The Yosemite | Page 6

found hiding here and there in the woods or back
in the fountain recesses of Mount Hoffman, while a thousand gardens
are planted along the banks of the streams.
All the wide, fan-shaped upper portion of the basin is covered with a

network of small rills that go cheerily on their way to their grand fall in
the Valley, now flowing on smooth pavements in sheets thin as glass,
now diving under willows and laving their red roots, oozing through
green, plushy bogs, plashing over small falls and dancing down
slanting cascades, calming again, gliding through patches of smooth
glacier meadows with sod of alpine agrostis mixed with blue and white
violets and daisies, breaking, tossing among rough boulders and fallen
trees, resting in calm pools, flowing together until, all united, they go to
their fate with stately, tranquil gestures like a full-grown river. At the
crossing of the Mono Trail, about two miles above the head of the
Yosemite Fall, the stream is nearly forty feet wide, and when the snow
is melting rapidly in the spring it is about four feet deep, with a current
of two and a half miles an hour. This is about the volume of water that
forms the Fall in May and June when there had been much snow the
preceding winter; but it varies greatly from month to month. The snow
rapidly vanishes from the open portion of the basin, which faces
southward, and only a few of the tributaries reach back to perennial
snow and ice fountains in the shadowy amphitheaters on the precipitous
northern slopes of Mount Hoffman. The total descent made by the
stream from its highest sources to its confluence with the Merced in the
Valley is about 6000 feet, while the distance is only about ten miles, an
average fall of 600 feet per mile. The last mile of its course lies
between the sides of sunken domes and swelling folds of the granite
that are clustered and pressed together like a mass of bossy cumulus
clouds. Through this shining way Yosemite Creek goes to its fate,
swaying and swirling with easy, graceful gestures and singing the last
of its mountain songs before it reaches the dizzy edge of Yosemite to
fall 2600 feet into another world, where climate, vegetation, inhabitants,
all are different. Emerging from this last canyon the stream glides, in
flat lace-like folds, down a smooth incline into a small pool where it
seems to rest and compose itself before taking the grand plunge. Then
calmly, as if leaving a lake, it slips over the polished lip of the pool
down another incline and out over the brow of the precipice in a
magnificent curve thick-sown with rainbow spray.
The Yosemite Fall

Long ago before I had traced this fine stream to its head back of Mount
Hoffman, I was eager to reach the extreme verge to see how it behaved
in flying so far through the air; but after enjoying this view and getting
safely away I have never advised any one to follow my steps. The last
incline down which the stream journeys so gracefully is so steep and
smooth one must slip cautiously forward on hands and feet alongside
the rushing water, which so near one's head is very exciting. But to gain
a perfect view one must go yet farther, over a curving brow to a slight
shelf on the extreme brink. This shelf, formed by the flaking off of a
fold of granite, is about three inches wide, just wide enough for a safe
rest for one's heels. To me it seemed nerve-trying to slip to this narrow
foothold and poise on the edge of such precipice so close to the
confusing whirl of the waters; and after casting longing glances over
the shining brow of the fall and listening to its sublime psalm, I
concluded not to attempt to go nearer, but, nevertheless, against
reasonable judgment, I did. Noticing some tufts of artemisia in a cleft
of rock, I filled my mouth with the leaves, hoping their bitter taste
might help to keep caution keen and prevent giddiness. In spite of
myself I reached the little ledge, got my heels well set, and worked
sidewise twenty or thirty feet to a point close to the out-plunging
current. Here the view is perfectly free down into the heart of the bright
irised throng of comet-like streamers into which the whole ponderous
volume of the fall separates, two or three hundred feet below the brow.
So glorious a display of pure wildness, acting at close range while cut
off from all the world beside, is terribly impressive. A less nerve-trying
view may be obtained from a fissured portion of the edge of the cliff
about forty yards to the eastward of the