For a happy fortnight we did those things which Yosemite visitors are supposed to do. We gloried in the sheer mightiness of El Capitan from below, and reveled in the views from its crest. From Inspiration Point, on the road to the Big Trees, we were inspired beyond expectation by the magnificent panorama of the cliff-encompassed canyon, with the silver waterfalls lighting its shadowed walls like threads of gossamer against the gray background of the rocks. Close at hand we were deafened by the thundering waters of Bridal Veil and Nevada, and we clambered up the trails to see the highland rivers that gave them birth. A glad summer day was devoted to the Mariposa Grove pilgrimage where discreet soldiers watched lest we abscond with a flower or treelet, or, I suppose, commit that universal sin of American self-publicity, scratch our puny initials upon the gnarled columns of the most ancient and the grandest monuments Nature has erected on our continent--the Sequoias. Then, having reveled in the prosaic recreations of Yosemite--and the first view of the Valley alone is worth the entire pilgrimage, remember--we picked up our beds and walked. That is, the blankets were strapped on our backs, and the rudiments of a commissary stowed in our ricksacks. So equipped, with our creature comforts provided for to the extent of about fifty pounds per man, we "cached" the balance of our provender and equipment in a rocky cave (where a bear subsequently effected destructive inroads) and struck out for Tuolumne Meadows and Hetch-Hetchy. [Illustration: "We gloried in the sheer mightiness of El Capitan"] In the course of our unplanned wanderings we followed up the Merced River, past Nevada Falls and through the meadowed beauties of the Little Yosemite. Ultimately, by ways uncharted, so far as we were aware, we viewed the Merced Canyon where Lakes Washburn and Merced nestle in the heart of a little-traveled fairyland, and thence struck 'cross-country to the upper regions of the other great river of the Park, the Tuolumne. All the Tuolumne Meadow country is sheer delight, for mountaineer, fisherman, naturalist, and lover of the out-of-doors whose tastes are unspecific; well has John Muir called it "the grand central camp-ground of the Sierras." It is a vast meadow, hemmed in by a mountain region beyond compare for expeditioning, with legions of royal trout ready for the fly, and a vast flower garden maintained enticingly by Dame Nature during the summer sunshine season.