Los Angeles herald., 1910-07-03


layer granite ten or twenty feet In
thickness that were broken from the
solid dome sides and pushed along by
the flowing ice.
The retreating glacier left debris In
this hollow, especially on the northern
side where the ice pressure was not 80
great. But the south side Is clean of
all soil, the FURNISHED rock is iaved by
the waters above which 1t rises steep
and smooth On the north side and
at the upper end of the lake are many
acres of land covered with trees. There
is a sprinkling of giant spruce trees
with jungle of popple about them.
At the head of the lake is an open
meadow, an ideal camping ground.
After supper we busied ourselves gath
ering an ample bed of fir boughs.
While so occupied a beautiful doe
walked out from the woods hundred
yards from us and began browsing the
buds of mountain shrub. It was too
dark for the camera, but Carl left his
work long enough to study the animal
at close range. She was quite unafraid,
but at last sprang away among the
trees.
The Little Yosemite is little only in
comr arison with the gre Yosem to. It
lies among the domes that the great
glacier peeled down and polished per-
haps 300 centuries ago. Three mies
long and half mile wide, its meadows
and forests spread out in a perfect fiat.
The river winds between grassy banks.
Several creeks come over the rock rim
with roaring and foam and pull over
the gravel till they join the river. This
Is a lovely place to camp for day or
week. The wonder is that more out of
the multitudes of tourists and campers
in the big valley do not find out this
little paradise. l think that we shall
spend more time there the next trip
that way.
There were two campers In this val
ley when we were there, and very likely
more These two we encountered as we
made a brief exploration after break
fast. They were bent upon a day OF
fishing. and tomorrow would make over
the mountains to the Tuolumne
meadows at Soda Springs.
Merced lake is a few miles above the
Little Yosemite, but the way tween
is an almost impas sable gorge. Our
route lay over the high ridge of Sunrise
mountain Good fortune accompaniet
us through all our trip. In fat any
thing that may come is good fortune
among these glorious mountains, for
whichever way one goes he is sure to
think that he has found out the very
choicest possible scenes. Our talk with
the campers in Little Yosemite con-
firmed our former information as to
trails and added some details as to dis
journey had brought us to the very
foot of the Sunrise mountain trail at
the west side of Echo creek, where we
made our camp Sunday night
Sunrise trail leads through delightful
forests up a moderate grade for several
miles to the crest of huge southern
shoulder a few hundred feet below the
summit. The way lies along an ancient
moraine for long distance. Both to
the left and to the right of this mcraine
there is a stream, the one at the right
rising almost at the crest of the
shoulder Many striking views of the
back side of Half Dome and OF Clouds
Rest are found on this trail, any one
of which seemed to us alone worth the
cost of the climb. Southward, across
the Little Yosemite, the marvellous
twisted knife blade crest of Mount
Clark affords a varied series of views of
wonderful beauty as the vistas open
through the trees Great snow drifts
lie under the northeast cliffs of this
thin winning summit.
These heights are the remnants OF
the ancient rocks that lay thousands OF
feet thick above the gray granite domes.
The lower SUBMITS, from 5000 to 10000
feet are all domes, some of them most
perfect all beautiful. They stand q
about, hundreds of them reminding one
forcibly of a pot of rather stiff bub-
bling pudding, suddenly petrified just
before the bubbles burst. The strata lie
in coneentric layers and have been
peeled off by the work of the glacier.
The sides of the domes are covered with
hot