Yosemite Falls

“ The Bridal Veil and the Upper Yosemite Falls, on account of their height and exposure, are greatly influenced by winds. The common summer winds that come up the river cañon from the plains are seldom very strong; but the north winds do some very wild work, worrying the falls and the forests, and hanging snow-banners on the comet-peaks. One wild winter morning I was awakened by storm-wind that was playing with the falls as if they were mere wisps of mist and making the great pines bow and sing with glorious enthusiasm. ”

“ To the eastward, the Half Dome close beside you looking higher and more wonderful than ever; southeastward the Starr King, girdled with silver firs, and the spacious garden-like basin of the Illilouette and its deeply sculptured fountain-peaks, called “The Merced Group”; and beyond all, marshaled along the eastern horizon, the icy summits on the axis of the Range and broad swaths of forests growing on ancient moraines, while the Nevada, Vernal and Yosemite Falls are not only full in sight but are distinctly heard as if one were standing beside them in their spray. ”

“ But amid the spray and foam and fine-ground mist ever rising from the various falls and cataracts there is an affluence and variety of iris bows scarcely known to visitors who stay only a day or two. Both day and night, winter and summer, this divine light may be seen wherever water is falling dancing, singing; telling the heart-peace of Nature amid the wildest displays of her power. In the bright spring mornings the black-walled recess at the foot of the Lower Yosemite Fall is lavishly fine with irised spray ”

“ The Nevada Fall is 600 feet high and is usually ranked next to the Yosemite in general interest among the five main falls of the Valley. Coming through the Little Yosemite in tranquil reaches, the river is first broken into rapids on a moraine boulder-bar that crosses the lower end of the Valley. Thence it pursues its way to the head of the fall in a rough, solid rock channel, dashing on side angles, heaving in heavy surging masses against elbow knobs, and swirling and swashing in pot-holes without a moment’s rest. ”

“ They are six hundred feet high. They seem to come over the cliff like the Yosemite Falls, through a broken or distorted lip, and the water is lashed to foam and looks for all the world like the smoke of some mighty conflagration, upon which a score of modern fire engines are playing. Near the top of the Nevada Falls is a fir tree more than ten feet in diameter, said to be the largest tree in the Yosemite Valley. Just above the falls we again crossed the river on a bridge. Near the bridge, on the rocks is plain evidence of glacial scourings. ”

“ In the neighborhood of Glacier Point there were six; between the Three Brothers and Yosemite Fall, nine; between Yosemite and Royal Arch Falls, ten; from Washington Column to Mount Watkins, ten; on the slopes of Half Dome and Clouds’ Rest, facing Mirror Lake and Tenaya Cañon, eight; on the shoulder of Half Dome, facing the Valley, three; fifty-six new falls occupying the upper end of the Valley, besides a countless host of silvery threads gleaming everywhere. In all the Valley there must have been upwards of a hundred. ”

“ Pedestrians may save an hour's hard climb by taking the Mist Trail to the top of Vernal Falls. An excellent three-day trip may be made by combining Trail Trips 7 and 6. First day: Lake Merced. Second day: Clouds Rest and Lake Tenaya via Forsyth Pass. Third day: Yosemite via the summit of North Dome and Yosemite Falls Trail.
From Yosemite we take the road on the south side of the valley past Camp Curry to Happy Isles Bridge. Here we turn right on the main Glacier Point Trail and follow Trail Trip 1 to the junction at the top of the Nevada Falls switchbacks. ”

“ From the far summit of a wall of pearly granite, over stains of purple and yellow,{244}—leaping, as it were, from the very cloud,—falls a silver scarf, light, lace-like, graceful, luminous, swayed by the wind. The cliffs’ repose is undisturbed by the silvery fall, whose endlessly varying forms of wind-tossed spray lend an element of life to what would otherwise be masses of inanimate stone. The Yosemite is a grace. ”

“ Good camp sites are numerous in the vicinity and at the Yosemite Creek Crossing, about a quarter of a mile eastward, the new Ten Lakes Trail follows up the east bank of the creek. Our road now ascends about two and a half miles of heavy grades, finally passing over a flat divide and descending almost imperceptibly to the large meadows at Porcupine Flat, an excellent camping place. One mile further the Yosemite Falls Trail branches to the right and leads southwest five miles to Yosemite Point.
In another mile Snow Creek is crossed. Fishing is fair down stream. ”

“ Largest and best known are the Cascade Falls, which drop 594 feet over the north wall of the lower Merced Canyon and form one of the chief objects of interest in the ride from El Portal to Yosemite. Ribbon Fall, highest of all, descends delicately in one 1612-foot leap into a recess just west of El Capitan. From the rugged south wall Widow's Tears pours 1170 feet to the rock talus. Just west of Sentinel Rock is a series of picturesque cascades which, in spring, are dignified by the name of Sentinel Falls. Royal Arch Fall is one of the most beautiful but most ephemeral of the small falls. ”

“ The visitor entering the Yosemite in July has the advantage of seeing the falls not, perhaps, in their very flood prime but next thing to it; while the glacier-meadows will be in their glory and the snow on the mountains will be firm enough to make climbing safe. Long ago I made these Sierra trips, carrying only a sackful of bread with a little tea and sugar and was thus independent and free, but now that trails or carriage roads lead out of the Valley in almost every direction it is easy to take a pack animal, so that the luxury of a blanket and a supply of food can easily be had. ”

“ YOSEMITE TO GLACIER POINT via VERNAL AND NEVADA FALLS AND RETURN via THE SHORT TRAIL
Reverse of Trail Trip 2
(16 miles—8 hours)
If one were so time-poor as to have but one day in Yosemite, he should by all means climb to Glacier Point via Vernal and Nevada Falls and return via the Short Trail. This most scenic trip is easily made afoot in one day and should be taken as follows rather than in the opposite direction because (a) one faces the falls in ascending, and (b) the gradual ascent is less tiring. ”

“ May and June are the main bloom-months of the year. Both the flowers and falls are then at their best. By the first of August the midsummer glories of the Valley are past their prime. The young birds are then out of their nests. Most of the plants have gone to seed; berries are ripe; autumn tints begin to kindle and burn over meadow and grove, and a soft mellow haze in the morning sunbeams heralds the approach of Indian summer. The shallow river is now at rest, its flood-work done. ”

“ Sometimes, as the busy clouds drooped and condensed or dissolved to misty gauze, half of the Valley would be suddenly veiled, leaving here and there some lofty headland cut off from all visible connection with the walls, looming alone, dim, spectral, as if belonging to the sky—visitors, like the new falls, come to take part in the glorious festival. ”

“ Turning left we descend abruptly 1600 feet by sharp, dusty switchbacks, finally skirting the bottom of the almost vertical cliff west of the falls. At this point one can leave the trail and climb to the foot of the upper fall, in times of low water even entering the cave beneath its base. The climb is dangerous because of the slippery rocks.
The trail now passes southward along a granite ledge beneath the shade of oaks and laurel. A short steep descent at the left of the trail takes us to Valley View, an excellent lookout point. ”

“ The homes it loves best are over-leaning, cave-like hollows, beside the larger falls, where it can wet its fingers with their dewy spray. Many of these moss-lined chambers contain thousands of these delightful ferns, clinging to mossy walls by the slightest hold, reaching out their delicate finger-fronds on dark, shining stalks, sensitive and tremulous, throbbing in unison with every movement and tone of the falling water, moving each division of the frond separately at times, as if fingering the music. ”

“ But even at the bottom, in the boiling clouds of spray, there is no confusion, while the rainbow light makes all divine, adding glorious beauty and peace to glorious power. This noble fall has far the richest, as well as the most powerful, voice of all the falls of the Valley, its tones varying from the sharp hiss and rustle of the wind in the glossy leaves of the live-oak and the soft, sifting, hushing tones of the pines, to the loudest rush and roar of storm winds and thunder among the crags of the summit peaks. ”

“ In 1864 J. M. Hutchings came to the Upper Hotel (Cedar Cottage) in the role of proprietor. The mirth and discomfiture engendered among Hutchings’ guests by the cheesecloth partitions between bedrooms prompted him to build a sawmill near the foot of Yosemite Falls in order to produce sufficient lumber to “hard finish” his hostelry. It was in this mill that John Muir found employment for a time. The hotel was embellished with lean-tos and porches, and an addition was constructed at the rear in which was completely enclosed the trunk of a large growing cedar tree. ”

“ The popularity of the saddle trip to the two great falls of the Merced was immediate, and the pioneer trail builder, John Conway, extended the trail from Snow’s to Little Yosemite Valley the next year. It then was usual for all tourists to ascend the Merced Canyon to La Casa Nevada and Little Yosemite. Some hikers undertook the trip from Little Yosemite to Glacier Point, but another fifteen years were to elapse before Glacier Point was made accessible by a truly good horse trail from Nevada Fall. ”

“ Although this figure is not precise, it is, nevertheless, of considerable geologic interest because it shows that the age of Niagara Falls (and gorge) is to be reckoned in some tens of thousands of years, rather than hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Although waterfalls of the Niagara type are the most common of all, it is by no means necessary that the particular rocks should be limestone and shale.
Another common kind of waterfall may be termed the “Yosemite type,” so named from the high falls in the Yosemite Valley of California. ”

“ See Anderson’s, Big Oak Flat, Coulterville, Eagle Peak, Echo Wall, Eleven-Mile, Four-Mile, High Sierra, Hite’s Cove, Indian Canyon, John Muir, Ledge, Little Yosemite, Mammoth City-Fresno, Mariposa, Mono, Sonora Pass, Tenaya Lake, Tioga-Lundy, Yosemite Falls Trask, John B., 129; quoted, 117 Tresidder, Donald B., 113, 162; Mary Curry, xi, 113, 134 Tuolumne Grove of Big Trees, 8, 181, 184 Tuolumne Meadows Lodge, 114, 188 Tuolumne Meadows Soda Springs, 119; purchased by Sierra Club, 187 Tuolumne Meadows trail, 46 Turner, H. W., 130 Twain, Mark, 127 U U. S. Army: pioneer activity in Yosemite, 77-78 ”

“ Those which descend from the brow of El Capitan are particularly fine; but most of the great Yosemite avalanches flow in regular channels like cascades and waterfalls. When the snow first gives way on the upper slopes of their basins, a dull rushing, rumbling sound is heard which rapidly increases and seems to draw nearer with appalling intensity of tone. Presently the white flood comes bounding into sight over bosses and sheer places, leaping from bench to bench, spreading and narrowing and throwing off clouds of whirling dust like the spray of foaming cataracts. ”

“ The strange thunder is made by the fall of sections of ice formed of spray that is frozen on the face of the cliff along the sides of the Upper Yosemite Fan — a sort of crystal plaster, a foot or two thick, racked off by the sunbeams, awakening all the Valley like cock-crowing, announcing the finest weather, shouting aloud Nature’s infinite industry and love of hard work in creating beauty. ”

“ Nothing on wheels has ever gone up or down this tremendous precipice, and in only two places have 27 the surest-footed horses or mules been able to find a safe trail.
Yosemite Valley is really a huge sink or cleft in a tangle of rock-mountains; a gigantic trough, not scooped or hollowed out from above, but sunk straight down, as if the bottom had dropped plumb toward the centre, leaving both walls so high that if either should fall, its top would reach clear across the valley and crash against the opposite cliff several hundred feet above its base. ”

“ You turn from the brink as from a frightful glimpse of the Inferno, and when you have gone a mile the earth seems to have closed again; every trace of cañon has vanished, and the stillness of the desert reigns.
As you stand at the base of those cool walls of granite that rise to the clouds from the green floor of Yosemite, a beautiful park, carpeted with verdure, expands from your feet. Vast and stately pines band with their shadows the sunny reaches of the pure Merced. An arch of blue bridges over from cliff to cliff. ”

“ Yosemite Fall
itself. Here language ceases and art quite fails. No words nor paintings, not even the photogram itself, can reproduce one tithe of the grandeur here enthroned. A cataract from heaven to earth, plunging from the clouds of the sky to bury itself among the trees of the forest. The loftiest waterfall yet known upon the face of the globe.
Don't mention figures yet, please. When a man is overwhelmed with the sublime, don't plunge him into statistics. ”