Your National Parks, with Detailed Information for Tourists — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Your National Parks, with Detailed Information for Tourists
John Stuart Mill · en
Among the numerous cascades in the Park, one of the most precipitous
is the Sentinel, which endlessly comes tumbling down over a steep
rough incline of thirty-two hundred feet. In the upper end of the
Tuolumne Cañon the Tuolumne River rushes over inclined rocks and forms
one of the most scenic rapids in the world.
5. SEEING YOSEMITE
I wish that all who visit the Yosemite National Park would have a view
from the top of Mount Hoffman. I wish also that they might see
Tuolumne Meadows, wander over the near-by alpine moorlands, and stand
in the center of Hetch-Hetchy Valley.
Even the most flying visit to the Yosemite Valley should include a
visit to Lake Tenaya, Little Yosemite, Nevada, and Vernal Falls, and,
last, and in some respects most important, a view across and down into
the valley from Glacier Point on the south side, and also from the
summit of Eagle Peak on the opposite side.
[Illustration: LAKE TENAYA
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK]
From the first, John Muir called Hetch-Hetchy the Tuolumne Yosemite
and considered it a rival of the Yosemite Valley and "a wonderfully
exact counterpart of the Merced Yosemite." It is less than half the
size of the Yosemite, and its walls are about a thousand feet lower.
Two immense rocks stand at the entrance. On the south wall is Koloma,
a massive rock twenty-three hundred feet high. On the north wall is an
almost sheer front of rock that rises eighteen hundred feet. Over this
plunges Tueeulala Falls with a drop of ten hundred feet. This fall is
somewhat like Bridal Veil, but excels it both in beauty and in height.
Over the same wall, a short distance eastward, tumbles Wapama Falls,
carrying a greater volume of water than the Yosemite Falls.
Like the Yosemite Valley, Hetch-Hetchy is a combination of stupendous
rock-walls that rise from a quiet grassy valley which is beautiful
with trees and groves and a clear mountain stream.
The Parsons Memorial Lodge at Soda Springs is an excellent
stopping-place from which to explore the alpine scenes of the Yosemite
National Park. It is owned by the Sierra Club, and was built in honor
of Edward T. Parsons, who for years was one of the club's leading
members. The Lodge is situated on the edge of the celebrated Tuolumne
Meadows, by the Tioga Road, and is within a few miles of many
celebrated scenes and view-points. It is about twenty-five miles
northeast of the Yosemite Valley.