gems of the High Sierra. It is
a large, deep, glacial lake imposingly surrounded by granite crags and
domes. Its Indian name, Py-we-ack, meant "lake of the glistening
rocks," referring to the glacier polished granite at its upper end.
The lake and the pyramidal peak to the east were renamed Tenaya when
the last remnant of Chief Tenaya's Yosemite Tribe was captured here by
the Mariposa Battalion on June 5, 1851. The lake is one of the best in
the park for a permanent auto camp. It was stocked with Loch Leven
trout in 1911 and with rainbow, eastern brook, black spotted, and
steelhead in 1917, 1918, and 1919, but fishing is only fair. From the
lower end of the lake the ~Forsyth Pass Trail~ (Trail Trip 6) bears
eastward across the rocky meadows, and the ~Yosemite Trail~ (Trail
Trip 5) takes off toward the southwest.
Our road skirts the western lake shore. At a point where ~Murphy
Creek~ enters from the north are the ruins of a log cabin which was
built by John L. Murphy, one of the early pioneer guides of the
region. The ~McGee Lake Trail~ to ~Waterwheel Falls~ here turns off
from the road. Rounding the polished base of ~Polly Dome~ (Alt. 9786)
we finally halt at ~Tenaya Lake Lodge~ near the white beach at the
lake's upper extremity. Accommodations are excellent and fishing
tackle and rowboats may be rented.
At the head of the long flat canyon bottom is a peculiar glacial
monument often mistaken for Polly Dome. Passing this, our road
continues up the stream to its source, where the great Tuolumne
Glacier overflowed and sent a branch southward to help carve out the
stupendous depths of Tenaya Canyon.
~Tuolumne Meadows~ (Alt. 8594), the most superb of all high mountain
pleasure grounds, lies seven and a half miles from Tenaya Lake. In the
region are innumerable side trips to alpine summits, to lakes and
streams teeming with trout, to thundering waterfalls, and to peaceful
green pastures of the highlands. ~Tioga Pass~ (Alt. 9941) is seven
miles further, and another sixteen miles takes us down Leevining
Canyon to the weird semi-desert region at ~Mono Lake~. The road then
continues northward to ~Lake Tahoe~ about 118 miles distant.
ROAD TRIP V
YOSEMITE TO HETCH HETCHY _via_ BIG OAK FLAT ROAD AND HETCH HETCHY
RAILROAD
(Round trip 77 miles--1 day by motor and railroad)
A new and exceptionally scenic one-day round trip between Yosemite and
Hetch Hetchy has been made possible by the construction activities on
the San Francisco Dam. Throughout the entire season a gasoline
railroad bus runs on daily schedule between Mather (Hog Ranch) and
Hetch Hetchy, stopping long enough to allow one to view the wonderful
canyon and to inspect the enormous engineering project. One may motor
privately from Yosemite to Mather or may ride by the auto stage, which
makes one round trip daily.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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