Out of Doors-California and Oregon Part 5

An occasional blue-jay, a vagrant bee-bird, now and then a robin, and once in a while a most brilliantly colored oriole made up the list.

Fluffy-tailed gray squirrels chattered at us noisily from the wayside trees. They seemed bubbling over with life and motion. We stopped at the Soda Springs for a life-giving draught of its refres.h.i.+ng waters, and were back to camp in time for lunch.

Flight of Lady-Bugs.

When we reached the Soda Springs, we met the most remarkable migration of red lady-bugs that I ever saw. They were coming in myriads from down the main canyon and each side canyon. They extended in a swarm from the ground to a distance above it of from ten to twelve feet. Huge rocks would be covered six or eight inches deep with them. Occasionally they would light upon a tree, and in a few moments the tree or bush would be absolutely covered, every speck of foliage hidden. It was difficult to breathe without inhaling them, and we were kept busy brus.h.i.+ng them from our faces and clothes. They were all traveling in one direction--down stream. I believe that they had been into the canyons laying their eggs, and were returning to the valleys. All afternoon the flight continued, but by nightfall there wasn't a lady-bug in sight.

We tried fis.h.i.+ng, but the water was too high and too turbulent for success in the sport.

Auto Repairs Arrive.

About two o'clock that afternoon our new floating axle and fittings had arrived, and in another hour the car was set up and ready for business.

The following morning (Sunday) we bade Mr. Hill and his men good-bye and started for Crane Valley. The drive out of the canyon was a beautiful one. We did not go all the way to Porterville, but went several miles beyond Springville, turned into Frazier Valley, and went to Visalia by way of Lindsay and half a dozen small villages, and from there on to Fresno, which place we reached at about two o'clock. The ride was a hot one. We drove through miles and miles of orange orchards, some in full bearing, but mostly recently planted.

Fresno.

We left Fresno at about four-thirty o'clock over the same road we traveled a year before. However, before crossing the river, we turned to the right and went up through a town, Pulaski, where we crossed on a splendid cement bridge. The road was pretty badly cut up from heavy teaming, but we got to Crane Valley about ten o'clock p. m. We had considerable trouble with our carburetor during the afternoon, and lost much time trying to locate the trouble, but without avail.

The younger members of the party, although the hour was late, went to prowling around the camp for something to eat. They raided the cook's pie counter in the dark. We had had a splendid lunch at Fresno at two o'clock, and Mrs. Graves and I were too tired to want anything to eat, and retired on our arrival.

Crane Valley.

Since our visit to Crane Valley a year ago, we found that the then uncompleted dam was finished. Instead of a small reservoir of water, we found a vast inland sea, with water one hundred and ten feet deep at its deepest part. It is six miles long, by from half to one mile in width.

It is twenty-five miles in circ.u.mference. The dam proper is nearly two thousand feet long, and at one part is one hundred and fifty-four feet high on its lower side. It is built with a cement core, with rock and earth fill, above and below; that is, on each side of the cement work.

The inner and outer surface of the dam are rock-covered. To give you an idea, of its capacity, if emptied on a level plain, its waters would cover forty-two thousand acres of land one foot deep. When we were there a discharge gate had been open two weeks, discharging a stream of water two and one-half feet deep, over a weir thirty-eight feet wide, and the surface of the reservoir had been lowered but two inches. I say, "All hail to the San Joaquin Light & Power Company and its enterprising officials, for the great work completed by them." It is a public benefactor in storing up, for gradual discharge, at a time of the year when it could do no good, this vast body of water which would otherwise run to the sea.

What a place for rest are these mountain valleys! After inspecting the dam, catching some ba.s.s and killing a 'rattlesnake, we were all contented to sit around for the remainder of the day. A certain languor takes possession of the human frame when one has come from a lower to a higher alt.i.tude. One ceases to think, his mentality goes to sleep, he can doze and dream and be happy in doing so.

Again on the Road.

Tuesday morning, leaving Mr. Dougherty, the Superintendent, and his good wife, we started for Wawona. We traveled up the left side of the lake, over a good road, above the water level, to its extreme western end.

Here we climbed a mountain to an elevation of five thousand five hundred feet, over a cattle trail which was badly washed out, to a road leading to Fresno Flats. This place we soon reached over a good but steep roadbed.

Then, winding in and out of the canyon through a foothill country, we made steady progress until we reached the main road from Raymond to Wawona. The grade was uphill all the time. We left the lumbering camp known as Sugar Pine to our right. The lumber interests have made a sad spectacle of miles and miles of country, recently heavily forested.

There seems to be no idea in the lumberman's mind of saving the young growth when cutting the larger timber. All the young growth is broken down and destroyed, and finally burned up with the brush and wreckage of the larger trees, leaving the mountain side scarred and blackened, and so lye-soaked that immediate growth of even brush or chaparral is impossible. We pa.s.sed through Fish Camp, and in a short time came to the toll-gate at which point the road to the Mariposa Grove of big trees branches off.

Wawona.

The rest of the run to Wawona was all downhill, through heavy timber, over a good but dusty road. We reached the hotel in time for lunch. That afternoon, with Mr. Washburn, we took a drive of some miles around the Big Meadows, near the hotel, went up the river and took in all points of interest in the neighborhood. Wawona Hotel is pleasantly located. It is an ideal place to rest. There inertia creeps into the system. You avoid all unnecessary exercise. You are ever ready to drop into a chair, to listen to the wind sighing through the trees, to hear the river singing its never ending song, to watch the robins and the black birds and the orioles come and go, and observe the never-ending coming and going of guests. Some are just arriving from the San Joaquin valley, some are departing to it, or coming home or going to the Yosemite, or starting off or coming from the Big Trees or Signal Peak. You eat and sleep and forget the cares of life, forget its troubles, and smelling the incense of the pines, sleep comes to you the moment your head touches your pillow and lasts unbrokenly until breakfast-time the next day.

Los Angeles People Known Everywhere.

We took pa.s.sage on a stage-coach next morning for the Wawona big trees.

The trip is one ever to be remembered. The road winds around over the mountains, always ascending, for about eight miles. The great trees are scattered over quite an expanse of territory. A technical description of them would be out of place here. To realize their size and majesty you must see them. Many are named after prominent men of the nations, and after various cities and states of the Union. I was glad to see the names of Los Angeles and Pasadena on two magnificent specimens. We drove through the trunk of a standing tree, and present herewith a picture of the feat. The gentleman on the left on the rear seat is a Mr. Isham, and the lady and gentleman on the same seat are a Mr. and Mrs. Risley, just returned from a trip around the world. They are from the same city in the east as Dr. and Mrs. W. Jarvis Barlow, and Mrs. Alfred Solano of this city, to whom they desired to be warmly remembered. Go where you will, you meet someone who knows someone in Los Angeles.

We lunched in the open air at the big trees, and made the return trip in a reverent mood, almost in silence, each of the party given over to his or her reflections. I realize that there is in my mind an ineffaceable mental picture of those gigantic trees, which are so tall, so large, so impressive and ma.s.sive that they overpower the understanding.

During our stay at Wawona we tried fis.h.i.+ng in the main river, which was swollen to a raging torrent by the melting snows. We found it so discolored and so turbulent that fis.h.i.+ng was not a success. We also visited the cascades. An immense body of water comes down a rocky gorge very precipitously. From one rock to another the water dashes with an awful roar. Mist and spray ascend and fall over a considerable area, keeping the trees and brush and gra.s.s and ferns dripping wet, and it would soon render one's clothing exceedingly uncomfortable.

We Go To Yosemite By Stage.

It is twenty-six miles from Wawona to Yosemite Valley. The stages leave Wawona at eleven thirty a. m. to make the trip. On June sixteenth we took our places with some other victims of this piece of transportation idiocy, on an open four-horse stage for Yosemite. The going was very slow. It was hot and dusty, and we soon got irritable and uncomfortable.

Why the traveling public should be subjected to this outrage is beyond me. We ground our weary way over the dusty road, oblivious to the scenery, until six o'clock, when we suddenly came to Inspiration Point, our first view of the great Valley.

Yosemite Valley.

The beauty of the scene to some extent compensated us for a beastly ride. Beyond us lay the great gorge known as the Yosemite. Below us the Merced River. On the left were Ribbon Falls, and just beyond them El Capitan. On our right, but well in front of us, were the Bridal Veil Falls. We were just in time to see that wonderful rainbow effect for which they are celebrated. Surely no more beautiful sheet of water could be found anywhere. A wonderful volume of water dashes over the cliff, unbroken by intercepting rocks, and drops a straight distance of six hundred feet. Then it drops three hundred feet more in dancing cascades to the floor of the valley and divides up into three good-sized streams which empty into the Merced River. When once started on its downward course, the water seems all spray. At the bottom of the first six-hundred-foot descent it made a mighty shower of mist like escaping steam from a giant rift in some t.i.tanic boiler, and soon reached the floor of the valley. The road from El Portal comes up on the north side of the river. We pa.s.sed El Capitan, which rears its ma.s.sive head three thousand three hundred feet in the distance, perpendicularly above the river. We were shown the pine tree, one hundred and fifty feet high, growing out of a rift in the rocks on its perpendicular face, more than two-thirds of the distance from its base. The tree looked to us like a rose bush, not two feet high, in a garden.

As we proceeded up the Valley there were pointed out to us the Three Brothers, a triple group of rocks, three thousand eight hundred feet high. Cathedral Spire, Sentinel Rock, Yosemite and Lost Arrow Falls, and all the other points of interest that can be seen on entering the Valley.

The river was abnormally high--higher we were told, than it had been in many years. It flowed with great rapidity, as if hurrying out of the valley to join the flood waters which had already submerged many acres of land in the San Joaquin valley, miles below. It looked dark and wicked, as if it carried certain death in its cold embrace. Half of the Yosemite valley was flooded. Meadows, rich in natural gra.s.ses, were knee deep with back water.

We reached the Sentinel Hotel, and sloughing off the most of the fine emery-like mountain dust with which we were enveloped, we got our first good look at the Yosemite Falls. They were at their best. Imagine a large river, coming over a cliff, a seething, foaming ma.s.s of spray, and dropping, in two descents, two thousand six hundred and thirty-four feet, sending heavenward great clouds of mist! I took one look, then looked up the Valley to the great Half Dome, to Glacier Point, from there to Sentinel Peak and the Cathedral Spires, and I concluded that the Yosemite is too beautiful for description, too sublime for comprehension and too magnificent for immediate human understanding. In the presence of those awful cliffs, towering, with an average height of over three thousand feet, above the floor of the valley; those immense waterfalls, as they thundered over the canyon walls; that mad river, gathering their united flow into one embrace, scurrying away with an irresistible energy that almost sweeps you off your feet as you look at it, all things human seem to shrink into the infinitesimal. You do not ask yourself, "How did all this get here?" You accept the situation as you find it. You leave it to the scientists to dispute whether the valley was formed wholly by glacial action or by some gigantic convulsion of nature, which tore its frowning cliffs apart, leaving the Valley rough, unfinished and uncouth to the gentle, molding hand of Time to smooth it up and beautify its floor with its present growth of oaks and pines and shrub and bush and ferns and vines, and laughing, running waters.

You are four thousand feet above sea-level. All around you cliffs and walls tower three thousand feet and upwards above you. Back of these are still higher peaks, whole mountain ranges, clothed in their snowy mantles, this season far beyond their usual time. The air is delightful, pure as the waters of the Yosemite Falls, soft as a carpet of pine needles to the foot-fall, balmy as the breath of spring, and cool and invigorating.

The Valley Overflowing With Visitors.

The valley is full of people; the hotels crowded, the camps overflowing.

From early dawn until the setting summer sun has cast long shadows over meadow and stream alike, there is a moving ma.s.s of restless people, either mounted on horseback, in vehicles or on foot, going out or coming in from the trails and side excursions. The walker seemed to get the most fun out of life. Man and woman are alike khaki clad and sunburned to a berry-brown. They walk with the easy grace of perfect strength and long practice, and think nothing of "hiking" to the top of Yosemite Falls or Sentinel Peak and back. One of the favorite trips is to Glacier Point by the Illilouette, Vernal and Nevada Falls, a distance of eleven miles, remaining there all night at a comfortable inn and returning by a shorter route by Sentinel Peak.

Looking up between the rocky walls of the valley, how far away the stars all looked at night! In that pure atmosphere, how beautiful the sky! How perfect each constellation! Each star with peculiar brightness shone.

One's view of the sky is circ.u.mscribed by the height of the cliffs.

Instead of the great arched vault of heaven one usually looks up to, one sees only that part of the sky immediately above the valley. It was like looking at the heavens from the bottom of a deep, narrow shaft. I looked in vain for well known beacon lights. They were not in sight. The towering cliffs shut them out. The sky looked strange to me, yet how beautiful it was! Through the gathering darkness we took one more look at the Yosemite Falls and betook ourselves to bed, to sleep the sleep once enjoyed in the long ago, when as children we returned, tired but happy, from some long outing in the woods.

We Visit the Floor of the Valley.

On the following morning we took in the sights of the floor of the valley. We rode to Mirror Lake, which, however, did not come up to its reputation. This summer the entrance to the lake has changed its channel from its west to its east side, and a long sand bar has been deposited in the lake proper, all of which our guide told us marred the reflections usually visible therein.

We pa.s.sed hundreds of people of all ages walking through the valley. In visiting the Yosemite you do not realize that the valley is several miles long, and has an average width of about one-half a mile. The great height of the surrounding walls dwarfs your idea of distance. Even the trees, many of which are of great size, look small and puny.

The Happy Isles.

We drove to the Happy Isles, small islands covered with trees, around which the river surges in foaming ma.s.ses. Standing at the upper end of the one of the Happy Isles, one gets a splendid impression of the cascade effect of the waters, rus.h.i.+ng madly down a steep rocky channel, with an irresistible, terrifying force. The descent of the bed of the stream is very marked. The waters come over submerged, rocky ma.s.ses.

Just as you think that maddened torrent must sweep over the island, engulfing you in its course, the stream divides, half of it pa.s.sing to the right, and half to the left. These divided waters unite again farther down the valley.

On our return from this short excursion, Francis, Dr. Macleish and Harry, taking their lunch with them, walked up to the top of the Yosemite Falls. They stood beneath the flag at Yosemite Point and got a comprehensive view of the entire valley. They reported the trip a heart-breaking one.

Military Government.

The valley has a military government. What Major Forsyth says goes.

There are no saloons in the Yosemite, nor are there any cats. The Major saw a cat catch a young gray squirrel. He issued an edict that the cats must go or be killed. They went.

Excursion to Glacier Point.

The next day all of our party, except Mrs. Graves, who had made the journey some years before, went to the top of Glacier Point. We took a stage to the Happy Isles and there mounted mules for the trail. The climb is a steady one. Soon we got our first view of the Vernal Falls.

To my mind they are the most perfect waterfalls in the Valley. The water flows over the cliffs an unbroken ma.s.s, one hundred feet wide. The initial drop is three hundred and fifty feet. The effect can not be imagined by one who has not seen the actual descent of this great ma.s.s of water. The emerald pond above the falls, in which the waters a.s.sume an emerald hue, and appear to seek a momentary rest before taking the final plunge over the cliffs, is one of the Valley's beauty spots. The roar of the falling waters, striking the rocks below, is loud and reverberating. Great clouds of spray and mist float off in falling ma.s.ses, appearing more like smoke than water.

After pa.s.sing Vernal Falls you come to the Diamond Cascades. They are below the Nevada Falls. The long flowing waters from the Nevada Falls have cut a channel deep into the bed rock. You cross this channel on a bridge. Under and below the bridge the water flows with such velocity that great volumes of it are hurled into the air in long strings, one succeeding the other. The sunlight on these strings of water makes them flash like diamonds. The effect is as if some one were sowing diamonds by the bushel above the water. A similar effect is noticed, though not so p.r.o.nounced, just above the Nevada Falls. The latter are something like a mile above Vernal Falls. 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. A glacial deposit is left in patches on the rocks which is today as smooth as plate gla.s.s.