Name/Title
Yosemite Falls from TrailEntry/Object ID
YP.58Description
Front: Yosemite Falls from Glacier Point Trail. Yosemite Valley, California.
Back: We have come out into east central California, leaving San Francisco 170 miles away at our left (west). The main trough of the valley extends nearly east and west for seven mile s- a sudden deep gash in the solid granite rocks. The floor of the valley is itself 3000 feet above the sea-level. To reach the point where we are now, one has to ride up the steep Glacier Point Trail.
"No on need fear to ride, although none should deviate from the guide's directions, and all, including the ladies, must ride man-fashion. The ponies and the burros are alike sure-footed and of great knowledge in their life's business. The ascent is made in Indian file up, up, up the trail along the precipitous side of the mountain. -- Before the top of the trail is reached we come, as if by mutual consent, to a halt. It looks a fearsome place to halt -- Scarce four feet wide is the trail, solid granite, piled high on our right in fragments from the mountain-side and sloping immediately below us as if ready to fall lower at any moment. (We are looking at this moment due north, towards Oregon). The sunlight throws he shadows of our horses as black as those thrown on a desert floor by the fierce Arabian sun and burnishes the opposite Yosemite cliffs with a light that positively glitters on their crystalline fronts. Beneath us (almost 3000 feet below) like a lawn and looking as smooth and flat as an artificial garden, lies the mirror of the Merced River, and directly opposite to us (some mile and a half away) stands in one gash, from topmost lip to final foot, the Yosemite Falls. -- Here for the first time the falls, as a whole, can be seen at one glance."
(Extract from The Yosemite Valley through the Stereoscope, by C.Y. Turner, with a special "keyed" map of the valley, locating the best standpoints and identifying all the notable landmarks; published by Underwood & Underwood.)
From Descriptive Bulletin No. 1, copyrighted 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.
Part of YP Discovery KitCollection
Exhibit Envoy