Chapter 12
How Best to Spend One's Yosemite Time
One-Day Excursions
No. 1.
If I were so time-poor as to have only one day to spend in Yosemite I
should start at daybreak, say at three o'clock in midsummer, with a
pocketful of any sort of dry breakfast stuff, for Glacier Point,
Sentinel Dome, the head of Illilouette Fall, Nevada Fall, the top of
Liberty Cap, Vernal Fall and the wild boulder-choked River
Cañon. The
trail leaves the Valley at the base of the Sentinel Rock, and as
you slowly saunter from point to point along its many accommodating
zigzags nearly all the Valley rocks and falls are seen in striking,
ever-changing combinations. At an elevation of about five hundred feet
a
particularly fine, wide-sweeping view down the Valley is obtained, past
the sheer face of the Sentinel and between the Cathedral Rocks and
El Capitan. At a height of about 1500 feet the great Half Dome comes
full in sight, overshadowing every other feature of the Valley to the
eastward. From Glacier Point you look down 3000 feet over the edge of
its sheer face to the meadows and groves and innumerable yellow pine
spires, with the meandering river sparkling and spangling through the
midst of them. Across the Valley a great telling view is presented of
the Royal Arches, North Dome, Indian Cañon, Three Brothers and
El
Capitan, with the dome-paved basin of Yosemite Creek and Mount Hoffman
in the background. 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.
The views from the summit of Sentinel Dome are still more extensive
and telling. Eastward the crowds of peaks at the head of the Merced,
Tuolumne and San Joaquin Rivers are presented in bewildering array;
westward, the vast forests, yellow foothills and the broad San Joaquin
plains and the Coast Ranges, hazy and dim in the distance.
From Glacier Point go down the trail into the lower end of the
Illilouette basin, cross Illilouette Creek and follow it to the Fall
where from an outjutting rock at its head you will get a fine view of
its rejoicing waters and wild cañon and the Half Dome. Thence
returning
to the trail, follow it to the head of the Nevada Fall. Linger here an
hour or two, for not only have you glorious views of the wonderful
fall,
but of its wild, leaping, exulting rapids and, greater than all, the
stupendous scenery into the heart of which the white passionate river
goes wildly thundering, surpassing everything of its kind in the world.
After an unmeasured hour or so of this glory, all your body aglow,
nerve
currents flashing through you never before felt, go to the top of the
Liberty Cap, only a glad saunter now that your legs as well as head
and heart are awake and rejoicing with everything. The Liberty Cap, a
companion of the Half Dome, is sheer and inaccessible on three of its
sides but on the east a gentle, ice-burnished, juniper-dotted slope
extends to the summit where other wonderful views are displayed where
all are wonderful: the south side and shoulders of Half Dome and
Clouds'
Rest, the beautiful Little Yosemite Valley and its many domes, the
Starr
King cluster of domes, Sentinel Dome, Glacier Point, and, perhaps the
most tremendously impressive of all, the views of the hopper-shaped
cañon of the river from the head of the Nevada Fall to the head
of
the Valley.
Returning to the trail you descend between the Nevada Fall and the
Liberty Cap with fine side views of both the fall and the rock, pass
on through clouds of spray and along the rapids to the head of the
Vernal Fall, about a mile below the Nevada. Linger here if night is
still distant, for views of this favorite fall and the stupendous rock
scenery about it. Then descend a stairway by its side, follow a dim
trail through its spray, and a plain one along the border of the
boulder-dashed rapids and so back to the wide, tranquil Valley.
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