Tuolumne River

“ Section 9 provides:
“That the said grantee shall recognize the prior rights of the Modesto irrigation district and the Turlock irrigation district as now constituted under the laws of the State of California, or as said districts may be hereafter enlarged to contain in the aggregate not to exceed 300,000 acres of land to receive 2350 second feet of the natural daily flow of the Tuolumne River, measured at the La Grange dam, whenever the same can be beneficially used by said irrigation districts; and that the grantee shall never interfere with said rights.” ”

“ From there, the road crossed the ridge to drop to Yosemite Creek where the present Yosemite Creek campground is located. It gained the ridge again, following it through Porcupine Flat and Snow Flat before dropping to Tenaya Lake. The road followed the north shore of the lake and headed northeast again to Tuolumne Meadows. From there, it followed the Dana Fork of the Tuolumne River before reaching Tioga Pass. The unsurfaced road was 12'-15' wide, and had grades of up to 15 percent.56 The original entrance and checking station was located at Tuolumne Meadows ”

“ This report was immediately approved by the Board of Public Works and since then has been the settled municipal policy of San Francisco so far as water is concerned. This report recommended the Tuolumne River in the following words:
“This source presents the following unrivalled advantages: Absolute purity by reason of the unhabitable character of the entire watershed tributary to the reservoirs and largely within a forest reservation. Abundance far beyond possible future demands for all purposes. Largest and most numerous sites for storage; freedom from complication of water rights ”

“ The general character of the irrigation works of the State varies very much with the varying conditions under which it is practiced. In the San Joaquin valley, King's river, for instance, comes out of the mountains nearly on a level with the surface of the plain, cutting down not more than a few feet below its banks; and hence but little labor is required to divert its waters out upon the lands to be irrigated; but farther north, the Tuolumne, as another example, comes out of the mountains in a deep cañon, and the foot-hills extend far down the plain on each side. ”

“ One of the very finest of the thousands I have enjoyed lies hidden in an extensive forest of the Two-leaved Pine, on the edge of the basin of the ancient Tuolumne Mer de Glace, about eight miles to the west of Mount Dana.
Imagine yourself at the Tuolumne Soda Springs on the bank of the river, a day's journey above Yosemite Valley. You set off northward through a forest that stretches away indefinitely before you, seemingly unbroken by openings of any kind. As soon as you are fairly into the woods, the gray mountain-peaks, with their snowy gorges and hollows, are lost to view. ”

“ It is, therefore, the less to be wondered at that these moraines, made up of material derived from the distant fountain-mountains, and from the Valley itself, were not sooner recognized.
The ancient glacier systems of the Tuolumne, San Joaquin, Kern, and Kings River Basins were developed on a still grander scale and are so replete with interest that the most sketchy outline descriptions of each, with the works they have accomplished would fill many a volume. Therefore I can do but little more than invite everybody who is free to go and see for himself. ”

“ The main part of the Tuolumne Valley is a spacious flowery lawn four or five miles long, surrounded by magnificent snowy mountains, slightly separated from other beautiful meadows, which together make a series about twelve miles in length, the highest reaching to the feet of Mount Dana, Mount Gibbs, Mount Lyell and Mount McClure. It is about 8500 feet above the sea, and forms the grand central High Sierra camp ground from which excursions are made to the noble mountains, domes, glaciers, etc.; across the Range to the Mono Lake and volcanoes and down the Tuolumne Cañon to Hetch Hetchy. ”

“ Thousands of the little plant people will gaze at your camp-fire with the crystals and stars, companions and guardians as you lie at rest in the heart of the vast serene night.
The most telling of all the wide Hoffman views is the basin of the Tuolumne with its meadows, forests and hundreds of smooth rock-waves that appear to be coming rolling on towards you like high heaving waves ready to break, and beyond these the great mountains. But best of all are the dawn and the sunrise. ”

“ It is the voice of the restless Tulameen as it dances and laughs through the rocky throat of the canyon, three hundred feet below. Then, following the song, comes a glimpse of the river itself—white-garmented in the film of its countless rapids, its showers of waterfalls. It is as beautiful to look at as to listen to, and it is here, where the trail winds about and above it for leagues, that the Indians say it caught the spirit of the maiden that is still interlaced in its loveliness. ”

“ 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.
The trip we took from the Meadows, again without trail, was down the Tuolumne to Hetch-Hetchy Valley. ”

“ The Tugalo is one of the most beautiful streams I ever beheld. Its banks are finely diversified with mountain scenery, generally in the distance; while the bottoms are in the highest state of cultivation—indeed, some of the finest plantations, and best built mansions in all the southern country, are on this river. At times, the water, which is always clear, runs smooth and deep, for some distance, when suddenly it is broken by shoals, miles and miles in length ”

“ Passing the Cathedral we descend into the delightful, spacious Tuolumne Valley, from which excursions may be made to Mounts Dana, Lyell, Ritter, Conness, and Mono Lake, and to the many curious peaks that rise above the meadows on the south, and to the Big Tuolumne Cañon, with its glorious abundance of rock and falling, gliding, tossing water. ”

“ The best way to leave the Valley will be by the Yosemite Fall trail, camping the first night on the Tioga road opposite the east end of the Hoffman Range. Next morning climb Mount Hoffman; thence push on past Tenaya Lake into the Tuolumne Meadows and establish a central camp near the Soda Springs, from which glorious excursions can be made at your leisure. For here in this upper Tuolumne Valley is the widest, smoothest, most serenely spacious, and in every way the most delightful summer pleasure-park in all the High Sierra. ”

“ These bald, westward-leaning rocks, with their rounded backs and shoulders toward the glacier fountains of the summit-mountains, and their split, angular fronts looking in the opposite direction, explain the tremendous grinding force with which the ice-flood passed over them, and also the direction of its flow. And the mountain peaks around the sides of the upper general Tuolumne Basin, with their sharp unglaciated summits and polished rounded sides, indicate the height to which the glaciers rose ”

“ Tuolumne is situated in a circular basin rather than in a valley, and thus being protected from the wind, in hot weather the heat is intense. If there are any mining operations in the immediate vicinity, they are not in evidence to the casual observer. It is, however, one of the biggest timber camps in the State. In the yards of the West Side Lumber Company, covering several hundred acres, are stacked something like 30,000,000 feet of sugar pine. ”

“ Because of this spreading habit of the stream, the few villages along the way are planted on the higher land at the base of the bluffs, or on an occasional sandy pocket-plateau 245 which the river, as in ages past it has worn its bed to lower levels, has left high and dry above present overflows. Some of these towns, in their fear of floods, are situated two or three miles back from the water highway; others, where the channel chances to closely hug a line of bluffs, are directly abutting the river, which is crossed at such points by either a ferry or a toll-bridge. ”

“ TAUNTON RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS- The main stem of the Taunton River from its headwaters at the confluence of the Town and Matfield Rivers in the Town of Bridgewater downstream 40 miles to the confluence with the Quequechan River at the Route 195 Bridge in the City of Fall River, to be administered by the Secretary of the Interior in cooperation with the Taunton River Stewardship Council as follows: ` (A) The 18-mile segment from the confluence of the Town and Matfield Rivers to Route 24 in the Town of Raynham, as a scenic river. ”

“ Above Tolarno there is a slight improvement, and between Kinchica and Menindie there is some fair grazing country. All agree in saying that there is fine grazing land back from the river; but the want of water will probably prevent its being occupied, except in a very partial manner, for many years; and I fear that the high sand ridges, twenty to forty feet, and in some cases more than sixty feet above the level of the river banks, will form almost insuperable barriers in the way of any one who may attempt to conduct water from the river by means of canals. ”

“ Pouring its impetuous waters through wild tracks covered with trees of little value except for firewood, it sweeps down whole forests in its course, which disappear in tumultuous confusion, whirled away by the stream now loaded with the masses of soil which nourished their roots, often blocking up and changing for a time the channel of the river, which, as if in anger at its being opposed, inundates and devastates the whole country round ”

“ Flowing from the sides of Cader Idris, which holds a gloomy lake in its lap, there is a complex network of streams. Several of these join themselves together to form the little river Dysynni, which, after wandering among the mountains for twelve miles or so, drowns itself in the sea beyond Towyn. ”

“ For the greater part of its length the canyon of the Tourmaline, up which the two railroads were racing, each straining every nerve to be the first to reach the newly opened gold district at the headwaters of the river, was a water-cut channel through the mountains with beetling cliffs or steep wooded slopes for its boundaries. But at this particular point some prehistoric convulsion of nature had opened a half-mile gap in the south wall, and through this broad gap, coming down from the high shoulder of Bull Peak, poured the vast river of disintegrated shale. ”

“ On every side but one may they be seen, fading away to mingle their deep blue with the lighter hue of the sky, but the chief among them all is old Tahawus, King of the Adirondacs. The country out of which this mountain rises, is an imposing Alpine wilderness, and as it has long since been abandoned by the red man, the solitude of its deep valleys and lonely lakes for the most part, is now more impressive than that of the far off Rocky Mountains. ”

“ No railroad comes within fifty miles; the nearest settler was many miles away—and that settler a Klamath Indian. At the foot of the long grade we came to a sluggish, green-tinted stream—Lost River—which we followed nearly to our destination. They call it Lost River since it vanishes from sight in the vast marshes of Tule Lake to the south.
The last twelve miles out of Klamath Falls were the most trying of a hard day’s run. The road bed was hidden in a foot of flour-like white limestone dust—deep enough to effectually hide the unmerciful chuck-holes and to make driving a blind chance. ”

“ The scene becomes peculiarly desolate and mournful, often giving one the impression of being far removed from civilization, threading the course of some hitherto unexplored stream. Penetrate the deep fringe of forest and morass on foot, however, and smiling prairies are found beyond, stretching to the horizon and cut up into prosperous farms. The river is here from a half to three-quarters of a mile broad, but the shallows and snags are as numerous as ever and navigation is continually attended with some danger of being either grounded or capsized. ”

“ When left to ourselves we sate down on the hillside, and looked with delight into the deep vale below, which was exceedingly green, not regularly fenced or cultivated, but the level area scattered over with bushes and trees, and through that level ground glided a glassy river, not in serpentine windings, but in direct turnings backwards and forwards, and then flowed into the head of the Lake of Tummel ”

“ The view from Tahawus is rather unique. It looks down upon what appears to be an uninhabited wilderness, with mountains, fading to the sky in every direction, and where, on a clear day, you may count not less than twenty-four lakes, including Champlain, Horicon, Long Lake and Lake Pleasant. ”

“ Each of these propositions, which threatened to modify the natural character and unity of the reservation, was strenuously resisted by Park administrations and the public generally.
In 1919 an irrigation project was sponsored by Idaho interests. It was a comprehensive plan that contemplated a dam on Yellowstone River, thereby raising the level of Yellowstone Lake. The water from this mighty reservoir would then be tapped by a tunnel through the Continental Divide, which would deliver the water into the Snake River. Other dams were designed to impound water along Fall and Bechler rivers. ”