When they resume walking, there is no other person in sight for as far as they can see. And on this sparkling summer s day, the view seems endless. In the valley s crowded mall, families stroll by, eating ice cream, dodging bicycles. People pile in and out of buses. Shoppers hunt for souvenirs.
Kids hang around a pizza place.
Rock climbers, coils of rope slung over their shoulders, swap stories over beers on a patio. On this summer s day about 14,000 people are in the valley village. Both the solitude of the alpine ridge and the throngs of the valley are part of the experience when you visit Yosemite National Park. No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite, wrote naturalist John Muir, whose crusading led to the creation of the park. To this temple come more than four million visitors a year.