In 1923, Superintendent Lewis advocated the creation of a service that would enable the hiker to enjoy the wonders of the Yosemite high country and yet be free from the irksome load of blankets and food necessary to the success of a trip away from the established centers of the park. T. E. Farrow, of the Yosemite Park Company, projected tentative plans for a series of “hikers’ camps,” and in the fall of 1923 I was dispatched on a journey of reconnaissance for the purpose of locating camp sites in the rugged country drained by the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne. The sites advocated were Little Yosemite, Merced Lake,[10] Boothe Lake, the Lyell Fork (Mount Lyell), Tuolumne Meadows,[10] Glen Aulin, and Tenaya Lake.[10] In 1924, these sites, with the exception of Lyell Fork and Glen Aulin, were occupied by simple camps, consisting of a mess and cook tent, a dormitory tent for women, and a dormitory tent for men. Attendants and cooks were employed for each establishment. With two exceptions, the camps were removed from roads, and equipment and supplies were of necessity packed in on mules. Yet it was possible to offer the facilities of these high mountain resorts at a very low price, and it became apparent that saddle parties, as well as hikers, would take advantage of them. Consequently they have become known as High Sierra Camps. The camp beside the White Cascade at Glen Aulin was established in 1927 and has been very popular. In 1938, the Tenaya Lake Camp was moved to a beautiful location in a grove of hemlocks on May Lake, just east of Mount Hoffmann. New trails were built to make this spot more readily accessible from the Snow Creek Trail and from Glen Aulin. The Boothe Lake Camp, after a few years of operation, was abandoned in favor of a new camp near the junction of the Vogelsang, Rafferty Creek, and Lyell Fork trails. In 1940, this camp was rebuilt on the banks of Fletcher Creek. The Tuolumne Meadows Lodge is now the only one of these camps situated on a road. Each camp has a setting of a distinctive mountain character on lake or stream. All the camps represent a joint effort on the part of the National Park Service and the concessionaire to encourage and assist travel beyond the roads, where the visitor may appreciate the wild values of the park which he can hardly observe from the highways. The Ahwahnee Hotel, 1927 to Date The Yosemite Park and Curry Company opened the Ahwahnee in 1927. Its interior has received quite as much study as has its exterior architectural values. California Indian patterns have been used throughout the hotel in many ways. In the lobby, six great figures, set in multiple borders, rendered in mosaic, give color and interest to the floor. In the downstairs corridor and the dining room, other borders and simpler Indian motifs are rendered in acid-etched cement. Painted Indian ornaments play a number of different roles in the building.