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Title: Your National Parks, with Detailed Information for Tourists

Author: Enos A. Mills
Laurence Frederick Schmeckebier

Release date: March 3, 2013 [eBook #42248]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUR
NATIONAL PARKS, WITH DETAILED INFORMATION FOR
TOURISTS ***

By Enos A. Mills

YOUR NATIONAL PARKS. Illustrated.
THE STORY OF SCOTCH. Illustrated.
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN WONDERLAND. Illustrated.
THE STORY OF A THOUSAND-YEAR PINE. Illustrated.
IN BEAVER WORLD. Illustrated.
THE SPELL OF THE ROCKIES. Illustrated.
WILD LIFE ON THE ROCKIES. Illustrated.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Boston and New York

YOUR NATIONAL PARKS

JOHN COLTER, THE DISCOVERER OF
YELLOWSTONE PARK

A Guide to the National Parks

YOUR
NATIONAL PARKS

BY

ENOS A. MILLS
WITH DETAILED INFORMATION
FOR TOURISTS

BY
LAURENCE F. SCHMECKEBIER

And with Illustrations and Maps

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1917

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY ENOS A. MILLS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published June 1917

TO
GEORGE W. PERKINS
AND
WILLIAM A. WELCH

WHOSE STATESMANSHIP, ENERGY, IDEALS, AND COURAGE
ARE MAKING THE PALISADES INTER-STATE PARK
"THE GREATEST PARK IN THE WORLD"

PREFACE

St. Louis had a memorable "flag day" a little more than a century ago.
Within twenty-four hours the yellow and red flag of Spain was run down
and the tricolor run up; this hauled down and the Stars and Stripes run up.
The Louisiana Territory thus became a part of the United States. In a flash,
the western boundary of this country was changed from the Mississippi
River to the Rocky Mountains.
Scarcely were the Stars and Stripes flying, before Lewis and Clark were
on their way to explore the vast and mysterious Louisiana Territory—the
West. Theirs was one of the most comprehensive and successful exploring
expeditions on record—one of the greatest of outdoor expeditions. There
were adventures and hardships, but after two years the party returned to
civilization with the loss of only one man. The resources of the great West
were definitely placed before the world.
This expedition revealed the extraordinary resourcefulness of Lewis and
Clark and brought out also two other characters who are worthy of a place
in American literature and whose achievements might well be a source of
inspiration in American life. These are John Colter, who afterwards
discovered the Yellowstone, and Sacagawea, the "bird woman." Sacagawea
was the one woman of the Lewis and Clark expedition. She rendered
remarkable service, and her name will be forever associated with
exploration, with woodcraft, and with the National-Park wildernesses.
Just before the returning Lewis and Clark expedition reached St. Louis, it
met trappers starting up the river—going into the great West. This was the
real beginning of the trapping industry, which for nearly two generations
was the dominating influence of the West.
The West was thoroughly explored by the trappers. In a number of States
they formed the first permanent settlement. The trappers harvested the furs
of lakes and streams throughout the mountains and built up the "Commerce
of the Prairies." We are indebted to them for the Oregon and Santa Fé trails.
All history shows no more picturesque or resourceful character than the

trapper. Among them were such great men as John Colter, James Bridger,
and Kit Carson.
The trapper was followed by the prospector. The trapper did not search
for gold. The prospector did not look for furs or fertile lands. In a different
way the prospector exploited the same territory as the trapper and thus
placed the resources and the romance of the West before the public.
Closely following the trapper and prospector was that rugged and
aggressive character, the cowboy. He had a definite part in the forward
movement of the frontier. The cowboy cared nothing for furs, or gold, or
fertile lands. He was interested in the rich grasses for his cattle. He, too, had
his short day. These characters—the cowboy, the prospector, and the trapper
—tarried for a brief moment on the frontier when the farmer, the first
lasting settler, arrived. All these armed and vigorous people, the wearers of
buckskin, were people of individuality and power. They made great changes
throughout the West, and hastened its final development.
Pioneer men and women are among the great and influential figures in
history. They were human, they were honorable, and we do honor them.
They did not want or need sympathy. They were getting much, perhaps the
most, from life; they were happy. We think of theirs as being a life of
sacrifice, but it really was a life of selection. They were away from the
crowd—from the enemies of sincerity and individuality. Of all people they
were most nearly free. But the pioneers are gone.
The frontier no longer exists, and the days of the wilderness are gone
forever. Yet, in our magnificent National Parks we still have a bit of the
primeval world and the spirit of the vigorous frontier. In these wild parks
we may rebuild the past, and in them the trapper, the prospector, the
cowboy, and the pioneer may act once more their part in the scenes that
knew them.
These wilderness empires of our National Parks have been snatched from
leveling forces of development. They are likely to prove the richest, noblest
heritage of the nation. Here the world is at play, here are scenes ever new
and that will greatly help to keep the nation young.
In the words of John Dickinson Sherman: "It is as if Nature in these
places had in self-defense devoted all her energies to scenery, proclaiming
to the nation, 'Here I will make playgrounds for the people. Here is nothing
for commerce or industry. Here is natural beauty at its wildest and best.

Elsewhere man must live by the sweat of his brow. Here let him rest and
play. Here I will rule supreme for all time.'"
There are seventeen National Parks. New ones will early be made and
there are at least twenty other scenic regions which should at once be
added. No nation has ever fallen for having too much scenery. Scenery is,
indeed, one of our most valuable resources, and these Parks will enable us
to build up a scenic industry of magnitude. Already they are being
developed with roads and trails, and before long there will be in all of them
hotels and camps for visitors of every taste, together with special camps and
provision for school-children.
I have tried to describe a few of the wonders of the Parks and to suggest
the larger, fuller use of them. Through most of the Parks described I have
had happy excursions afoot, alone and unarmed. Not only do the Parks
contain some of the world's sublimest and most beautiful scenes, but each
Park is a wild-life reservation, a place where guns are forbidden. Thus
protected, these wildernesses will remain forever wild, forever mysterious
and primeval, holding for the visitor the spell of the outdoors, exciting the
spirit of exploration. Within them will survive that poetic million-year-old
highway, the trail. Among their pathless scenes wild life will be
perpetuated. Chains of mountain-peaks will ever stand—"the silent caravan
that never passes by, the caravan whose camel backs are laden with the
sky"—with purple forests, mountain-high waterfalls, vast and broken
cañons, wind-swept plateaus, splendid lakes, and peaks and glaciers often
touched with cloud and sunshine.
Our National Parks will continue for generations to come to be the No
Man's Land, the Undiscovered Country, the Mysterious Old West, the Land
of Romance and Adventure. My great hope and belief is that they will
become a marked factor in public education. Surely, these wonderlands
mean much for the general welfare, and will help to develop greater men
and women—to arouse enthusiasm for our native land, and for nature
everywhere.
E. A. M.

CONTENTS

I. The Yellowstone National Park 3
1. A Camp-Fire that made History 3
2. The Discovery of the Yellowstone 10
3. The Geysers, Lakes, and Streams 28
4. Ages of Fire and Ice 38
5. The Petrified Forests 45
6. Area; Trees, Flowers, and Animals 51
7. Entrances 53
8. Administrative History 54
9. Lost in the Wilderness 58
II. The Yosemite National Park 65
1. Ice-King Topography 70
2. Trees and Forests 76
3. Plant Life 79
4. The Realm of Falling Water 83
5. Seeing Yosemite 88
6. History of Yosemite 93
III. The Sequoia and the General Grant National Parks 99
The Big Trees 104
IV. Mount Rainier National Park 116
1. The Splendid Wild-Flower Garden 122
2. Glaciers of Mount Rainier 130
V. Crater Lake National Park 137
VI. Glacier National Park 148
History of Glacier National Park 157
VII. Mesa Verde National Park 161
VIII. Rocky Mountain National Park 175

IX. The Grand Cañon 190
X. Lassen Volcanic National Park 211
XI. Hawaii National Park 221
XII. Three National Monuments
1. The Olympic National Monuments 230
2. The Natural Bridges and Rainbow Bridge National
236
Monuments
3. Mukuntuweap National Monument 239
XIII. Other National Parks 242
1. Wind Cave National Park 242
2. Sully's Hill Park 244
3. Casa Grande Ruin Reservation 245
4. Hot Springs Reservation 246
5. Platt National Park 248
6. Mount McKinley National Park 248
XIV. Canadian National Parks 251
1. Jasper Park 252
2. Rocky Mountains Park 254
3. Yoho Park 256
4. Waterton Lakes Park 258
5. Revelstoke Park 260
6. The Animal Parks 260
7. St. Lawrence Islands Park 261
8. Fort Howe Park 262
XV. Park-Development and New Parks 264
XVI. The Spirit of the Forest 282
XVII. Wild Life in National Parks 296
XVIII. In All Weathers 317
XIX. The Scenery in the Sky 340
1. Timber-Line 340
2. Above the Timber-Line 345
3. The Work of the Ice King 351

4. High Peaks 356
XX. John Muir 360
XXI. National Parks the School of Nature 366
XXII. Why We need National Parks 378
XXIII. The Trail 388
APPENDIX
A. Act of Dedication of the Yellowstone National Park 397
B. The National Parks at a Glance 400
C. Proposed National Parks 403
D. National Monuments 405
E. Dominion National Parks of Canada 412
BIBLIOGRAPHY 415
GUIDE TO THE NATIONAL PARKS
Introduction 425
Yellowstone National Park 433
Yosemite National Park 444
Sequoia National Park 455
General Grant National Park 459
Mount Rainier National Park 460
Crater Lake National Park 470
Glacier National Park 475
Mesa Verde National Park 488
Rocky Mountain National Park 491
The Grand Cañon 495
Lassen Volcanic National Park 500
Hawaii National Park 502
Mount McKinley National Park 505
Hot Springs of Arkansas 506
Minor National Parks
Casa Grande Ruin 508
Wind Cave National Park 508
Platt National Park 509
Sully's Hill Park 509

National Monuments 510
Canadian Parks
Rocky Mountains Park 515
Yoho Park 516
Glacier Park 517
Jasper Park 518
Revelstoke Park 518
Waterton Lakes Park 519
Buffalo Park 519
Elk Island Park 520
St. Lawrence Islands Park 520
Fort Howe Park 520
INDEX 521

ILLUSTRATIONS

John Colter, the Discoverer of Yellowstone Park Frontispiece
From a drawing by E. S. Paxson

Map showing Location of the National Parks and National
1
Monuments
Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park 30
From a photograph by George R. King

Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone National Park 34
From a photograph by Haynes, St. Paul, Minn.

Grand Cañon from Artist Point, Yellowstone National
42
Park
From a copyright photograph by Haynes, St. Paul

Petrified Forests in Amethyst Mountain, Yellowstone
46
National Park
Adapted from an illustration of the United States Geological Survey

Bird's-Eye View of Yosemite Valley 66
Half Dome, Yosemite 70
From a photograph by George R. King

Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls 84
From a photograph by the Pillsbury Picture Company

Lake Tenaya, Yosemite National Park 88
From a photograph by the Desmond Company

The Four Brothers, Sequoia National Park 104
From a photograph by Lindley Eddy, Ranger, Cal.

Stage Road, Mount Rainier National Park 118
From a photograph by Curtis & Miller, Seattle, Wash.

Mount Rainier from Paradise Valley 124

From a photograph by Curtis & Miller

Crater Lake and Wizard Island 138
From a photograph by the Kiser Studio

Phantom Ship, Crater Lake 144
By permission of the National Park Service

McDermott Falls and Grinnell Mountain, Glacier
150
National Park
From a photograph by Haynes, St. Paul

Spruce Tree House, Mesa Verde National Park 166
From a photograph by Arthur Chapman

Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park 176
From a photograph by Enos A. Mills.

Loch Vale, Rocky Mountain National Park 180
From a photograph by W. T. Parke, Estes Park, Colo.

Fern Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park 188
From a photograph by H. T. Cowling

Looking West from North Side of Grand Cañon, showing
192
Point Sublime and Isis Temple
By permission of the Department of the Interior

Lassen Peak in Eruption 214
From a copyright photograph by B. F. Loomis

Mount St. Helens from the Timber-Line Trail on Mount
234
Rainier
From a photograph by A. H. Barnes

Rainbow Natural Bridge, Rainbow National Monument 238
From a photograph by the Geological Survey

Illecillewaet Valley, with Mount Sir Donald in the
252
Distance, Glacier Park, Canada
From a photograph taken for the Commissioner of Dominion Parks

Teton Mountain Region: Proposed Addition to Yellowstone
266
Park
From a photograph by J. E. Stimson

Mount Baker from the West 270
From a copyright photograph by W. H. Wilcox, Port Townsend, Wash.

Mount St. Elias from East Side of Agassiz Glacier, Alaska 274
From a photograph by J. C. Russell

On the Road to Sherman Tree, Giant Forest, Sequoia
282
National Park
From a photograph by George F. Belden

Elk in Jackson Hole 296
From a photograph by S. N. Leek

Black Bear Cubs, Sequoia National Park 304
From a photograph by Lindley Eddy

Long's Peak, from Chasm Lake, Rocky Mountain National
320
Park
From a photograph by Enos A. Mills

Above the Timber-Line in the Rocky Mountain National
346
Park, showing Long's Peak
From a photograph by H. T. Cowling

John Muir in Muir Woods 360
From a photograph by Herbert W. Gleason

Trail near Timber-Line, Indian Henry's Park, Mount
388
Rainier
From a photograph by Curtis & Miller

Map of Yellowstone National Park 436
Map of Yosemite National Park 446
Map of Glacier National Park 476
Map of Rocky Mountain National Park 492

The maps and bird's-eye view are used by permission of the National
Park Service, Department of the Interior.

Click on the map to enlarge it

By permission of the National Park Service, Department of the
Interior
MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF NATIONAL PARKS AND
NATIONAL MONUMENTS, 1917

YOUR NATIONAL PARKS

YOUR NATIONAL
PARKS

I
THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

1. A CAMP-FIRE THAT MADE HISTORY

On September 19, 1870, a number of men were chatting around a camp-
fire in the wilds of northwestern Wyoming. They had been exploring the
Yellowstone wonderland. They had seen the geysers,—little hot-water
volcanoes,—the pools of boiling colored mud, the great petrified forest, and
the golden cañon of the Yellowstone, into whose colored depths the snowy
river leaps. The exploration was over, and the men were about to start for
their homes.
A group were discussing how they might secure the ownership of this
scenic empire. A monopoly of this wonderland would mean a fortune. The
discussion was interrupted. Cornelius Hedges arose before the camp-fire.
He said that private ownership ought never to be considered. This region, he
thought, should be set aside by the Government and forever held for the
unrestricted use of the people. The magnificent National-Park idea was thus
born by a camp-fire in the wilds. The views of this statesman prevailed, and
it was agreed that the park project be launched at once and vigorously
pushed. And this was done. A few enterprising, aggressive men championed
the measure so earnestly that the Park became a reality in less than two
years after the idea originated.
This celebrated camp was near the junction of the Gibbon and Firehole
Rivers, at the foot of what now is National Park Mountain. In 1891 I made a
reverent pilgrimage to this historic spot. I am grateful to every one who
helped establish the Yellowstone Park. I am glad that the idea of a National
Park was a camp-fire thought.
The Helena (Montana) "Herald" of November 9, 1870, had an article by
Cornelius Hedges, containing what is probably the first published reference
to the park project. Honor must be given to David E. Folsom and a number

of other individuals for publicly suggesting, independently, a similar idea.
These suggestions, however, were barren of results.
In the course of that autumn a bold park campaign was begun by
Nathaniel P. Langford, Cornelius Hedges, and William H. Claggett, who
had just been elected Delegate to Congress from Montana. Langford
lectured in behalf of the project before interested audiences in Minneapolis,
Washington, New York, and elsewhere; and he and Walter Trumbull
published magazine articles on the subject. Copies of Langford's article in
"Scribner's Magazine" were placed in the hands of every Member of
Congress.
Dr. Ferdinand V. Hayden, of the United States Geological Survey of the
Territories, became interested in the cause, and rendered invaluable service.
During the summer of 1871 he explored the Yellowstone region and took
scores of photographs. In coöperation with others, he drew the bill for
Congressional enactment, and marked the boundary lines of the Park. This
bill was introduced in the House by William H. Claggett, December 18,
1871. Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, immediately introduced the identical
measure in the Senate. Claggett, Hayden, Langford, and others made a
thorough canvass. Each Member of Congress was personally interviewed.
The enthusiasm, intelligence, and sincerity of these advocates produced
winning results. The question came to a successful vote in the Senate,
January 30, 1872. Senator Cole, of California, opposed.
In the House, the Committee on Public Lands reported the bill favorably.
Henry L. Dawes, of Massachusetts, championed the measure. It reached a
vote, February 27, 1872, with the following result: yeas, 115; nays, 65; not
voting, 60. The bill was signed by President Grant, March 1, 1872.
It is a remarkable fact that Congress should have thus created the
Yellowstone National Park. Through the ages the privileged classes have
had almost exclusive enjoyment of scenic empires. The campaign which
brought about the creation of this Park was brief, intense, and unique. It was
a genuine and epoch-marking achievement.
The National-Park idea has gone round the world. All leading nations
now have national parks and are planning more. Time is likely to stamp our
original legislation as one of the important acts of statesmanship. A few
public-spirited men of vision began a revolution and triumphed. The
anniversary of this event may some day be observed with world-wide

celebration. People progress in the improvement of their playgrounds no
less than in the ordering of their workshops.
Concerning this National-Park legislation, General Hiram M. Chittenden,
author of "The Yellowstone National Park," makes the following comment:
—
Perhaps no act of our National Congress has received such general approbation at home or such
profuse commendation from foreigners as that creating the Yellowstone National Park. The lapse of
time only serves to confirm and extend its importance, and to give additional force to the sentiment
so well expressed by the Earl of Dunraven when he visited the Park in 1874: "All honor then to the
United States for having bequeathed as a free gift to man the beauties and curiosities of 'Wonderland.'
It was an act worthy of a great nation, and she will have her reward in the praise of the present army
of tourists, no less than in the thanks of the generations of them yet to come."
It was a notable act, not only on account of the transcendent importance of the territory it was
designed to protect, but because it was a marked innovation in the traditional policy of government.
From time immemorial privileged classes have been protected by law in the withdrawal, for the
exclusive enjoyment, of immense tracts for forests, parks, and game preserves. But never before was
a region of such vast extent as the Yellowstone Park set apart for the use of all the people without
distinction of rank or wealth.

It has been well said that "history is geography set in motion." And
"Geography," says Kant, "lies at the basis of history." The peculiar
geographic environment of the Yellowstone tract had a definite and striking
influence on the early history of the region. It attracted few visitors and no
settlers. To the pioneer and the Indian it offered few necessities, and these
were almost inaccessible owing to climatic discomforts and difficulties of
communication. Even to-day, for commercial use, the Yellowstone country
would support only a sparse population.
But what formerly repelled now attracts. Time has brought changes.
Congested population, the necessity for outdoor life, the destruction of most
of the wild outing-places—these conditions have given to this and to other
scenic mountain places a high economic value; likewise what may be called
a nobler or higher value. Reserved and used as a recreation park by the
public, it has become an economic asset of enormous importance. And
through park use it conveys benefits to thousands.
Yesterday the Yellowstone environing factor arrested, deflected, and
retarded the movement and the development of society. To-day it attracts,
arouses, energizes, and ennobles a multitude.

2. THE DISCOVERY OF THE YELLOWSTONE

In the Yellowstone National Park—the first national park in the world—
are so many natural wonders, of such unusual character, that not until the
tract was discovered the sixth time were the American people convinced of
its existence. Sixty-three years elapsed from the time of its first discovery to
that of its recognition as an actuality.
The first two discoveries—they were made by trappers a generation apart
—were laughed at and soon forgotten. The third, by prospectors, led to a
successful private exploring expedition from Montana. This was followed
by a larger and semi-official expedition, which also achieved its object. The
sixth and last was an official discovery by the United States Government.
The Indians of the Yellowstone region knew of the present Park tract.
They had a north-and-south trail across it, also one from east to west. To
them it was the "Top of the World," the "Land of Burning Mountains," and
the "Yellow Rock." But its wonders appear to have produced little or no
impression on the Indians; there is an absolute dearth of myths, legends,
and even of superstitions concerning it. To me this is remarkable. From
every point of view the natives regarded the Yellowstone with indifference.
Lewis and Clark daily questioned Indians concerning the character of the
country, but the explorers heard nothing of the Yellowstone wonderland,
although they passed and repassed within a few miles of it.
The Indians made scant use of this territory. In an average year the passes
into it are blocked with snow for nine months of the twelve. Besides, it is
mostly covered with a tangle of forests. In earlier days, living in it or
traveling through it was difficult. Though filled with big game during the
summer, at no time of year was it equal to the surrounding country as a
hunting-ground.
John Colter, who first discovered the Yellowstone region in 1807, was a
member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. He was a hunter and trapper, a
master of woodcraft, and an outdoor man of the first class; at the time of the
discovery he was thirty-five years of age, nearly six feet tall, and an athlete
who could hold his own in the games of the trappers' rendezvous. His
endurance, courage, and resourcefulness were marvelous. Neither
wilderness nor hostile Indian had terrors for him. The five years that he
spent in the Yellowstone region were so crowded with wilderness adventure
that his name is immortal in the history of the American frontier. He
obtained his release from the Lewis and Clark exploring party at a point on

the Missouri River, some distance below the mouth of the Yellowstone, in
August, 1806. He had served with the expedition more than two years.
With two trappers, Colter that year proceeded up the Missouri and spent
the winter somewhere on its headwaters. The following spring he left his
companions and started for St. Louis. After a solitary journey of about two
thousand miles, he met Manuel Lisa, the celebrated trapper and trader, who,
with a large party, was on his way to found a trading-post somewhere on the
headwaters of the Missouri. Lisa persuaded Colter to turn back with him.
Strong is the lure of the wilderness. Although Colter had been away from
civilization three years, and a triumphant welcome awaited his return, he
again postponed the enjoyment of all that old friends and city attractions
could offer, to resume the adventurous experiences of a trapper's life among
hostile Indians in the wilds.
Lisa built a trading-post, Fort Manuel, at the junction of the Big Horn and
Yellowstone Rivers, about two hundred miles southeast of the Yellowstone
Park. From here, with a thirty-pound pack and rifle, Colter set off alone on
a thousand-mile journey into the wilderness to tell the surrounding Indian
tribes of this new trading-post.
He traveled a few hundred miles to the southwest without notable
adventure. We now marvel at the results of this journey, for its discoveries
put Colter in the front rank of geographical explorers on the American
continent. He discovered the Wind River Range, Union Pass, Jackson Hole,
Teton Pass, Pierre's Hole, and the Grand Teton. He was the first to see the
headwaters of those two great rivers the Green Fork of the Colorado and the
Snake Fork of the Columbia. These discoveries might well have been
enough for any one man, but his greatest discovery was still before him.
Colter was with a band of Crows near Pierre's Hole when it was attacked
by marauding Blackfeet. Of necessity Colter fought with the Crows, who
were victorious. The Blackfeet blamed Colter for their defeat, and from this
incident may have arisen the long-continued hostility of the Blackfeet tribes
against the whites.
Again alone, Colter set forth from Pierre's Hole, St. Anthony, Idaho, and
traveled straight across the mountains to Fort Manuel. A wound in the leg,
which he had received in the fight with the Blackfeet, was not yet healed.
The direct route that he took for his return may have been chosen as the
shortest, but most probably was selected in order to avoid the Blackfeet.

The crowning achievement of this remarkable journey was the discovery
and traversing of the Yellowstone wonderland. His course took Colter
diagonally, from southwest to northeast, across what now is the Yellowstone
National Park. He probably passed along the west shore of Yellowstone
Lake, and may have followed the Yellowstone River from the lake to the
falls. He saw numerous geysers, hot springs, paint-pots, and possibly
Sulphur Mountain. He noted that numerous rivers had their sources in the
Park and flowed from it in all directions, thus justifying the Indian name for
the region, "Top of the World." After crossing Mount Washburn he probably
forded the river near Tower Falls and then followed the east fork of the
Yellowstone.
Colter arrived safely at Fort Manuel after a journey of about three
hundred miles from Pierre's Hole and a round trip of about eight hundred
miles. Aside from its geographical value, this was a remarkable wilderness
achievement.
A little later came the most extraordinary chapter of Colter's adventurous
life. In 1809, with a companion named John Potts, he was trapping beavers
near the Three Forks of the Missouri. They were rowing up a small stream
that flowed into the Jefferson River, the most western of the forks. At a
point on this stream about five miles from the Jefferson, they heard a great
trampling. High banks and brushwood shut off their view.
Presently about five hundred Blackfeet appeared on the banks and
ordered them to come ashore. Escape was impossible. The two men had the
hardihood to throw the beaver-traps overboard, hoping to recover them
later. As the canoe touched the shore, an Indian snatched Potts's rifle from
him. Thereupon Colter sprang ashore, wrested the rifle from the Indian, and
handed it to Potts who immediately pushed off into the stream. Colter told
him to come back and not to try to escape. An arrow whizzed by Colter, and
Potts fell back in the canoe, crying out, "I'm done for!" as he shot an Indian
dead. In an instant his body was filled with arrows.
The Blackfeet seized Colter and stripped him naked, then discussed
methods of torturing him to death. They decided to set him up for a target,
but the chief interfered—that was not exciting enough for him. Seizing
Colter by the shoulder, he asked him if he could run fast. The question was
greeted with howls of delight by the Blackfeet.

The chief led Colter out on the prairie about three hundred yards from the
band, pointed in the direction of the Jefferson River, told him to save
himself if he could, and cast him loose. Colter ran, the Blackfeet whooped
and pursued, and the race for life was on.
The ground was thick with prickly pears that pierced Colter's bare feet.
Nevertheless, he kept ahead of his pursuers. When about half the five miles
to the Jefferson had been covered, he ventured to look back. The Indians
were much scattered, and he had gained on the main body; but one Indian,
carrying a spear, was close upon him.
Colter exerted himself to the utmost, and by the time he came within a
mile of the Jefferson he was exhausted and blood from his nostrils had
covered the front of his body. He stopped suddenly, turned, and spread out
his arms. The Blackfoot, almost upon him, but also exhausted, attempted to
stop and throw his spear, but he fell and the spear broke. Colter sprang upon
him, seized the spear-head, pinned him to the ground, and ran on.
The foremost of the remaining Indians stopped by the fallen runner.
When others came, they all set up a whoop and resumed the chase.
Colter gained the river-bank in advance of all his pursuers, just where
there happened to be a large beaver house, standing partly against the bank
and partly in the water. Knowing that the entrance to the house was at the
bottom, under the water, he dived and succeeded in forcing his way to the
floor just above the water-level.
Man fleeing from man has hidden in strange places, but it may be
doubted whether one ever before sought safety in a beaver house of brush
and mud!
Soon the Blackfeet were searching all over the place, "screeching like so
many devils." They made search for the naked white man all the rest of the
day. Apparently even their savage cunning never suspected the beaver
house. Although they frequently clambered over it, they did not disturb it.
When night came and Colter could no longer hear the Indians, he swam
downstream, gained the prairie, and headed for Fort Manuel, some two
hundred miles away. Naked, with bleeding feet, he walked over prickly
pears on the prairie and through snow in the mountains, which he crossed
above the timber-line. The sun blistered him. Part of the time, he traveled
by night and lay hid by day. He appears to have lived chiefly on the Indian-
turnip (Psoralea esculenta).

Colter arrived at Fort Manuel in terrible shape. At first the men did not
recognize him. He had been eleven days in making the distance between
Three Forks and the fort.
That winter Colter had the courage to go back alone to the scene of his
capture to recover his beaver-traps. Before he reached them he was
ambushed by Blackfeet, but escaped. He returned to the fort, and the
following spring he was with Pierre Menard at Three Forks when the place
was successfully attacked by Blackfeet. Colter was among the few who
escaped.
Pierre Menard wrote a four-page letter to his brother-in-law, Pierre
Chouteau, and Colter started with it for St. Louis. With a companion, "Mr.
William Bryant," he made the three-thousand-mile journey by canoe in
thirty days. Upon his arrival at St. Louis, he reported to his old commander,
William Clark; told him the story of his journeys, discoveries, and
adventures, and gave him much material for his forthcoming map of the
Lewis and Clark expedition. Clark traced on the map the route of Colter's
Yellowstone Park journey and gave it the legend "Colter's Route of 1807."
There is nothing incredible about any of Colter's stories. His accounts of
the Yellowstone region appear to have been remarkably true to fact. His
escape from the Indians, and his various journeys, are experiences within
the range of human achievement. His hiding in a beaver house is easily
possible. His race and his naked journey across the mountains show the
courage and hardihood of the frontiersman of the day. I have been over the
place where he ran for his life from the Blackfeet and have followed his
trail across the mountains.
Henry M. Brackenridge, the author of "Views of Louisiana, together with
Journal," secured Colter's story at first hand, and he does it justice. John
Bradbury, author of "Travels into the Interior of North America," did much
important work in the Mississippi and Missouri Valleys in the years 1809-
11. He also got Colter's story from Colter himself, and gives a careful
account of the race for life with the Blackfeet. The account given by
General Thomas James, in "Three Years among the Indians and Mexicans,"
is a third first-hand story of Colter's activities. Washington Irving was too
good a literary craftsman to overlook Colter's story. In "Astoria" he retells
the escape from the Blackfeet. General Hiram M. Chittenden gives full

appreciation to Colter in his "History of the Early Western Fur Trade" and
"The Yellowstone National Park," both standard works.
Nevertheless, St. Louis did not believe Colter. He told his travels,
discoveries, and adventures, and the people laughed in derision. For two
generations St. Louis mockingly referred to the Yellowstone wonderland as
"Colter's Hell."
Colter married and went to live near Daniel Boone at La Charette. He
declined to join the Astoria expedition, and this is the last heard of him. He
may have died shortly afterwards; or it is possible that, because of unjust
public opinion, he may have moved into seclusion. At any rate, the later
years and the burial-place of the first discoverer of the Yellowstone
National Park are unknown.
Colter's story is a wilderness story of supreme character. It is full of the
vigor and independence of outdoors. Colter is an heroic and picturesque
figure in national history. I wish every boy and girl in the land could read
his adventures.
The second discovery of the Yellowstone site was also made by a trapper.
James Bridger, of Fort Bridger fame, was there in 1830, but his description
of its wonders was laughed at as "just another of old Jim Bridger's good
yarns." Between 1830 and 1843 the region was visited by many trappers
and traders, and its wonders were common knowledge to the plainsmen of
the Missouri Valley. Some accounts got into print. Nevertheless, the
Yellowstone was no more real to the American of that generation than was
"Colter's Hell" to the generation before.
Trapping began to fall off. The Mexican War and the California gold
excitement led public attention away from the Yellowstone country, and by
the beginning of the Civil War it was as completely forgotten as if it had
never been known.
It was the prospector who gave the Yellowstone tract to the world for the
third time. By 1865, reports of its wonders had been spread far and wide by
prospectors attracted to the region by the Montana gold excitement. At last
Montana became mildly curious over these reports. In 1869, David E.
Folsom, C. W. Cook, and William Peterson visited the region. They told
enough to bring about the organization of a large semi-official expedition.
This Yellowstone expedition (1870) is known as the "Washburn-Doane
Expedition," and from it dates the latter-day history of the Park. Lieutenant

Gustavus C. Doane, Second Cavalry, U.S.A., with a sergeant and four
privates was detailed from Fort Ellis to escort the expedition. Among its
nine civilians were General Henry D. Washburn, Surveyor-General of
Montana; Nathaniel P. Langford, author of "Vigilante Days and Ways" and
first superintendent of the Park; Cornelius Hedges, who first proposed
setting apart the region as a National Park; and Samuel T. Hauser, president
of the First National Bank of Helena, and later Governor of Montana.
So skeptical was this party that when the steam of Old Faithful was first
seen through the woods it was believed to be a forest fire.
Mr. Hedges subsequently said, "I think a more confirmed set of skeptics
never went out into the wilderness than those who composed our party, and
never was a party more completely surprised and captivated with the
wonders of nature."
Through the press and lecture-platform, the Washburn-Doane expedition
spread the knowledge of its discoveries broadcast over the country. The
direct result of its work was that the United States Government sent an
official expedition to the Park the next year. This was a joint expedition
made up from the Engineering Corps of the Army and from the United
States Geological Survey of the Territories. The official United States
Government expedition of 1871 officially put it on the map, with official
scientific notes and photographs. Thus the sixth discovery of this wondrous
region, after two generations of unbelief, convinced the people that it
existed!
During these two generations the unexplored wilderness of the Louisiana
Purchase had been formed into seven new States of the Union, containing
more than five million people. And "Colter's Hell," when its existence had
been finally and officially established, was within two hundred and fifty
miles of a transcontinental railroad.

3. THE GEYSERS, LAKES, AND STREAMS

Water in numberless pleasing forms is one of the attractive features of the
Yellowstone Park. There are snowy waterfalls that leap in glory. There are
geysers—transient, towering, fluted—with white columns draped with
steam. Both the geysers and the waterfalls bring the rainbow to them; or, the

prismatic springs go to the rainbow for their colors. The cascades have all
the excitement of ocean breakers. The lakes mirror the clouds, and their
placid bosoms reflect the stars that are "in the quiet skies." There are
streams that wind and linger, and brooks that go on forever. There are hot
springs and cold, large springs and small, each with its own attractive
setting. Many burst through the roofs of caves; others gush from grottoes;
still others pour forth from mounds and columns.
The quiescent springs and prismatic pools have a delicate, exquisite,
gemlike beauty unlike anything else in the world of nature or of art. The
waters are soft blue. Changing lights tinge the water with iridescence; touch
its surface with soft luminosity; give to moulded and sculptured basins a
refinement of coloring that transcends belief.
Dr. Ferdinand V. Hayden gives this glowing description:—
The wonderful transparency of the water surpasses anything of the kind I have ever seen in any
other portion of the world. The sky, with the smallest cloud that flits across it, is reflected in its clear
depths, and the ultramarine colors, more vivid than the sea, are greatly heightened by constant, gentle
vibrations. One can look down into the clear depths and see with perfect distinctness the minutest
ornament on the inner sides of the basin; and the exquisite beauty of the coloring and the variety of
forms baffle any attempt to portray them either with pen or pencil.

These waters repose in basins that have in miniature all the beauty of the
Mammoth Cave. The basins and their rims are formed of minerals—mostly
of silica—deposited by the water. The rims are fittingly beautiful; the lines
of internal construction are harmonious. Many springs have built up their
basins with precipitated minerals until they rest on mounds. All these are
picturesque, and some are beautiful.

MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
Morning-Glory Spring is like a gigantic morning-glory set in the earth.
The Firehole, with a black fissured bottom, has at times flamelike colors
which create such an illusion that the fiery interior of the earth appears to be
on exhibition.
Prismatic Lake, a spring large enough to be called at least a lakelet or
pond, is a combination of the artistic and the spectacular. It has built up for
itself a rounded mound, and down the gently curving slopes flow its waters
in thousands of interlacing rivulets. Over the pool hangs a cloud of steam,
often tinted red by reflection from the waters below.
At Mammoth Hot Springs, close to Fort Yellowstone, the water bursts
from the mountain-side with an enormous mineralized flow. Here lime in
solution is quickly precipitated, forming basins and terraces and slopes of
exquisite design, the whole adorned with intricate and fantastic fretwork of
pink, brown, yellow, and white.
While the deposits here are chiefly lime or travertine, those of the geysers
and of the other hot springs are silica. The two kinds of deposits differ
greatly. The Mammoth Hot Springs' deposits are soft and frequently change
their form. The silica deposits of the geysers are hard as flint. Without this
hardness, the geyser action would be impossible, as the lime and travertine
formations would not withstand the explosive violence. A curious fact in
this connection is that the color in and around the geysers and hot springs is
in part due to the presence of algæ, a minute vegetable growth.
The geyser is one of Nature's strangest freaks. These in the Yellowstone
Park are the largest, most spectacular, and most artistic in the world. The
geyser may be described either as a large intermittent hot-water fountain or
as a small water-and-steam volcano. There are scores of these eruptive
springs in the Yellowstone, and their irregularities form part of their
fascination. The place and method of applying the heat, the diameter and
shape of the tube, and the point of inflow and the quantity of the water are
all matters affecting their activities. Apparently they, as well as the springs
in general, have no underground interconnection, since the play of one
geyser has no effect upon others close by.

The eruptions are irregular as to intervals. Black Warrior and Hurricane
do a continuous performance. Constant pauses from twenty to fifty-five
seconds between gushes. Grand is active at intervals of from one to four
days, and Turban plays intermittently for twenty-four hours following
Grand. Giantess rests from five to forty days at a time. Lioness played once
in each of the years 1910, 1912, and 1914. Splendid, which formerly threw
a ten-minute gush to a height of two hundred feet, has not played since
1892.
There is equal variation in the duration of the gush. The Minute Man's
activity lasts but from fifteen to thirty seconds. Giant stops work promptly
at the end of an hour. Giantess, after her long rest, plays from twelve to
thirty-six hours.
The quantity of water erupted varies from a few gallons in the small
geysers to thousands of barrels in the large ones. The water is generally
thrown vertically, though some of the tubes lie at an angle. The Fan, as its
name suggests, throws its water in a fan-like shape.
Geysers vary in the height of their gush as in everything else, and the
gush of each is seldom twice the same. Jewel varies from five feet to
twenty, and Great Fountain from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty feet.
The highest stream is thrown by Giant, which has a minimum of two
hundred and a maximum of two hundred and fifty feet. Excelsior, which
sometimes threw its water three hundred feet into the air, has not played
since 1888.

OLD FAITHFUL GEYSER
YELLOWSTONE
NATIONAL PARK
This geyser action is novel, picturesque, and weird. It appeals to the
imagination. It goes on day and night, summer and winter, throughout the
years. While many of the geysers are comparatively new, others are
centuries old. Some may have been playing since prehistoric times.
Old Faithful, in the Upper Geyser Basin, is in most respects the most
wonderful geyser in the Park. Its action is almost uniform; its usual interval
is seventy minutes. It plays for four minutes and sends its water up from
sixty to one hundred and twenty feet. It gives ample warning before each
play and gets into action by sending its water higher and higher with
graceful ease.
But in some particulars Great Fountain, in the Lower Geyser Basin, may
be put at the head of the geyser list. Its waters issue from a vast low mound,
and the basin has attractive ornamentation. It spouts an enormous volume of
water, sometimes to a height of one hundred and fifty feet, and plays from
forty-five to sixty minutes, at intervals of eight to eleven hours.
Castle Geyser, in the Upper Geyser Basin, throws only a moderate gush
about seventy-five feet in height, but it has built up a most imposing crater.

It is quiet for from four to seven days; it then plays three or four times at
half-hour intervals.
Other geysers that the visitor may well see are Grand and Beehive, both
in the Upper Geyser Basin. Grand plays for about an hour at intervals of
from one to four days and throws a column of steaming water smoothly to a
height of two hundred feet. Of all the geysers, Beehive perhaps approaches
nearest to artistic perfection. From a small, beehive-like mount it sends up a
slender column of water vertically and symmetrically two hundred feet.
Yellowstone Lake lies at an altitude of 7741 feet above sea-level. Its area
is about one hundred and thirty-nine square miles, and its irregular shore-
line has a length of one hundred miles. In places the lake is three hundred
feet deep. There are thirty-six other lakes, of which Shoshone, Heart, and
Lewis are the largest. Each has its own peculiar and delightful wilderness
boundary and beauty.
There is a close network of streams, of which one hundred and sixty-five
have names. Among the more important are Yellowstone, Lamar, Snake,
Gardiner, and Firehole Rivers. There are numerous waterfalls and cascades.
The extensive water-flow abundantly supplies the headwaters of the
Missouri, Yellowstone, and Snake Rivers. In Two Ocean Pass, among other
places, is a lakelet upon the very summit of the Continental Divide whose
waters flow to both the Atlantic and the Pacific. The altitude here is 8150
feet, and the lakelet completes a continuous waterway of nearly six
thousand miles from coast to coast.
A map that I carried showed Two Ocean Pond on the Continental Divide
to the west of the Thumb. There is a Two Ocean Pond on the Divide at that
place as well as one to the south of the lake. But my map did not show that
the Divide was horseshoe-shaped, and it located the pond on the wrong arm
of this horseshoe. Consequently I had a long search before I found the pond,
and much confusion with the topography and watersheds after I had
discovered it.
One day in 1891 I had the good fortune to come upon General Hiram M.
Chittenden. He was directing the cutting of trees at a place that has since
become famous as Lake View, from which, perhaps, the best view of
Yellowstone Lake is to be had. General Chittenden spent many years in the
Park and developed its existing scenic road system. He was the first to

propose that the excess of elk and other game in this and other parks be
distributed over the country at cost.

What is the greatest feature in this wonderland whose history began at a
camp-fire? The Lower Falls thrilled me more than any other waterfall I ever
have seen. The Yellowstone Cañon may be called the greatest attraction in
this Park. But to me the supreme attraction is the petrified forests.

4. AGES OF FIRE AND ICE

The Yellowstone plateau is a vast lava-deposit. Its material is mostly
volcanic, but its landscape—its architecture—is largely glacial. In ages
remote, this realm became the scene of volcanic activity. Intermittent
outpourings went on through long periods of time. Volcanoes in and near
the Park threw forth quantities of ashes, lava, and cinders, which built up a
plateau region three or four thousand feet thick. Rhyolite and other forms of
lava were last spread over the region. This volcanic activity appears to have
ended before the last ice age. No eruption has occurred for centuries. The
ice age wrought vast changes in the volcanic landscape. The ice smoothed
wide areas, shaped cañons, and rounded mountain-sides, produced and
spread soil, and gave the entire region the flowing, attractive lines of glacial
landscape.
On the rim of the Yellowstone Cañon, about three miles below the falls,
an enormous glaciated granite boulder reposes upon lava—rhyolite. It
measures about twenty-four by twenty by eighteen feet. It was transported
to this resting-place from mountains more than thirty miles away. Here we
have a stone foundation laid by volcanic fire, and upon it a stone, shaped,
transported, and placed by glacial ice.
There are about three thousand geysers, hot springs, and mud-and-water
springs in the Park; and as many other vents of steam, acid, and gas. That
the geysers have been active in this region for thousands of years is shown
in the deep deposits of silica and travertine that overspread extensive area.
During the ice age many of these deposits were eroded and others were
piled with boulders. It is plain that steam and hot water had been at work
long before the last ice age came. During the ice period, a wild conflict

probably took place between the deep outspread ice and the insistent
eruptions of steam and hot water.
The surface of Yellowstone Lake once stood about one hundred and
eighty feet higher than it is at present. Its outlet was then through the Snake
River to the Pacific Ocean. The Continental Divide then passed over the
summit of Mount Washburn. Unwritten as yet is the splendid geological
story of this change, which may have been caused by earthquake upheaval
or by subsidence. It appears to have occurred about the close of the last
glacial epoch. Possibly ice dammed the narrow gorge of Outlet Creek,
through which the waters of the lake formerly flowed to the Snake River.
Whatever the cause, its outlet waters changed and eroded the now famous
and splendidly colored cañon of the Yellowstone.
This is the most celebrated cañon in the Park, and its colors make it one
of the most gorgeously startling in the world. At bright noonday, it is
adorned with all the hues of the sunset sky. Its precipitous walls are
comparatively free from vegetation and are broken with pinnacles and
jagged ridges. About fifteen hundred feet below the edge, the rushing
waters of the Yellowstone River take on various shades of blue and green
between accumulations of gray foam.
Into the upper end of this cañon the river, about seventy feet wide, makes
a sheer leap of three hundred and ten feet. From the near-by rim, this
wonderful waterfall appears like an enormous, fluffy, endless pouring of
whitest snowflakes. The magnificence and wildness of its setting combine
to make it one of the most imposing waterfalls in the world.

Copyright by Haynes, St. Paul
GRAND CAÑON FROM ARTIST POINT
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
The paint-pots are the curiosities of the Park. They are craters, or
irregular-shaped ponds, in the earth, filled with brightly colored mud, thick
and hot, of fine texture, and in appearance resembling kalsomine or paint
freshly mixed and colored. The mud in many pots is red or pink; that in
others is lavender, blue, orange, or yellow. Occasionally a rugged vat of this
mud is found boiling away—very suggestive of slaking lime. In other cases,
plastic mud throbs and undulates as steam-jets now and then escape through
it. Here and there this bright steamy mud opens like a full-blown lily. The
paint-pots near the Fountain Geyser, those east of the road in Gibbon
Meadows, and those close to the lake at the Thumb are the more attractive.
John Muir, in "Our National Parks," says of the Yellowstone:—
Beside the treasures common to most mountain regions that are wild and blessed with a kind
climate, the Park is full of exciting wonders. The wildest geysers in the world, in bright, triumphant
bands, are dancing and singing in it amid thousands of boiling springs, beautiful and awful, their
basins arrayed in gorgeous colors like gigantic flowers; and hot paint-pots, mud springs, mud
volcanoes, mush and broth caldrons whose contents are of every color and consistency, plash and
heave and roar in bewildering abundance. In the adjacent mountains, beneath the living trees the
edges of petrified forests are exposed to view, like specimens on the shelves of a museum, standing
on ledges tier above tier where they grew, solemnly silent in rigid crystalline beauty after swaying in
the winds thousands of centuries ago, opening marvelous views back into the years and climates and
life of the past. Here, too, are hills of sparkling crystals, hills of sulphur, hills of glass, hills of cinders
and ashes, mountains of every style of architecture, icy or forested, mountains covered with honey-
bloom sweet as Hymettus, mountains boiled soft like potatoes and colored like a sunset sky.

I had lively scrambles and saw much petrified wood in the rough
mountainous country at the northwest corner of the Park. But the roughest
and most scenic section visited was around Sylvan Pass. This rugged,
narrow pass cuts through high, crowding mountains. To the north, Hoyt
Mountain and Avalanche Peak rise precipitously; to the south, Grizzly and
Top Notch Peaks. Sylvan Lake, whose peculiar wild beauty is unexcelled, is
near this pass. The tree-sprinkled, grassy section near the Lamar River, in
the northeast corner of the Park, was the most charming and parklike
section visited.
The Grand Teton, a peak of towering, bold individuality, looms
imposingly as seen from various points in the Park. Its appearance across

Yellowstone Lake, from a point near the outlet, is magnificent. Another
excellent view of it is obtained from the stage-road midway between Upper
Geyser Basin and the Thumb.
The Grand Teton territory might well be added to the Park; likewise a
stretch of the rugged, mountainous territory lying along the southeast
corner, and the mountainous tract immediately west and north of the
northwest corner of the Park. All these belong to reserved government
lands, and could without difficulty be administered as a part of this
wonderland.

5. THE PETRIFIED FORESTS

Volcanic outpourings have ended the life of many extensive Yellowstone
forests. In Amethyst Mountain are twelve forests, one above the other,
buried at different periods by volcanic eruptions. On top of this mountain
the pines and spruces are merrily growing, unmindful of the buried past—of
the tragic tree history beneath. Nature forgets. Ages ago, the lowest of these
entombed forests grew on the mountain plateau in the sunlight. But a flow
of volcanic mud and heavy showers of ashes overwhelmed and buried it,
with the trees standing erect.
This volcanic material added a layer to the plateau. In the new surface
above the buried and forgotten forest, another tree growth flourished and
towered. But the volcanoes only slept. Again their fire and ashes filled the
sky, and again the forest was overwhelmed. Thus through the ages—
through "a million years and a day"—each time the volcanoes slept the
pines peeped up, and again their shadows fell upon the desolate lava
landscape.

PETRIFIED FORESTS IN
AMETHYST MOUNTAIN
YELLOWSTONE
NATIONAL PARK
At last, twelve or more forests were buried, each as it had stood upon the
mountain, and in a layer by itself. The material in these numerous fateful
volcanic outpourings raised the summit two thousand feet.
It may be that the topmost of these petrified forests was overwhelmed by
the Ice King, but a volcano entombed the others. All were petrified,
fossilized, or opalized. During the ages that went by, the Lamar River and
other factors eroded a wide valley and excavated the edges of these forest
ruins.
This reveals one of the most appealing geological stories ever uncovered
—twelve illustrated but unwritten chapters of world-building.
The strata of these twelve forests, story above story, show their edges in
the precipitous northern face of Amethyst Mountain. Thousands of logs and
stumps still partly buried jut and bristle.
Apparently there is an enormous area of these buried fossil forests in the
northeast part of the Park, and perhaps numerous areas elsewhere in the

region. They are also known to exist near the northwest boundary of the
Park.
Mineralized water circulated through and gradually fossilized the buried
trees, changing many to opal. In due time the mud and ashes that buried
these trees also turned to stone. Limbs and tops of trees were broken off by
the ashes, cinders, and mud that buried each forest. Many tree-trunks were
overthrown, but great numbers were entombed as they stood. They are from
one to ten feet in diameter, and some were of great height. Many of the
remaining stumps project forty feet.
Much of the opalized wood is very beautiful. The change brightened and
intensified the former texture of the wood. In most of these stone trees and
logs the annual rings show clearly. They distinctly reveal the age of the tree
and its rapidity of growth. In many cases the species is readily determined.
Strange stories are told by the fallen logs, in many of which old worm-holes
show. The half-decayed logs were preserved in their original form, and in
the process of fossilization their hollow interiors were filled with beautiful
rosettes and crystals.
Each of the buried forests contained some trees of different species from
those in the forest just beneath it. Altogether, more than eighty kinds have
been recognized. Many of these would grow only in a mild or subtropical
clime, so the former climate of this region must have been warmer than at
present. Among the trees were redwood, cottonwood, walnut, pine, oak,
sycamore, fig, magnolia, and dogwood.
Ancient Troy was nine ruined cities deep. But here in a national
playground of our own country are twelve tree cities in ruins, one above
another, and topped with a city of living trees. Like the excavated ruins of
Pompeii, these ruined forests set one's mind to exploring the realm of
imagination. Here in a subtropical clime, possibly a million years ago, was
a luxuriant forest. Beneath was a crowded undergrowth of plants, of
shrubbery and waving ferns. Gay butterflies may have flitted here in the
golden sunshine. Trees enjoyed the storms and lifted their heads serenely
into the light. Then came the tragic end. Twelve times or more was this
impressive drama reënacted.
Trees, like men, often rear their structures upon the ruins of those that
have gone before. This is an old, old world. In the words of Omar,—

"When You and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last."
Is the volcanic curtain once more to fall upon the forests of this magic
scene?
In "Our National Parks" John Muir comments eloquently upon the fossil
forests and the telling background of most Yellowstone landscapes. He
says:—
Yonder is Amethyst Mountain, and other mountains hardly less rich in old forests, which now
seem to spring up again in their glory; and you see the storms that buried them—the ashes and
torrents laden with boulders and mud, the centuries of sunshine, and the dark, lurid nights. You see
again the vast floods of lava, red-hot and white-hot, pouring out from gigantic geysers, usurping the
basins of lakes and streams, absorbing or driving away their hissing, screaming waters, flowing
around hills and ridges, submerging every subordinate feature. Then you see the snow and glaciers
taking possession of the land, making new landscapes. How admirable it is that, after passing through
so many vicissitudes of frost and fire and flood, the physiognomy and even the complexion of the
landscape should still be so divinely fine!

6. AREA; TREES, FLOWERS, AND ANIMALS

The Yellowstone Park is about equal in area to Delaware and Rhode
Island combined. It has 3300 square miles. The average altitude is 7500
feet, while numerous peaks rise from 1000 to 3000 feet higher. Forests
cover 85 per cent of the area.
The largest parklike grassy space in this forested realm lies to the
northeast of Mount Washburn, along the valleys of the Yellowstone and
Lamar Rivers. This open space is about twenty-five miles long and from
five to ten miles wide. The second largest area of grassy country, Hayden
Valley, lies several miles to the north of Yellowstone Lake. Among other
open spaces are Swan Lake Flat, Gibbon Meadows, Pelican Valley, and the
small ragged areas around the Firehole Geyser Basin and Shoshone and
Lewis Lakes.
Among the trees are the quaking aspen, Douglas spruce, Engelmann
spruce, and subalpine fir. The overwhelming proportion of these forests,
however, consists of that interesting tree, the lodge-pole pine. It bears seed
every year, beginning while young and small. It hoards its seeds by keeping
its tightly closed cones. When fire sweeps through a forest of lodge-pole
pine, it kills the trees and melts the sealing-wax of the cones, releasing the

seeds. These seeds fall upon shadeless, ash-covered ground, under
conditions most favorable to their germination and growth. The lodge-pole
pine is Nature's selected agent for reforestation.
The Yellowstone is a wild-flower garden. Wander where you will, you
have the ever-new charm, the finishing touch, the ever-refreshing radiance
of the wild flowers. Many are brilliantly colored. There are species of
gentians, lupines, and pyrolas. The columbine is there in all its graceful
beauty. The wild rose abounds. The Indian paintbrush perhaps is most
abundant. The pentstemon is common. There are two species of orchids.
The Yellowstone is the greatest elk-range in the world. It has a numerous
grizzly-bear population. In fact the park has so large and varied a
population of birds and wild animals that in most respects it is the greatest
wild-life preserve in the world.

7. ENTRANCES

To the Yellowstone wonderland there are four entrances. The Northern
Pacific touches the northern entrance at Gardiner, Montana. This route is
through the Gardiner Cañon to the Mammoth Hot Springs at Fort
Yellowstone.
The western entrance is from the Union Pacific at Yellowstone. This
route takes the visitor directly to the central geyser basin of the Park.
The eastern entrance is from the Burlington at Cody, the road passing the
Shoshone Dam, crossing the Absaroka Range at Sylvan Pass, and making
connection with the Park routes at the Lake Hotel.
The southern entrance is from the Jackson Lake and Teton Mountain
region and makes connection with the Park routes at the Thumb.
The present Park road-system, though incomplete, touches most of the
Yellowstone's greater and more lovely attractions. This system will be
extended from time to time on a comprehensive plan. Supplementing these
roads is a system of trails, which needs to be greatly extended, especially in
the more mountainous parts of the Park.
The Yellowstone is at present the largest of our sixteen National Parks,
and as the oldest of our scenic parks, it is entitled to head the imposing list.

As a natural wonderland of varied attractions there is nothing like it in the
whole world.

8. ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY

The early administrative history of the Yellowstone National Park, and
that of the celebrated Yosemite State Park of California, are records that no
real American will ever read without a sense of shame. Both these splendid
regions were long neglected by the public and by legislators. In those days
scenery had no standing and few friends. It was treated as an outcast.
The act of dedication for the Yellowstone National Park made it a
reservation "for the benefit and enjoyment of the people." The aim was to
preserve its natural curiosities, its forests, and its game, and to make such
development of the Park that the people might conveniently and freely see
and enjoy it. For several years Congress failed to provide adequate
appropriations either for the development of the Park or for its protection. It
was given over to the administration of the Secretary of the Interior.
Unfortunately, the act that created the Park contained no code of laws, did
not define offenses, made no provision for the handling of legal cases or for
the punishment of offenders. It failed to provide even the legal machinery
necessary to enforce the regulations written by the Secretary of the Interior.
The history of the Yellowstone for twenty-two years after its creation is, as
Helen Hunt said of our treatment of the Indian, a tale of dishonor.
The first Superintendent of the Park was Nathaniel P. Langford, who had
rendered distinctive services in having it created. With his hands tied he
endured the position for five years, and did heroic work in trying to
suppress license, start development, and lay a broad foundation for the
future welfare of the enterprise. The interests fought him, and the public
condemned him for inefficiency for which the public itself, and not he, was
to blame.
Hunters invaded the Park and slaughtered game. One company almost
secured leaseholds on extensive land-areas which would have given them a
dangerous monopoly of all the leading attractions. A water-power company
almost obtained title to Yellowstone Falls. Many attempts were made to run
a railroad through the Park. A few people, at enormous sacrifice and
through heroic and efficient efforts, saved it in its primitive naturalness.

Among those who splendidly helped was George Bird Grinnell. At last
Congress became interested, and in 1883-84 helpful legislation was passed.
On August 20, 1886, came a change for the better. The Secretary of the
Interior availed himself of legislation that Congress had recently passed and
called upon the War Department for assistance. Captain Moses Harris, with
the title of Acting Superintendent, became the first military commander of
the Park. Reforms were inaugurated, and development was begun. This
military control has continued for twenty years, and for the most part the
results have been satisfactory. General Chittenden, of the Engineer Corps of
the Army, developed the present road-system. The character of the various
military superintendents of the Park has been good, and the achievements of
these men have won the praise even of those who are against the use of
soldiers or military regulations in the Park government. I am particularly
impressed with the work of the last commander, Colonel L. M. Brett. The
honor, ability, and peculiar characteristics of these military commanders
have enabled them to do excellent work. On October 1, 1916, all troops
were withdrawn from the Park and a force of civilian rangers was
organized.

9. LOST IN THE WILDERNESS

The Washburn-Doane Expedition of 1870, which proved a large factor in
the creation of the Yellowstone National Park, was marked by one of the
most extraordinary incidents in the annals of the American frontier.
Truman C. Everts, a former United States Assessor for Montana, was a
member of the party. On September 9, he became separated from it and for
thirty-seven days wandered in the Yellowstone wilderness.
Everts was wholly unfit to take care of himself in the wilderness. He was
a city man, without experience in the wilds, timid, unresourceful, and very
near-sighted. The first day he lost his glasses. The second day, while he was
dismounted, his horse took fright and ran away with his traveling
equipment. He tried for hours to capture the horse, but failed. Everts was
left alone on foot in the rough country south of Yellowstone Lake, without
food, gun, axe, blankets, or matches.

He went back to where he had fastened notes upon trees; but these had
not been seen by his companions. By this time it was mid-afternoon.
Toward evening he realized that he was completely lost.
Without food, fire, or shelter, he passed the night in the depths of a forest.
There was a hard frost. Coyotes howled, and lions cried. His overwrought
imagination conjured up endless terrors and dangers from the strange and
ever-changing sounds of the wilderness.
On the third day out, Everts started off to follow, as he supposed, the
direction taken by his companions, but took the opposite direction. He
passed near numbers of animals. Finally he came to a small lake around
which were many hot springs. In the water were many wild-fowl. He was
starving, but had nothing with which to kill game. Fearful as he was of
Indians, hunger led him to hope that he might meet them.
The loss of his eyeglasses was calamitous. Out in the lake he saw what he
took for a boat coming to land, and he joyfully hastened to the shore to
meet it. But when his "boat" took wings and transformed itself into a huge
pelican, he was unnerved and almost lost hope.
At this lake he fortunately discovered a species of thistle with large
edible roots, and these formed his principal sustenance for weeks. He took
up the uncertain fight for primitive necessities. At the lake he became
afraid, imagining that a mountain lion was near. He climbed into a tree and
remained there most of the night. When at last he descended, half frozen, a
heavy September snowstorm was coming on.
To avoid freezing to death, he built a rude shelter of boughs over one of
the hot springs. In the boiling water he cooked his thistle-roots. For several
days he remained in this shelter; then, realizing that if he stayed longer he
might perish in another storm, he traveled on.
Day after day, Everts hoped that his companions would find him. During
two weeks they searched diligently, leaving small deposits of food at places
where they thought he might pass. They fired guns, put up signs, and
lighted fires on the heights; but the rough, wooded nature of the country,
and Everts's near-sightedness, made these efforts unavailing. Reluctantly his
friends gave up the search and went on; but when they reached a settlement
they sent back a rescue party.
Necessity stimulates thought. The only thing remaining in Everts's
pockets was a little field-glass. Remembering that a lens would concentrate

the sun's rays, he concluded that with his glass he might start a fire, and in
this he succeeded.
Onward he traveled. If a day came with the sky overcast, he had to camp
at night without a fire. To relieve the discomfort of this, for several days he
carried a brand, but this burned his hands and smoked his eyes so severely,
and so often went out, that at last he abandoned it and depended entirely
upon the lens. One afternoon he stopped with the intention of building a
fire. But the lens was missing. Almost exhausted, he dragged himself back
to his last camp, and there, fortunately, the lens was found.
During a storm a benumbed bird fell into his hands, and he devoured it
raw. In vain he tried to catch fish. As he stood on the margin of Yellowstone
Lake, a gull's wing drifted ashore. This supplied his only satisfying meal. It
was instantly stripped of its feathers, pounded between stones, and boiled in
a tin can which Everts had found. Hastily devouring the unsalted soup, he
lay down and slept for several hours.
He had resolution and will-power, and greatly needed them. His stomach
rebelled at thistle-roots. His mind wandered. He lost track of time. But his
determination drove him on, though he was growing weaker each day.
During the thirty-seven days he had traveled in a northerly course from
south of Yellowstone Park to the summit of one of the bluffs, several miles
to the east of Mammoth Hot Springs. Here, barely alive, he was rescued by
two men of the final searching party sent out by his companions.
Everts not only recovered, but lived for thirty-one years after his terrible
experience, dying at the age of eighty-five. One of the peaks in the Park,
Mount Everts, is named for him.
The adventures of Colter and Everts are inspiring achievements. They
give thrilling views of primitive life, and are striking instances of men,
empty-handed, successfully combating Nature. The stability, the will-
power, the insistent, tenacious hopefulness of these men were extraordinary.
Courageously they met and mastered the swiftly coming obstacles and
afflictions that fate thrust thick and fast upon them. Their deeds are a part of
our helpful heritage in the Yellowstone wonderland.

II
THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

On the western slope of the Sierra, about one hundred and forty miles
east of San Francisco, lies the Yosemite National Park, with an area of 1124
square miles. It is slightly larger than Rhode Island. Its lower sections on
the west have an altitude of about 3000 feet. From this elevation it rises
through bold terraces into the High Sierra. Mount Lyell has an altitude of
13,090 feet; Mount Dana, 13,050 feet. Gibbs Mountain and a number of
other peaks have slightly lower altitudes. The elevational range, then, of this
one Park runs through 10,000 feet, or nearly two vertical miles.
It is one of the scenic wonders of the world. Within it are many
attractions, each great by itself, and all more impressive in their splendid
grouping.

By permission of the National Park
Service, Department of the Interior
BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF YOSEMITE
VALLEY LOOKING EASTWARD TO
THE CREST OF THE SIERRA NEVADA
14. Merced River.
15. El Capitan
1. Clouds' Rest.
Bridge and
2. Half Dome.
Moraine.
3. Mount Watkins.
16. Big Oak Flat
4. Basket Dome.
Road.
5. North Dome.
17. Wawona Road.
6. Washington
18. Bridal Veil
Column.
Falls.
7. Royal Arches.
19. Cathedral
8. Mirror Lake and
Rocks.
mouth of Tenaya
20. Cathedral
Cañon.
Spires.
9. Yosemite Village.
21. Sentinel Rock.
10. Head of Yosemite
22. Glacier Point.
Falls.
23. Sentinel Dome.
11. Eagle Peak (the
24. Liberty Cap.
Three Brothers).
25. Mount
12. El Capitan.
Broderick.
13. Ribbon Falls.
26. Little Yosemite
Valley.
Its glacial landscapes are magnificent and startling. Here the Ice King,
the great landscape engineer, did work immensely bold and enchanting. An
array of stupendous rock sculpture remains almost untarnished. Scores of
lovely alpine lakes in solid rock lie open to the sun. The wild-flower
population numbers more than a thousand varieties. It has scores of
varieties of wild birds and many kinds of wild life. World-famous are its
waterfalls.
Two of the greatest of mountain rivers rise in the Park and cross it from
east to west. Each of them falls several thousand feet within the Park.

Crossing centrally through the northern section is the Tuolumne. Passing
miles of alpine rock and meadow, it roars through the rugged Tuolumne
Cañon, and when well across the Park it sweeps through the majestic gorge
known as the Hetch-Hetchy Valley.
Paralleling this stream at the distance of about ten miles is the intense
Merced. This and its tributaries are signally rich in lakes and waterfalls, and
they flow among stupendous and astounding glacial landscapes. At last the
Merced flows serenely through the world-famous valley, the matchless
Yosemite Gorge.
No name can suggest the amazing combinations of vastness and beauty
seen in this rocky passage; the name "valley" is altogether lacking in
significance. It may be described as having gorge walls with a valley floor.
The walls have unshattered solidity, great height, and almost true
verticalness. They bear the marks of individuality, and the valley-like floor
shows original character.
The Yosemite Valley is obviously the greatest, as it is the most
celebrated, scene in the Park. It is about seven miles long, approximately
one mile wide, and about three fourths of a mile deep. The floor is nearly
level and lies at an altitude of four thousand feet. It is well grassed, adorned
with trees and groves, and glorified from end to end by the Merced River.
The nearly vertical walls rise mainly in smooth, substantial masses from
twenty-five hundred to nearly five thousand feet. Waterfalls from the
heights above make the wild plunge over the rim down to the floor of the
valley.
This gorge is countersunk into a plateau. It extends from east to west.
The western and open end has an impressive entrance. On the left, El
Capitan raises his colossal figure thirty-three hundred feet in smooth and
simple massiveness. On the right, over the front face of the mountain wall
opposite, flutter several hundred feet of Bridal Veil Falls. Then in order, on
the right south wall, Cathedral Spires rise high above the valley; then
Sentinel Rock; then stupendous Glacier Point. Farther east on the south
wall, Half Dome stands up forty-five hundred feet, the most impressive
figure on the valley rim. Farther along, on the right or south side of the
valley, is the celebrated Clouds' Rest. On the left or north wall stand the
Three Brothers. By these the snowy stream of the Yosemite Waterfall comes
down. About halfway up the valley on the left are the Washington Column

and the Royal Arches. Then, along the left or north wall in succession, rise
North Dome, Basket Dome, and Mount Watkins. The upper part of the
valley divides into three depressions or gorges. The north one is Tenaya
Cañon, the central one is Little Yosemite Valley, and from this branches the
southerly one, Illilouette Cañon. Each of these cañons is a wonder by itself.
Following is one of the most descriptive and eloquent tributes ever paid
to this unrivaled array of stupendous nature statuary:—
Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose; others,
absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance beyond their companions in thoughtful
attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly aware, yet heedless, of everything
going on about them. Awful in stern, immovable majesty, how softly these rocks are adorned, and
how fine and reassuring the company they keep: their feet among beautiful groves and meadows,
their brows in the sky, a thousand flowers leaning confidingly against their feet, bathed in floods of
water, floods of light, while the snow and waterfalls, the winds and avalanches and clouds shine and
sing and wreathe about them as the years go by, and myriads of small winged creatures—birds, bees,
butterflies—give glad animation and help to make all the air into music. Down through the middle of
the valley flows the crystal Merced, River of Mercy, peacefully quiet, reflecting lilies and trees and
the onlooking rocks; things frail and fleeting and types of endurance meeting here and blending in
countless forms, as if into this one mountain mansion Nature had gathered her choicest treasures, to
draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with her. (John Muir, in "The Yosemite.")

HALF DOME, YOSEMITE

1. ICE-KING TOPOGRAPHY

The splendid scenic endowment of the Yosemite Valley, its stupendous
architecture and vast sculpturing, its natural landscape engineering, are
largely triumphs of the ice age. Many theories have been advanced to
account for the origin and the extraordinary features of this valley, especial
prominence being given to subsidence, uplift, explosion, with earthquake
modifications and influences of violent cataclysmic nature. Stream erosion
has been strongly urged. All these theories attribute minor influences to one
or more other factors.
The theory now generally accepted gives ice the leading part in the
scooping of the valley and the creation of its wondrous forms. There is
much evidence to support this conclusion. The ice theory is championed by
John Muir, by Clarence King, and by F. E. Matthes. Matthes and Muir
probably have made the most careful and exhaustive studies of the
geological history of the valley.
This famous depression is of varying width. Examination of its walls
shows that in the wider places it is composed of fissured rock that was more
readily carried away by the ice than the adjoining unfissured rock-sections.
These resisting unfissured places jut into the valley.
Erosion by ice probably was preceded and somewhat guided by stream
erosion. But this ice sculpture, the rock-forms and features wrought, must
have been determined in a marked measure by the rock-structure. That is to
say, the dense quality of the rock, the number and the position of the
cleavage joints, or their absence in the rock, were factors that helped
determine the rock-forms of Yosemite. Other factors since the ice age have
altered or modified this glacial topography.
It is certain that a vast ice-stream poured over the walls and forced
through this valley. This is shown in the rock-groovings and perched
boulders high on the walls, and also by the massive moraine which dams
the outlet of the valley. It appears certain that this must have been left when
the ice vanished; and apparently it formed a lake that filled the entire valley
nearly to the height of the dam. The lake finally filled with sediment and
sand, its surface corresponding approximately with the present surface of
the valley. The valley floor is noticeably smooth, and its margins along the
bottoms of the walls are comparatively free from rock-débris.
The landscape of the entire Yosemite National Park is preëminently
glacial. Ice-polished mountains and hundreds of sculptured figures of vast

size are a part of the matchless exhibit of the ice age in this wonderland.
Polished domes predominate. Much of the rock-surface was dense granite
comparatively free from cleavage lines, soft materials, or stratification. The
forms made by the ice in these have endured. Since the ice age the softer
and more fissured rocks have been far more changed by the various erosive
forces than the more resistant rock of the domes and other sculptured forms.
Little Yosemite Valley is essentially similar to the Greater Yosemite in
features and also in the manner of creation. Its walls are from fifteen
hundred to two thousand feet high, its length is about three miles, its width
one half-mile. Its floor, like that of the Greater Yosemite, was for a time a
lake. In origin and history, the Hetch-Hetchy Valley, too, is almost identical
with the Yosemite.
Nature often changes the scene, often puts on a new landscape. The
forces of erosion are steadily at work; most of them work slowly, but
sometimes a change is wrought suddenly.
When the Sierra was first upheaved it was more or less tilted, terraced,
and fissured. The surface was uneven. The present topography is the
product of a long and complicated series of events. It has been wrought out
by many erosive forces. It probably has been acted upon by two or more ice
ages, but the last age shaped the splendid topography of the Yosemite that is
attracting the world to the scene.
The eroding power of ice is determined by its thickness, that is to say, by
its weight. The small, shallow glaciers wear much more slowly than the
deep ice-streams that bear heavily upon the surface passed over. The ancient
glaciers of the region took on vast proportions. An enormous and deep ice-
field accumulated from the snows of Mounts Dana, Lyell, Gibbs, McClure,
Conness, and other peaks. Flowing westward, it came in contact with
Mount Hoffman, against which it divided. The right section flowed down
into the Tuolumne; the left, a branch about two miles wide, swept upward,
climbing about five hundred feet over the pass and descending upon the
Lake Tenaya region.
Apparently, five glacier streams united in the Yosemite Valley. They not
only filled it but deeply overflowed the highest points on its walls. Passing
out of the lower end of the valley, the united glacier was forced to climb
upward several hundred feet.

About twenty-five small glaciers still remain in the Yosemite National
Park. There are about two hundred and fifty glacier lakes, mostly small.
Others have filled with sediment and are hidden and forgotten. Lake
Tenaya, the Lake-of-the-Shining-Rocks, has a surrounding of dense rock-
masses that still show the rounded form and the high polish given by the
ice.

2. TREES AND FORESTS

The tree growth and the forest arrangement in the Yosemite National
Park are among the grandest of such features on the globe, and they form
one of the chief attractions of this heroic realm. The trees grow to enormous
size and are distributed and grouped with crags, meadows, terraces, cañons
—all in unmatched wild, artistic charm and sublimity. Though some areas
are covered with growths tall and dense, they are free from gloom, and
everywhere one may walk freely through them. They are broken and
brightened with numerous sunny openings. This splendid landscape
gardening extends over the greater portion of the Park.
The sequoia, the largest and most imposing tree, is found in the lower
reaches of the Park. Other characteristic trees are the sugar pine, king of the
pines; the Douglas spruce, king of the spruces; and the hemlock, one of the
loveliest trees upon the earth.
The Park has three groves of Big Trees (sequoias)—the Mariposa Grove,
the Tuolumne Grove, and the Merced Grove, all of the species Sequoia
gigantea. The Merced and Tuolumne groves are near the western boundary
of the Park, several miles north of El Portal Station, while the Mariposa
Grove is in the southwestern corner, about fifteen miles southeast of El
Portal. The Tuolumne Grove has but about thirty-five trees, and the Merced
Grove fewer than one hundred.
The Mariposa Grove contains about five hundred and fifty trees. Among
these is the Grizzly Giant, which, according to the computation of Galen
Clark, is six thousand years old. It has a diameter of nearly thirty feet and a
height of two hundred and four feet. Evidently it was once much taller; its
top probably was wrecked by lightning. Through the Wawona tree a
roadway has been cut. A great number of these trees are between two

hundred and twenty-five and two hundred and seventy-five feet in height. A
few rise above three hundred feet.
In this Park are about thirty species of trees besides those above
mentioned. Among them are a cedar and a juniper; two silver firs; yellow,
lodge-pole, and six other species of pines. Among the broad-leafed trees are
the oak, maple, aspen, laurel, and dogwood. There are forests of firs and
lodge-pole pines.
The sugar pine grows to enormous size and has a noble appearance. Its
cones are the largest produced by any conifer, occasionally reaching the
length of nearly two feet. The yellow pine rivals the sugar pine in size and
grows from four to ten feet in diameter and from one hundred and fifty to
two hundred and twenty-five feet high. Among the flowering shrubs are the
dogwood, manzanita, California lilac, wild syringa, chokeberry,
thimbleberry, and California laurel.
I have seen the trees diminish in number, give place to wide prairies, and restrict their growth to
the border of streams; ... have seen grassy plains change into a brown and sere desert; ... and have
reached at length the westward slopes of the high mountain barrier which, refreshed by the Pacific,
bear the noble forests of the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range, and among them trees which are the
wonder of the world. (Asa Gray.)

3. PLANT LIFE

The Yosemite ferns, forests, and flowers are growing almost exclusively
in glacial soil. Nearly all of the soil in the Park is rock-flour that was
ground by glaciers, and in part distributed by them. Landslides and running
water distributed most of the remainder.
The Park has an altitudinal range of nearly two miles, with them any
climates, and consequently numerous varieties of flora. These are
encouraged by varied life zones that result from combinations of sunny and
shady mountain-sides, unevenly distributed moisture, and the different
temperatures that prevail between the altitudes of three thousand and
thirteen thousand feet.
Here and there in the Park wild flowers may be found in bloom every
month of the year. Among the common flowers of the middle and lower
sections are seen the shooting-star, evening-primrose, tiger lily, yellow
pond-lily, Mariposa lily, black-eyed Susan, lupine, paintbrush, yarrow, and

snow-plant. There are violets, blue and red, a number of pentstemons, the
lark-spur, golden-rod, several orchids, and the wild rose.
Many of the showy, crowded gardens of luxuriant wild-flower growths
are in the moist fir forests. Among the tall flowers in these gardens are
columbines, larkspurs, paintbrushes, lupines, and one of the lily families.
The famous, fragrant Washington lily brightens the open woods; in places it
grows to the height of eight feet.
The snow-plant is a curiosity and attracts by its brilliancy of color. The
plant and bloom are blood-red, but this herb is as cold and rigid as an icicle.
It is not a parasite, but is isolated and appears to hold itself aloof from all
the world. When caught by late snows it makes a startling figure, but it does
not grow up through the snow.
In the alpine heights are many healthy plants: the lovely arctic daisy,
phlox, gentian, lupine, potentilla, harebell, mountain columbine, astragalus,
and numerous other bright flowers. They grow in clusters and in large
ragged gardens, and in places are low-growing and extremely dwarfed.
Besides its wild small plants and the blooming shrubbery the Park has a
glorious wealth of tree blossom. The hemlocks, pines, firs, and spruces have
a jeweled wealth of blue, purple, red, and yellow bloom.
May and June are the months most crowded with blossoms, but many
come in the autumn, mingling serenely with the calm, sunny days, the
evergreen groves, the tanned grass, and the masses of red and yellow
leaves. In May and June the waterfalls are at their best, and the birds are
most songful.
The Yosemite National Park is perhaps the most delightful region in all the world for the study of
plant life. The wide variety of conditions here found, ranging from the hot and desiccated slopes of
the brush-clad foothills to the cold, bleak summits above timber line, the abode of glaciers and
perpetual snow, gives to the flora an exceedingly diverse and interesting character. Innumerable
springs, creeks, rivers, ponds, and lakes provide suitable habitats for moisture-loving plants. Rocky
outcroppings, enormous cliffs, and gravelly ridges accommodate species adapted to such situations.
The irregular topography yields southward facing slopes which receive the full effect of the sun's
rays, as well as northward slopes where the sun's rays are little felt, where it is therefore cool, moist,
and shady. The altitude ranges from two thousand five hundred feet in the foothill belt to thirteen
thousand and ninety feet along the crest of the Sierra Nevada. All of these factors conspire to produce
a remarkably varied and interesting vegetation.
The richness of this flora is indicated by the nine hundred and fifty-five species and varieties here
described. The total number represented in the Yosemite National Park is considerably greater, since
the grasses, sedges, and rushes are here omitted. Including an estimate for these, it is safe to assume
that the number of species and varieties of flowering plants and ferns to be found within the one

thousand one hundred and twenty-four square miles of the park is not less than about one thousand
two hundred. ("A Yosemite Flora," by Harvey Monroe Hall and Carlotta Case Hall.)

4. THE REALM OF FALLING WATER

The Yosemite National Park is enlivened and splendidly enriched with
mountain-high waterfalls and with wildly coasting and cascading streams.
These world-famous falls gain an added attractiveness through the
magnificence of the walls over which they plunge. In places the walls,
clean-cut and smooth, rise sheer for more than one thousand feet. Here and
there the line of a wall is broken with a vast niche or columnar buttress.

UPPER AND LOWER
YOSEMITE FALLS
Total fall 2600 feet
A number of mountain streams and rivers in the Yosemite deliberately
make their way to the brink of a vast gorge that has its brow in the sky, and
there, in full self-control, they plunge over.
Jutting rocks, and smooth steep inclines throw streams into wild,
uncontrolled excitement. But where a vertical river drops its fluttering
current against a magnificent mountain-wall, everything is harmonious and
controlled, and the stream appears to have the sublime composure of a Big
Tree.
In a stream-channel water goes forward with crowding intermittent
rushes. These, in plunging over a brink, break up into numerous closely
falling rockets or comet-like masses, each tailed with spray. These in turn
separate and divide into other such masses, with spray and water-dust.
In a drop of several hundred feet a mass of water is likely to expand to
several times its width at the brink. This expansion varies with the volume
of water, the height of the drop, and the direction and speed of resisting
wind-currents.
Swaying and bending are further attractions of waterfalls. Bridal Veil
Falls often swings and sways gently from side to side. This movement is

sometimes accompanied by lacy flutterings at one or more places on the
spray-wreathed white fall. Numerous falls in the Yosemite are high and
spread widely in descending, and frequently the fall dances splendidly as its
white, airy mass keeps time to the changing movements of the wind.
Many of these high falls are accompanied at times by a fluttering of
numerous rainbows. These flaunt, shift, and dart like great hummingbirds.
At the Lower Yosemite, Bridal Veil, and Vernal Falls these rainbows
sometimes momentarily form a complete circle of color. By these, too, the
moon produces similar though softer, stranger effects. Perhaps the most
pleasing, delicate, and novel effects in lunar rainbows are to be had about
the foot of Yosemite Falls.
The slender Ribbon Fall has a vertical drop of twenty-three hundred feet;
the Upper Yosemite, about sixteen hundred feet. Nevada Falls is about six
hundred feet high. Vernal Falls is one hundred feet wide at the top and
drops three hundred feet. The Vernal and Nevada Falls are in the midst of
magnificent and novel rock scenery. The Illilouette Fall is about six hundred
feet high and is one of the most beautiful in the Park.
The Tueeulala and Wapama Falls in Hetch-Hetchy have their own
individual setting and behavior. The Wapama, though lacking the verticality
of the Upper Yosemite Falls, carries a greater volume of water. Yosemite
Creek is a true mountain stream. In its first ten miles it goes through a
number of zones, passes a variety of plant life, and makes a descent of six
thousand feet. One third of this descent is in the Falls of the Yosemite.
John Muir tells us that one windy day the Upper Falls was struck by an
upward wind pressure that bent and drove the water back over the brow of
the cliff. The wind held back the water so that the fall was cut entirely in
two for a few minutes. But more wonderful than this was one day when the
wind struck the Upper Falls at a point about halfway down and there
stopped and supported its falling waters. For more than a minute the water
piled up in an enormous conical accumulation about seven hundred feet
high. All the while the water poured over steadily from above, and the
entire mass rested upon the elastic but invisible air. Then came a wild
collapse.
At the foot of some of these waterfalls vast ice-cones are sometimes
formed. Occasionally these spread out over a large area and rise to the
height of several hundred feet.

LAKE TENAYA
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK
Among the numerous cascades in the Park, one of the most precipitous is
the Sentinel, which endlessly comes tumbling down over a steep rough
incline of thirty-two hundred feet. In the upper end of the Tuolumne Cañon
the Tuolumne River rushes over inclined rocks and forms one of the most
scenic rapids in the world.

5. SEEING YOSEMITE

I wish that all who visit the Yosemite National Park would have a view
from the top of Mount Hoffman. I wish also that they might see Tuolumne
Meadows, wander over the near-by alpine moorlands, and stand in the
center of Hetch-Hetchy Valley.
Even the most flying visit to the Yosemite Valley should include a visit to
Lake Tenaya, Little Yosemite, Nevada, and Vernal Falls, and, last, and in
some respects most important, a view across and down into the valley from
Glacier Point on the south side, and also from the summit of Eagle Peak on
the opposite side.
From the first, John Muir called Hetch-Hetchy the Tuolumne Yosemite
and considered it a rival of the Yosemite Valley and "a wonderfully exact
counterpart of the Merced Yosemite." It is less than half the size of the
Yosemite, and its walls are about a thousand feet lower. Two immense rocks

stand at the entrance. On the south wall is Koloma, a massive rock twenty-
three hundred feet high. On the north wall is an almost sheer front of rock
that rises eighteen hundred feet. Over this plunges Tueeulala Falls with a
drop of ten hundred feet. This fall is somewhat like Bridal Veil, but excels it
both in beauty and in height. Over the same wall, a short distance eastward,
tumbles Wapama Falls, carrying a greater volume of water than the
Yosemite Falls.
Like the Yosemite Valley, Hetch-Hetchy is a combination of stupendous
rock-walls that rise from a quiet grassy valley which is beautiful with trees
and groves and a clear mountain stream.
The Parsons Memorial Lodge at Soda Springs is an excellent stopping-
place from which to explore the alpine scenes of the Yosemite National
Park. It is owned by the Sierra Club, and was built in honor of Edward T.
Parsons, who for years was one of the club's leading members. The Lodge
is situated on the edge of the celebrated Tuolumne Meadows, by the Tioga
Road, and is within a few miles of many celebrated scenes and view-points.
It is about twenty-five miles northeast of the Yosemite Valley.
At Soda Springs, John Muir often had a central camp. He long ago
recommended the place for an excursion center. It lies at an altitude of
about nine thousand feet. One cannot too often see the near-by smooth,
wide Tuolumne Valley with its surrounding world of mountain-peaks. It is
in the very heart of the Yosemite High Sierra. By it is an extensive and
splendid alpine zone. Here are lakes, moory spaces, polished pavements and
domes, and, in its lower regions, cañons, waterfalls, cascades, groves, and
wild alpine gardens colored and made charming by dainty brilliant flowers.
To the north lies Mount Conness; eastward, Mounts Dana, Lyell, Gibbs,
Mammoth, and McClure; southward, the Cathedral Range; and westward
ice-polished Mount Hoffman.
Surely the Parsons Memorial Lodge will become a world-celebrated
rendezvous for mountain-climbers and for those who desire to see mountain
scenery where it is peculiarly lovely and sublime. A number of trails
converge at this point. It will be interesting to follow the future of the
Lodge and to observe the thousands of enthusiastic people who will enjoy
the surrounding scenes.
About twelve miles to the west of it is Mount Hoffman, which rises near
the center of the Park and is probably the most commanding view-point in

it. This is one of the places that visitors to the Park should not fail to enjoy.
Only a few miles to the southwest of the Lodge is Cathedral Peak. This
imposing ice-burnished structure is one of the most celebrated pieces of
nature statuary in the Park. Near by is Cathedral Lake. About fifteen miles
to the south of the Lodge is a region of burnished rocks, numerous lakes,
cañons, and moraines—a wonderful array of glacial stories. This region is
several miles southwest of Mount Lyell.
Mountain-climbers will find Dana Mountain, to the east of the Lodge, an
excellent view-point. To see a sunrise from it is a rare enjoyment. From its
summit one looks down on the Mono Desert, the lake, and the craters. It is
an easy one-day journey from the Lodge across Tioga Pass to Mono Lake.
At the door of the Lodge are the magnificent Tuolumne Meadows. There
are a series of them, the lower one being about four miles long and about
half a mile wide. Its meadowy expanse is in places attractively sprinkled
with trees, and across it, with beautiful folds and hesitating bends, lingers
the Tuolumne River.
The wonderful rapids in the upper end of the cañon of the Tuolumne are
perhaps the greatest in the world. The white and rushing river is intensely
impressive. Some distance below the Lodge begins the Big Tuolumne
Cañon. It is eighteen miles long and terminates in the Hetch-Hetchy Valley.
A journey through this is a joy for the mountaineer. The cañon is
comparatively narrow for its depth, which in places is one mile. There are a
few romantic parklike openings along the way, and at some points the
statuary is stupendous and magnificent.

6. HISTORY OF YOSEMITE

Indians formerly called the Yosemite Valley Ah-wah-nee, meaning
"grassy valley." Early one morning a young brave started for Mirror Lake to
spear fish. On the way he encountered a huge grizzly bear. He fought the
beast with his spear and a club. After a long and furious battle, in which he
was badly wounded, the bear was killed. For this exploit the Indian was
named Yosemite, which means a full-grown grizzly bear. This name was
transmitted to his children and eventually given to the entire tribe of Indians
inhabiting the valley.

The Yosemite Valley was first made known to the public by Major James
D. Savage and Captain John Boling, who discovered it in 1851. Joseph R.
Walker, frontiersman and explorer, claims to have discovered the valley in
1833.
Tourist travel to the valley began in 1857. It became a state park in 1864,
and in 1890 a National Park was made around it. In 1905 the boundaries
were changed, and in 1906 a vigorous state and national campaign was
waged, under the leadership of John Muir, the Sierra Club, and Robert
Underwood Johnson, which resulted in the entire region becoming a
National Park.
John Muir enjoyed telling of the experience of an English gentleman who
years ago made a trip to the valley. Journeying from the railroad on
horseback, he missed the way and spent a long day descending into gulches
and cañons, then climbing out upon the high ridges. At last, late one
evening, he arrived on the rim of the Yosemite. After a swift glance down
into the valley, he exclaimed, "Great God! have I got to cross this too?"
John Lamon, a roving Westerner, was the first settler in the Yosemite
Valley, where in 1859 he built a cabin, made a garden, and planted fruit-
trees. He was so charmed with the scenery and the climate that he quit his
roving life and here made his home till his death in 1876.
The Hetch-Hetchy appears to have been discovered in 1850 by a hunter
named Joseph Screech. In 1903 the San Francisco supervisors applied for
permission to make commercial use of the valley by building a dam and
making of it a reservoir. John Muir and the Sierra Club led the opposition to
this. The fight went on for ten years with uncertain results. At times it was
intense and bitter. Congress finally decided in favor of San Francisco, but
up to this date San Francisco has not complied with the conditions imposed.
In 1915 plans were made for the improvement of the Yosemite Village. In
the same year occurred an event of greater importance for the Park. Chiefly
through the efforts of Stephen T. Mather, the disused Tioga Road became a
part of the Yosemite road-system. This road has been reopened and will be a
great advantage and convenience to Yosemite visitors. It extends across the
Park from east to west, passing near the Big Trees, the Parsons Memorial
Lodge, and Tuolumne Meadows, invading the High Sierra, and crossing the
range through Tioga Pass. Henceforth automobilists from the East may

leave the main continental highway in Nevada and reach the Yosemite Park
via Mono Lake and this road.
The name of Galen Clark is pleasantly interwoven with the history of the
Yosemite National Park. John Muir thus described the man: "The best
mountaineer I ever met, and one of the kindest and most amiable of all my
mountain friends.... His kindness to all Yosemite visitors and mountaineers
was marvelously constant and uniform."
Galen Clark enjoyed showing people of all ages the various wonders of
Yosemite Valley, never tired of answering questions, and endeavored
carefully to explain the facts concerning each point of interest. Thousands
of visitors to the valley came to know him intimately. He came to the Park
to live in 1857, and for more than fifty years it was his permanent home.
For twenty-four years he was a member of the Yosemite State Park
Commission. The Indians of the valley were fond of him, and from them he
gathered much interesting information. His serene disposition and his
almost constant outdoor life kept his body and mind normal to the day of
his death. After he reached the age of ninety, deciding to become an author,
he wrote and published three little books relating to the Indians and to the
natural wonders of the Yosemite National Park.

III
THE SEQUOIA AND THE GENERAL GRANT
NATIONAL PARKS

The Sequoia National Park has a crowded luxuriance of wild flowers. It
abounds in varied bird-life and has a number of wild sheep, bears, deer, and
other animals. It has lakes, cañons, and glaciated mountains. But the
supreme attraction of this and the neighboring General Grant Park is the
sequoia or Big Tree. Nowhere else on earth are trees found that are so large
or so imposing. In places the Big Trees are attractively mixed with other
forest trees. Besides the large aged trees, there are middle-aged ones, young
trees, and seedlings.
The General Grant Park has a sequoia that is thirty-five feet in diameter.
This Park, like the Sequoia, was established principally to preserve Big
Trees. Both became National Parks in 1890, chiefly through the efforts of
George W. Stewart. The General Grant Park has an area of four square
miles, the Sequoia Park of two hundred and thirty-seven square miles.
The proposition to enlarge the Sequoia National Park should meet with
early consummation. The region would then embrace about twelve hundred
square miles, including the present General Grant and Sequoia Parks and
Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the United States, exclusive of Alaska.
Near Mount Whitney are a number of other peaks. In fact, the region is the
highest and most rugged section of California.
Says Gilbert H. Grosvenor, editor of "The National Geographic
Magazine":—
Switzerland, the playground of Europe, visited annually (until 1915) by more than one hundred
thousand Americans, cannot compare in attractiveness with the High Sierra of central California.
Nothing in the Alps can rival the famous Yosemite Valley, which is as unique as the Grand Cañon.
The view from the summit of Mount Whitney surpasses that from any of the peaks of Switzerland.
There are no cañons in Switzerland equal to those of the Kern and the King Rivers, which contain
scores of waterfalls and roaring streams, any one of which in Europe would draw thousands of

visitors annually. Many of the big yellow and red pines, of the juniper and cedar, eclipse the trees of
Switzerland as completely as these pines are eclipsed by the giant redwoods.
And then, as to birds and flowers, the High Sierra so excels the Alps that there is no comparison.
Never will the writer forget the melodies of the birds and the luxuriance of the meadows passed in
the marches from Redwood Meadow to Mineral King, and then up over Franklin Pass; the fields of
blue, red, yellow, orange, white, and purple flowers, all graceful and fragrant, or the divine dignity of
the great Siberian Plateau, nearly eleven thousand feet above the sea, and yet carpeted from end to
end with blue lupine and tiny flowers.
From the educational point of view, the High Sierra so surpasses the Alps that again no comparison
can be made.

Magnificent is the King's River Cañon. The Kern River Cañon is seven
thousand feet deep; this is equal, if not superior, to the depth of the Grand
Cañon of the Colorado. Here is the celebrated Tehipitee Dome. There are
numerous lakes, streams, waterfalls, and meadows. This was the original
home of the golden trout. Besides the King's and Kern Rivers, there is the
Kaweah.
The glaciation of this region is on a stupendous scale and is of
extraordinary interest. The peculiar topography, the heavy snowfall, and the
character of the rocks all combined to cause the Ice King to execute
wonderful works in this Park and to leave behind a splendid record. From
the summit of this high region one looks into Death Valley, less than one
hundred miles away, which is the lowest point in the United States, a
section of it being three hundred to four hundred feet below sea-level. This
region includes the southern extension of the High Sierra in California, is
near the Nevada line, and is about one hundred miles north of Los Angeles.
Clarence King, the distinguished geologist and first Director of the
United States Geological Survey, had a number of mountain-climbing
experiences in this Greater Sequoia region. These are tellingly related in
that classic volume, "Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada." John Muir also
wrote of this region, and it seems fitting that this enlarged reservation
should be called the "Muir National Park."
Here the skies and the weather are great changing attractions, and the big
wild folk are alert neighbors. Here are forests made up of trees each of
which is an heroic giant! Here the Ice King left vast and splendid stories.
Here is perhaps the deepest gorge in this round world, and here the highest
peak within the bounds of the States of the Union—a peak that commands
vast and varied scenes. The streams and lakes are of the greatest. The

variety of wild flowers is probably not equaled in any other park or
territory. The birds, too, are numerously and abundantly represented.
If I were sentenced to end my days in a National Park of my choosing,
without the least hesitation I should choose the region now proposed for the
Greater Sequoia or Muir Park.

THE FOUR BROTHERS
SEQUOIA NATIONAL
PARK

THE BIG TREES

The General Sherman is the largest tree on earth, and it may be the oldest
living object that has a place in the sun. It is thirty-six and one-half feet in
diameter and two hundred and eighty feet high. Nearly as large are the
General Grant and the Grizzly Giant. A number of veteran sequoias are
more than thirty feet in diameter and nearly three hundred feet high. Many
are more than twenty feet in diameter, and thousands have a diameter of ten
feet or more.
The Big Tree (Sequoia gigantea) is scattered in thirty-two groves along
the western slopes of the Sierra for a distance of two hundred and sixty

miles. Most of the trees are between the altitudes of five thousand and eight
thousand feet. There are gaps of miles between groves. The southern
extension has a continuous forest for seventy miles, except where it is cut in
two by cañons, and it contains a majority of all Big Trees. There are three
Big-Tree groves in the Yosemite National Park, one in the General Grant,
and twelve in the Sequoia. One of these twelve is the famous Giant Forest.
The Sequoia and General Grant National Parks have more than a million
Big Trees. Of these, more than twelve thousand are ten or more feet in
diameter. A few of these trees are upwards of three hundred feet high, but
the majority are about two hundred and fifty feet.
Galen Clark, who made a long and careful study of the Big Trees,
expressed the opinion that the Grizzly Giant was at least six thousand years
old. A number may be four thousand or more years of age, but the majority
probably are less than three thousand. Careful counts of the annual rings of
trees that have been felled show that a number of these had lived more than
three thousand years. One had more than four thousand annual rings. W. L.
Jepson, author of "The Trees of California," believes that the general
tendency is to exaggerate the age of the living Big Trees.
These trees bear seeds each year. In a fruitful year a Big Tree may
produce one million seeds. These are exceedingly small and light. The tree
blooms in late winter, while the earth is still covered with snow. The
flowers are pale green and pale yellow. The cones are bright green and are
about two and one-half inches in length. They shed their seeds as soon as
they are ripened, but the cones sometimes cling to the trees for months. If
the seeds alight on freshly upturned soil or soil recently burned over, they
usually sprout and grow vigorously. They do best in the sunlight. But if the
seeds fall upon a grass- or trash-covered forest floor, they fail to sprout.
With branches nearly to the earth, the outline of a young tree is that of a
slender pyramid. As the tree ages, the lower branches fall off. In middle-
aged trees, the trunk commonly is free of branches from fifty to one
hundred and fifty feet above the ground. The tiptop of aged trees usually is
a dead snag, surrounded by living, up-curved side branches from the trunk.
The original tops of nearly all old trees have been smashed by lightning.
Usually in young trees the bark is almost purplish; in old ones it is
cinnamon-color. This bark is fire-resisting, is from one to two feet thick,

and is good protection to the vitals of the tree. The roots are short, but the
base of the trunk is heavily, artistically buttressed.
Living or dead, the Big Tree has extraordinary durability. It has
exceptional vitality and recuperative power. Its long life probably is due to
the fact that it is almost immune from insect pests, the most deadly enemies
of all other kinds of trees. Men, fire, and lightning are the worst enemies of
the Big Tree. Most of the old ones have had their heads shattered by
lightning again and again, but they still insist on living and will produce a
new top even though the old one is entirely smashed off. These trees appear
to be almost immortal. Unless they starve or meet a violent death, they live
on and on.
John Muir says that the wood in the Big Trees has an endurance almost
equal to that of granite, and gives the following illustration. He cut a piece
of sound wood from the trunk of a fallen monarch that had been lying upon
the earth several hundred years. In falling, the trunk of this Big Tree was
cracked across in a number of places. Into these cracks fire ate its way each
time a forest fire swept the locality. Each of these fires probably was
separated from the following one by a number of years, and it probably
took a great many burns to cut this slow-burning wood into sections. But at
last this was done. Between the ends of two of these sections a fir tree took
root and grew. After all these years, and after the fir tree had lived three
hundred and eighty years, the sections of the Big Tree still lay upon the
ground, apparently as sound as the day the tree fell.
All Big-Tree groves appear to have gone through forest fires. It is
probable that most of these groves have been repeatedly fire-swept. Many
of the trees show fire-scars that cannot be entirely healed for centuries.
The Big Tree has been called the noblest of a noble race. Its enormous
size, its excellent proportions, its serenity, its steadfastness, its age, make it
the most impressive living object. John Muir, in commenting on the
imperishable nature of the sequoia, says he feels confident that if every one
of these trees were to die to-day, numerous monuments of their existence
would remain available for the student for more than ten thousand years.
But the Big Tree is not verging toward extinction. Its greatest danger is
from general destruction by man. The Big-Tree area has not diminished, but
probably has slightly increased in the last few thousand years. Seeds sprout

readily and young trees grow vigorously. John Muir thus comments
concerning the tree and its distribution:—
The Big Tree (Sequoia gigantea) is Nature's forest masterpiece, and, so far as I know, the greatest
of living things. It belongs to an ancient stock, as its remains in old rocks show, and has a strange air
of other days about it, a thoroughbred look inherited from the long ago—the auld lang syne of trees.
Once the genus was common, and with many species flourished in the now desolate arctic regions, in
the interior of North America, and in Europe, but in long eventful wanderings from climate to climate
only two species have survived the hardships they had to encounter.

The Big Trees probably were discovered by General John Bidwell in
1841. John Muir studied them for years, and then gave to the world an
accurate account of them.
The Big-Tree groves, he says, are growing in the soil-areas off which the
ice first melted at the close of the ice age. The wide gaps between the
various sequoia groves were areas occupied by the large and long-enduring
glaciers. The topography of the mountains plainly shows that the areas
where the groves are were places protected from the ice-flows of the
heights. The gaps would naturally have received the main ice-flows from
the heights.
In the south the Big-Tree forests are in the areas that were effectively
buttressed and shielded from ice-flows. Consequently these areas were
early opened at the close of the ice age. The forty-mile-wide gap between
the Stanislaus and the Tuolumne Groves was a channel filled with a glacier
probably long after the groves to the north and the south started to grow.
Did the sequoia endure the long ice age in these few places where the
groves are now growing? The pine, fir, spruce, and other forest species in
the Sierra may have been planted with seeds from trees that survived in the
south. But as the sequoia is found nowhere else, the question arises, did it
survive somewhere near the localities in which it is now growing?
An acquaintance with the Big Trees, an understanding of them, gives us
one of the most impressive and lasting ties to be had in nature. These trees
ever impress one with a nobility of character. Seen at midday, or at early
morning when their lengthened shadow gives strange tones to the scene, or
in the serene, strange moonlight, or when, wrapped in restless mist, they
loom vast and mysterious, or in a storm, they are ever marvelously steadfast
and calm. Long may they live!

At the Big Trees, the first act of Horace Greeley, the celebrated editor,
was to take out a pencil and figure on the lumber contents of one. These
veteran trees have a higher value.
Lincoln, in his lecture on Niagara Falls, said: "The mere physical fact of
Niagara Falls is a very small part of the world's wonder. Its power to incite
reflection and emotion is its greatest charm." Lincoln might have calculated
the mule-power of the Falls if ruined—changed from the higher value of a
scenic spectacle to common commercialism. Why tell how many hovels or
how many feet of sewer might be constructed out of the Library of
Congress; or the number of cobblestones that could be manufactured from
the Washington Monument? As well tell the number of forts that might have
been built with the marbles and the energy that were put into statuary and
the inspiring arts, as to consider or measure Big Trees in lumber terms.
The sequoia is one of the monumental wonders of this round world. It is
the oldest settler—the pioneer of pioneers. Each venerable giant numbers
his years by centuries. Each was already old when nations of the present
were born. Gone and forgotten are the nations that were—gone the flags
that waved in the wind when these trees began to cast their shadows.
And it may be—for nations with all their pomp and pride are short-lived
—that every flag that now flaunts the sky, that every nation now on earth,
will pass out of existence long before these patriarchal trees lie down at last
upon the mountains. Some of these trees have already out-lived more than
fifty generations of mankind. Some of them are likely to look upon a score
or more of passing generations of the human race. These trees might tell a
thousand stirring stories to the one possessed by the Sphinx. The Sphinx is
of lifeless stone. These trees are alive. They have lived through countless
changing scenes. But which shall be accounted the more striking and
wonderful, the passing pictures in the centuries they have looked upon, or
the moving, changing scenes in the centuries that they are yet to see?
These Big Trees have endured fire, flood, lightning, landslide, gale,
drought, and earthquake, but have never hauled down their evergreen
banners. They have triumphed over the changes of ten thousand seasons;
watched and waved through centuries of sunlight and storm. Countless
times the sun has projected a silhouetted shadow of their stupendous plumes
against the mountain side. They have worn monumental robes of snow
flowers; they have stood silent in the light of thousands of autumn moons;

and they are still upon the heights to inspire us with their steadfastness and
their splendor.
The landmark and the heritage of the ages are these splendid trees, these
immortal evergreens. Their historic lore and unequaled grandeur give them
amplitude and poetry enough to kindle and enrich the imagination. Let them
live on; they will bless those who make the sacred pilgrimage to see them,
and they will be a "choir invisible" to all who simply know that upon the
sublime Sierra they still wave grandly.

IV
MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK

Mount Rainier is one of the noblest and most imposing mountains in the
world. It stands isolated. Around it are countless peaks, but these are so
small that they but emphasize the colossal bulk and towering height of
majestic Rainier. It is 14,408 feet high. The altitudinal sweep of the Park is
ten thousand feet. Only Mount Rainier territory is in the Park. The area is
three hundred and twenty-four square miles—about eighteen miles square.
Yet so vast is this mountain that an extensive part of it is outside the Park
boundaries. Its outline is intensified by the extraordinary make-up of black
and white which characterizes it. The upper half of it is strangely white with
masses of snow and ice. The lower slopes are purplish black with dense
coniferous forests. Between the snow and the forest is a magnificent belt of
wild flowers.
Mount Rainier is a sleeping volcano. Beneath its shell of stone is a heart
of fire. Upon this shell are snow-fields and glaciers, rushing rivers, a
stupendous forest, wild-flower gardens in which millions of "bannered
blossoms open their bosoms to the sun."
Additional territory is needed to protect scenery not now in the Park, and
especially for Park road development. At a number of points along the
southern boundary the road winds outside the Park. A similar condition will
exist on the eastern side when the eastern road-system is built. Much good
would result from starting at the southeast corner of the Park and adding a
six-mile strip twelve miles long on the south and another strip of equal size
on the east.
Mount Rainier lies about sixty miles eastward from Seattle and Tacoma.
An excellent automobile road enters the southern boundary and extends into
the Park, passing the snout of the Nisqually Glacier. The road-plan of the
Park embraces an encircling scenic highway around the mountain on the
lower slopes. This road is to be united with entrance roads from the north,
south, east, and west. A trail about fifty miles long circles this peak near

timber-line. It penetrates fifty miles of unexcelled beauty and splendor. It
touches a thousand different scenes and ever commands the world of light
and shade that lies far below and far away.

STAGE ROAD, MOUNT RAINIER
NATIONAL PARK
Small inns are to be built along this wilderness way. What a poetic,
scene-crowded way to travel! Every boy and girl might well plan to walk
round mighty Rainier on this commanding circle pathway.
The uppermost edge of Rainier's dark primeval forest ends at timber-line
in peninsulas, bays, and islands. Between the ragged edges of the forest and
the broken edges of the ice and snow is a magnificent wild-flower scenic
belt, or zone, a mile or two in width. Mingling are ice, snow, broken groves,
brilliant wild flowers, streams, crags, meadows, and a thousand cascades.
Through this scenic zone lies the timber-line trail.
Steam is constantly issuing from the craters in the summit. During the
last century, there were a number of slight eruptions, the most recent one
occurring in 1870. Indian legends tell of a great cataclysm during which the
summit of the mountain was blown to pieces and scattered afar. Apparently
the peak, before this explosion, was about two thousand feet higher than at
present. The shattered summit indicates the reality of this traditionary
explosion and previous height. It is three miles across the summit. A part of
the great crater-rim still remains, and Liberty Cap and Peak Success
strongly testify to former elevation and grandeur.

Often this splendid peak wears a vast wreath or belt of clouds or mists.
Visitors to the middle slopes frequently have the delightful experience of
being above the clouds. François E. Matthes, the well-known geologist,
thinks this mountain a wonderful source of inspiration and wishes that it
were possible for all people to share it. He says, "No doubt the time will
come when a pilgrimage to Mount Rainier shall be esteemed among the
most precious joys, the most coveted privileges which a citizen of this
country may hope to realize for himself or for his fellows."
George Vancouver, the explorer, discovered Mount Rainier in 1792. It
was named in honor of Peter Rainier, an English admiral. Theodore
Winthrop, author of that classic book of travel, "Canoe and Saddle," visited
the region in 1853. He was an ardent advocate of the original Indian names
of conspicuous objects of interest. The Indian name for this peak was
Tahoma. It is encouraging that the people of Seattle and Tacoma may early
unite to ask that this name be adopted. Said Mr. Winthrop in "Canoe and
Saddle":—
Let us, therefore, develop our own world. It has taken us two centuries to discover our proper West
across the Mississippi, and to know by indefinite hearsay that among the groups of the Rockies are
heights worth notice.
Farthest away in the West, as near the western sea as mountains can stand, are the Cascades.
Sailors can descry their landmarked summits firmer than a cloud, a hundred miles away.... Kulshan,
misnamed Mount Baker by the vulgar, is an irregular, massive, mound-shaped peak.... South of
Kulshan the range continues dark, rough and somewhat unmeaning to the eye, until it is relieved by
Tahoma.

Mount Tahoma was first climbed in 1870 by General Hazard Stevens and
P. B. Van Trump. The first woman to climb it was Miss Fay Fuller, who
went to the summit in 1890. The Indians appear not to have climbed above
the snow-line. They had little occasion to go higher, and they believed that
the god of the mountain forbade their ascending farther.
In 1883, Henry Villard, president of the Northern Pacific Railroad, sent a
large party to enjoy the scenes on the slopes of Mount Rainier. Among those
in the party were James Bryce, afterward British Ambassador to the United
States, and Bailey Willis. These two gentlemen appear to have discussed the
importance of having this peak set aside as a National Park. On the
completion of this excursion, James Bryce and others recommended to
Henry Villard that efforts be made to have this Park created. Later, similar
requests were made by individuals and organizations, and a

recommendation to this effect was made in writing by the National
Academy of Sciences. In 1899 the Park was established.

1. THE SPLENDID WILD-FLOWER GARDEN

The triumphant glory of Mount Rainier National Park is seen in its wild
flowers. It is doubtful whether anywhere else on earth is to be found so
extensive and luxuriant a growth of such brightly colored flowers amid such
scenes of supreme wildness and grandeur.
A vast broken flower-belt encircles the peak between the ragged lower
edge of the large ice-fields and the ragged upper limits of tree growth. A
flower-belt fifty miles long, covered and crowded with flowers, mile after
mile! It is most showy and splendid at and just above the limits of tree
growth. Masses of color; myriads of blossoms, each of clean and vivid hue!
This vast and splendid garden is crossed with streams and cañons, adorned
with crags, green meadows, forested peninsulas, and islands of groves. This
encircling flower carnival expands into numerous connected and
disconnected alpine parks. Each park is a superb flower-garden with a
splendid precipitous alpine back- and sky-ground. Among the more striking
of these are Paradise Park, Indian Henry's Hunting Grounds, Spray Park,
and Summerland.
In the open upper reaches of the forest, the fragrant twin-flower covers
and crowds wide places. There are thousands of cream-white mountain
lilies—bear-grass—with tall, slender blooms. The shooting-star, a near
relative of the cyclamen, is as thick upon the earth as stars up in the sky.
Thousands of purple asters are found upon stalks two feet high. A dogtooth
violet, commonly called avalanche lily, is abundant. The western anemone,
with its exquisite leaves, its purple bloom and decorative seed plumes,
adorns many a wild garden. Many of the plants in the high altitude grow
rapidly, bloom briefly, and seed quickly. Summer is short.

MOUNT RAINIER FROM PARADISE
VALLEY
Acres of valerian with four-foot stalks thrust their pungent blooms
beneath one's nose. The blue mertensia crowds moist places with a thicket
of stalks three feet high. A lavender-colored arctic lupine grows in
decorative masses. The white dock, sometimes called wild buckwheat, nods
on its slender stalks two feet above the earth. The wild hellebore carries its
greenish-white flowers upon stalks as high as one's head.
Many of the yellow or golden flowers bloom close to the earth. There are
golden asters and golden-rods, a mountain dandelion, a low-growing yellow
buttercup called the monkey-flower, the gold-touched arnica, and yellow
potentilla. These fill many wide, ragged places with a blaze of yellow glory.
Low-growing lavender-colored phlox appears in masses, and Cusick's
speedwell forms large patches of low-lying blue. Epilobiums cover acres of
earth with pink petals.
A species of blue gentian grows in showy clusters, and meadows are
filled with the brightest painted-cups in red and crimson. The heather, the
heather! There are rich, deep masses of red, white, and yellow heather. The
white heather is the lovely cassiope that adorns the snow edges of
thousands of mountains from Mexico to the Arctic regions.
Endless are the ranks of the saxifrage family in white; countless the
numbers of the pink family. Here the spring beauty blooms in summer and
the rose-crimson Pentstemon rupicola makes a showy appearance.

Also above the limits of tree growth are other little plant people: the ever-
cheerful kinnikinnick; a dainty, tiny fern; numerous members of the figwort
family; Lyall's lupine, with its brilliant bloom of purple flowers; the
evening-primrose; and a most pungent polemonium.
Growing far up the slopes is an attractive member of the dock family that
is tufted with purplish-yellow bloom. A yellow mustard (Draba aureola)
and another member of the mustard family with creamy-white flowers carry
and maintain this wonderful wild-flower garden farthest above the clouds,
highest up into the snow-fields and the sky.
One day I found a tiny tuft of bloom in a bit of soil on the very summit of
Rainier. It was in a niche of lava, surrounded with ice and snow, but
warmed by the steadily escaping steam. Brave, cheerful little fellow
creature! In a steamy, ice-rimmed volcano's throat on a desolate top of the
world!
Of all the fire-mountains which, like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier
is the noblest in form.... Its massive white dome rises out of its forests, like a world by itself.... Above
the forests there is a zone of the loveliest flowers, fifty miles in circuit and nearly two miles wide, so
closely planted and luxuriant that it seems as if Nature, glad to make an open space between woods
so dense and ice so deep, were economizing the precious ground, and trying to see how many of her
darlings she can get together in one mountain wreath.... We wade knee-deep and waist-deep, the
bright corollas in myriads touching petal to petal.... Altogether this is the richest subalpine garden I
ever found, a perfect floral elysium. (John Muir, in "Our National Parks.")

The forests of this park are a splendid attraction. The trees are tall and of
noble proportions. The forest floor has a tangled undergrowth of vines and
shrubbery, a luxuriant carpet of ferns, mosses, and flowers. Many areas are
crowded with trees from two to eight feet in diameter, from one hundred to
two hundred and fifty feet high. Cedars, spruces, and hemlocks number
their years by centuries. A few are perhaps a thousand years of age.
Theodore Winthrop wrote of these forests:—
Long years of labor by artists the most unconscious of their skill had been given to modelling these
columnar firs. Unlike the pillars of human architecture, chipped and chiselled in bustling, dusty
quarries, and hoisted to their site by sweat of brow and creak of pulley, these rose to fairest
proportions by the life that was in them and blossomed into foliated capitals three hundred feet
overhead.

The forest is gloomy with luxuriant greenness. Many trees are shrouded
with a pendent lichen, Usnea. This hangs in long, threadlike tufts, while

beneath it, mingling with the flowers among the towering trees, are forests
of far-spreading ferns.
Around the foot of the mountain are the Indian-pipe and the pyrola, of
the wintergreen family; and there is still another delightful member of this
family, whose generic name means "delight." The dogwood (Cornus
canadensis), the forest anemone, the dainty calypso are also here. All these
and numbers of other brilliantly colored species brighten and in places
illuminate the somber forest floor like touches and dashes of sunlight.
On the lower slopes Douglas spruce and Western hemlock predominate,
with red cedar along the streams. Above the altitude of three thousand feet,
noble and silver firs are found singly and in solid groves. Ascending, we
find a scattered growth of lodge-pole, growths of Engelmann spruce, and a
few white-bark pines.
The timber-line may be given as about sixty-five hundred feet, or at the
same altitude as in the Alps. The extreme height of the tree growth is about
one thousand feet greater. Most of the timber-line growth is crushed,
flattened, and oppressed. The timber-line grouping is most poetical and
picturesque. In places the trees are both dwarfed and distorted with wind
and snow. The trees are mountain hemlock, alpine fir, Engelmann spruce,
and white-bark pine. These stand singly, in groups, and in ragged groves.
Commonly they stand in green meadows or brilliant wild-flower gardens.
Here and there they are separated with the green tracks of permanent
snowslides.
The Mount Rainier National Park has its full share of bird and animal
life. Here are numerous warblers and woodpeckers; chickadees, black-
hooded jays, dainty hummingbirds, ptarmigans, thrushes, and trustful water-
ouzels.
Among the animals is that audacious climber, the mountain goat. There
also are deer, elk, bears, and other alert wild folk.

2. GLACIERS OF MOUNT RAINIER

Mount Rainier has the largest and the longest glacier in the United States.
This is the Emmons. It is about six miles long and has an area of about eight

square miles. It is on the eastern slope of the peak. The ice-area on Rainier
covers one seventh of the Park, or about fifty square miles.
Rainier has a magnificent glacial system. There are a dozen large and
twice as many small glaciers. The peak is an enormous cone with a blunt,
broken top. A majority of the large glaciers begin two thousand or more feet
below the summit and extend in a comparatively straight line toward the
bottom. Though a number unite in continuous ice-fields well up the slope,
down the slope each generally is separated from its neighbors. The glaciers
are separated by narrow ledges called cleavers, or by each occupying its
own deep cañon. Near the terminus many are separated by moraines or
flowering meadows.
The Nisqually Glacier, which ends just below the altitude of four
thousand feet in Paradise Park, is five miles long. In the summer-time it
moves forward at the rate of about sixteen inches per day. This, and in fact
all glaciers, have periods of advance and retreat. During the last twenty-five
years this glacier has retreated about one thousand feet. That is to say, the
present point where it melts entirely away is one thousand feet farther up
the slope than it was twenty-five years ago. In comparatively recent times,
as the cirques, lakes, and moraines far down the slopes show, the glaciers
on this peak were deeper and larger, and reached much farther down the
slope than at present.
The Nisqually Glacier has continuous connection with the snow deposits
upon the summit of the peak. At one point this snow comes down a
precipitous cascade and tumbles perhaps two thousand feet. This and all
other glaciers are clean and snowy at the upper end, but the lower end is
greatly darkened with rock-débris and earthy material that have mixed with
it. The last half-mile of the Nisqually Glacier has the appearance more of a
rock glacier than an ice glacier. Its front is a dark chocolate color.
The Paradise Glacier is one of several on the southerly slope. It is formed
by the union of a number of ice-streams which originate at about nine
thousand feet. They do not receive snow from the slopes above, but
quantities of snow are brought to them by the wind. Near the lower end, this
glacier divides into a number of lobes or streams.
The Carbon Glacier descends the northerly slope. It originates in the
large cirque or ice-made cañon on the peak. This is a mile and a half across,
and its terminal wall rises precipitously thirty-six hundred feet. Its snow

supplies fall upon it from the clouds, are swept to it by the winds, and
rushed to it by avalanches.
The Winthrop Glacier is on the northern slope. Among its interesting
features are ice-cascades, glacier tablets, and the ice flowing over high
mounds in its main channel.
The Tahoma glaciers on the southwest slope exhibit a glacier island.
The Kautz Glacier on the southern slope is long, narrow, and winding. It
has an enormous medial moraine. Pyramid Rock commands an excellent
view of this and other scenes.
Many admirable names have been selected for the objects of interest on
Rainier. In this connection, some one is to be thanked for substituting
"cleaver" and "wedge" for "arrête."
The snowfall on the peak is heaviest on the lower slopes. This diminishes
with altitude and is lightest on the upper slopes and the summit. This is
typical of mountain snowfalls. From long experience in the Rocky
Mountains, I am able to say that the snowfall there is much less on the high
peaks than on their middle slopes. The same fact applies to the Sierra
Nevada of California, to the Andes of South America, and to the Himalayas
and the Alps. It is common for a storm-cloud to be comparatively close to
the earth. The height of it is determined more by the height of near-by
plateaus and passes than by that of the peaks. It is certain that during many
of the lowland storms the mountain peaks thrust up into the sunshine
through the silver lining of the clouds.
Wind is an interesting factor in the distribution of the snowfall. It sweeps
snow off exposed ridges and accumulates it in vast quantities at places
where a glacier starts or where the snow avalanches to a glacier. Columbia's
Crest—the summit—appears to be in a large measure formed by snow that
the wind carries up to it from the slopes far below. Thus, to snows that fell
on these slopes the height of the peak and its white top are in a measure
due.
A score of turbulent streams radiate from this mountain. Apparently its
volcanic material is easily eroded. The streams are heavily laden with
gravel and sediment. Though the peak is comparatively young, the cañons
made by ice and water are large. Vast portions of the mountain have already
been carried away by the erosive forces of ice and running water.

V
CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK

The supreme attraction in Crater Lake National Park is the vivid blue
lake that sleeps in the rugged and magnificent crater of a dead volcano—
Mount Mazama.
One golden September afternoon I climbed alone upon the rim of the
crater near Eagle Point. There was no wind, and everything lay broodingly
silent in the sunshine. In an instant the scene became unreal. The lake,
mysteriously blue—indigo blue—lay below. Barren, desolate mountain
walls of a desert strangely surrounded it. Was I exploring the topography of
the moon?
A second look at most new scenes, and there comes to me a feeling of
acquaintance—of having been there before. But this scene made no
advance; if it had known me, it desired to forget. I had not seen it; it was as
indifferent to my presence as though I existed not. But it was enchanting
and it was eloquent. In common with all other visitors to Crater Lake, I
received profound and lasting impressions.

CRATER LAKE AND
WIZARD ISLAND
The splendid ruin of the ashen-gray walls, the intense and refined blue of
the lake, arouse the imagination. What graphic, dramatic, world-building
story is locked in these bold scenes?
It is probable that this vast blue-bottomed caldron was once covered with
a volcanic peak. This vanished volcano is named Mount Mazama. The
geological story is that the upper half of the peak collapsed. There was
volcanic violence. But it did not, like Mount Rainier and Mount Baker,
explosively blow its summit to pieces. A mile or more of the upper half
simply collapsed and dropped into the crater. Had an explosion hurled the
enormous fragments of the top afar, they must have been found scattered
about. But only small fragments of pumice have been discovered.
This collapse appears to have been preceded by a rupture of the base,
allowing the lava to escape. This lava had filled the crater and supported its
walls, and the collapse followed its removal. The upper part of this peak
that apparently dropped into the crater must have been six thousand or more
feet high, with a basal diameter of about six miles. Its bulk was equal to, or
greater than, the whole of Mount Washington, the highest peak in New
England.

An early impression that this lake crater gave me was that it had been
formed by breaking off an enormous conical and hollow volcanic peak
which was inverted and jammed, small end downward, into the earth. This
caldron remains. It is now a jagged, gigantic central opening in the deep
surrounding lava-beds. These exhibit the former fiery flooding activity of
Mazama.
The volcano was active at intervals in the glacial period. This is shown in
the glaciated rock-surfaces of the rim that are covered with layers of pumice
and rhyolite. The lake is encircled by about twenty miles of precipitous
walls that rise from five hundred to two thousand feet above the surface of
the water. The lake-level is 6177 feet. The surface fluctuates a few feet each
year.
The water is deep, much of it from twelve hundred to nineteen hundred
feet. In a few places it is less than three hundred feet deep, with near-by
surroundings several hundred feet deeper. Are these shallow spots above the
tops of other volcanic cones or lava-masses?
The lava-beds in the surrounding outer slopes of the crater overlie one
another at an angle that indicates that the lava was poured to them from a
central point above. Extend the slopes upward from the rim on the angle of
the slopes below, and the outline of the former peak is restored. This would
make a peak about the size of Mount Shasta.
At the altitude of the crater rim, about eight thousand feet, the diameter is
about six miles, the same as that of Mount Shasta at the same altitude. As
both peaks are composed of like kinds of lava, we may safely assume that
Mount Mazama before it collapsed was about the size and height of Mount
Shasta (14,380 feet).
Glacier records furnish additional evidence of the former height and
magnitude of Mazama. On the rim and on the outer slopes just below it are
a number of glacier grooved and planed rock-surfaces. The lines of these
extend downward, so the ice must have come from above. Then, too, there
are a number of moraines that show they were deposited by glaciers from
upper slopes. Apparently glaciers flowed down all sides of this mountain
from a central high point. Two ice-eroded cañons begin in the southern rim
and extend down the slope. Plainly these were formed by ice-streams that
came down from above. Thus the angle of the lava-built slopes, and the
lines of glaciation, testify to the former existence of a high central summit.

On its slopes the Fire King and the Ice King appear to have wrought and
to have clashed. Both have vanished from the scene; but here remains a
volcanic landscape slightly sculptured by ice. The Mazama story appears a
spectacular one.
This scene is a favorite with geologists. They come to it from all over the
world. Crater lakes are common. There are numbers of dead craters filled
with water in South America, Asia, and elsewhere. But this is an
extraordinary crater lake. The marvelous blueness is only one feature. The
rare geological exhibit makes a strange appeal.
Joseph S. Diller, of the United States Geological Survey, closes his
excellent monograph on the "Geological History of Crater Lake, Oregon"
with the following words:—
Aside from its attractive scenic features, Crater Lake affords one of the most interesting and
instructive fields for the study of volcanic geology to be found anywhere in the world. Considered in
all its aspects, it ranks with the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, the Yosemite Valley, and the Falls of
Niagara, but with an individuality that is superlative.

No streams flow into this lake, and there is no visible outlet. It is
probable that subterranean waters empty into it and flow from it. The
annual precipitation, together with the enormous quantities of snow that are
blown into it, greatly exceeds the amount of water evaporated. The water is
clear and cold. It is so clear that a plate may be seen upon the bottom
through fifty or more feet of water. Fish may be distinctly seen swimming
about at great depths.
Many alpine lakes are blue under some lights. The deep blueness of this
lake may possibly be due to mineral which the water holds in solution; or
also in part to its high surrounding walls and to its enormous depth. Seen
from the rim, a narrow margin of the water along the walls is sea-green. Yet
a glassful is as clear as the clearest.

By permission of the National Park Service,
Department of the Interior
PHANTOM SHIP, CRATER LAKE
A few days spent upon the rim and in a launch upon the lake will give
glimpses of world-building features and nature-history. Morning is a good
time for a journey around the lake. At no point is there a beach. The steep
walls descend and plunge into the water.
In the lake near the west shore is Wizard Island. It is a perfect little
volcano—a crater within a crater. Although a few pines are growing upon it,
the island's lava and ashes appear as if just cast from the internal furnace. It
probably was formed after the collapse of Mount Mazama. Lava, cinders,
and tiny water-filled crater appear strange mimicry. The island rises several
hundred feet above the lake-surface, and its crater is eighty feet deep. The
island is a good view-point at noon, at evening, or when the blue cold crater
glows and sparkles with the reflected fires of a million fiery worlds.
Phantom Ship, near the southeast shore, is a volcanic island masted with
rock-spires. It has scattered trees. From a number of points of view it has
the appearance of a ship, but under certain lights it blends so completely
with the walls behind it that it vanishes.
The forests are magnificent. Among the trees on the rim and on Wizard
Island are noble fir, alpine fir, mountain white pine, Douglas spruce, alpine
hemlock, and lodge-pole pine. Sheep-pasturing in former years wrought
havoc with the wild flowers, of which there are numerous varieties. There

are many kinds of wild birds and wild life. While there are other scenic
attractions, the supreme one must ever be the lake of marvelous blue and its
rugged, fire-tinted walls. In the ruined caldron where red fire and black
smoke wildly mingled, blue water lies in repose.
On June 12, 1853, a number of prospectors, led by John W. Hillman,
discovered Crater Lake. Though not interested in scenery, they were
aroused by this gigantic blue gem in its rough volcanic setting.
In 1885, William G. Steele began the campaign which finally won this
National Park. This campaign went through numberless vicissitudes and
lasted seventeen years, the Park having been established in 1902.
In 1888, Steele carried a number of trout in a can upon his back for more
than forty miles. These trout were placed in the lake and grew rapidly. Since
then it has been repeatedly stocked by the Government. Nowhere else that I
know of can a fisherman catch a trout and clearly watch its every effort
many feet under the water, as it tries to run away with or escape from the
cruel hook.
This Park is in the heart of the Cascade Mountains in southern Oregon, a
short distance north of the California line. It has an area of about two
hundred and forty-nine square miles. Mount Thielson, Diamond Lake, and
other near-by attractive features might well be added to the territory of the
Park.

VI
GLACIER NATIONAL PARK

Lakes—splendid intermountain lakes—are an unrivaled attraction in the
Glacier National Park. Here, too, are other striking features—glaciers,
peaks precipitous and stupendous, forests, and streams. The rugged Alplike
mountains are of first magnitude. The forests that crowd the lower
elevations of the park are primeval and grand. The vigorous streams are set
in magnificent scenery. But I feel that the lakes are entitled to first rank
among the scenic attractions in this park.
There are two hundred and fifty of these, of different sizes, each of
individual outline and with an original alpine setting. Some repose in the
depths of the forest. Others have a shore-line half forest and half the abrupt
wall of a towering peak. Still other lakes have a wild shore of snow-fields,
glaciers, forests, meadows, and mountains. Waterfalls out of the mountain
sky drop into many; cascading streams rush from the outlets of others.
Many of the lakes are strikingly long for their narrow width. Lake
McDonald is about ten miles long and one mile wide. Waterton Lake is
about twelve miles long, with an average width of perhaps half a mile.
Bowman Lake is about six miles long by half a mile wide. Avalanche Lake,
which lies in Avalanche Basin, is hemmed in on all sides, except at the
outlet, by precipitous mountains. It is a beautiful ellipse about one mile
long. Iceberg Lake is on the north side of Wilbur Mountain, which towers
three thousand feet above the surface of the water. The Blackfeet name for
this is "Fly-around-in." McDermott and Altyn Lakes are beauty spots. The
outlet of McDermott is a series of spectacular cascades. Its shore is open,
and around it one moves about easily. Altyn Lake is only a quarter of a mile
distant from McDermott. These lakes lie between Grinnell Mountain and
Allen Mountain and are a part of one of the grandest scenes in the Park.

McDERMOTT FALLS
AND GRINNELL
MOUNTAIN
GLACIER NATIONAL
PARK
Grinnell Lake lies one mile above Altyn Lake, at the foot of the
tremendous cliffs of Gould Mountain. The lower end of the lake is open and
parklike, while at the upper end cliffs rise about four thousand feet. This
lake receives the waters from Grinnell Glacier. These pour over high cliffs
at the upper end of the lake and form a beautiful spectacle. The scenes
which unite around Grinnell Lake are unsurpassed in the park.
These lakes are glacier lakes. That is, the basin of each was gouged or
eroded by the movement of glacial ice. There are a few exceptions where
the lake is due chiefly to a morainal dam, or a dam that was formed by a
landslide.
The highest peak in the Park is Cleveland Mountain, 10,438 feet above
sea-level. Several others rise more than ten thousand feet, and a great
number more than nine thousand feet. Many of these peaks are connected
with sharp pinnacled ridges, and most of them rise steeply into the sky.
Precipices, nearly vertical, that measure between two thousand and four

thousand feet are common. Thus it will be seen that these two hundred and
fifty lakes have a mountainous setting. Distribute these lakes on terraces
among the peaks and fit in about one hundred glaciers, have the forests
everywhere in the lower altitudes, cut these with clear streams, and we have
the scenic make-up of the Glacier National Park. Considered as a whole, it
is unexcelled mountain architecture.
The Blackfeet Glacier on the Continental Divide is the largest in the
Park. Mount Jackson towers red above it. It has an area of about three
square miles and lies between the altitudes of six thousand and seven
thousand feet. The much-visited Sperry Glacier, which is easily reached
from Lake McDonald, has a little more than one square mile of ice-area.
Grinnell Glacier is about the size of the Sperry.
Altogether there are about one hundred glaciers in the Park. Most of
these have an area of less than one square mile. The majority of them, of
course, are mere remnants of vast glaciers. In many cases their small size is
an advantage to the student. Carrying, as most of these do, the
characteristics of larger glaciers, and being in a small compass and
surrounded with various kinds of glacial work—moraines, lakes, and
smooth rock-surfaces—they place before us, in one scene, the story of the
ice age.
On every hand is evidence of glacier work. The glaciers themselves in
many instances are placed in a manner that explains their mobility. You can
see that they have moved and are moving. You can see the effects of their
moves, and the results of the movements of the stupendous prehistoric
glaciers that have vanished.
The Glacier National Park has an endless variety of small game, and in it
numerous varieties of large animals are fairly abundant. Most important of
all is the grizzly bear. Black bears are common. So, too, are elk; and there is
a scattering of moose, lions, deer, and antelopes. In some localities bighorn
sheep and mountain goats are abundant. Trout abound in many lakes and
streams.
There is a goodly array of suggestive outdoor names, many of which are
of Indian application. Red Eagle Mountain, Pass, and Valley, Rising Wolf
Mountain, Two Medicine Lake, Avalanche Lake, Swift Current River, are a
few of the vigorous, spirited names. Many of the old picturesque and

descriptive Indian names have been discarded, however, for names that are
utterly unfit or meaningless.
There are scores of varieties of flowers. These brighten the woods, stand
along the streams, border the lakes, and crowd close to the glaciers. They
climb above the limits of tree growth. Grinnell Lake has a grand wild-
flower garden on its shores. Among the many kinds are bluebell, queen's-
cup, violet, water-lily, and wild hollyhock.
The summit slopes of these mountains are above the timber-line. All the
lower slopes and spaces in the Park not occupied and glorified by lakes,
streams, and cliffs are crowded with forests, green and grand. Much of the
old glaciation is covered with forest growths. Many moraines are crowned
with spruces, and numerous glacial amphitheaters are now filled with
splendid forests.
The visitor to the summit of Swift Current Pass will find himself
monarch with great scenes to survey. Below, around, and above are lakes,
streams, peaks, waterfalls, snow-fields, glaciers, cañons, and mountains.
These are splendidly grouped and combined; gradually they fade into
mysterious horizons.
St. Mary's Lake—"Good Spirit Woman Lake"—is crescent-shaped, with
miles of spruce-walled shores. It has a length of ten miles in the Glacier
Park and is a queen among queens of mountain lakes. Kingly peaks stand
waiting around the shores. Red Eagle Mountain, Fusillade Mountain, and
Going-to-the-Sun Mountain are a part of the magnificence in which this
lovely lake reposes. Mount Jackson, one of the highest summits in the Park,
is often reflected in its waters.
The mountains of this Park are broken and have towering walls. On the
east they rise abruptly from the peaceful plains. Nowhere in the country can
be found such an array of high and nearly vertical walls. Many of these
mountains and peaks are enlivened with color. Yellow, red, and green are
distributed on a magnificent scale.
The very name "Two-Ocean Pass," in the Yellowstone Park, led me
through the pathless forest for days in search of it. There was a fairyland
novelty in the lure of the name. As soon as I heard of a glacier in the
Glacier National Park whose waters were divided between the Arctic and
the Pacific Oceans, I wanted to see it. A part of the water of a glacier on
Vulture Peak goes to the Pacific through Logging Creek and the Columbia

River. The remainder goes to Hudson Bay through the Little Kootenai
Creek. Some one has wisely proposed the name "Two-Ocean Glacier" for
this ice-field.
Triple Divide Peak is another place that has a peculiarly wild, romantic
appeal. This sharp-pointed peak is 8001 feet above the sea. Close together
in its summit slopes, surrounded by a maze of alpine mountains, three
streams start almost from a common source, each to go on its separate,
scenic way to the ocean.
The Red Eagle travels towards the North Pole through the north country
and empties into that vast ice-formed basin, Hudson Bay. The waters of the
Cut Bank choose the channel of the Missouri in which to travel the long
journey to the inland sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and perhaps from this to flow
north into the Gulf Stream. The Nyack goes to the Pacific through the
crooked international channel of the scenic Columbia River.

HISTORY OF THE GLACIER NATIONAL PARK

George Bird Grinnell was a loyal and helpful friend to the Yellowstone
National Park during its trying years. He also rendered the public the
distinguished service of originating the Glacier National Park idea and
helping to bring about its realization. In 1885, accompanied by James
Willard Schultz, he visited a number of its now famous lakes and glaciers.
On his return he published a series of articles entitled "To the Walled-in
Lakes." A peak, a glacier, and a lake have been named in his honor. Year
after year he returned to this region to enjoy the scenery and to study the
language and customs of the Blackfeet Indian. In 1891, accompanied by
Harry L. Stimpson, he discovered the Blackfoot Glacier, the largest in the
Park, and a little later he wrote an article concerning it. In an article entitled
"The Crown of the Continent" he gave a good account of the region.
James Willard Schultz lived for years with the Blackfeet Indians and
spent a number of years with them in this territory. He says that Hugh
Monroe was the first white man to see the Glacier National Park region.
This was in 1815. Grinnell states that James Doty visited it in 1853. The
same year, apparently, A. W. Tinkham, a government engineer, crossed
through Cut Bank Pass. The American and British boundary-line survey
commissioners visited the region in 1861.

I had a few weeks in the region in the autumn of 1896. For most other
National Parks I have recommended enlargements, feeling that some
adjacent and important scenic territory had been left outside the Park lines.
But with the vast Glacier National Park no additions appear to be needed.
Grinnell says:—
In an old notebook, under date of September 17, 1891, I found not long ago the following remark:
"How would it do to start a movement to buy the St. Mary country, say thirty by thirty miles, from
the Piegan Indians at a fair valuation, and turn it into a national reservation or park?"
This idea, in the course of the next ten years, grew in my mind. It was, I think, the first suggestion,
in words, of the Glacier National Park. About the year 1893 indications of copper were found in the
foothills. It was believed that the country contained mines, and before long strong pressure was
brought to bear on Congress to purchase the land from the Indians and throw it open to settlement.
The mountain region was not used by the Indians. They lived on the plains. In 1895, Secretary of the
Interior Hoke Smith sent out Commissioners W. C. Pollock, George Bird Grinnell, and W. M.
Clements, to treat with the Blackfeet for this territory, and a majority of the commission went into the
mountains and made a hasty inspection of the region. An agreement was made with the Indians, and
was ratified by Congress, and about two years later the territory was thrown open to settlement....
Soon after 1902 I spoke to Senator T. H. Carter about setting aside this recently purchased tract as
a National Park, and found that he was disposed to favor the suggestion. I then took up the matter
with friends in Montana, and induced them to write to Senator Carter about the project. The result
was that a little later he introduced a bill, which passed the Senate once or twice, and at last, in 1910,
passed both houses, and was signed by President Taft, May 12, 1910, and the Glacier National Park
became a fact.

Certainly the most striking fact in the history of this Park is the rapidity
with which it has been developed and opened to travelers. L. W. Hill has
given this region a large share of his time, and in it has spent enormous
sums of money. There is more than commercialism behind his work. It has
been done with happy hands. He has made this a part of his life-work. He
has endeavored to create on artistic lines. What he has done for this Park
has stimulated interest in the other Parks and will greatly help to bring
about their development.

VII
MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK

Weirdness, romance, and mystery dominate the Mesa Verde National
Park. Towering high and dry above the surrounding country, carrying in
places squatty, scattered growths of piñon pines and cedars, it stands
silently up in the sunlight. Combined with these things, the deserted
prehistoric cliff dwellings give to the Mesa a strangeness and peculiar
appeal. These monuments of a departed race tell but little of the story of
their builders. They are the ruins of an ancient civilization that stood its day
and vanished; that—
"Like snow upon the desert's dusty face,
Lighting a little hour or two—is gone."
Who were the cliff dwellers? It is probable that they were Indians. No
one knows where they came from, how long they remained on the Mesa,
nor why they left; how long since they went away, where they went to, nor
what has become of them. Several hundred ruins of the structures they
reared still remain. These are mysterious and thought-compelling, but they
tell little more than is told by the Sphinx.
The Mesa Verde National Park covers seventy-seven square miles in
southwest Colorado, near the corners of four States. It is in the "Land of
Little Rain." The table-like summit of this steep-walled Mesa is eight
thousand feet above the sea, and nearly two thousand feet above the
surrounding country. Looking from the summit, one sees strange "Ship
Rock" far away in New Mexico. This appears to be an enormous ship in full
sail upon the sea. It adds to the unreal and mysterious air of the region.
Numerous cañons are countersunk deeply into this sunny sky plain.
Many of the cañons are corniced with a heavy overhanging stratum of rock.
Beneath this, in cavelike hollows in the cañon walls, the cliff houses are
found. Here ages ago the cliff dwellers lived in large communities and
probably under organized government—the oldest and most fully realized

civic-center scheme in America. Long before their mesa country was
invaded by the men of recorded history, these people of the Southwest
vanished, leaving buildings, tools, clothing, and pottery to tell of their odd
and interesting Indian civilization.
When the name Indian is mentioned, the average individual usually
thinks of a savage. But at the time Columbus discovered America, there
were millions of civilized Indians in the Western world, living under
organized government. It is true that their civilization was different from
ours of to-day, and happily different from the European civilization of that
time.
These early civilized Indians lived chiefly in well-built houses. Many of
them traveled good roads. They possessed a keen sense of right and wrong,
and in ethics they may have averaged higher than the European. Among the
tribes that were civilized were the Mayas, the Aztecs, and the Incas.
The cliff dwellers were an agricultural people, and they cultivated corn,
beans, cotton, and squash. They appear to have grown crops by means of
irrigation. They wove cloth of cotton and of the century-plant fibers.
Probably they domesticated the turkey.
The finger-prints in their adobe mortar indicate that women built the
stone walls. Among the Indian tribes of the Southwest, it was common for
the men to quarry, dress, and carry the stones, while the women built them
into walls. Women, too, appear to have made the pottery. The men probably
were the weavers. The women ground the corn and most likely carried the
water in jars from the springs. Were there more springs in the days of these
people than now? Perhaps. Apparently they had numerous reservoirs.
These people did not possess a written language, and their ways of
recording their thoughts or preserving their experiences were poor. They
made pictographs on stone walls and placed symbols on their pottery and in
their weaving. Much of their pottery is attractive in form and of ornamental
pattern. There are food-bowls, water-jars, cooking-utensils, and numerous
jugs and mugs.
They appreciated the beautiful. Their art, though mostly primitive, was
art. It was generally symbolical. Although many of their pottery decorations
were of geometric design, others represented objects of beauty in which
flowing lines were required. Their basketry showed good taste. Their

architecture was good. Although their buildings followed varied types, a
number of them displayed lines of beauty and constructive skill.
Well-preserved mural paintings on many of the walls of their structures
indicate that they had a good knowledge of dye-stuffs as well as a primitive
skill in picturing. Remains of figures of men, animals, cacti, and rain-clouds
form a kind of frieze visible on three sides of the so-called painted room in
one of these houses. These paintings are believed to indicate that this room
was used for a ceremony akin to the New Fire ceremony of the Hopi.

SPRUCE TREE HOUSE, MESA VERDE
NATIONAL PARK
Although nearly everything which they fashioned showed many elements
of skill and beauty, they did not have many tools. Stone axes and hammers,
scrapers, knives, and awls of bone were the common implements of use.
It may be that at one time the Mesa had a population of many thousands.
It is possible that the Sun Temple was built jointly by the inhabitants of the
Spruce Tree House, the Cliff Palace, and other houses of the region.
But few things which they left enable one to judge of their
characteristics. They appear to have had the typical qualities of human
beings. They had their superstitions, their weaknesses, and their strong
points. But they are gone.
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go."

It is true that we know but little of the people who formerly inhabited
these buildings. Surely we can learn more through study. Thus far there has

been almost no systematic study, and but little careful excavation or attempt
to preserve the various objects found in the ruins. A school of archæology
might well be established in this Park for the purpose of securing
information about the cliff dwellers and giving it to the world.
In his report on his recent excavation and repair of the Sun Temple, Dr.
Jesse Walter Fewkes, of the Smithsonian Institution, says:—
The Mesa Verde is unique in its educational importance. It is destined ultimately to be a Mecca for
all students of the prehistoric of the Southwest and an object lesson to all visitors who wish to see the
best preserved buildings of pre-Columbian times in our country. It is self-evident that the excavation
and repair of all the ruins in this park cannot be accomplished in a few years, even were it desirable
to attempt it; the work means many years of arduous devotion, intelligently directed, and a large sum
of money. It is desirable to open up these precious remains of antiquity carefully, following a definite
plan, availing ourselves of methods acquired by experience. The work should be done with care, and
it will be an additional attraction if visitors can see how the work is done. Work on the group will
reveal important architectural features, and add much to our scientific information.

Prehistoric ruins abound throughout the Southwest. Many show
considerable skill in construction and also suggest that the buildings were
the work of a people who had organized government.
Mrs. Gilbert McClurg, who visited the Mesa Verde ruins years ago,
appears to have been the first to conceive the idea of saving these
prehistoric places for the public—of preserving them in a National Park.
After a campaign of a few years, led chiefly by Mrs. McClurg,
supplemented by the work of organizations and individuals, the Park was
established in 1906.
In what is now this Park, a Spanish exploring party discovered cliff
houses in 1541. At that time the buildings had been abandoned for
generations. No one knows how many centuries or millenniums had then
elapsed since the Mesa was deserted. The age of these cliff houses has been
estimated from five hundred to five thousand years. Modern discovery of
the region appears to have been made by a government geological party in
1874.
A few years later Baron Nordenskjöld, a Swedish explorer, spent many
weeks with these ruins, and later wrote a volume concerning them. He
carried away from them several carloads of pottery and other products.
The first white discoverers were either religious fanatics or people of the
pot-hunter type who were looking for plunder. They were not interested in
the preservation of any of the ruins discovered, nor of any of the equipment

that had no commercial value. For years some of the early settlers and
adventurers made it a business to search for prehistoric buildings in order to
obtain the pottery and other treasures which they sometimes contained.
Often these pot-hunting treasure-seekers utterly wrecked the buildings
which they found. In all probability many objects of interest or information
concerning the Mesa Verde cliff dwellers have been lost.
In the autumn of 1904 I visited the ruins for the purpose of taking
photographs and found a party of three pottery-hunters camped near the
Balcony House. A part of their firewood that evening consisted of precious
beams from this ancient house.
For many years the visitors to the Mesa Verde noticed a huge tree-grown
mound on the rim of the cañon-wall, directly opposite the Cliff Palace. A
few dressed stones, apparently the corner of a wall, thrust above the surface
of this mound. Probably there was a building beneath it. Behind and
enveloping it lay a forest of low-growing and limby piñon pines and cedars.
Over all was the ever-present and brooding mystery of the deserted Mesa
Verde.
In July, 1915, Dr. Fewkes put a crew of men to work excavating the
mound. As a result of their labors, a prehistoric stone building now stands in
the sunshine. It is the shape of the capital letter D. Its straight front, which
faces southward, measures one hundred and thirty-two feet; its semicircular
back, two hundred and forty-five feet.
Plainly, it was built to a preconceived plan. There was no patchwork, no
inharmonious combination. Precisely midway in the south wall was a
recess. In another recess near the southwest corner was a fossil palm leaf.
This strikingly resembles the rays of the sun, and together with a figure of
the sun in the floor, suggests that the building was a Sun Temple. There is
nothing to indicate that it was used or intended to be used as a dwelling-
place.
The masonry is the best thus far found on the Mesa. It was laid with
mortar of tough, enduring clay. The stones of the walls and partitions were
small and were cut, many polished, and a few decorated. The figures on a
number of these decorated stones consist of triangles, and one is the outline
of a typical cliff-house doorway. The outer walls are double. None have
outside openings. Perhaps the entrances to the building were either through

the roof or by means of subterranean passageways from the face of the cliff
just in front and beneath.
In the mound upon the ruins of this building was found a living tree that
was more than three hundred and sixty years old. A long period, perhaps
several hundred years, must have been required for the earthen mound to
accumulate upon the ruins, and then three hundred and sixty years for the
tree to grow. Apparently the Sun Temple must have been abandoned several
hundred years ago, perhaps about the year 1300. It appears never to have
been occupied, and probably was in process of being completed when it
was abandoned.
The so-called Cliff Palace in Cliff Cañon is centrally located in the Mesa
Verde National Park. This was a stone structure more than three hundred
feet long and with more than two hundred rooms. It appears to have been
built in sections or installments, not to any consecutive plan. As a result, in
this one building there are a number of types of architecture. In one section
there is a huge square tower four stories high; in an adjoining section, a
large well-built round tower. This building probably was a home for scores
of people. There were mill rooms in which corn was ground, storerooms,
ceremonial rooms, probably rooms used in religious worship, and other
rooms called "kivas," which appear to have been used much of the time by
the men as lounging-places. Fireplaces were scattered throughout the
building. Many of the walls were of cut stone, and some were plastered and
adorned with paintings. Paint still shows on a number of walls.
This park contains other large stone structures and hundreds of smaller
cliff ruins. Among the buildings, besides the Cliff Palace, are the Spruce
Tree House, the Balcony House, the Tunnel House, and numerous buildings
upon the surface. Near Mummy Lake are a number of large, tree-grown
mounds, similar to the recently excavated one that covered the Sun Temple.
Beneath each of these is a buried stone structure. Here, apparently, is a
buried city.

VIII
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK

Magnificent mountains in the sky, peak after peak along the horizon,—an
inspiring skyline,—such is the setting of the Rocky Mountain National
Park. In this playground is a twenty-five-mile stretch of the most rugged
section of the Continental Divide. Here are fifty peaks with summits more
than two miles high. From one hundred miles distant, out on the plains of
Colorado or Wyoming, these snowy, rugged mountain-tops give one a thrill
as they appear to join with the clouds and form a horizon that seems to be a
part of the scenery of the sky.
Splendidly grouped with these peaks and mountains are cañons,
moorlands, waterfalls, glaciers, lakes, forests, meadows, and wild flowers—
the Rocky Mountains are at their best.

ESTES PARK AND ROCKY MOUNTAIN
NATIONAL PARK
On approaching the Park by the east entrance, through the long-famed
Estes Park region, even the dullest traveler is thrilled with the first glimpse,
and those who frequently behold it find the scene as welcome as a favorite
old song. From the entrance, one looks down on an irregular, undulating,

green mountain meadow, miles in extent. This is Estes Park. Great pines are
scattered over it, singly and in groves; rocky points and cliffs rise
picturesquely in the midst; and the Big Thompson River, sweeping in great
folds from side to side, goes majestically across. High, forest-walled
mountains surround it, and the great jagged snowy range stands splendidly
above.
The Rocky Mountain Park is glorified with transcendent forms of the
beautiful and the sublime. In it bees hum and beavers build; birds give
melody to the forest depth, and butterflies with painted wings circle the
sunny air. Mountain sheep in classic poses watch from the cliffs, eagles soar
in the blue, speckled trout sprinkle the clear streams, and the varied voice of
the coyote echoes when the afterglow falls. From top to bottom the park is
beautified with dainty, exquisite wild flowers of brightest hues; they crowd
the streams, wave on the hills, shine in woodland vistas, and color snow-
edges everywhere.
This Park has an area of about three hundred and sixty square miles. Its
terraced alpine heights are about equally divided between the Atlantic and
the Pacific slopes. It is twenty-five miles long, from twelve to twenty miles
wide, and about one mile high from lowest to highest altitudes.
The greater part of the Park lies above the altitude of nine thousand feet.
Its southeast corner is within forty miles of Denver; the northeast corner
about the same distance from Cheyenne. A number of railroads run close to
it, and the Lincoln Highway is about twenty miles away. The Park is only
thirty hours from Chicago, and its accessibility adds to its invitingness as a
playground.
Side by side in it are two dominating peaks. These are Long's Peak,
14,255 feet high, and Mount Meeker, 14,000 feet above the sea. These great
summits were a landmark for the primitive red man who saw them from the
plains. For generations the plains Indians spoke of them as the "Two
Guides."
Viewed as a whole from a neighboring mountain-top, either on the
eastern or the western side, the Park presents an imposing appearance. My
favorite near-by view-point is the summit of the Twin Sister Peaks.
In commenting on the appearance of the eastern slope Dr. Ferdinand V.
Hayden, the celebrated geologist, wrote as follows:—

Not only has Nature amply supplied this with features of rare beauty and surroundings of
admirable grandeur, but it has thus distributed them that the eye of an artist may rest with perfect
satisfaction on the complete picture represented. It may be said, perhaps, that the more minute details
of the scenery are too decorative in their character, showing, as they do, the irregular picturesque
groups of hills, buttes, products of erosion, and the finely moulded ridges—the effect is pleasing in
the extreme.

Mountain-climbers will find a number of towering view-points. Long's
Peak is the superior one, and the most dominating single feature in the Park.
It is a mountain of striking individuality and peculiar ruggedness, though
not extremely difficult to climb. Standing a little apart from numbers of
other peaks, it is placed so as to command rugged near-by views as well as
wonderful far-reaching vistas that vanish in the light and shadow of
distance. Among the other peaks that climbers would do well to stand upon
are Mount Meeker, Hague's Peak, and Specimen Mountain. Among the
lower peaks that command magnificent scenes, I would name Meadow
Mountain, at the southern end of the Park, as one of the best. Among other
excellent views are those from Flat-Top Mountain, Gem Lake, Echo
Mountain, near Grand Lake, and a number of places along the summit of
Trail Ridge.

LOCH VALE
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK
The topography of the Park is one big glacial story, which in places is of
unusual interest. This fascinating story left by the Ice King is for the most
part well preserved and forms one of the Park's chief attractions. Nowhere

in America are glacial records of such prominence more numerous,
accessible, and easily read.
A few small glaciers remain—one on the eastern slope of Long's Peak,
and Andrews, Sprague's, and Hallet Glaciers in the north half of the eastern
slope. These glaciers are mere remnants, but none the less interesting.
Altogether there are more than one hundred lakes and tarns in the Park.
Most of these are small, but each has its peculiarly attractive setting. With
few exceptions, these lakes repose in basins of solid rock that were
excavated for them by glacial action. In the Park are also many stupendous
moraines.
Each year more than a thousand varieties of wild blossoms give color and
charm to this favored spot. They are to be counted among the four chief
attractions, the other three being Long's Peak, the glaciation, and the
timber-line. Of the brilliantly colored wild flowers many take on large and
vigorous form, while in the alpine moorlands numerous species are dwarfed
and low-growing. A few bright blossoms jewel the summits of the highest
peaks. Flowers grow wherever there is a bit of soil for them to live in.
On the summit of Long's Peak, nearly three miles up, in a number of
places I have seen bright primroses and polemonium, blue mertensia and
lavender-colored phlox. There are ragged wild gardens of alpine flowers
nearly thirteen thousand feet above the sea. More than one hundred
varieties of flowers brighten the ledges of the cliffs, fringe the snow-piles,
and color the moorlands of the heights above the limits of tree growth. The
alpine blooms that live in dry or wind-swept places are dwarfed and
flattened. They keep their beauty close to the earth. Many of these little
flowering people are so greatly dwarfed that the plant with its leaf and
blossom does not rise a quarter of an inch above the earth. Among these are
the phlox, harebell, and the columbine.
The Mariposa lily's, perhaps, is the most classic petal in the Park. Among
its conspicuous neighbors are the fringed gentian, the silver-and-blue
columbine, the elaborate calypso orchid, and the graceful harebell. Among
the other abundant and beautiful blossoms are violets, daisies, asters, black-
eyed Susans, paint-brushes, rock-roses, pasque-flowers, which Helen Hunt
called Maltese kittens, tiger lilies, golden pond-lilies, and anemones. Many
of these flowers are perfectly formed and carry petals of cleanest, deepest
color.

There are many kinds of wild life in the Park. Mountain sheep probably
number several hundreds. Elk are increasing in number; so, too, are deer,
which are already common. There are a number of black bears, possibly a
few remaining grizzlies, and a few foxes, wolves, lions, and coyotes. The
beaver population is numerous, and in many places are extensive beaver
colonies with dams, ponds, and houses.
Among about one hundred and fifty species of birds are found a few
golden eagles. These nest in the heights. The rose-finch and the ptarmigan
live the year round near the snow-line above the limits of tree growth.
Among the common birds most frequently seen are the robin, bluebird,
blackbird, hummingbird, pine siskin, goldfinch, magpie, white-crowned
sparrow, house wren, and Rocky Mountain jay.
During the flower-filled, sun-flooded days of June, while the evening
shadows are crossing the openings, the song of the hermit thrush is often
heard, its beautiful silvery notes mingling strangely with the wild
surroundings. In June, too, the ever-cheerful water-ouzel carols most
intensely by his chosen home along the alpine streams. Likewise in this
month the marvelous solitaire sings among the crags far up the slopes, close
to where the forest ends and the alpine moorlands begin.
Here are primeval forests, torn by cañons and pierced by crags and rock
ridges. Among the more common trees are the lodge-pole pine and the
Engelmann spruce. Other species are the alpine fir, Douglas spruce, limber
pine, and Western yellow pine. The aspen is found in groves, groups, and
scattered growths in the moister places all over the woodland.
The timber-line in the Park is one of the most picturesque and interesting
in the world. It is strangely appealing and thought-compelling. This is the
forest-frontier. Its average altitude is about eleven thousand five hundred
feet above the sea. Timber-line in the Alps is only about sixty-five hundred
feet. Thus it will be seen that the climate of this Rocky Mountain section is
far more friendly to wood growth than that of the Alps.
The trees persistently try to climb upward, and their struggle for
existence becomes deadly. The wind blows off their arms, and cuts them
with flying sand. The cold dwarfs them, and for nine months in the year the
snow tries to twist and crush the life out of them. Many have limbs and bark
on one side only; others are completely stripped of bark. They seldom grow
over eight feet high, and numbers grow along the ground like vines. In the

drier places at timber-line the limber pine has sole possession, while in the
moister places the Engelmann spruce predominates, and is sometimes
accompanied by dwarfed aspen, birch, subalpine fir, and willow. Above the
timber-line are crags, snow-piles, and alpine-flower meadows.
Traveling along the eastern slope of the Park, one encounters a number of
prominent attractions.
In the south, Wild Basin, a splendidly glaciated realm of several square
miles, almost completely surrounded with high peaks, contains lakes,
forests, moraines, and gorges. It retains many wild glacial records of
peculiar interest. North of it is the Long's Peak group, consisting of Long's
Peak, Mount Meeker, Mount Lady Washington, Chasm Lake and Gorge,
and Mills Moraine. This moraine is one of the most interesting in the park.
Chasm Lake, at the foot of the precipitous eastern slope of Long's Peak, has
the wildest setting of all the many Park lakes.
To the east of Long's Peak lies Tahosa Valley, and just beyond this rise
the Twin Sister Peaks. Between Long's Peak and the Range is Glacier
Gorge, a deep glaciated cañon. At the end of this, in the Continental Divide,
is the Loch Vale region. Here the terraced floor is varied with tarns,
waterfalls, flowery meadows, grassy spaces, and storm-battered trees.
Around it and rising above it are stupendous cliffs and precipices of
glaciated rock. Above it to the west is Andrews Glacier. Eastward from it
lies the Bierstadt Moraine, named after Albert Bierstadt, whose pictures
gave fame to the region. A trail crosses the Continental Divide from Flat-
Top Mountain, which is approximately in the center of the Park.
To the north of Flat-Top Mountain lie Fern and Odessa Lakes. They are
the best-known and most popular lakes in the Park, but there are a number
of others of somewhat similar character and with equally scenic
surroundings. Beyond these is Sprague's Glacier; also Forest Cañon, above
which extends the scene-commanding Trail Ridge. Again beyond, the Fall
River automobile road crosses the Continental Divide.
In the northeast corner of the Park lies the Mummy Range, the highest
peak being Hague's. On its northern slope is Hallet Glacier. A bill now
(1917) before Congress provides that Deer Mountain, Gem Lake, and the
Twin Sister Peaks be added to the Park.[1]
[1] This bill passed after the above was in type. See map of the Park.

FERN LAKE
ROCKY MOUNTAIN
NATIONAL PARK
On the western slope, at the south end, is a combination of lovely and
magnificent scenes. The great feature on the west side is Grand Lake, the
largest lake in Colorado. It is the source of the Grand River, and furnishes a
part of the water that roars through the Grand Cañon of the Colorado in
Arizona. The North Inlet and the East Inlet are scenic gorges through which
streams rush from the heights down into Grand Lake. The East Inlet region,
between Shoshone Peak and Grand Lake, has a remarkable glacial story of
its own.
In the northwest corner of the Park stands Specimen Mountain, an
excellent view-point. This is probably a sleeping volcano. It is the most
famous mountain-sheep range in the Park. Its grassy slopes and summit
contain spaces of salty ooze that attracts them. Many times I have seen a
flock of one hundred or more in the crater.

IX
THE GRAND CAÑON

John Muir strongly urged that a National Park be made of the Grand
Cañon of the Colorado. In commenting on this Titan of cañons, he said:—
No matter how far you have wandered hitherto, or how many famous valleys and gorges you have
seen, this one, the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, will seem as novel to you, as unearthly in the color
and grandeur and quantity of its architecture, as if you had found it after death, on some other star; so
incomparably lovely and grand and supreme is it above all the other cañons.

It is hoped that Congress will early create a Grand Cañon National Park.
The territory most seriously considered embraces a hundred-mile stretch of
the cañon with a narrow bit of each rim. This would extend about fifty
miles up and an equal distance down the river from Grand Cañon Station. It
would thus include only about half the length of the Grand Cañon, and no
part of any other cañon. I should like to see it extended another hundred
miles up the river. It would then embrace not less than two hundred miles of
the river, and would include Marble Cañon and a part of Glen Cañon. But,
whatever its length, it should include a broad forest border all the way, on
both rims of the cañon.
To enable the public to see this titanic gorge in the most comfortable
manner and from the best points of view, it is necessary to have more public
roads and trails. There is great need that this unmatched wonder have
National Park protection and development. At present the main trail to the
bottom of the cañon is a private toll trail!
Visitors to almost any great scene are wont to compare it with some other
scene; it reminds them of this place or that place. But when one first views
Crater Lake, or while one is in the presence of the Big Trees for the first
time, memory is suspended; and when one first beholds the Grand Cañon, it
does not remind him of this or that—it completely possesses the observer,
sweeps other scenes and places out of mind. Presently comes desire for a
thousandfold capacity of feeling and comprehension. The thing is too vast
and splendid for ordinary faculties.

By permission of the National Park
Service, Department of the Interior
LOOKING WEST FROM NORTH SIDE
OF GRAND CAÑON
Point Sublime to right in distance. Isis
Temple on left.
I have boated in many of the cañons of the Colorado and have camped
and tramped along their rims. Often I have looked down into them when
they were filled with mists; when broken clouds hung over them; when
sunshine or moonlight illumined their depths, from which I have looked
forth under like conditions. But to me, whether in summer or when snow
piles the rim, the Grand Cañon never loses its intense impressiveness.
The Walhalla Plateau is an extraordinary cañon view-point and is likely
to become one of the most famous places on the earth. This narrow plateau
thrusts ten miles out into the vast, deep, airy Grand Cañon. It extends from
the north rim, between Bright Angel Cañon and the inside bend of the main
cañon opposite the Cañon of the Little Colorado. A most commanding
peninsula it is, with wide and enormous depths sweeping almost entirely
around it. Other commanding view-points on the north rim are Point
Sublime and Bright Angel Point. Three excellent view-points on the south

rim are Grand View, Hopi Point, and the El Tovar. Grand View is a few
miles up the river from the El Tovar Hotel, and opposite Cape Royal of the
Walhalla Plateau.
The Colorado River in Arizona flows through a series of twenty vast
cañons that have a length of about one thousand miles. Most of them are
end to end with only a mere break between. Of these, the Grand Cañon is
the cañon of cañons. Counting downstream, it is the eighteenth of the
series; counting upstream, the third. The cañon is from seven to fifteen
miles wide, and from four thousand to six thousand feet deep. It is an
enormous gulf two hundred miles long, in solid rock. Less than one
thousand feet across at the bottom, and eight to ten miles across at the top, it
may be called a rough V-shaped gorge; or, together with its tributary
cañons, it might be called an inverted hollow mountain-range. This range, if
turned out upon the plateau, would measure in places more than two
hundred miles in length and nearly forty miles in width, with summits rising
nearly seven thousand feet; and it would be diversified with ridges, gorges,
plateaus, spurs, and peaks.
The Grand Cañon of the Colorado is a masterpiece of erosion—a
wonderful story carved in rock. It was excavated and washed out by the
river. It is not an ordinary mountain cañon, for it lies in a comparatively
level plain or plateau. During the ages, the débris-laden water sliding over
its inclined bed of solid rock dug, sawed, and cut the cañon to the bottom.
The river not only carried away all the material worn from the bottom, but
the thousandfold more that tumbled into it from the ever-caving walls.
Here is color in magnificent array. Most of the strata are perfectly
horizontal and of great thickness, and each has an individual color. Many of
the walls are brown or red, and there are strata of gray, yellow, grayish
brown, and grayish green. All these are massed and arranged in vast and
broken color pictures and landscapes, some of which are a mile high and
several miles in length.
The top, or rim, of the cañon is in an extensive arid region. Water is
extremely scarce; in a number of places not a drop is available within miles.
If a boatman is wrecked in the cañon, he has little opportunity of escaping.
If he should manage to climb out on the desolate, almost uninhabited
plateau, he would be likely to perish for lack of water.

The cañon has a climate of its own. In the bottom, the temperature
frequently shows a range of one hundred degrees inside of twenty-four
hours. Its great depth and peculiar wall exposure give it a climatic variety.
The walls that face the north are much cooler than those facing the south.
The temperature at the top differs from that at the bottom, and midway on
the walls is a temperature distinct from either of the others. On the rim at El
Tovar it may be a winter day; you descend to the river and there find a mild
climate, with birds singing and flowers in bloom. The six thousand feet of
descent to the river gives a climatic change that approximates a southern
journey of two thousand miles. This plateau is forested and on the northern
rim of the cañon the tree-growth is heavy.
Flowers bloom in the cañon every month in the year. In the niches and on
the terraces are the columbine, lupine, stonecrop, kinnikinnick, dandelion,
thistle, and paintbrush. Sagebrush and greasewood occur in many places.
The Douglas spruce is found upon the southern wall, the cottonwood and
willow in the bottom. Beavers, a few deer, many rabbits, wildcats, and
wolves are found in a few places in the bottom of the cañon, and sheep and
lions upon the terraces. But the larger part of the unbroken and terraced
walls is barren and lifeless.
Among the birds that gladden this gorge are the mockingbird, piñon jay,
robin, quail, hummingbird, kingfisher, swallow, and owl. Here, too, you
will hear that melodious and hopeful singer the cañon wren. Over this vast
gulf butterflies with daintily colored wings float in lovely laziness.
In a number of the cañons, ruined cliff houses are numerous, and a few of
these are found far north in Glen Cañon. The walls, in places, are marked
with picture writing. This probably was the work of the cliff dwellers or of
the Indians.
Much of the cañon region may well be called the "No Man's Land" of the
continent. In it are a numerous and assorted lot of men with unknown
histories. Mingling with these are Indians, miners, health-seekers, and
strange and interesting characters, among whom are aged trappers and
prospectors and real cowboys who have survived the days of adventures.
Water is the great sculptor of the face of nature. The gentle raindrop
grapples with mountains of solid rock, and with never-ending persistence
drags them piecemeal into the sea. Here the material is redeposited in
sedimentary strata, and this may emerge into the light in the ages yet to be.

A narrow ditch in the earth will widen by the caving-in of its sides. If the
ditch be deepened, the caved-in matter being removed, it will continue to
widen. And so it is with this cañon; the weathering or the caving-in of these
walls goes ever on. The sharpness of the walls, and many of their striking
features, are due to the peculiar climatic conditions that exist in this region
—the short rainy seasons and long dry periods. Had there been a more even
and abundant precipitation, it is probable that more vegetation would have
been produced, which would have had a marked influence upon the walls,
giving them a more rounded and less interesting form.
The cañon broadens with the years. Cut narrow by the river, it has
gradually widened by the caving-in of the walls. If it had remained as the
river cut it, it would now be as narrow at the top as it is in the bottom—a
cañon about a mile deep, only a few hundred feet wide, and with
perpendicular walls. As it is, the walls rise through a series of shattered
inclines, precipitous slopes and terraces, with here and there a vertical
section.
Well may the Cañon of the Colorado be called the greatest inanimate
wonder in the world. Written in the exposed and remaining rock-strata
through which the river has cut its way is a wonderful story of the past, a
marvelous and splendid romance. At an enormously remote time the Grand
Cañon plateau rose from the primeval sea. After long exposure and great
weathering it sank back, remained submerged for ages, and thousands of
feet of strata were deposited upon it. Again it emerged, was exposed "a
million years and a day," during which æon thousands of feet of strata were
eroded away. Again it went down into the sea, and upon it were piled
thousands of feet of additional strata. A fourth time it rose slowly above the
water. As this plateau was rising, its surface was acted upon by the
elements. The part of the plateau surrounding the Grand Cañon proper was
the scene of repeated volcanic action and earthquake disturbance. Here the
strata have been subjected to repeated faultings, heavings, tiltings, and lava-
flows. This uplift imprisoned an enormous Eocene lake that occupied much
of what is now the Colorado River basin. This lake the river drained. The
drainage was quite probably caused by the fact that the eastern part of the
territory was uplifted higher than the western. The drainage-system of the
Colorado River, as we now know it, began at that time to take on form and
its waters started to cut the cañon. This crude outline covers cycling ages,
and probably represents millions of years.

Through several thousand years the plateau slowly rose, and all this time
the river was gradually cutting its way down into it. Finally the plateau
ceased to rise and long remained at a standstill. After cutting down to its
first base level, the river had so little fall that its waters, overladen with
débris, ceased deepening the channel. The widening of the cañon went
steadily on. Again the plateau slowly rose, perhaps two thousand feet. This
uplift increased the fall of the river and again set it to deepening its channel,
a work it is still doing.
The waters of the Colorado River are heavily laden with sediment.
During the ages it has transported an inconceivable bulk of eroded material
to the ocean. Much of this has come from its three hundred thousand square
miles of mountainous drainage basin and all the material which formerly
occupied the vast spaces of its numerous cañons. Continual caving of the
walls compels the river to spend most of its time and energy in breaking up
this débris and carrying it forward to the sea. This condition has existed for
thousands of years.
It should be borne in mind that the transporting capacity of running water
varies as the sixth power of its velocity. Therefore when a stream doubles
its velocity it is competent to move particles sixty-four times greater than
before. If its rate of flow is trebled, its transporting power is increased seven
hundred and twenty-nine times. This goes to explain the frightful havoc of
streams at times of flood.
The tributary streams of the Colorado come from arid regions and from
the deserts, and are subject to sudden violent cloud-bursts and enormous
floods. Though these are of short duration, they are of tremendous force.
Earthy matter, rocky débris, and ofttimes hundreds of trees are swept along
by the waters that rush in from side cañons like an awful avalanche. Lodged
driftwood over one hundred feet above normal river-level tells of the
magnitude of these wild floods.
Where a stream has all the load of any given degree of fineness that it is
capable of carrying, the entire energy of the descending water is consumed
by the transportation of the water and its burden, so that none is applied to
erosion. If it has an excess of load, its velocity is thereby lessened and its
power to transport is diminished; consequently a part of its load is dropped.
If it has less than a full load, it is in a condition to receive more, which it
eagerly does. Thereby its bed is swept clean, and then only does erosion

become possible. Thus it is seen that the work of transportation may at
times monopolize the entire energy of a stream to the exclusion of erosion;
or the two works may be carried forward at the same time.
The rapidity of erosion depends upon the hardness, size, and number of
the fragments in the flowing water, upon the durability of the stream-bed,
and upon the velocity of the current, the element of velocity being of double
importance, since it determines not only the size but the speed of the
particle with which it works. Transportation is favored by an increased
water-supply as much as by increased declivity, because when a stream
increases in volume the increase in its velocity outruns the increase in
volume, and its transporting power is correspondingly augmented. It is due
to this that a stream which is subject to floods—periodical or otherwise—
has a much greater transporting power than it could possess were its total
water-supply evenly distributed throughout the year.
During one period of volcanic activity the focus of lava-flows into the
cañon was at Lava Falls. A number of lava-streams burst directly into the
cañon through the walls, while several flows poured their fiery floods over
the brink. What a wild and spectacular condition existed while the river,
deep in the cañon, received these tributaries of liquid fire! When the flow
ceased, the cañon for sixty miles was filled with lava to the depth of about
five hundred feet. The lava cooled, and in time was eroded away. The
records of this spectacular story are still easily read.
Through these thousand miles of cañon, more than one fifth of which is
the Grand Cañon, the river has a fall of about five thousand feet, unevenly
divided. There are long stretches of quiet water, but in the Lodore, Cataract,
Marble, and Grand Cañons are numerous and turbulent currents flowing
amid masses of wild, rocky débris. There are about five hundred bad rapids
and many others of lesser power. Most of these rapids are caused by rock-
jams—dams formed by masses of rocky débris that have fallen from the
walls above or have been swept into the main cañon by tributary streams. A
few rapids are caused by ribs of hard, resistant rock that have not been worn
down to the level of the softer rock.
The cañon was discovered by Spaniards in 1540. A government
expedition visited it in 1859. The report of this expedition, printed in 1861,
is accompanied with a picture of an ideal cañon. It is shown as narrow, with

appallingly high vertical walls. Lieutenant Ives, who was in charge, thus
closes his account:—
Ours has been the first and will doubtless be the last party of Whites to visit this profitless location.
It seems intended by Nature that the Colorado River, along the greater portion of its lonely and
majestic way, shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed.

Ten years later Major John W. Powell explored the series of cañons from
end to end. Hundreds of expeditions that have attempted to go through them
have failed. Of the half-dozen that succeeded, one was organized and
conducted by Julius F. Stone, a manufacturer of Columbus, Ohio.
"Why," I asked Mr. Stone, "did you take the hazard and endure the acute
hardship of this expedition?" His reply was:—
To photograph consecutively the entire cañon system of the Green and Colorado Rivers, which, so
far as the upper cañons are concerned, had not yet been done. We also wished to determine the
accuracy of some statements heretofore made which seemed reasonably open to question.

Mr. Stone went all the way through the cañon, took hundreds of
photographs, and made numerous measurements. He made a thorough study
of this cañon, added greatly to our knowledge of it, and corrected a number
of misconceptions concerning it.
But [continued Mr. Stone] it was also to get away from work! For the fun of the thing! Year after
year the voice of many waters had said: "Come join us in our joyous, boisterous journey to the sea,
and you shall know the ecstasy of wrestling with Nature naked-handed and in the open, as befits the
measure of a man." It takes on many forms and numberless variations, this thing called play. Its
appealing voices come from far and near, in waking and in dreams; from quiet, peaceful places they
allure with the assurance of longed-for rest; from the deeps of unfrequented regions they whisper of
eager day- and night-time hours brimming with the fullness of heart's desire, while bugle-throated,
their challenge sounds forever from every unsealed height.
I presume it is quite true that the chance of disaster (provided we consider death as being such)
followed us like the eyes of the forest that note every move of the intruder but never reveal
themselves. But somehow or other the snarling threat of the rapids did not creep into the little red hut
where fear lives, and so burden our task with irresolution or the handicap of indecision; therefore,
whatever dangers may have danced invisible attendance on our daily toil, they rarely revealed
themselves in the form of accident, and never in the shape of difficulties too great to be overcome,
though sometimes the margin was rather small.
Looking back now at the chance of our having been caught, a shade of hesitation flits over the
abiding desire to see it all again, but the free, buoyant life of the open, unvexed by the sedate and
superfluous trifles of conventionality, the spirit of fair companionship vouchsafed by the wilderness,
and the river that seemed to take us by the hand and lead us down its gorgeous aisles where grandeur,
glory, and desolation are all merged into one—these still are as a voice and a vision that hold the
imagination with singular enchantment.

Any one interested in the geology of the Grand Cañon will find much in
the books of Powell and Dellenbaugh, but best of all are the recent reports
of the Geological Survey. For glimpses of the interesting characters who
frequent this region, and for a sober account of an array of Grand Cañon
adventures, nothing equals the narrative in "Through the Grand Cañon from
Wyoming to Mexico," by Ellsworth L. Kolb.
Professor John C. Van Dyke, author of "The Desert," has most ably
summed up the Grand Cañon in three monumental sentences: "More
mysterious in its depth than the Himalayas in their height.... The Grand
Cañon remains not the eighth but the first wonder of the world. There is
nothing like it."
The land of form, the realm of music and of song—running, pouring,
rushing, rhythmic waters; but preëminently a land of color: flowing red,
yellow, orange, crimson and purplish, green and blue. Miles of black and
white. This riot and regularity and vast distribution of color in continual
change—it glows and is subdued with the shift of shadows, with the view-
point of the sun.

X
LASSEN VOLCANIC NATIONAL PARK

An active volcano is the imposing exhibit in the Lassen Volcanic
National Park. The fiery Lassen Peak rises in the midst of telling volcanic
records that have been made and changed through many thousand years.
This Park is in northern California. It is about one hundred and fifty
miles south of the Crater Lake National Park. The territory embraces the
southern end of the Cascade Mountains, the northern end of the Sierra, and
through it is the cross-connection between the Sierra and the Coast Range.
The area is about one hundred and twenty-five square miles. The major
portion of the Park lies at an altitude of between six thousand and eight
thousand feet, the lowest part being about four thousand feet, while the
highest point, the summit of Lassen Peak, is 10,437 feet above the level of
the sea. The Park is reached by automobile roads. It is easily accessible
from the Southern Pacific Railroad in the upper Sacramento Valley, and
from the Western Pacific Railroad on the Feather River.
The scientific and scenic merits of this territory were of such uncommon
order that in 1907 they were reserved in the Mount Lassen and Cinder Cone
National Monuments. Both these reservations are now merged into the
Lassen Volcanic National Park.
Lassen Peak is one of the great volcanoes of the Pacific Coast. Most of
the material in it, and that of the surrounding territory, appears to be of
volcanic origin. It is in the margin of one of the largest lava-fields in the
world. The lava in this vast field extends northward through western
Oregon and Washington and far eastward, including southern Idaho and the
Yellowstone National Park. It has an area of about two hundred and fifty
thousand square miles, over parts of which the lava is of great depth.
Lassen is the southernmost fire mountain of that numerous group of
volcanoes that have so greatly changed the surface of the Northwest.
Among its conspicuous volcanic companions are Crater Lake, formerly

Mount Mazama, Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens, Mount Baker, and Mount
Rainier. Until Lassen Peak burst forth in 1914 it had slumbered for
centuries, and was commonly considered extinct. It has probably been
intermittently active for ages. Many geologists think that this activity has
extended through not less than two million years. Just how long it may
show its red tongue and its black clouds of breath is uncertain; and just how
violent and how voluminous its eruptions may become are matters of
conjecture.
All about Lassen Peak are striking exhibits of vulcanism—fields of lava,
quantities of obsidian or natural glass, sulphur springs, hot springs, volcanic
sand and volcanic bombs, and recent volcanic topography, including Snag
Lake.

Copyright, 1914, by B. F. Loomis
LASSEN PEAK IN ERUPTION
Two of the imposing cañons here are Los Molinos and Warner Cañon.
These and other changes in the sides of Lassen Peak illustrate the old, ever-
interesting, and eternal story of erosion. Both these cañons are wild places
which have cut and eroded deeply into the ancient lavas of Mount Lassen.
Frost and water have reshaped the work of fire. The mountain's sides show
that it withstood the latest visits of the Ice King. What appear to be the
distinct records of glacial erosion mark many spaces of its slopes.
The eruption of May 19, 1915, produced many changes. A volume of
super-heated gases burst out beneath the deeply snow-covered northeast
slope. The snow was instantly changed into water and steam. The mighty
downrush and onrush of water wrecked the channel of Lost Creek for
several miles. Meadows were piled with boulders, rock fragments, and finer
débris. Trees were uprooted or broken off, carried downward, and left in
piles of fierce confusion.
The hot gases played havoc with the forests. A stretch from a quarter of a
mile to nearly a mile wide and about ten miles long was killed by the heat
of the sweeping hurricane. Thousands of trees were instantly killed and
their green changed to brown. Others were charred. Forest fires were started
in a number of places.
The spectacular ruins which this left behind—the trees, wreckage, slides,
the changes made by ashes—may now be viewed with ease and safety. It is

probable that for years to come this volcanic wreckage will be seen by
thousands of visitors annually.
Fiery Lassen Peak is snow-crowned. One may ride to its summit on
horseback. From the top one has magnificent views of the mountains to the
north, the distant Coast Range, and the mountains eastward by the Great
Basin. On the whole, the surrounding mountain distances are hardly
excelled for grandeur in the entire country.
Cinder Cone is about ten miles to the northeast of Lassen Peak. It has an
altitude of only 6907 feet. It appears to have been built up chiefly during the
last two hundred years and for the most part by two eruptions. One of these
occurred nearly two hundred years ago. It originated Stump Lake and
ejected and spread materials over considerable territory. The more recent
eruption appears to have taken place less than a century ago. In the summer
of 1890 I found in the crater a lodge-pole pine that was about eighty years
of age.
Cinder Cone is a strikingly symmetrical small crater formed of cinders
and other volcanic products. It stands in a lava-field that has an area of
about three square miles. Its base measures about two thousand feet in
diameter, its truncated cone seven hundred and fifty feet, and it is about six
hundred and fifty feet high. Its well-preserved crater is two hundred and
forty feet deep and is nicely funnel-shaped.
The Indians of the region had a popular tradition of the intense activity of
this cone about three centuries ago. This tradition was that for a long time
the sky was black with ashes and smoke. Thousands of acres of forest were
buried or smothered. The world appeared to be coming to an end. But
finally the sun appeared, red as blood. The sky cleared, and volcanic
activity ceased.
A number of the hot springs are agitated almost enough to be called
geysers. Cold and mineral springs abound. There are a number of lively
streams and plunging waterfalls.
The lake-area is twenty-three hundred acres. The largest of the lakes is
Lake Bidwell. Cinder Cone stands between two lakes which appear to have
been formerly one. The eruption of this cone probably extended a lava-flow
across the lake, dividing it into two parts. An outpouring of volcanic
material apparently made a dam, which formed a reservoir, now occupied
by Stump Lake. This filled with water and drowned a forest growth.

Through the surface of this lake still thrust numerous tree-trunks of the
drowned forest. The outburst of Cinder Cone that formed this lake and
overwhelmed the forest probably took place nearly two hundred years ago.
Other lakes are Juniper, Tilman, and Manzanita Lakes.
The greater portion of the Park is forested. Among the more common
species of trees are Jeffrey pine, red fir, mountain hemlock, lodge-pole pine,
white fir, and incense cedar. In places among the forests are beautiful
mountain meadows.
There are scores of varieties of wild flowers. Most of these grow under
favorable conditions; have warmth, moisture, and rich soil; and they show
bright, clean blossoms. The district has its full share of bird and animal life.
In a number of streams fish are plentiful.
The Lassen Volcanic National Park was created chiefly through the
efforts of Congressmen John E. Raker and William Kent.
The varied objects of interest in this Park, especially those associated
with topography and geology, make it not only a place with curious
features, but a region affording unusual opportunities for the gathering of
fundamental facts concerning our resources. Here also are scenes to inspire
the souls of such as can be moved by the beauty and grandeur of Nature and
by the awful manifestations of her power.
Says J. S. Diller, of the United States Geological Survey, "With its
comfortably active volcano, inviting cinder cones and lava fields,
vigorously boiling hot springs, mud lakes and 'mush pots' for the
vulcanologist to study, and the glaciated divides and cañons for the
physiographer, in a setting of lovely scenery and attractive camps, for the
tourists all easily accessible, the Lassen Peak region affords one of the most
alluring and instructive spots for a National Park."

XI
HAWAII NATIONAL PARK

A volcanic exhibit unrivaled in the world is embraced in the Hawaii
National Park, which was created in 1916. This Park consists of two
volcanic sections in the Hawaiian Islands, with a total area of one hundred
and seventeen square miles. Within this territory are two active volcanoes,
Kilauea and Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii; and one sleeping volcano,
Haleakala on the island of Maui.
The celebrated and unequaled Hawaiian volcanoes are a national scenic
asset, unique of their kind and famous in the world of science. Apparently,
the ocean has been filled in and the entire group of Hawaiian Islands built
by the lava-outpourings of volcanoes. In this National Park we may see
volcanic topography in the course of construction; some landscapes just
cast in the process of cooling; others that are beginning to show the erosion
of the elements; also those which vegetation is just possessing.
The Hawaii National Park has about the same latitude as the City of
Mexico. There are about a dozen islands in the group, with a total area of
seventy-five hundred square miles. Honolulu, the capital city, is on the
island of Oahu, near the middle of the island chain, which extends from
northwest to southeast. From San Francisco it is about twenty-one hundred
miles to Honolulu.
Kilauea is more than two hundred miles southeast of Honolulu, and thirty
miles inland from the port of Hilo. Twenty miles to the west from Kilauea is
Mauna Loa. The crater of Haleakala is on a different island from Kilauea
and Mauna Loa, about midway between these and Honolulu.
The active rim of Kilauea is four thousand feet above the sea. The slopes
of this volcano have an exceedingly flat grade. It is the most continuously
active of the three volcanoes in this Park. It has a pit in which the molten
lava rises and falls and is boiling all the time. For a century Kilauea has
been almost continuously active with a lake or lakes of molten lava. The

crater of Kilauea is not a steep mountain-top, but a broad, forested plateau,
beneath which is a lava sink three miles in diameter, surrounded by cliffs
three hundred feet high. Several times during the last century the active
crater was upheaved into a hill. In a little while it collapsed into a deep pit
with marvelously spectacular avalanches, fiery grottos, and clouds of steam
and brown dust. Through many years the crater was overflowing.
Frequently large pieces of the shore fall into the molten lake, forming
islands.
The magnificent spectacle of the lake of lava at Kilauea is indescribable.
Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University, visited the
crater and pronounced it the most wonderful scene he had ever watched. It
is a lake of liquid fire one thousand feet across, splashing on its banks with
a noise like the waves of the sea. Great high fountains boil up through it,
sending quantities of glowing spray over the shore. There are fiery, molten
cascades, whirlpools, and rapids, with hissing of gases, rumbling, and blue
flames playing through the crevices. It is ever changing, and the record of
these changes is being kept from day to day, photographically and
otherwise, by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
Mauna Loa is an active crater, 13,675 feet above sea-level. It is an
enormous mountain mass, covering a wide area with its very gentle slopes.
This volcano erupts about once every decade. Of the three volcanoes in the
Park, Mauna Loa is the most productive of new rock, which it pours out on
the surface of the land. Its activities start with outbursts on the summit and
culminate after a number of years in a flow which floods the whole country
for many months.
Perpetual snow crowns Mauna Loa, and ice may be found in cracks even
in summer. In the winter-time there is a variety of climate from sea-level to
the summit—from the warmth of the tropics to arctic blizzards on the
mountain-top.
An interesting and somewhat amusing story is told in regard to an
eruption of Mauna Loa in 1881. The flow of lava at that time was so heavy
that it seriously threatened to wipe out the town of Hilo. When the lava ran
down to within a mile of the place, the natives urged their Princess Ruth to
go and conjure the goddess of the volcano, Pele, to stop the flow. She went
—so the tales goes—with all her retinue, and threw into the crater some
berries, a black hen, a white pig, and a bottle of gin, as sacrifices. The lava-

flow stopped, and the natives believed their escape due to the odd offering,
although some people have expressed the opinion that such a collection of
stuff thrown into an active volcano's crater would make the eruption more
violent, if it had any effect at all.
Mauna Loa forces columns of liquid lava hundreds of feet into the air,
and every few years pours forth billions of tons of lava in a few days. There
is a wonderful rift-line, from which eight or ten flows poured forth during
the last century. These burst out on the slopes of the mountain, not from the
summit crater. After the first explosion at the summit, a period of quiet
intervenes, and then the rifts open and lava flows down.
The lava cools quickly and changes through colors of red, purple, brown,
and gray as it cools. Areas of each of these are seen at one time, with red-
hot liquids showing in the cracks of the lava. Trees of lava are formed at
one place by the flow of lava rushing through a forest and congealing
around the trunks. Fields of "Pele's hair"—lava—are blown out by the
wind, like spun glass, as the fiery spray is dashed into the air on the surface
of the molten lake. In the large craters are numerous smaller ones with
endless lava forms, colors, and volcanic structures.
The crater of Haleakala, ten thousand feet high, is near the middle of the
island of Maui. It is eight miles in diameter and three thousand feet deep.
While Haleakala has not erupted for two hundred years, the entire crater is
sometimes full of active fire fountains, and the fiery glow mounts to the
clouds like an immense conflagration.
Professor Thomas A. Jaggar says, "The crater of Haleakala at sunrise is
the grandest volcanic spectacle on earth."
No photograph can give any adequate idea of the view from its summit,
often above the clouds. It is a good place from which to see the sun come
up through the clouds in the crater. This event has been described as being
like the birth of a new world. From here one can look down on the island
and on the sea, and see the neighboring island of Oahu.
Sidney Ballou says: "A number of people who have been to the top of
Haleakala pronounce the sensation there, although somewhat indefinable
and indescribable, as the chief scenic attraction of the world. Men like John
Muir, who have been all over the world, go up there and say that it is the
greatest spectacle in the world."

In addition to the variety of volcanic displays and lava landscapes, the
Hawaiian Park contains splendid tropical groves and forests of sandalwood
and magnificent Hawaiian mahogany trees with trunks over twenty feet in
circumference. There are forests of tree ferns up to forty feet in height, with
single leaves twenty feet long; tropical jungles with scores of varieties of
the most exquisite and delicate ferns and mosses, many of them found
nowhere else in the world. There are numerous song-birds of brilliant hues,
many of them found nowhere but in Hawaii, and nearly extinct except in
this Park. There are rolling grassy meadows, dotted with tropical trees,
shrubs, and ferns, giving a parklike effect. Many of the trees are botanical
treasures, known only in this Park region, and of great rarity.
The views from the slopes and summits of the volcanic peaks are a
mingling of wild magnificence and tropical splendor. The craters
themselves are weird spectacles that awe visitors into silence as they watch
the wonderful action of the liquid fire fountains, boiling lakes, flaming lava,
and other demonstrations of the Fire King.
L. A. Thurston, of Honolulu, appears to have first proposed this Park, and
he did much toward its acquisition.

XII
THREE NATIONAL MONUMENTS

1. THE OLYMPIC NATIONAL MONUMENT

The territory embraced in the Olympic National Monument is now
proposed for use as a National Park. It occupies the extreme northwest
corner of the United States, a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and
Puget Sound. It is dominated by the precipitous and heavily snow-capped
Olympic Mountains. These snowy summits attracted the attention of the
explorer Vancouver, who named the mountains the Olympics. Their lower
slopes are heavily forested with gigantic trees, and beneath these there is an
undergrowth of almost bewildering luxuriance. This undergrowth is a
jungle in itself. Many of the trees are heavily and picturesquely roped and
bearded with moss. The openness which characterizes the Sierra or Rocky
Mountain forests is absent. Gigantic tree-trunks lie scattered over the forest
floor. Many of these fell centuries ago and are water-soaked, half-rotten,
and covered with moss a foot thick. Here and there a living tree, a century
or more of age, is standing upon a fallen one. Others are lost in the tangle of
vines, huge ferns, and vigorous wild flowers that crowd the floor of the
woods. Even at midday the forest reposes in twilight.
The region is extremely difficult to penetrate and explore. The streams,
even during the period of low water, are almost too swift for boats, and the
tangled jungle-growth, produced by abundant moisture and a mild climate,
compels the explorer to chop every foot of the way he advances. Until
recent years trappers, who were supposed to go everywhere, were content to
work around its outskirts. Even the adventurous prospector passed it by, and
searched the earth over for gold before seeking in the heart of the Olympics.
Through the combined efforts of government agents, individuals, and
organizations, the region has at last been pretty well explored. Both in
exploring this Olympic region and in endeavoring to have a part of its

primeval scenes saved in a park, the Mountaineers Club of Seattle has taken
an aggressive part.
Up to the altitude of about four thousand feet the mountains are wrapped
in dense green and heavy forest gloom. Then come the scattered grassy,
flowery, snowy openings. Timber-line, kept low by the excessive snowfall,
is at about fifty-five hundred feet altitude, one thousand feet lower than in
the Alps, and six thousand feet below the forest frontier on the Rocky
Mountains in Colorado. The summit slopes are a broken array of snow-
fields, ice-piles, and glaciers. Above the timber-line, vast, deep snow-fields
cover much of the area. These white summits show from far out at sea.
Mount Olympus, with an altitude of 8250 feet, is the highest peak.
Among the other commanding peaks are Meany, Cougar, and Seattle.
The climate, tempered by the warm sea, is mild. Probably no other region
in the United States has a heavier rainfall and snowfall. From sixty to one
hundred feet of snow is deposited over it each winter. The only
comparatively rainless months are July and August. The rain, and the water
from the ice- and snow-fields, supply numerous steeply inclined streams,
which descend in roaring waterfalls and in long, leaping wild cascades.
This region excels in the number and crowded conditions of large tree
growth, and the impenetrable luxuriance of undergrowth. Hemlock, cedar,
spruce, and fir predominate. While the hemlock is the most common tree
here, the cedar is the most striking. The latter is a strangely stiff and
mysterious tree of rather stocky growth. In this moist, mild clime it finds
conditions for development almost ideal. The two kinds of cedar are the
Alaska and the red. Thousands of acres here may be seen crowded with tall
trees that will average five feet or more in diameter and one hundred and
fifty feet in height. Trees twelve feet in diameter are not uncommon, and the
United States Geological Survey reports one with a diameter of twenty-
eight feet! Thousands of acres of red fir trees may also be found in which
the average height of the trees is two hundred and forty feet!

MOUNT ST. HELENS
From the Timber-Line Trail
on Mount Rainier
Wild flowers are everywhere. They edge the snow-fields, cover the
breaks in the cliffs, line the streams, and bank with bloom the fallen forest
patriarchs. Among the common blossoms are the lovely cassiope,—white
heather,—mountain anemone, phlox, and "Indian basket grass."
This is the home of the gigantic Olympic Roosevelt elk, and among the
other common animals are the bear, deer, wolf, fox, lynx, otter, and beaver.
The streams are simply crowded with trout. Bald eagles are found, and
there is an array of flickers, woodpeckers, warblers, jays, sparrows, and
hummingbirds. The solitudes of this sylvan park are cheered with the
melody of the water-ouzel, the Alaska hermit thrush, and the winter wren.
But the mountain summits are significant as view-points. From them one
commands the sea, islands, and the broken shore of the Pacific. Bright
Puget Sound, with a scattering of dark islands and ragged edges, fills the
foreground. Looking toward the southeast across the darkly forested
mountains through which rolls the Columbia, one enjoys a view vast and
imposing. The dark forest cover is pierced by three snow-laden and
steaming sleeping volcanoes. The most impressive one of these is Mount
Rainier, with a score of enormous glaciers covering head and shoulders.

Another one is Mount Adams. But the most exquisitely beautiful of all the
peaks which the summits of the Olympics command is Mount St. Helens.
The head and shoulders of this mountain rise a perfect snowy cone above
the purple forest robe and stand as perfectly poised as a Greek statue of
marble.
The Olympic National Park should include about three hundred square
miles. What a splendid attraction if this area of primeval scenes and forests
were kept in a state of nature!

2. THE NATURAL BRIDGES AND RAINBOW BRIDGE
NATIONAL MONUMENTS

Utah has the four grandest natural bridges in the world. Three of these are
in the Natural Bridges National Monument, and the fourth in the Rainbow
Bridge National Monument. There are natural bridges elsewhere in Utah,
and in the Yellowstone and the Mesa Verde National Parks; also in Virginia
and various other places. But so far as known, the four in these two
National Monuments excel all others in size, in impressiveness, and in
wildness of setting.
These National Monuments embrace desert regions in southeastern Utah
which are made up mostly of rock-formations. Standing out on the strange
desert, the fantastic forms and weird sandstone figures exhibited give the
whole region a peculiar impressiveness. There are countless statuesque
forms and groups that are surprisingly faithful in their resemblance to
figures of birds, animals, humans, and temples; and all are of heroic size.
The bridges in the Natural Bridges Monument are known as the Sipapu
or Augusta Bridge, the Kachima or Caroline Bridge, and the Owachomo or
Little Bridge. The former of each of these names is of Indian origin and is
the official one.
These three bridges are all within a small area. The Sipapu is 260 feet
long on the bottom; the span is 157 feet high and 22 feet above the creek-
bed. Its road-bed width is 28 feet. The Kachima Bridge has a span of 156
feet, a total height of 205 feet, and a width across the top of 49 feet. The
Owachomo Bridge has a light, graceful structure. Its span is 194 feet and its

surface 108 feet above the bottom. The arching part has a thickness of only
10 feet.

RAINBOW NATURAL
BRIDGE
RAINBOW NATIONAL
MONUMENT
The Rainbow Bridge, whose official name is Nonnezoshie, is more of a
magnificent rainbow arch than a bridge. It has splendid and striking
proportions. Its great graceful arch is 308 feet high and 274 feet long.
These bridges are of sandstone of reddish cast, stained in many places
with blackish or greenish lichens and rust. Like any other rock-forms, they
are the product of various erosive forces—illustrating the survival of the
fittest. Their material, being slightly more durable than that of the now
vanished rocks, or possibly less severely tested, has endured while the other
material has been dissolved and worn away. In the fashioning of the surface
of the earth Nature sometimes makes beautiful and imposing statuary. She
has done so here. In the surrounding country are turrets, cisterns, wells,
conelike and dome-like caves and caverns, and nearly complete arches. In
fact, arches and bridges showing every degree of completion and past prime
condition may be seen. Near by are numerous deserted cliff dwellings.

These unusual structures leave a lasting impression on every visitor. Plans
are already under way to make these wonders easily accessible to the
public.

3. MUKUNTUWEAP NATIONAL MONUMENT

The Mukuntuweap National Monument, Utah, has as spectacular a
cañon, and as stupendous an array of vast rock-forms, as is to be found
anywhere in the world. This territory is often spoken of as "The Little Zion
River Region." The Mukuntuweap Cañon has some of the forms shown in
the Grand Cañon, and an array of colors not equaled in any other cañon
known. In width it varies from half a mile to only a few rods across. It does
not all tend in a straight direction. It curves. The cañon walls in places are
sheer and rise from two thousand to three thousand feet. One of its most
startling features is shown in the overhanging walls, which the water has
undercut so that in places the walls prevent a person in the bottom from
seeing the sky.
In a recent report on this cañon, T. E. Hunt, of the Department of the
Interior, wrote:—
At the south end, the cañon is about twelve hundred feet wide, but gradually narrows for a distance
of seven miles, until a point is reached where with outstretching arms the finger tips touch the walls
on either side. In a number of places the walls of this cañon rise vertically to a height of more than
two thousand feet, thus exhibiting a plain surface of extremely hard, pink sandstone.

The vast barren areas of the walls are broken by figures in relief, and
statuary on the summits—all the carving of Nature. On the terraces and in
the niches are growths of ash and oak, maple and spruce and other trees. In
a number of places these walls are further enlivened and glorified by
waterfalls that plunge grandly over them into the cañon. We thus have in
this region an unexcelled variety of the best-known cañon effects—the vast
sweep of vertical walls, the walls that are undercut so that they appear to
lean, and extreme narrowness between the walls.
But, enlivening and glorifying all these, is the color! Here you will find
immense spaces of chocolate, red, crimson, magenta, and maroon, with
touches of silver and gold. It is doubtful if Nature has anywhere covered
such immense areas with such deep and contrasting colors as in this cañon.

This region is little known, but probably in a short time it will be easily
accessible. It was made a National Monument in 1912. The people of Utah
now want it for their National Park.

XIII
OTHER NATIONAL PARKS

1. WIND CAVE NATIONAL PARK

The Wind Cave National Park consists of about sixteen square miles of
pine-covered hills in the southwestern corner of South Dakota. It is about
twelve miles north of the town of Hot Springs and about the same distance
southeast of Custer. The altitude is between four thousand and five thousand
feet. It was created in 1903. The scenery is typical of the picturesque Black
Hills region, which the Indians especially loved.
The Park's special attraction is a large natural cavern. This has recesses
said to have been traced for ninety-six miles, but never thoroughly
explored. Its name is due to the strong air-currents noticeable at the
entrance, which sometimes blow one way and sometimes another. Bridges,
stairways, landings, and paths through the cave's mysterious passageways
permit visitors to reach its natural splendors, which are seen by the light of
burning candles or magnesium ribbon.
The cave was discovered in 1881. Its temperature varies only between
forty and forty-seven degrees the year round. Some of its known passages
are almost five hundred feet below the surface of the earth, and wind over,
under, and around one another. The formations are mostly of limestone.
Among the features of this interesting underground world are a spring and a
miniature lake, beautiful calcite crystals, exposed geodes, boxwork forms,
and other attractive natural formations.
The Park is the permanent home of a herd of buffaloes, presented to the
Government by the American Bison Society. Herds of elk and antelope are
also found in an inclosed section. Many white-tailed deer running wild in
the region annually seek shelter within the Park from the attacks of hunters.
Grouse and quail are increasing in numbers under National-Park protection.

2. SULLY'S HILL NATIONAL PARK

Sully's Hill National Park was established in 1904. Its area is only seven
hundred and eighty acres. It is on the south shore of Devil's Lake, in
northeastern North Dakota, near Fort Totten.
Lack of an appropriation for the care and protection of the Park makes it
necessary (1917) for the Superintendent of the Government Industrial
School for Indians, which is about one mile east of Fort Totten, to act as
Superintendent of the Park. It is badly in need of conveniences—as roads,
trails, clearings, etc. Although money has been appropriated for the
establishment and maintenance of a game preserve on the tract, not a cent
has ever been set aside for development and improvement.
It is well wooded and has many rugged hills, including Sully's Hill.
Another of its natural beauties is Sweet Water Lake. The Park is popular as
a picnic-ground and Devil's Lake affords a good bathing-beach and fine
opportunities for yachting. It is one of the beauty-spots of North Dakota,
and its scenery is of the restful and delightful character.

3. CASA GRANDE RUIN RESERVATION

The most important prehistoric Indian ruin of its type in the Southwest is
now protected and preserved, for the study and enjoyment of the people, in
the Casa Grande Ruin Reservation. This contains four hundred and eighty
acres, set aside in 1892. It is near Florence, Arizona, about eighteen miles
northeast of Casa Grande railroad station. The ruins are of undetermined
antiquity. A Jesuit missionary discovered them in 1694. As excavated so far,
a great house built of puddled mud moulded into walls and dried in the sun
is the main structure of the group. As it is of perishable character, the walls
have been gradually disintegrating, and a corrugated iron roof has been put
over the ruins to protect them from the elements so far as possible.
Considerable more repair and protection work is needed.
The main building was originally five or six stories in height and covered
a space fifty-nine by forty-three feet. Surrounding Casa Grande proper is a
rectangular walled inclosure. A number of buildings or clusters of rooms
have been excavated in this, and others as yet unexcavated are known to be

there. One hundred rooms with plazas and surrounding walls now open on
the ground floor of the reservation. These ruins are of great historic and
scientific interest, and have strong claims for archæological study, repair,
and preservation.

4. HOT SPRINGS RESERVATION

Although the Yellowstone was our first scenic National Park, the honor
of being the oldest national recreation place falls to the Hot Springs
Reservation, in the mountains of central Arkansas. It was created in 1832.
Forty-six springs of hot water possessing radioactive properties, and also
some cold-water springs of curative value, are embraced within the tract of
nine hundred and twelve acres, fifty miles west by south from the city of
Little Rock. The waters flow from the sides of Hot Springs Mountain.
Rheumatism and other bodily ills are relieved or remedied by the waters.
Eleven bathhouses on the reservation, and a dozen more within the little
city of Hot Springs, are under government regulation.
As early as 1804 the power of the waters was known to white men, and a
settlement had already begun there at that time. Tradition says that the
Indians knew of the springs long before the Spanish invasion, and that they
warred among themselves for their possession. Finally a truce was made,
and thereafter all the tribes availed themselves of the healing waters.

5. PLATT NATIONAL PARK

The Platt National Park contains many sulphur and other springs
possessing medicinal value. It includes one and a third square miles in
southern Oklahoma, and was created in 1906.

6. MOUNT McKINLEY NATIONAL PARK

The Mount McKinley National Park, Alaska, was established early in
1917. It is in the approximate center of Alaska and embraces twenty-two
hundred square miles. Mount McKinley is known to many Indians as "The
Great One." Its summit is 20,300 feet above sea-level. On the north this

stupendous mountain is exceedingly precipitous and rises 18,000 feet in a
distance of thirteen miles. It is doubtful if there is a peak in the world that
rises so high above the limits of tree growth. And no mountain that I know
of has slopes so completely snow-covered. Its snow-line is at the altitude of
7000 feet, and from this altitude upward only a few crags and rocky ridges
show. The upper 14,000 feet of steep slopes appears a vast towering white
mass of glaciers and snow. The largest glacier is the Muldrow. It is thirty-
nine miles long. The summit of this peak and a part of its slopes are
embraced in the Mount McKinley National Park.
This Park is a wild-life refuge. Its slopes are the greatest known big-game
range on the continent. Here are mountain sheep and caribou by the
thousand. Moose are common. Beaver are plentiful. And there are grizzly,
brown, and black bear. Many kinds of birds use the region for their summer
nesting-land. Brilliant wild flowers abound. Spruce, birch, cottonwood, and
willow are the more common trees, but none of them grow large.
In 1902, D. L. Raeburn, of the Geological Survey, explored this territory
and brought out much valuable information concerning it. Mr. Raeburn
determined most of the boundary-line of the present Park. In 1903, James
Wickersham attempted to scale the peak. It was first conquered in March,
1913. The creation of this Park was brought about chiefly through the
efforts of Charles Sheldon. When completed, the Alaskan railroad will be
within fifteen miles of the Park boundary-line.

XIV
CANADIAN NATIONAL PARKS

The Dominion, or National, Parks of Canada possess a wealth of snow-
capped peaks and majestic mountains, magnificent glaciers, luxuriant
forests, and peaceful, sunny valleys. These Parks are gemmed with
crystalline lakes and glorified by hundreds of gardens of rare and brilliant
wild flowers; they rival and surpass the celebrated scenes of Europe.
Travelers who are visiting the scenic world will find in the Canadian parks
a number of places of the most inspiring character and of original
composition. Mental pictures of the earth's great scenes are incomplete
without the masterpieces of Canada.
The Canadian people are to be congratulated on their splendid scenic
inheritance. I thank them for the statesmanlike appreciation of this noble
resource. They realize that scenery is a rich asset, and—what is more
important—that every one needs outdoor life and great views. The
Canadians already have comprehensive plans for fuller use of scenery.
These include not only the saving of other scenic places and getting these
ready for visitors, but also plans that will assist large numbers of their own
people to visit the Parks.

ILLECILLEWAET
VALLEY
Mount Sir Donald in
distance. Glacier Park,
Canada

1. JASPER PARK

Jasper Park, the continent's largest national playground, was created in
1907. It contains forty-four hundred square miles and comprises all the
ranges east of the Divide in northern Alberta. It is reached by two
transcontinental railroads.
This part of the Great North country suggests adventure, romance, and
history, and brings back to mind the power, the strangeness, and the
picturesqueness of the earlier days of the Hudson's Bay Company. The
storied Athabasca flows through it, a band of silver in a flower-strewn
valley of meadow and park land, hemmed in by glistening mountains. An
important fur district a century ago, its trading-posts now are tourist resorts
with railroads and hotels.

Yellowhead Pass, of historic associations, is the western entrance. Two
grim peaks guard the eastern portal. Roche Miette, which dominates the
surrounding country, was formerly a favorite Indian hunting-ground for
mountain sheep. Perdrix or Folding Mountain has strange folds and angles
in its strata.
Many roads and trails reach the beauty spots of this park. Fiddle Creek
Cañon is in places only twenty feet wide, but the roaring, rushing waters are
two hundred feet below. On the same road are the celebrated Miette Springs
and Punch-Bowl Falls, a geological curiosity. Maligne Lake is a scenic
jewel, and its river cañon displays wonderful erosion. The Park abounds in
minerals. Administration headquarters are at Jasper.

2. ROCKY MOUNTAINS PARK

Indian stories of remarkable and curative hot springs probably led to the
creation of the Rocky Mountains Park, the oldest and best-developed of the
Dominion's national playgrounds. With statesmanlike foresight, the
Government determined to retain the springs region in a National Park as a
permanent health and pleasure ground for all the people. In 1889, two
hundred and sixty square miles were thus set aside, and the Park has since
been enlarged to eighteen hundred square miles. It lies on the east slope of
the Rockies in Alberta, adjoining Yoho Park.
The springs rise in Sulphur Mountain, near Banff, the geographic and
chief tourist center. On this mountain-side the Government conducts public
baths. The region is a winter as well as a summer resort.
The Banff district also possesses notable scenery. It has an invigorating
atmosphere and the peaceful serenity of a lovely mountain valley, with bare,
rocky summits and dark, forest slopes. This was a celebrated Indian
hunting-ground, and the legends and traditions of the aborigines will ever
touch it with the spell of adventure and romance. Here is beautiful Lake
Minnewanka. Beyond lies the strange valley of the Ghost River. It is a
limestone cañon, into which a number of streams fall, but from which none
are known to flow. An undiscovered subterranean outlet is supposed to
account for this phenomenon.

Banff has an excellent Government museum, containing complete
collections of the mountain flora and fauna, also a zoo, buffalo-corral, and
moose-pasture. The town-site is owned and controlled by the Government,
which makes regulations, leases ground, and issues permits for competitive
business.
Laggan, another railway station in the Park, is the center for the
celebrated Lake Louise district. Near are snow-capped peaks standing
thickly together, with countless tumbling streams and leaping waterfalls.
High among the mountains are exquisite blue or emerald lakes, set like
sparkling gems in the bold surroundings of peaks and glaciers. Chief of
these is the famous Lake Louise.
Brilliant wild flowers in luxuriant profusion and of many varieties are
one of the Park's chief charms. Delicate twin-flowers, adder's-tongue, false
heather, and dainty blossoms of every hue are included in these wild alpine
meadow displays.
A transmountain automobile road from Calgary runs through the Rocky
Mountains Park and into the Yoho Park. Its route includes points of great
scenic interest. This road will be extended to the Pacific.

3. YOHO PARK

Scenic allurements are numerous in Yoho Park, which embraces five
hundred and sixty square miles of the west slope of the picturesque Rocky
Mountains, in eastern British Columbia. Fantastic shapes and sharp points
characterize it. The vegetation is rich and verdant. Many wonderful views
and interesting districts in it are easily reached.
Yoho Valley in this Park was not discovered until 1897, but its unusual
beauty at once attracted numerous visitors. Takakkaw Fall is the thunderous
spray-shrouded leap of eleven hundred feet of a glacier torrent. The Indian
name means "It is Wonderful." This valley also possesses other beautiful
falls, a remarkable ice region, and other interesting alpine features.
Emerald Lake, admired by artists and nature-lovers, is said to have
twenty shades of green, but never one of blue, in its crystalline mirror
depths. It is reached by a straight road through dark fragrant firs that meet

overhead. A dazzling white mountain at the end of the vista gave rise to the
name Snowpeak Avenue.
The Natural Bridge is not far from Field, the main-line railway town that
serves as a center for this national playground. The Kickinghorse River
forces its way through a narrow gap in a solid wall of rock. Rocks
remaining above this boiling, seething mass of water and cloud spray make
a natural passageway across and give the formation its name.
Millions of trilobites have been found in the extensive fossil-bed of
Mount Stephen. This probably was once the bed of an ocean. This massive,
round-topped mountain, 10,523 feet high and with curiously marked sides,
is probably the most frequently climbed peak in Canada. It seems to rise
directly over the town, is not difficult to ascend, and affords wonderful
views of the "frozen sea" of snow peaks to the north and west.

4. WATERTON LAKES PARK

Waterton Lakes Park, in southern Alberta, is notable chiefly for its glacier
lakes. Although one of the smallest, it is one of the most beautiful of the
Canadian scenic reservations. Since sixteen square miles were set aside in
1895, it has been enlarged to four hundred and twenty-three square miles.
For about twenty miles this Dominion playground adjoins the Glacier
National Park of the United States. The two will be linked by a motor road,
so that visitors to one may also enjoy the other. An enlargement of the
Waterton River forms the main chain of lakes. The upper one, nine and a
half miles long, extends three miles into the United States.
Prehistoric glaciers gouged out the main valleys, leaving them carved in
massive proportions. Beautiful streams rush down cañons, plunge in shining
cascades, or remain dammed up as superb lakes. The lower valleys are
clothed with forests. Columnar peaks, fantastic rock formations, and
unscalable precipices complete the imposing effects.
Fishing is a leading attraction. The Park contains many Rocky Mountain
goats and bighorn sheep. Grizzly and black bears and mountain lions also
are frequently found.

5. REVELSTOKE PARK

Revelstoke Park is a natural park on Mount Revelstoke's summit, near
the city of Revelstoke in British Columbia. This mountain's rolling uplands
are studded with beautiful groves, dainty flowers, and exquisite lakes. The
wonderful views include unnamed and unclimbed peaks, wild forests,
streams and falls, and a great ice-field. A motor road to reach this summit
panorama is being completed. The Park has an area of ninety-five square
miles. It is well adapted to ski-jumping and kindred sports.

6. THE ANIMAL PARKS

To protect its large wild animals and prevent their threatened extinction,
the Canadian Government has gone to enormous expense and trouble. Two
animal parks have been established: Elk Island Park of sixteen square miles,
near Lamont, Alberta; and Buffalo Park of one hundred and sixty square
miles, near Wainwright, Alberta. The former contains many elk and deer, as
well as moose, buffaloes, birds, wild-fowl, and water-folk. Buffalo Park
makes a natural home for over two thousand wild bisons, the largest pure-
blooded herd in the world. The original seven hundred of these were bought
from a Montana Indian. Both parks produce their own forage, and are well
fenced and fire-guarded. They have many scenic lakes, woods, hills, and
valleys. Visitors are admitted to study the wild life under natural conditions.

7. ST. LAWRENCE ISLANDS PARK

As a National Park for summer use by fishermen, campers, picnickers,
and excursionists, the Dominion Government has a dozen islands among
the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River. Eleven of these were
purchased from Indians and the twelfth was donated for park purposes.
(Other islands in the vicinity are part of the New York State park system.)

8. FORT HOWE PARK

Fort Howe National Park is the first of a new kind of Canadian parks that
will preserve historic places. An old British fort site at St. John, New
Brunswick, comprises the first of these historic parks. It covers nineteen

acres. Here a resort will be established, and memorials of important events
connected with the spot will be erected.

Responsibility for the creation and the administration of Canadian
National Parks rests upon the Minister of the Interior. Under his direction is
a Commissioner of Dominion Parks, with a staff. This is absolutely separate
from the Canadian Forest Service. This bureau is charged with
responsibility for the administration of all park matters, under one head.
The head office plans the work and the several superintendents carry it out
under the inspection of the chief superintendent. Park appropriations are
voted each year by Parliament in one lump sum, on estimates prepared by
the Parks Bureau. Each superintendent is furnished every month with an
amount sufficient to cover the cost of the work planned for the month
ensuing. This system means uniformity of administration; expenditure
based on a proper perspective of the needs of the several Parks; a
comprehensive scheme of development; and flexibility to meet changed
conditions.
Further information concerning these Parks may be had from the
Commissioner of Dominion Parks, Ottawa, Canada.

XV
PARK-DEVELOPMENT AND NEW PARKS

A platform for park-promoters:—
1. Immediate appropriations for every National Park.
2. Early enlargement of a few of the Parks.
3. Prompt creation of a number of new Parks.
4. The National Park Service needs the help of your eternal vigilance and
sympathy. Keep the National Park Service absolutely separate from the Forest
Service or any other organization.
5. Concessions are a bad feature in any Park. The Palisades Inter-State Park is
run without concessions. Why should private concerns reap profits by exploiting
the visitors to National Parks?
6. A Board of National Park Commissioners is needed. These commissioners
should act as a Board of Directors, as do the Inter-State Park Commissioners,
and have absolute control over the National Parks.

No nation has ever fallen through having too many parks. We may have
too many soldiers, too many indoor functions, too many exclusive social
sets, but the United States Government, or any other, will never fall for
having too many national parks.
Nearly all the large nations of the earth now have national parks or are
planning to create them. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are especially
thoughtful in park matters. Switzerland has a number, and is planning new
ones. A number of South American countries are making investigations with
the view of establishing national parks.
National parks are an institution intimately allied with the general
welfare. You need this institution, and it needs your help. Every one ought
to be glad to help better and beautify our land. Whittier was once asked by a
young man for advice as to how best to succeed. The poet told him to attach
himself to a noble and neglected cause and to stay with it till he won. The
Park field greatly needs the help of young men and young women who are
willing to serve a noble cause. In connection with National Parks you can
be exceedingly helpful in furthering the following work:—

TETON MOUNTAIN REGION,
PROPOSED ADDITION TO
YELLOWSTONE PARK
A number of new Parks should be at once created. A number of the old
Parks need to be enlarged. Appropriations are greatly needed for the
development of all. You can help the National Park Service. It is in danger
of being crippled by the lack of appropriations. A number of the National
Monuments should at once be made National Parks. Among these are the
Grand Cañon, the Olympic, the Mukuntuweap Cañon, and others. The
Sequoia and other National Parks need enlargement; and the Mount St.
Elias and other scenic regions, especially the Mount McKinley region, are
most worthy of early consideration for park purposes.
The Yellowstone Park needs to have the Grand Teton region added;
Rainier, about twenty square miles at the southwest corner; Crater Lake, a
few square miles on the west and north; Yosemite, mountainous country on
the east and southeast; Rocky Mountain, small areas—east, west, north, and
south; and the Sequoia, Mount Whitney and the King's-Kern region.
One of the most deserving of National Park projects, as well as one of the
most unique, is that which centers about the Jamez Plateau, in New Mexico.
Upon this plateau in prehistoric times stood a metropolis of Indian
civilization, and the magnificent ruins which remain make this place
priceless, and throw over it one of the most fascinating mysteries in the
realm of archæology. A number of the buildings were stone structures of

excellent and artistic architecture, and contained hundreds of rooms. The
pottery and other records left by this vanished people indicate that they
were a people of culture and refinement.
While the opposition is delaying the making of this Park, the despoilment
of the region goes on. In this connection Dr. Jesse W. Fewkes makes this
significant statement:—
Too strong language cannot be used in deprecation of the butchering of the architectural features of
our Southwestern ruins by pot-hunters, either private individuals for gain or representatives of
institutions under the name of scientific research.

The Cook Forest in western Pennsylvania, the greatest existing primeval
growth of white pine; a splendid redwood forest near Eureka, California;
the Dunes on the shore of Lake Michigan in northern Indiana; the
Mammoth Cave of Kentucky; the Luray Caverns in Virginia; and a stretch
of the seashore in eastern North Carolina,—all ought to be public property,
though now privately owned. These places might be saved for the people
for all time in State Parks, but their unique and splendid characteristics
justify their becoming National Parks.
Nearly all proposed National Park areas are of territory in the public
domain—still owned by the Government. The privately owned areas that
are proposed for National Parks are places admirably fitted for park
purposes, and are located close to millions of people.
It is important that the remaining scenic areas in the country be at once
made into State or National Parks. Fortunately there still are a number of
these wild places, but it will require effort to save them. Each Park
proposed will have powerful and insidious opposition. The insidious
opposition to National Parks will say, "There is a feeling in Congress that
we should not have any more National Parks at this time"; or, "We should
wait until present ones are improved."
Scenery is perishable—is easily ruined. The better parts of scenery are
birds, flowers, and trees. These are easily despoiled. No work, no public
service, is more noble than that of the Park extension and improvement
which now presses us. Every National Park needs appropriations. It is the
duty of every one to ask and urge Congress at once to make adequate
appropriations.

Copyright, 1900, by W. H. Wilcox, Port
Townsend, Wash.
MOUNT BAKER FROM THE WEST
Mount Baker is likely to be a National Park
Much is to be gained and nothing to be lost in acting promptly. It is
important that new Parks be created now, a working plan made for all, and
the development pushed. When all our National Parks are ready for
travelers, we shall not need to shout, "See America First."
The phrase "See America First" may have done a little good, but it is now
obsolete. A plain condition now confronts us. Scenic America is to be made
ready to be seen. Only a small percentage of the area of our National Parks
is really ready for the traveler.
Congress should not be blamed for this condition; neither should we
severely blame ourselves. But we ought promptly to see that these Parks
receive adequate appropriations. If we do this, in a short time the National
Park Service, through its Director, will say, "Your National Parks—our
matchless wonderlands—are now entirely ready for millions of travelers."
The plan for the development of National Parks includes three types of
hotels, the luxurious, the popular-priced, and inns or shelter cabins that are
clean and comfortable, and that give simple entertainment at the lowest
possible cost. And all buildings should be of an architecture that harmonizes
with the landscape.

Guides in Parks should be of the highest type of culture and refinement,
naturalists who can impart information. Of course they must be masters of
woodcraft. The wilderness is destined to have a large and helpful place in
the lives of the people. This is to be partly brought about by guides and Park
rangers. There should be guides of both sexes.
The ultimate development should embrace a scenic road-system, roads
built so as to command scenery and to be for the most part on mountain-
sides and summits. They should touch the greatest and most beautiful spots,
and should follow, not the lines of least resistance, but those of greatest
attraction. In places along the forested roads, openings might be cleared so
as to expose near scenes and to enable travelers to see the game which may
come to these openings.
Many roads should be paralleled by trails for people afoot or on
horseback. Of course trails should be made to numerous high or wild places
not reached by roads.
Many persons do not realize the difference between a forest reserve and a
National Park. A forest reserve is primarily used for cattle-grazing and saw-
mills, while a National Park is a region wholly educational and recreational
for your children and yourselves. A forest reserve is a commercial
proposition, while a National Park must be estimated by higher values. In a
paper on the conservation of scenery, in "The Rocky Mountain
Wonderland," I have said:—
We need the forest reserve, and we need the National Park. Each of these serves in a distinct way,
and it is of utmost importance that each be in charge of its specialist. The forester is always the
lumberman, the park man is a practical poet.... The forester must cut trees before they are over-ripe or
his crop will waste, while the park man wants the groves to become aged and picturesque. The
forester pastures cattle in his meadows, while the park man has only people and romping children
among his wild flowers. The park needs the charm of primeval nature, and should be free from
ugliness, artificiality, and commercialism. For the perpetuation of scenery, a landscape artist is
absolutely necessary. It would be folly to put a park man in charge of a forest reserve, a lumbering
proposition. On the other hand, what a blunder to put a tree-cutting forester in charge of a park! We
need both these men; each is important in his place; but it would be a double misfortune to put one in
charge of the work of the other.

In this connection Stewart Edward White recently wrote:—
If the public in general understood the difference between a National Park and a National Forest,
there could be no doubt as to the opinion of any intelligent citizen. The distinction is so simple that it
seems that it should be easy to get it within the comprehension of anybody. A National Park is an
open-air museum set apart by Congress either to preserve from commercial development beautiful
scenery, trees, natural monuments, or some of the forests that are being cut commercially both in

private and national forests. The idea is not commercial development along even conservative and
constructive lines, but absolute preservation in a state of nature. Once this distinction is grasped, no
one can doubt that these two institutions demand entirely different management. It would be as
sensible to put men with the same training in charge of both National Park and National Forest, as it
would be to place the same men with the same training in charge of a busy shoe factory and a
museum of archæology.

MOUNT ST. ELIAS FROM EAST SIDE
OF AGASSIZ GLACIER, ALASKA
Says Frederick Law Olmsted:—
Why should there be a distinction between National Forests and National Parks? If the public is at
liberty to use both as recreation grounds, why should they not all be under one management, in the
interest of a more economical administration?
The National Forests are set apart for economic ends, and their use for recreation is a by-product
properly to be secured only in so far as it does not interfere with the economic efficiency of the forest
management. The National Parks are set apart primarily in order to preserve to the people for all time
the opportunity of a peculiar kind of enjoyment and recreation, not measurable in economic terms
and to be obtained only from the remarkable scenery which they contain—scenery of these primeval
types which are in most parts of the world rapidly vanishing for all eternity before the increased
thoroughness of the economic use of land. In the National Parks direct economic returns, if any, are
properly the by-products; and even rapidity and efficiency in making them accessible to the people,
although of great importance, are wholly secondary to the one dominant purpose of preserving
essential esthetic qualities of their scenery unimpaired as a heritage to the infinite numbers of the
generations to come.
Because of the very fact that in the Parks, as well as in the Forest, considerations of economics and
of direct human enjoyment must both be carefully weighed in reaching decisions, and because the
physical problems are much the same in both, the fundamental difference in the points of view which
should control the management of the National Parks and that of the National Forests can be safely
maintained only by keeping them under separate administration.

John Nolen says:—

The minor purposes of forests may correspond somewhat with the major purposes of parks, and
vice versa; but the main and essential purposes of each are altogether different from the main and
essential purposes of the other and any confusion of them is sure to lead to waste and disappointment.

Scenery is our most valuable and our noblest resource.
It is of utmost importance that each of these reservations be managed
separately. Those who have distinguished themselves by appreciating the
importance of National Parks and by helping them in every way, have been
clear and emphatic in urging that National Park management be utterly
separate from the management of National Forests. Among those who have
taken this stand are John Muir, J. Horace McFarland, John Nolen, Mrs.
John D. Sherman, and in fact every one that I know of who is an authority
on parks. The National Academy of Science also made a similar
recommendation in 1897.
A Park should stand alone, and stand high. If we think of the Parks
separately, keep them free from the dominion of commercialism, of
interests, and of organizations, we may hope in a short time to receive the
best use of them.
The courts have recently made a number of excellent decisions
concerning the conservation of scenery, and have gone definitely on record
recognizing its higher values. In a decision concerning a waterfall, Judge
Robert E. Lewis said in part:—
It is a beneficial use to the weary that they, ailing and feeble, can have the wild beauties of Nature
placed at their convenient disposal. Is a piece of canvas valuable only for a tent-fly, but worthless as a
painting? Is a block of stone beneficially used when put into the walls of a dam, and not beneficially
used when carved into a piece of statuary? Is the test dollars, or has beauty of scenery, rest,
recreation, health and enjoyment something to do with it? Is there no beneficial use except that which
is purely commercial?

This decision is epoch-marking. It emphasizes the importance to the
Parks of having a management that is in no way tied up with any other
work.
From the time of the creation of the Yellowstone Park till 1914 there was
no official head to the National Parks, but that year Secretary of the Interior
Franklin K. Lane used his right and appointed the first Superintendent,
Mark Daniels.
The year 1915 was memorable in National Park history. In that year
Secretary Lane appointed Stephen T. Mather Assistant to the Secretary of

the Interior, with authority to do all that he could for Parks. Mr. Mather, a
business man, sympathetic, well acquainted with the Parks, saw their
extraordinary possibilities. Having the administrative charge of these
National Parks, he at once set to work upon the extremely difficult task of
bringing them out of chaos into order. In the short time that he has had
charge of them, he has made a remarkable advance in securing for them a
working plan of development, and a simplified and businesslike
management.
In 1915 Superintendent Daniels was superseded by Robert B. Marshall,
former Chief Geographer of the United States Geological Survey. Mr.
Marshall worked enthusiastically but resigned in December, 1916. Mr.
Mather became Director of the National Park Service in March, 1917.
Automobiles were first admitted to all National Parks in 1915, and that
year, too, a number of educative publications concerning them were issued.
In September, 1911, what may be called the first National Park
Conference was held in the Yellowstone Park. This was called by Secretary
of the Interior Walter L. Fisher. In his opening remarks at this conference
Mr. Fisher said that the purpose of the conference was to "discuss the matter
of the present condition of the National Parks and what can best be done to
promote the welfare of the Parks and make them better for the purpose for
which they were created." This brought together a large gathering of men of
affairs and distinctly furthered the creation of the National Park Service.
The National Park Service is one of the subdivisions of the Department
of the Interior. The Service was created by an act of Congress in 1916, after
a campaign that lasted for seven years. At its head is a Director. It gives the
Parks an official standing and the care and development and administration
needed.
All National Parks and twenty-one of the National Monuments are in
charge of the National Park Service. As Monuments are scenic and
educational reservations, it is plain that all these Monuments might well be
in charge of the National Park Service. Then, too, the name "Monument"
might well be changed to "Park."
Considering the far-reaching influence of the Parks on the general
welfare, in a few years they might be placed under a cabinet officer who
could appropriately be called the Secretary of National Parks.

XVI
THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST

The supreme forest of the world is in the Sequoia National Park. The Big
Trees have attained here their greatest size and their grandest development.
Here is the forest's most impressive assemblage. In these groves at the
southern end of the splendid Sierra is all the eloquence of wooded wilds—
the silence of centuries and the eternal spirit of the forest. This forest is to
be guarded and saved forever.

ON THE ROAD TO
SHERMAN TREE
GIANT FOREST,
SEQUOIA NATIONAL
PARK
How happily trees have mingled with our lives! Ever since our lowly
ancestors crawled from gloomy caves, stood erect in the sunlight, wondered

at this calm, mysterious world, and at last made homes beneath the hemlock
and the pine—ever since then, down through the ages, through the dim, sad
centuries, all the way from cave to cottage, the forest has been a mother to
our good race. How different our history had this wooded and beautiful
world been treeless and lonely! Groves stand peaceful and prominent on
every hill, in every dale of history that encourages or inspires. If we should
lose the hospitality of the trees and the friendship of the forest, our race too
would be lost, and the desert's pale, sad sky would come to hover above a
rounded, lifeless world. The trees are friends of mankind.
The forest that you see on the heights across the valley, that stands so
steadfast upon the billowed and broken slopes, that drapes the dales and
distances with peaceful, purple folds, and makes complete with grace and
grandeur a hanging garden of the hills—this is the forest that sheltered our
ancestors through the past's slow-changing years.
The trees have wandered over the earth and prepared it for our race. Their
low green ranks encircle the cold white realm of Farthest North; they grow
in luxuriance beneath the equatorial sun; they have climbed and held the
heights though beaten and crushed with storm and snow; they have dared
the desert's hot and deadly sand; they stand ankle-deep in bayous wrapped
in tangled vines; they have breasted the surf and pushed out into the surges
of the ocean; they have conquered and reclaimed the rocks on continents
and islands; they have plumed with palms the white reefs of the blue and
billowed sea; their triumphant masses stand where the Ice King rules; and
in volcanoes' throats they have given beauty for ashes. Their banners wave
under every sun and sky. Wherever our race has gone to live, the trees have
given welcome and shelter.
The picturesque woodsman with his axe has helped to build nations and
to improve and sustain them after they were built. He will play his part in
the future. An axeman at work in the woods makes even a more stirring and
romantic picture than does the reaper in his harvest home on autumn's
golden fields. It is good to hear the sounds of the axe as they echo and
reëcho among wooded wilds and then fade away, a melody amid the
forested hills. The echoes of the axe suggest the old, old story—tell of a
love-touched dream come true, of another home to be. When under the axe
an old tree falls, it is the end of a life well lived, the end of a work well
done. But this tree may rise, helped and shaped by happy hands, and

become the most sacred place in all this world of ours—a home where
lovers live—a cottage with hollyhocks and roses by the door.
But we are leaving the low-vaulted past. These trees are not to fall. They
are to stand. In parks, we have provided for trees a refuge with ourselves.
They are to live on, and with them we shall build more stately mansions for
the soul.
Trees have trials. They know what it is to struggle and grow strong. With
hardship they build history, adventure, pathos, and poetry. Every tree has a
life full of incident. Aged trees are stored with the lore of generations, carry
the character of centuries, have biographies, stirring life-stories. A sequoia
is an impressive wonder. As the oldest settler upon the earth—the pioneer of
pioneers—it knows the stories of centuries. At the dead lips of the Sphinx
you listen in vain, but beneath a Big Tree the ages speak and the centuries
shift their scenes. The Big Trees carry within their untranslated scrolls that
which may enrich the literature of the world. Within a Big Tree's brave
breast are more materials of fact and fancy than in the ocean's coral cove, or
in the murmuring sea-shell on the shore.
In the forest, around the foot of a tree, rages an endless and ever-
changing struggle for existence. Here from season unto season a thousand
forms of life feed and frolic, live and love, fight and die. Here Nature's
stirring drama is playing on and always on. Here are trials and triumphs,
activity and repose, and all the woodland scenes upon the wild world's stage
amid the splendors and the shadows of the pines. At this place Nature
smiles and sings, and here, at times, the lonely echo seems to search and
seek in vain.
I never see a little tree bursting from the earth, peeping confidingly up
among the withered leaves, without wondering how long it will live, what
trials or triumphs it will have. I always hope that it will be a home for the
birds. I always hope that it will find life worth living, and that it will live
long to better and to beautify the earth.
In spring, summer, autumn, and winter, the broadleaf forest is a picture
gallery, a fine-arts hall. In winter, abloom with snow flowers or in penciled
tracery against the sky, how trustfully it sleeps! Confidently and in perfect
faith, it awaits the supreme day of spring, when, amid the buzzing of bees,
the songs of mating birds, and the unfolding of green and crumpled leaves,
comes the glory-burst of bloom. In leaf-filled summer the woodlands are a

realm of rich content. But in reflective autumn, when the plaintive note of
the bluebird has Southland in its tones, when the hills are golden, then the
work of the leaves is done and they come out in garments of glory to die—
to die like the sunset of a splendid day. Color is triumphant when autumn,
the artist, touches the trees, for then the entire temperate zone encircling
this rounded world is a wreath of glory. This wreath fades or falls away; and
the little golden leaf that casts its lot upon the breeze and floats off in the
midst of mysteries is upon a journey just as dear as when, amid the mists of
sun and spring, it did appear.
The woodland world of the mountains in National Parks is a grand
commingling of groves and grass-plots, crags and cañons, and rounded
lakes with forest frames and shadow-matted shores that rest in peace within
the purple forest. Here, in Nature's mirrors, pond-lilies, all green and gold,
rise and fall on gentle swells, or repose with reflected clouds and stars.
Here, too, are drifts of fringed gentians, blue flakes from summer's bluest
sky. Here young and eager streams leap in white cascades between
crowding crags and pines. In these pictured scenes the birds sing, the useful
beaver builds his picturesque home; here the cheerful chipmunk frolics and
never grows up; and here the world stays young. Forests give poetry to the
prose of life and enable us to have and to hold high ideals.
In almost every forest is the quaking aspen, the most widely distributed
tree in the world. In autumn its golden banners encircle the globe and adorn
nearly one half the earth. Though this tree has a constitution so tender that it
is easily killed by fire or injury, it is one of the greatest pioneer trees in the
forest world. Through the ages the restless aspen leaves appear to have
attracted the attention of mankind. Unfortunately the old myths and legends
concerning this merry, childlike tree told of fear or sorrow, but now every
one catches the hopeful spirit of the aspen. Aspens are youth, eternal youth.
Endlessly their dancing leaves proclaim youth. They are romping children.
Their bare legs, their mud- and water-wading habits, their dancing out of
one thing into another, are charmingly, faithfully childlike.
Every tree has the ways of its race. The willow in its appointed place is
ever leaning over watching the endless procession of waters. Does it
wonder whence and whither? The birches are maidens, slender, white, and
fair. The maple has its own excuse for being. The elms arch the woodland
world with cathedral art. Beautiful is the lone silver spruce lingering among

the grand golden lichened crags. The sturdy pines stand in ever green
contentment. The straight spruces and stately firs point ever upward and
never cease to call "Excelsior!" nor to climb toward their ideal. The oak,
full of character, welcomes all seasons and all weathers. Within the forest,
up toward the heights, stands a tree that wins and holds the heart like a
hollyhock. This tree, the hemlock, is a poem all alone. It is the heroine, the
mother spirit of the woodland world, handsome, richly robed, symmetrical,
graceful, sensitive, and steadfast. She, more than any other tree, appeals to
the eye and the heart. In her upcurving arms and entire expression there is a
yearning. When the world was young she may have been the first tree to
shelter our homeless, wandering race. To-day, when the wild folk of the
outdoors are most beset with cold or storm, they go trustingly and
confidingly to nestle in the hemlock's arms. And rightly the sequoia is the
nobleman of all the forest world.
That sweet singer, the solitaire, is the chorister of the forest. He puts the
woods in song. Hear his woodnotes wild and the Spirit of the Forest will
thrill you! Meditations and memories will throng you. His matchless
melody carries echoes of Orpheus and good tidings from distant lands
where dreams come true. Far away, soft and low, the wood itself seems to
be singing a hopeful song, a rhythm of ages, that you have heard before.
Pictured fairyland unfolds as you listen. In it is the peace, the poetry, the
majesty, and the mystery of the forest.
Go to the trees and get their good tidings. Have an autumn day in the
woods, and beneath the airy arches of limbs and leaves linger in paths of
peace. Speak to the jostling little trees that are so pretty and so eager. Stand
beneath the monarchs, rugged and rich in character. Lie down upon the
brown leaves, and look far away through the slowly vanishing vistas full of
forest, of columns that are filled with kindest light. Leaves of red, bronze,
and gold will rest in the sunlight, or be falling back to earth without a fear.
The brook will murmur on; around, the falling nuts may patter upon the
fallen leaves; the woodpecker may be tip-tapping; the birds will be passing
for the Southland; the squirrels will be planting for the ages. Though there
are stirring activities and endless fancies, your repose will be complete.
Here where the lichen-tinted columns of gray and brown are rich and
beautiful in the mellow light, you will be at your best—your own will come
to you—with the Infinite you will be in tune. Stay till night, and from the

edge of the woods see the sun go down in triumph. While all is hushed,
watch the castled crag and the gnarled pine on the hilltop blacken against
the golden afterglow. In the reflective twilight hour you may catch the
murmur and the music of the wind-touched trees.
I wish that every one might have a night by a camp-fire at Mother
Nature's hearth-stone. Culture began by a camp-fire in the forest. Ages and
ages ago, lightning one rainy evening set fire to a dead tree near the
entrance to a cave. The flames lured some of our frightened ancestors from
their cheerless lair, and as they stared at the burning wood, they pushed
back their long tangled hair, the better to watch the movements of the
mysterious flames. Around this fire these primitive people gathered for the
first social evening on the earth. When in the forest one sits within the
camp-fire's magic tent of light, amid the silent, sculptured trees, thrilling
through one's blood go all the trials and triumphs of our race. A camp-fire in
the forest marks the most enchanting place on life's highway wherein to
have a lodging for the night.
Weird and strange are the feelings that flow as winds sweep and sound
through the trees. Now the Storm King puts a bugle to his lips, and a deep,
elemental hymn is sung while the blast surges wild through the pines. Soon
Mother Nature is quietly singing, singing soft and low, while the breezes
pause and play in the pines. From the past one has been ever coming, with
the future is destined ever to go, when with centuries of worshipful silence
one waits for a wind in the pines. Ever the good old world grows better,
both with songs and with silence, in the pines.
One touch of forest nature makes the whole world kin. A tree is the flag
of Nature, and forests give a universal feeling of good will. In the boundless
forest the boundary-lines of nations are forgotten. Some time an immortal
pine may be the flag of a united and peaceful world. In the forests' fairyland
are still heard "the horns of Elfland faintly blowing." There—
"Echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever."
Kinship is the spirit of the forest.

XVII
WILD LIFE IN NATIONAL PARKS

Hunters are excluded from National Parks, and within these wonderlands
all shooting is prohibited. All National Parks are wild-life sanctuaries,
places of refuge for birds and animals. There the wild folk are not pursued,
trapped, or shot. Nearly all the principal birds and beasts of North America
are to be found in these Parks. Here may be seen the lively, merry play-
pranks of young bears, young birds, and young beavers. Each Park is thus a
wild-life paradise where the animals are safe, free from the fear of being
killed by man. These Parks are ideal places in which to enjoy the animals
and to study their character; and they are a happy hunting-ground for the
hunter who carries the camera. Recreation in these wonderlands is thus
absolutely separated from the butchering business. What a glorious
exchange! All this should help the good old world to grow better. Making a
wild-animal place of refuge is equivalent to making a park-place of refuge
for ourselves.

ELK IN JACKSON HOLE

One day, in what is now the Rocky Mountain National Park, I came upon
a luxuriously equipped camping-party, in which were at least a score of
people. They had a splendid outfit and bore evidence of culture and
refinement. I came upon their camp just at the close of a day that they had
devoted to a hunting-contest. I do not recall the prize that the winning side
secured, but all members of the party, young and old, men and women, had
engaged in the contest. They had taken sides, and each side had endeavored
during the day to kill more animals than the other. Every living thing was
allowable. Piled up against a log near the camp were two heaps of dead
wild folk—squirrels and chipmunks, grouse and hummingbirds, water-
ouzels, ptarmigans, bluebirds, a robin, a wren, a snow-shoe rabbit, and I
know not how many others.
People who engage in this kind of sport have characters that I cannot
understand. These people, with all the advantages of culture and refinement,
were out in the wild, lovely, splendid scenes. They had forgotten all other
forms of recreation or enjoyment and had sunk back into barbaric blood-
shedding "sport."
Man has appeared to the furred and feathered wilderness people as a
wanton murderer. Animals have been constantly in danger, and nowhere nor
at any time were they safe. Too often animals have been called cowards.
They have grown shy and wild from necessity. Their life has depended on
keeping out of the way of man. Along with the getting of food, their chief
concern is "safety first." This requires that they be eternally vigilant to flee
from the near presence of man. The invention of the long-range repeating
rifle added a large element of fear and consequent shyness to the life of the
wild people.
But now our National Parks are reforming man. The wildest of animals
quickly become half-tame in any place that is safe. During the past few
years thousands of excellent photographs have been made of big game in
National Parks. Elk, antelopes, and mountain sheep have been
photographed singly and in groups at the distance of only a few yards.
"It is better to let the wild beast run
And let the wild bird fly;
Each harbors best in his native nest,
Even as you and I."

None of the big animals in the United States are ferocious. In parks it is
men, not animals, who are on their good behavior—his hand restrained,
man temporarily becomes as inoffensive as the animals. It may be, if we
quit shooting animals on one side of a Park boundary-line, that in due time
we shall become sufficiently civilized to stop killing people on the other
side of a national boundary-line.
That the habitual wildness of birds and animals is the result of
experience, rather than instinct, was forcefully illustrated to me by a
surprise that I enjoyed with wild mountain sheep in a side cañon of the
Colorado River in Arizona. Bighorn sheep are proverbially alert and wild.
Imagine my astonishment when two or three of a flock of bighorns walked
up and touched me with their noses! Evidently they had never before seen
man. Trustfully they approached to satisfy their native curiosity.
For a number of days I was close to this flock, and several times I walked
among them. They showed no excitement; they had nothing to fear. Without
doubt, they had not been fired upon, chased, or even approached by man
before. When I started for other scenes, one of the ewes of this wild herd
followed me for more than an hour. Here were wild animals in a truly
natural state! The abundance of easily watched bird and animal life in these
numerous Parks affords a splendid opportunity to learn how these so-called
wild people live and who they are.
Our greatest animal is the grizzly bear. In the Parks we may make his
acquaintance. The story of "Ben Franklin," who was reared by James Capen
Adams, "Grizzly Adams," an early mountaineer and hunter of California,
tells of a noble grizzly bear.
While hunting in the Yosemite in 1854, Adams killed a mother grizzly
and captured two tiny cubs. A greyhound suckled them, and Adams kept
one of the cubs—Ben Franklin. Ben was never chained, but followed his
master everywhere through the mountains with a devotion equal to that of a
faithful dog. Adams always treated him with kindness and understanding,
and trained him to carry huge packs. Ben also rendered other startling
services.
One day, while returning from a hunt with Ben at his heels, Adams
suddenly came upon a mother grizzly and three cubs in the close quarters of
a thicket. The unexpected encounter probably caused the big bear to defend
her cubs, and she sprang upon Adams before he could fire his rifle. He was

knocked down and seriously wounded. Though still a youngster, Ben was
grandly loyal and brave; he instantly sprang at the huge bear's throat and put
up a courageous fight. This distracted the big bear's attention and gave
Adams a chance to spring out of harm's way and shoot her. Little Ben was
terribly bitten. So grateful was Adams that he dressed Ben's wounds before
he attended to his own. Both Adams and Ben survived, and ever after they
were close companions.
For brain-power, prowess, and sheer force of character the grizzly is the
king of the wilderness. He knows it, and therefore is the aristocrat of the
wilds. With real intelligence, and, if kindly tamed, with wonderful loyalty
and devotion, he is an outdoor citizen of high type, and does not merit the
extermination that threatens him.
A grizzly is ever alert, vigilant, and cautious, unless his well-developed
bump of curiosity temporarily hypnotizes him and betrays him into
momentary dullness and forgetfulness. He is not a coward, but simply
believes in preparedness and safety first, and so seldom blunders into
trouble. He is popularly believed to be ferocious. Two or three generations
ago he may have been fierce, but he is not so now. He uses his keen wits to
avoid man, and never attacks wantonly nor fights if he can avoid it. But he
is a masterful fighter, with strength, endurance, courage, mentality, and
prompt action in emergencies.
There is little that the grizzly or the black bear will not eat. Fresh meat or
carrion, honey, grasshoppers, ants, grubs, fish, mice and others pests, grass,
fruits, berries, bark, roots, leaves—all may be included in the bill of fare of
this omnivorous feeder. The grizzly appears more inclined to belong with
vegetarians than with the Carnivora. He hibernates from three to five
months each winter. The latitude, altitude, snowfall, weather, and the
peculiarities and condition of the bear determine the length of his
hibernation. Before entering a cave or opening to spend his hibernating
sleep he fasts for a few days. In the spring, for several days after he emerges
he eats little.

BLACK BEAR CUBS, SEQUOIA
NATIONAL PARK
Except the Alaskan bear, the only other kind we have is the black bear.
His habits are similar to the grizzly's, but he is smaller than the grizzly. The
color of bears varies widely in the same family as well as in the two species
and numerous subspecies. Color has nothing to do with the kind of bear:
either the black or the grizzly may be black or cinnamon. The black bear is
much more playful, and he climbs trees as readily as a cat. The grizzly does
not climb into trees.
The black bear is a playful bluffer. One day, as I was seated on the edge
of Yellowstone Lake, several feet above the water, a young black bear came
ambling by. In passing, he leaped at me with a wild "woof." His bluff was
effective. I shrank back, and tumbled into the lake.
The creation of the Yellowstone National Park, for "the benefit and
enjoyment of the people," was one of the great achievements for mankind.
It also was a great event in the world of wild folk. The Yellowstone is one
of the greatest wild-life sanctuaries in the world. In its thirty-three hundred
square miles are numerous varieties of wild animals. Each summer as many
as sixty thousand elk feed in it, and there are also buffaloes and antelopes,
and flocks of sheep and herds of moose. Black bears are on every hand, and
grizzly bears are often seen near by.
The caribou of the North make a long north-and-south migration with the
seasons. The deer and the elk of the mountain parks, like many birds,

simply migrate up and down the heights, spending summers in the high
altitudes and winters in the foothills.
On the thousand hills, meadows, crags, and moorlands of the National
Parks are herds, flocks, and bands of elk and moose and deer and the agile
mountain sheep. There are more than five hundred kinds of birds. A census
of wild-life folk in all National Parks would show a numerous population:
possibly a hundred thousand elk, half as many deer, several thousand sheep,
a few thousand goats, several hundred antelopes, a few hundred moose, a
thousand or so of bears, many thousand beavers; minks, conies, marmots,
and muskrats in uncountable thousands; and birds in untold millions.
The antelope is a strange, isolated species. Formerly it ranged widely
over the plains, but now it is almost exterminated. It has no dewclaw. It can
erect and depress its fluff of white tail at will; this is a means of signaling.
Of all big game, the antelope perhaps is the fastest runner. This animal
sheds the outer part of the horns each year, retaining the spikelike core.
The gray wolf, coyote, fox, lynx, otter, skunk, and porcupine are
numerous in the Parks. The porcupine, even at his wildest, shows the least
signs of fear and is the dullest-witted animal in the woods.
Glacier Park probably excels in the number of mountain goats. Here they
are to be seen in one of the most picturesque and precipitous ranges, in
topography which goats enjoy. The Rocky Mountain Park probably excels
in the number of bighorn sheep.
Along the streams the picturesque beaver, a permanent home-builder,
lately almost exterminated, is reëstablishing himself and restoring the
scenes that were known to the pioneers.
The food of the beaver is the bark of aspen and willow trees. He does not
eat fish or meat. Instead of hibernating in winter, beavers harvest a quantity
of food-supplies in the autumn and store them for winter use. These are
piled in the water beside their house. After gnawing down trees, cutting
them into sections, and eventually eating the bark, they use the wood in
constructing dams and houses.
Besides taking thought for the morrow, they build permanent homes, and
keep them clean and in repair. They skillfully construct dams and canals to
insure a constant water-supply in which to live, work, play, and travel.
These give a charm to landscapes, and are a benefit to mankind. Beavers

were the world's first engineers and the first conservationists. They have
industry, patience, and persistence, combined with mental power.
They live in colonies or communities. Evidently they know the wisdom
of the old saying "All work and no play," etc., for they often play as well as
work, and also take a long summer vacation. Excellent workers as they are,
they avoid unnecessary labor and do less of it than any other animal I know.
There were civic centers in the animal world long before man conceived
such an idea for himself.
The mountain lion is one of the slyest and most elusive animals in the
woods. Rarely is it seen, although its keen curiosity leads it to come close to
camping-parties and to follow individuals through the woods.
On the lower slopes of most Parks a few snakes are found, but they are
wholly absent from the middle and the higher slopes.
In most of the Park streams trout are found—Western brook trout,
Eastern brook trout, and California rainbow trout.
Among the more prominent birds common in a number of the Parks are
eagles, grouse, ptarmigans, Clarke crows, camp-birds,—Rocky Mountain
jays,—robins, bluebirds, blackbirds, song sparrows, white-crowned
sparrows, cañon wrens, solitaires, and water-ouzels. In several of the
National Parks a number of species of hummingbird are found.
Each spring many species of birds migrate up the mountain-slopes, where
they nest in the alpine heights. The mountain migration, requiring a flight of
only an hour or two, gives them climatic conditions similar to that of the
Arctic Circle, to reach which would cost them a journey of several thousand
miles.
Some species bring forth two broods each summer. The first is raised in
the lowlands, where the young are fed while flower life in the lowlands is at
its best. As soon as the young birds are able to care for themselves, the
parent birds move up the mountain-side into the very heart of summer. Here
they nest again. How romantic is every habit and custom in Bird World!
The second nest of children is thus reared on the alpine slopes. This enables
the old birds to bring up each brood in the midst of an abundant food-
supply. The white-crowned sparrow and two or three species of
hummingbird do this.

A closer study of birds and animals will probably reveal the fact that
numbers of them mate for life. My experience has led me to believe that
wolves and foxes, bluebirds, wrens, eagles, and other kinds of wild life do
this.
Of all the birds in the West, or in the world, the one most hopefully
eloquent is the solitaire. The song of the hermit thrush has a touch of
sadness—it subdues and gives to one a touch of reflective loneliness; but
the song of the solitaire stirs one to be up and doing; it gives the spirit of
youth. Its song comes from ages of freedom under peaceful skies, from a
mingling of the melody of winds and waters and of all rhythmic sounds that
murmur and echo through Nature's wonderlands.
High up in the mountains of the National Parks lives the ptarmigan, the
largest bird resident of the snowy heights. It spends the entire year in the
alpine zone, rarely descending below timber-line. Even the summits of the
peaks are visited by this sky-high dweller. Its dress changes with the
seasons; in winter it is pure white, stockings and all; in midsummer it is
grayish brown. These changing colors resemble those of the landscape and
thus help protect the ptarmigan from its enemies, the weasel, fox, bear,
eagle, and mountain lion. Although smaller than the grouse, it reminds one
of that bird. It eats grasses and insects and the seeds and buds of alpine
plants. Much of the winter-time is spent by these birds in the shelter of deep
holes or runs beneath the compressed snow of the heights. Though far from
the Arctic Circle, they are close relatives of the ptarmigan that dwells in the
realm of the polar bear.
One of the best-dressed and best-mannered bird families that visit
National Parks is that of the waxwing—cedar and Bohemian. These birds
usually travel in flocks. At a small watering-place they drink in routine,
moving forward in an orderly manner. When a number of them are resting
upon a limb, if one catches an insect, he is quite likely to pass it to his
neighbor, and the neighbor in turn to pass it to the next neighbor. Their
dress is quiet, refined, and attractive to a marked degree. It is an interesting
fact that these birds, so dainty of dress, so refined of manner, do not sing.
The cañon wren is a beautiful singer. So, too, is the water-ouzel, a bird of
the alpine brooks in the mountains of the West that has been immortalized
by John Muir. But few species of birds sing every day in the year. One of
those that do is the water-ouzel.

Most birds and animals appear to desire human society. Birds will leave
the seclusion of the forest to build by the roadside where people pass. Some
kinds of little feathered folk have deserted old nesting-scenes and now nest
by human homes. Robins, wrens, and bluebirds confidingly raise their
families in the scenes where children romp and play.
They may do this for better food opportunities and increased safety from
enemies, but it is also plain that many birds come chiefly to satisfy their
desire for human society. It has been often demonstrated that shy, well-fed
birds and animals are hoping and waiting for friendly advances on our part.
Wild neighbors are glad of the opportunity to call on us, whether we break
bread or not. They are also glad to have friendly calls returned. Birds and
animals have individuality. Food and kindness, and speaking to animals in
the universal language—friendly tones—are all means of promoting
acquaintance.
In the past we have greatly underrated the mental powers of animals. An
intimate association with wild life in the Parks will probably convince most
people that wild animals have the power to think and reason. It may also
acquaint people with the fact that animals as well as human beings possess
the traits of love, hatred, jealousy, anger, and revenge. Any one who
associates much with wild life will discover the exceptional keenness of
animal senses. In most animals scent is amazingly developed, and probably
is the first of the senses to warn them of danger.
Most animals may be spoiled by excessive or improper feeding. In the
Yellowstone Park the bears, which are omnivorous feeders, have free access
to the garbage-dumps and eat all sorts of unwholesome abominations. This
improper eating is bound to have a bad influence upon their habits, and is
already spoiling their disposition. Beasts of prey in the Parks are held in
check by the Government. Lions, lynxes, and other animals that become
numerous and destructive, or bears that develop killing habits, are disposed
of by the Government.
The excess of big game and birds in the Parks overflows and stocks the
territory outside. Each year, too, hundreds of elk and other big animals are
shipped from Yellowstone to many parts of the country. Well might these
Parks supply city zoos, or, better still, big wild-life reservations, with all
available kinds of animals needed. As well ship deer, moose, bears, beavers,
and antelopes as to ship elk. Here is a large field for the distribution of wild

life all over the United States. The general restocking of state and
government wild-life reservations may enable cities to cease maintaining
their animal prisons—the zoos.

XVIII
IN ALL WEATHERS

The seasons for visiting National Parks are spring, summer, autumn, and
winter! Morning, noon, the sunset hour, under the stars and with the moon
—all times, each in its way, are good for rambling in these places of
instruction and delight. I have climbed numerous peaks by moonlight and
starlight, and have stood on the summit of the Continental Divide with the
winter moon. Nature is good at all times. Rainy days, gray days, windy
days, all have something for you not ordinarily offered. So, too, have the
sunny winter days when upon the dazzling snow fall the deep-blue shadows
of the pines. Forget the season and the weather; visit the Parks when you
can stay there longest.
One day heavy clouds rested upon the snowy earth around my cabin, nine
thousand feet above sea-level. In these, and in the falling snow, I started up
the Long's Peak trail, in what now is the Rocky Mountain National Park. I
wished to measure the storm-cloud's vertical depth and to observe its
movements. Only a ravine and instinct enabled me to snow-shoe through
the blinding, flying snow and almost opaque sheep's-wool cloud. The cloud
was three thousand feet thick.
Suddenly, at twelve thousand feet, the depth of snow became markedly
less. Within a few rods I burst through the upper surface of the cloud into
brilliant sunshine! Not a bit of snow or cloud was there above this upper
level.
From a high ridge I watched the top surface of the storm-cloud as it lay
before me in the sun—a silvery expanse of unruffled sea, pierced by many
peaks. Half a mile above towered vast, rugged Long's Peak. Like a huge raft
becalmed in a quiet harbor, the cloud-sea moved slowly and steadily, almost
imperceptibly, a short distance along the mountains; then, as if anchored in
the center, it swung in easy rotation a few degrees, hesitated, and slowly
drifted back. Occasionally it sank, very slowly, several hundred feet, only to
rise easily to its original level.

With wonder I long watched this beautiful sunny spectacle, finding it
hard to realize that a blinding snow was falling beneath it. Later I learned
that this snowfall was thirty inches deep over several hundred thousand
square miles; but it fell only below the altitude of twelve thousand feet and
not on the high peaks.
Mountain-tops have more sunshine and fewer storms than the lowlands.
The middle slopes of a peak regularly receive heavier falls of rain and snow
than does the summit.
The rugged mountains in all Parks are wonderful in the snow. Snowshoe
excursions, climbs, skiing—all the sports of winter—may be enjoyed in
these magnificent wilds. Mountains in winter hold splendid decorations—
sketches of black and white, ice architecture, rare groups that form a
wondrous winter exhibition. Forests, cañons, meadows, plateaus and peaks,
where hills of snow and gigantic snow cañons form dazzling structures and
new topography, are marvelous exhibitions. The thousand and one
decorations of frost and snow-flowers are treasures found only under the
winter sky.

LONG'S PEAK FROM
CHASM LAKE
ROCKY MOUNTAIN
NATIONAL PARK
During a high wind one winter, as I fought my way up Long's Peak,
above timber-line I was pelted with gravel and sand till the blood was
drawn. The milling air-currents simply played with me as they swept down
from the heights. I was knocked down repeatedly, blown into the air, and
then dropped heavily, or rolled about like some giant's toy as I lay resting in
the lee of a crag. Standing erect was usually impossible and at all times
dangerous. Advancing was akin to swimming a whirlpool. At last I reached
the buzzing cups of an air-meter I had previously placed in Granite Pass,
twelve thousand feet above sea-level. This instrument was registering the
awful wind-speed of one hundred and sixty-five miles an hour! It flew to
pieces later during a swifter spurt.
Although I intended going no farther, the wild and eloquent elements
lured me to keep on to the summit of the peak, nearly three thousand feet
higher. All my strength and climbing knowledge were necessary to prevent
me from being blown into space. Gaining each new height was a battle.
Forward and upward I simply wrested my way with an invisible, tireless
contestant who seemed bent on breaking my bones or hurling me into
unbanistered space.
In one rocky gully the uprising winds became so irresistible that I had to
reverse ends and proceed with feet out ahead as bracers and hands
following as anchors. There was no climbing from here on: the blast
dragged, pulled, and floated me ever upward to the sunny, wind-sheltered
Narrows. The last stretch was a steep icy slope with a precipice beneath.
Casting in my lot with the up-sweeping wind, I pushed out into it and let go.
Sprawling and bumping upward, I had little else to do but guide myself. At
last I stood on the top and found it in an easy eddy—almost a calm
compared to the roaring conditions below. Far down the range great
quantities of snow were being explosively hurled into the air, then thrown
into spirals and whirls that trimmed the peak-points with gauzy banners and
silky pennants, through which the sunlight played splendidly.

Stirring and wild, wonderful scenes are encountered during storms on
mountain-tops, by the lakeshore, and in cañons. The dangers in such times
and places are fewer than in cities. Discomforts? Scarcely. To some persons
life must be hardly worth living. If any normal person under fifty cannot
enjoy being in a storm in the wilds, he ought to reform at once.
In the intensity and clash of the elements there is a vigorous building
environment. The storms furnish energy, inspiration, and resolution. There
are no substitutes "just as good," no experiences just as great.
One rainy June day I started up a dim steep trail toward the headwaters of
the river St. Vrain, near timber-line in what is now the Rocky Mountain
National Park. While enjoying the general downpour and its softened noise
through the woods, I was caught in a storm-center of wrangling winds and
waters, and was almost knocked down. Like a sapling, I bowed streaming in
the storm. Later, as I sat on a sodden log, reveling in the elemental moods
and sounds, a water-ouzel began to sing, but I heard little of his serene
optimistic solo above the roar of the wind and stream.
The storm raged louder as I approached timber-line. Clouds dragged
among the trees. I could see nothing clearly. Every breath was like
swallowing a wet sponge. Then a wind-surge rent the clouds and let me
glimpse the blue sun-filled sky. I climbed an exceptionally tall spruce. A
comic Frémont squirrel scolded in rattling, jerky chatter as I rose above the
sea of clouds and trees. Astride the slender tree-top, I felt that the wind was
trying hard to dislodge me, but I held on. The tree quivered and vibrated,
shook and danced; we charged, circled, looped, and angled. Nowhere else
have I experienced such wild, exhilarating joy. In the midst of this rare
delight the clouds rose, the wind calmed, and the rain ceased. Then
suddenly a blinding, explosive crash almost threw me from my observatory.
Within fifty feet a tall fir was split to the ground. Quickly climbing back to
earth, I eagerly examined the effects of the lightning-stroke. With one wild
blow, in a second or less it had wrecked a century-old tree.
Although I have rarely known lightning to strike the heights, I have
frequently experienced peculiar electric shocks from the air. I have never
known such electrical storms to prove fatal nor to leave ill effects; and they
may be beneficial. The day before the famous Poudre Flood, in May, 1904,
I was traveling along the Continental Divide above timber-line near Poudre
Lakes. While resting I was startled by the pulsating hum, the intermittent

buzz-z-z-z and zit-zit and the vigorous hair-pulling of electricity-laden
atmosphere.
Presently my right arm was momentarily cramped, and my heart seemed
to lurch several times. These electric shocks lasted only about two seconds,
but recurred every few minutes. The hair-pulling, palpitation, and cramps
seemed slightly less when I fully relaxed on the ground. When I tried to
climb, I found myself muscle-bound from the electricity. Points of dry twigs
momentarily exhibited tips of smoky blue flame, and sometimes similar
flame encircled green twigs below the lower limbs.
Later that day I came to North Specimen Mountain. There the electrical
waves weakened or entirely ceased while I was in shadow, but they
remained quite serious in the sun. I breathed only in gasps, and my heart
was violent and feeble by turns. I felt as if cinched in a steel corset. After
sundown I was again at ease and free from this strange electrical colic,
which often worries or frightens strangers the first time they experience it. I
soon forgot my own electrical experiences in the enjoyment that night of the
splendidly brilliant electric effects beneath the enormous mountain-range of
cloud-forms over the foothills. Its surface shone momentarily like
incandescent glass, and occasionally down the slopes ran crooked rivers of
gold.
I have had the good fortune to see geysers by sunlight, by moonlight,
during gray stormy days, and also while the earth around them was covered
with snow.
By moonlight the mountainous National Parks are enchanted lands. There
is a gentleness, a serenity, and a softness that is never known in daylight.
Many a time I have explored all night long. The trail is strangely romantic
when across it fall the moon-toned etchings of the pines. The waterfalls,
crags, mountain-tops, forest glades, and alpine lakes have marvelous
combinations of light and shade, and they stir the senses like music. I wish
that every one might see in the moonlight the Giant Forest in the Sequoia
National Park, or timber-line in the Rocky Mountain National Park. By
moonlight the Big Trees will stir you with the greatest elemental eloquence.
Those who go up into the sky on mountains in the moonlight will have the
greatest raptures and make the highest resolves.
Miss Edna Smith is one of the most appreciative outdoor women I ever
have known. Years ago I urged her to know the mountains at night. Here is

one of her accounts of a night experience:—
At supper-time the chances seemed against a start. It was raining. Later the rain stopped, but the
full moon was almost lost in a heavy mist and the light was dim. Mr. S. N. Husted, the guide, thought
an attempt to ascend Long's Peak hardly wise. At eleven o'clock I went to Enos Mills for advice. He
said, "Go." So we mounted our ponies and started, chilled by the clammy fog about us.
After a short climb we were in another world. The fog was a sea of silvery clouds below us and
from it the mountains rose like islands. The moon and stars were bright in the heavens. There was the
sparkle in the air that suggests enchanted lands and fairies. Halfway to timber-line we came upon
ground white with snow, which made it seem all the more likely that Christmas pixies just within the
shadows might dance forth on a moon-beam.
Above timber-line there was no snow, but the moonlight was so brilliant that the clouds far below
were shining like misty lakes, and even the bare mountainside about us looked almost as white as if
snow-covered.
As we left our ponies at the edge of the Boulder Field and started across that rugged stretch of
débris spread out flat in the brilliant moonlight, we found the silhouette of Long's Peak thrown in
deep black shadow across it. Never before had that bold outline seemed so impressive.
At the western edge of Boulder Field there was a new marvel. As we approached Keyhole, right in
the center of that curious nick in the rim of Boulder Field shone the great golden moon. The vast
shadow of the peak, made doubly dark by the contrast, made us very silent. When we emerged from
Keyhole and looked down into the Glacier Gorge beyond, it was hard to breathe because of the
wonder of it all. The moon was shining down into the great gorge a thousand feet below and it was
filled with a silvery glow. The lakes glimmered in the moonlight.
Climbing along the narrow ledge, high above this tremendous gorge, was like a dream. Not a
breath of air stirred, and the only sound was the crunch of hobnails on rock. There was a supreme
hush in the air, as if something tremendous were about to happen.
Suddenly the sky, which had been the far-off blue of a moonlit night, flushed with the softest
amethyst and rose, and the stars loomed large and intimately near, burning like lamps with lavender,
emerald, sapphire, and topaz lights. The moon had set and the stars were supreme.
The Trough was full of ice and the ice was hard and slippery, but the steps that had been cut in the
ice were sharp and firm. We had no great difficulty in climbing the steep ascent. We emerged from
the Trough upon a ledge from which the view across plains and mountain-ranges was seemingly
limitless.
As we made our way along the Narrows the drama of that day's dawn proceeded with
kaleidoscopic speed. Over the plains, apparently without end, was a sea of billowy clouds,
shimmering with golden and pearly lights. One mountain-range after another was revealed and
brought close by the rosy glow that now filled all the sky. Every peak, far and near, bore a fresh
crown of new snow and each stood out distinct and individual. Arapahoe Peak held the eye long.
Torrey's Peak and Gray's Peak were especially beautiful. And far away, a hundred miles to the south,
loomed up the summit of Pike's Peak. So all-pervading was the alpine glow that even the near-by
rocks took on wonderful color and brilliance.
Such a scene could last but a short time. And it was well for us, for the moments were too crowded
with sensations to be long borne. Soon the sun burst up from the ocean of clouds below. The lights
changed. The ranges gradually faded into a far-away blue. The peaks flattened out and lost
themselves in the distance. The near-by rocks took on once more their accustomed somber hues. And
in the bright sunlight of the new day we wondered whether we had seen a reality or a vision.
On the summit all was bright and warm. Long we lingered in the sunlight, loath to leave so much
beauty, but at last we began the descent leisurely. It was a perfect trip. It seemed as if the stage were

set for our especial benefit. It was an experience that will live with me always. At first I felt as if I
could never ascend the peak again, lest the impressions of that perfect night should become confused
or weakened. But I believe I can set this night apart by itself. And I shall climb Long's Peak again.

To enjoy the Parks, we need but to go to them realizing that these
wilderness realms are the greatest places of safety on the earth. The
thousand dangers of the city are absent; the altitude of high mountains is not
harmful but helpful—the air is free from dust and germs; and even the
wildest and most tempestuous weather within them will bear acquaintance.
The animals in the wilderness are not ferocious, and they wisely flee
from the coming of Christian people. Extraordinary skill is required to get
close to any wild animal. Even the camera will put the biggest wild folk to
flight! They attack only in self-defense, only when cornered and assailed by
the hunter. The animals that have survived and left descendants are those
which used their wits for flight and not in ferocity. The grizzly constantly
uses his wits to keep out of a locality where human beings are. Wolves may
once have been ferocious, but at present the aggressive ones are those in the
jungles of nature-faking; wolves keep apart from civilization, and travelers
are not likely to go out of their way to find them. In story-books the
mountain lion crouches upon the cliff or lies in wait upon a tree-limb to
spring upon human prey; but real lions do not do this sort of thing.
Each year thousands of people scale peaks in the Rockies, the Sierra, and
the Selkirks, or spend a less strenuous vacation in the heights, up several
thousand feet above the sea. From anæmics who stay at home they hear the
common superstition that altitude is harmful! But the travelers return to
their homes in high hopes and in vigorous health. The heights are helpful,
and the outdoors is friendly at all times. These are splendid sources of
hopefulness. They "knit up the raveled sleave of care." They arouse new
interests, give broader outlooks. They are great blessings that every one
needs.
There is a growing appreciation of the safe and sane outdoors. People are
rapidly realizing that vacations in the Parks and wild places are needful first
aids to impaired health, and also that outdoor life is absolutely necessary for
sustained or increased efficiency. From the wilderness the traveler returns a
man, almost a superman. Its elemental songs, pictures, and stories are a
language of eloquent uplift. Go to the wilderness and get its good tidings!
The wilderness is democratic and is full of ideas. It gives efficiency and
sympathy. The mingling of all classes in the Parks is a veritable blessing; it

is one of the greatest means of preventing internal strife and also of averting
international war.
Nature is an educational stimulus of rare force. The crumbling cliff, the
glacial landscape, the wild, free clouds, birds, and trees, compel children—
old and young—to observe and to think. They bring development and
sympathy. They build the brain. They increase courage and kindness.
Scenes and sunsets, cloud and storm, the stars and the sky, the music of
wind and water, the purple forests, the white cascades, the colored flowers,
the songs of birds, the untrimmed and steadfast trees, the shadows on the
ground, the tangled grass, the round, sunny hills, the endless streams, the
magic rainbow, and the mysterious echo—all these arouse thought, wonder,
and delight in the mind of every child; and they have been the immortal
nourishment of the great souls who have come from Mother Nature's loving
breast to bless and beautify the world.
"The robe doth change the disposition." During summer vacations, the
all-important rainy-day costume will save endless disappointment and
worry. Rainy days will bear acquaintance—if you have clothes for the
occasion. Cheerfulness and rainy days are united by waterproofs. One
simply cannot cheerfully face a rainstorm in clothes that water will ruin.
Hats or shoes that go to pieces in a downpour, skirts with colors that run—
these mean the Waterloo of some one when the rain comes down. But an
inexpensive hat, strong boots, and a raincoat—then let it rain!
When one is in the woods, the foremost thing to remember is the
direction back to camp. In a general way this is answered in the familiar
caution: "Stop, look, and listen!" A traveler through the woods should
occasionally stop and make sure of the direction in which he is traveling. At
every important bend in his course he should look ahead and notice the
most conspicuous landmark directly in front of him; then, about face for a
look at the most important point or landmark that he has passed. He would
thus be able, if he doubled on his own trail, to be guided by familiar objects,
just as if he had traveled over it before in the same direction, with eyes
open. Then, too, he should look to right and left for prominent or peculiar
trees, cliffs, or other objects.
Keeping eyes thus open and mind alert is not a burden; it adds to the
pleasure along the way. Any one who has thus traveled through strange
woods should have taken a mental picture of what he has seen as he went

on, and should be able to sit down and make a rough sketch of the locality
and of his trail, showing the location of camp, the course he has traveled
from it, and the prominent objects on both sides. A fair knowledge of
woodcraft will enable any one to determine the points of the compass.
While this is important, it is of less importance than remembering the
direction to camp.
If a person gets lost, he would do well at once to climb into a tree-top, or
to the summit of the highest near-by place, and from the commanding
height survey the surrounding country. This may enable him to see a
familiar landmark. If he fails to recognize any point, let him make a
comparatively small circle with the purpose of picking up his trail. He
should be careful to avoid aimless wandering, to which often lost people are
so prone. This he may do by following along the summit of a ridge, or
down the first brook or stream he can find. Of course, he will keep downhill
in looking for running water. A few hours, or at most a few days, of stream-
side travel will bring him where some one lives.
One is not likely to starve to death in the wilds. Starving is a slow
process, and experiences show that a fast of a few days may be beneficial.
Then, too, roots, berries, fruit, mushrooms, and tree-bark are to be found.
With nothing but these, I have repeatedly lived for two weeks or longer,
even at times when I was most active in exploring or mountain-climbing.
If a man is hopelessly lost, and if he knows that his companions are sure
to look for him, he should stop right where he is when he finds that he is
lost, and should camp and light two signal fires, giving a call at intervals.
Go into the Parks and get their encouragement. Among the serene and
steadfast scenes you will find the paths of peace and a repose that is sweeter
than sleep. If you are dulled and dazed with the fever and the fret, or weary
and worn,—tottering under burdens too heavy to bear,—go back to the old
outdoor home. Here Nature will care for you as a mother for a child. In the
mellow-lighted forest aisles, beneath the beautiful airy arches of limbs and
leaves, with the lichen-tinted columns of gray and brown, with the
tongueless eloquence of the bearded, veteran trees, amid the silence of
centuries, you will come into your own.
Some time the grizzled prospector will lead his stubborn burro down the
mountain and cease the search for gold; some time the miner will lay down
his pick, blow out his lamp or his candle, and leave the worked-out mine;

some time eternal night will come upon the gas- and coal-oil lamp; but our
sunny hanging wild gardens—our Parks—are immortal; they will give us
their beauty and their inspiration forever.

XIX
THE SCENERY IN THE SKY

This big round world carries in its heights four strange, marked features:
the vast records of the Ice King; timber-line, the alpine edge of the forest;
the mountain-top regions above timber-line; and, over-rising these, the high
peaks. Each of these features has scores of stories and pictures. All four of
them are seen at their best in some of the National Parks.

1. TIMBER-LINE

The most telling timber-line that I have seen is on the slope of Long's
Peak in the Rocky Mountain National Park. This is a wild place during a
winter gale. It is a stirring place at all times and seasons. One day I went up
to timber-line on Long's Peak with a number of children. They were
interested, and even excited, by the dwarfed and strangely shaped trees. We
found a dead pine that had lived two hundred and fifty-eight years, yet it
was so small that a boy easily carried it about on his shoulder. Several little
girls stood by a living spruce. Every child was taller than the little tree, yet
the spruce had been growing when each of their great-grandmothers was
born. All timber-line trees are undersized. Most of their ranks are less than
eight feet high.
One autumn a grizzly that I was following dug up a number of dwarfed
trees at timber-line. I carried these home for careful examination. One of
them was a black birch with a trunk nine tenths of an inch in diameter, a
height of fifteen inches, and a limb-spread of twenty-two inches. It had
thirty-four annual rings. Another was truly a veteran pine, though his trunk
was but six tenths of an inch in diameter, his height twenty-three inches,
and his limb-spread thirty-one inches. His age was sixty-seven years. A
midget that I carried home in my vest pocket was two inches high, had a
limb-spread of about four inches, and was twenty-eight years of age.

Timber-line is one of Nature's most interesting regions. Its location and
also its marked characteristics are determined by climatic conditions—by
cold, snow, wind, moisture, and drought. Wind is a most influential factor.
The position of thousands of miles of timber-line is determined by it. At
timber-line the Storm King says, "Thus far and no farther." The trees do not
heed, but persistently try to go on, and the struggle for existence becomes
deadly. They appear like our unfortunate brothers whom fate has chained in
the slums. The trees try to stand erect and climb onward and upward, but in
vain. The elements are relentless. The wind blows off their arms and cuts
them with flying sand. The cold dwarfs them, and for nine months in the
year the snow tries to twist and crush the life out of them. Some become
hunchbacks; others are broken, bent, and half-flayed; while a few crouch
behind the rocks. Many stretches of timber-line are so battered by the wind
that the trees have the appearance of having been recently swept by a
cyclone, or overthrown by a giant roller.
What a weird scene! Here for ages has been the line of battle between the
woods and the weather. At most timber-lines the high winds blow chiefly
from one direction. Many of the trees possess a long, vertical fringe of
limbs to leeward, being limbless and barkless to stormward. Each might
serve as an impressive symbolic statue of a wind-storm. Permanently, their
limbs stream to leeward together, with fixed bends and distortions, as if cast
in metal at the height of a storm. Many present an unconquerable and
conscious appearance, like tattered pennants or torn, triumphant battle-flags
of the victorious forest! Some trees are several inches in diameter and only
a few inches in height; others are creeping away from the direction of the
storms, retreating from life's awful battle. All beauty and nobleness of
appearance are lost. But the trees have done their best.
Timber-line is not stationary. In most places it is advancing, climbing the
heights. This advance is confined mainly to moist territory. In a few dry
places the ranks are losing ground—are being driven back down the slopes;
but these advances and retreats are extremely slow.
The altitude of timber-line varies with locality. On Mount Orizaba, in
Mexico, it is a little over thirteen thousand feet; in the San Juan Mountains,
in Colorado, a little above twelve thousand; in the Sierras and the Rockies,
between eleven thousand and thirteen thousand; in the Cascades and the
Alps, about sixty-five hundred feet; on Mount Washington, at forty-five

hundred feet. It is lower with increased distance from the Equator, and at
last is only a stone's throw above sea-level, finally showing its line in the
lowlands of the Farthest North. Among the trees that maintain the front
ranks at timber-line are pines, spruces, firs, aspens, birches, and willows.
Many beautiful flowers are found at timber-line, along with bees,
butterflies, birds, chipmunks, and foxes. Timber-line is a strangely
interesting, arousing place. As I have said in "The Rocky Mountain
Wonderland":—

The powerful impressions received at timber-line lead many visitors to return for a better
acquaintance, and from each visit the visitor goes away more deeply impressed; for timber-line is not
only novel and strange, it is touched with pathos and poetry and has a life-story that is heroic. Its
scenes are among the most primeval, interesting, and thought-compelling to be found upon the globe.

2. ABOVE THE TIMBER-LINE

The treeless moorlands and the crags that fill the sky above the limits of
tree-growth form an extensive mountain-top world all by itself, a realm of
plateaus and sky prairies, which only a few have explored. These regions
stand out like islands in the sky; they are singular treeless expanses above
the surrounding forest sea.

ABOVE THE TIMBER-LINE IN THE
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK
Long's Peak on extreme left
This realm is not barren and lifeless. For a number of species it is home.
The ptarmigan and the rose finch, the cony and the bighorn, live in the
heights the year round. Many migrating birds and animals use the region for
a nursery and a summer resort. Here, early in the autumn, Nature produces
her last berries. Here assemble birds from the lowlands, and flocks from the
North stop to feed and frolic while migrating to the Southland.
Here, too, along with peaks and moorlands, meadows and wild-flower
gardens, are crags, plateaus, cañons, lakes, glaciers, and snow-fields.

Countless small, clear streams originate in these island heights and from
them start merrily down to the far-off seas. Singly and in clusters, with
areas large and areas small, these sky islands are a feature of most of the
National Parks.
In the Rocky Mountain National Park a few flowers bloom on the highest
peaks more than fourteen thousand feet above sea-level. They are visited by
numerous winged insects, even by butterflies. Let a cloud come over the
sun, or a breeze start, and the butterflies, and perhaps other winged insects
above timber-line, fold wings and drop and remain motionless till the sky
clears. Evidently this is "safety first" from the short-lived but violent gales.
It is believed that the Arctic-alpine plants in these heights were brought
to them from the Arctic region on the great ice flow. They bloom in both
these zones at about the same date. Among the bright blossoms in the polar
mountain-top gardens are the columbine, gentian, aster, daisy, shooting-star,
bluebell, a few kinds of phlox, and that dearest of the heath blossoms, the
cassiope. Numbers are dwarfed to unbelievable smallness. Think of
bluebells perfectly formed and colored and yet so fascinatingly small and
dainty that a half-dozen could be sheltered in the upper half of a thimble!
The alpine wild-flower garden on Mount Rainier is one of the most
striking on the globe. Just above the timber-line and below and among the
glaciers, colored flowers grow in tall and crowded luxuriance. They color
broken distances for miles. It is doubtful if the world can show another
hanging garden in which wild flowers so splendidly mingle their lovely
hues with the broken picturesque forests, wild crags, and the grandeur of
glaciers.
In the Rocky Mountain National Park there is an accessible empire in the
mountainous sky, up more than two miles above the wide plains of the sea.
Mountain-climbers pass through these scenes on their way up peaks into the
sky without stopping to see the wonders. They have at best only an
introduction, or a hurried traveler's impression, of a strange and varied
exhibit.
A few centuries ago it was a common belief that high mountains were
peopled with monsters and demons. Those demons are gone from the
popular imagination; but there still exists a most unfortunate superstition,
commonly believed, that altitude is harmful! Yet it has a thousand benefits
for the visitor.

In the heights dwell a bigness, a strangeness, a friendliness not felt in the
earth's lower scenes. Altitude is ever refreshing. The dust-filled, noise-
crowded air is far below. From these scenic mountain heights one
commands a new world of mountainous cloud-scenery in the sky. Grand,
deep, blue gorges lie open in the cloud plateaus and mountains. To the
enraptured eye the shifting clouds sometimes become continents and
islands, real lands where people live, landscapes upon whose sunny hills
and forested mountains shadows of other clouds fall, and across whose
expanding plains many winding rivers run. Often the largeness of view
enables one to see vast cloud-pieces moved into place, shifted elsewhere,
and others arranged. Often a number of these movements are seen at once.
Here, too, the sunrise comes grandly before one, and from these mountain-
rims the painted sky of evening is most intense and vivid. Cloud and color
often mingle in paintings of undreamed vastness and glory.
Up here one appreciates the solemnity and the splendor of the moonlight.
The lonely silver moon appears a wandering planet, almost within hailing
distance. You call, and a hundred cliffs call with you. You listen, but there is
only the murmur of a far-off waterfall, or the receding, echoing crash of
some falling cliff. Everything is in half-tone. The chasm is concealed; peaks
along the sky-line are suggested; the valleys lie in subdued and mellow
light; strangely, from the silken shadow folds, the pinnacles peer at the
moon. Through the clean, clear air, the infinite sky becomes a near, inverted
field, crowded thick with stars.
This is a region worthy of multitudes of visitors, yet it has only a few.
Most people do not dream of its existence. Some time throngs will come to
these strange island shores in the sky as freely as now they crowd to the
beach and the breakers of the sea.

3. THE WORK OF THE ICE KING

With his glaciers the Ice King ground most of the soil in which now stand
the forests, the grasses, and the flowers. In producing this soil he sculptured
from the solid rock of the earth much of the scenery, shaped many of the
flowing landscapes, and formed the excavations in which ten thousand
lakes now rest in beauty. Long ice periods have had their sway, then
vanished. Most of the earth appears to have been ice-covered a number of

times. Then, after ages, the ice has returned. These periods appear to have
alternated with others whose climatic conditions were similar to those now
holding sway. The remaining glaciers, the world over, are growing smaller
and smaller.
A glacier is a slow-moving mass of ice. It may be as small as an average
steamship; it may be less than a mile wide and several miles long; or it may
cover hundreds of square miles. It may be less than a hundred feet, or a
thousand feet or more, in thickness. It may move only an inch or two a day,
or it may move several feet. Commonly it moves downward, but
occasionally one moves upward. The movement is due to gravity and to the
plasticity or rubbery nature of the ice when under sufficient pressure or
weight. In a large glacier the weight of the superimposed icy stratum is
immense; it is greater than the bottom layers can support. Under the
enormous pressure the bottom layers crawl or flow from beneath like
pressed dough. This forced mass moves outward in the direction of the least
resistance—commonly down the slope.
Glacier ice is formed by snow accumulating at a given point more rapidly
than it melts. This is due chiefly to wind, snowslides, and heavy snowfall.
The glacier, heavy and powerful, planes, polishes, and reshapes the surface
over which it travels, or the walls with which it comes in contact. Most of
the lake-basins were gouged out by glaciers. Mountain-ranges have been
worn down to hills or plains; cañons and depressions have been filled, and
extensive areas overlaid with ground-up rocky material. The gentle
snowflake has been the earth's chief maker of scenery and soil. Snowflakes,
working en masse and through long periods of time, have formed glaciers
and as such have wrought wonders.
A moraine is an embankment or delta of boulders and crushed rock
deposited by a glacier or ice river. Though commonly at the end, it may be
both along the side and at the end of a glacier, or of the channels which the
glacier once filled. All the mountainous National Parks have important
glacial records or ruins that almost entirely cover them. These are moraines,
soil-deposits, glaciated cañons, and lake-basins.
Vast is the quantity of material picked up and transported by glaciers.
Mountains are moved piecemeal, and are ground to boulders, pebbles, and
rock-flour in the moving. Besides the material the glacier gathers up and
excavates, it carries the wreckage thrown down upon it by landslides, and

also the eroded matter poured upon it by streams from the heights. Most of
the material that falls upon the top of the upper end of the glacier gradually
works its way to the bottom. At last, with the other gathered material, it is
pressed against the bottom and sides and used as a cutting, rasping, or
grinding tool till worn to pebbles or powder.
A part of the rocky material gathered is carried to the end of the glacier,
where the melting of the ice unloads and releases it. This accumulation at
the end is called the terminal moraine, and corresponds to the delta of a
river. For years the bulk of the ice may melt away at about the same place;
thus at this point accumulates an enormous amount of débris. An advance of
the ice may plow through this and repile it, or the retreat of the ice, or a
changed direction of its flow, may pile débris elsewhere. Many of these
terminal moraines are an array of broken embankments with small basin-
like holes and smooth, level spaces.
Many of the lakes have been filled with sediment, and in them and on
them forests now flourish. The glacier lakes were slowly created. Most of
them are being slowly filled. Those most favorably situated may still live on
for thousands of years, but an avalanche may extinguish one in a single day.
Eventually all must be filled and lost. They come into existence as a part of
the work of the glacier. For a period they lie beautiful in the sunlight; then
they are gone forever.
The extensive glacial records that show the past triumphs of the Ice King
sometimes make the mind restless, and it wants to know: "Will the Ice King
come again? Will mountains of white and silent snow again pile upon a
lifeless world?"

4. HIGH PEAKS

Those who go up into the clouds and sky on high mountains will find a
variety of lofty and magnificent peaks in the National Parks. These peaks
rise amid and above wildernesses of superb scenes, splendid combinations
of peaks, streams, lakes, passes, forests, and moorlands.
My three favorite peaks in the United States are Mount Rainier, Long's
Peak, and the Grand Teton, which is near Jackson's Hole, Wyoming.

In many respects Mount Rainier is the noblest mountain in the world. It
is high, and to reach its summit is to make a journey that requires
preparation and care. Much ice work is necessary in order to attain the top.
Once there, the climber looks down upon extensive landscapes of forests
and sea, islands and rivers, and snowy peaks.
Long's Peak is a rugged, vast monolith of granite 14,255 feet high.
Usually it is almost entirely free of both ice and snow. It is a rock climb. It
stands not in but immediately in front of the Continental Divide, whose
near-by ruggedness is tremendously impressive. Far away one looks out
over seas of mountains and on ocean plains. Standing side by side with
Long's Peak, and of almost equal height, is Mount Meeker, also a rock
climb that reveals scenes of unusual interest.
The Yellowstone has three excellent mountain-top view-points: Mount
Washburn, Mount Sheridan, and Electric Peak. One can motor to the top of
Mount Washburn, and the climbs to the tops of the other two are not
extremely difficult.
In the Yosemite, Mount Hoffman, not the highest peak, but centrally
located, commands the extraordinary scenes of the Park. Of the higher
peaks, Mount Lyell is an excellent example.
It is probable that Mount Whitney will become a part of the Sequoia
National Park. It is comparatively easy of ascent and commands great views
of the higher peaks of the Sierra. It is the highest peak within the bounds of
the Union, being 14,501 feet high.
Among a wilderness of rugged mountains and lakes of the Glacier
National Park are scores of peaks well worthy of the climber. To me Going-
to-the-Sun Mountain and Mount Cleveland are two of the better ones.
Exercising in the heights quickly disinfects and reënergizes the system. A
mental uplift, a broadening of the view, and a general lasting exhilaration
come from the effort of mountain-climbing, together with the intimate
human association and the soul-stirring scenes which it brings. Climbing a
worthy peak ought to be listed among the proudest of our yearly
accomplishments.
In "The Canoe and the Saddle" Theodore Winthrop thus translates the
good tidings of the mountains:—

Exaltation such as the presence of the sublime and solemn heights arouses, we dwellers eastward
cannot have as an abiding influence. Other things we may have, for Nature will not let herself
anywhere be scorned; but only mountains, and chiefest the giants of snow, can teach whatever
lessons there may be in vaster distances and deeper depths of palpable ether, in lonely grandeur
without desolation, and in the illimitable, bounded within an outline. Therefore, needing all these
emotions at their maximum, we were compelled to make pilgrimages back to the mountains....
Mountains have been waiting, even in ancient worlds, for cycles, while mankind looked upon them
as high, cold, dreary, crushing—as resorts for demons and homes of desolating storms. It is only
lately, in the development of men's comprehension of nature, that mountains have been recognized as
our noblest friends, our most exalting and inspiring comrades, our grandest emblems of divine power
and divine peace.

XX
JOHN MUIR

John Muir arrived in San Francisco by boat from Panama in 1868. He
was thirty years old. This was in the days of adventure. San Francisco Bay
was alive with strange ships from every part of the globe. The city was
filled with adventurers. On every hand were heard exciting tales of
colonization and wealth in South America, Siberia, and Australia, stories of
fabulous fortunes made in the islands of the South Seas, and rumors of rich
strikes by the "Bonanza Kings" in the mines of Nevada. These things did
not interest Muir. He became the Nestor of National Parks.

JOHN MUIR AT THE
FOOT OF A DOUGLAS
SPRUCE IN MUIR
WOODS

The second day after reaching San Francisco, he wandered away alone
into the wilderness. He heard Nature's bugle-call and was led on and on. He
wandered far into the flower-filled distances, threaded the forests, and
climbed the heights where wild cataracts leaped and where the glaciers had
left their story.
For forty years he spent the most of his time camping and exploring and
studying in the wilderness along the Pacific Coast, chiefly in the Sierra of
California. He neither fished nor carried a gun. He frequently went hungry;
many times was without bedding; often he was entirely alone for weeks.
These were glorious years!
He rambled through parts of Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and British
Columbia, and made five trips to Alaska. He also made visits to Australia,
India, Switzerland, Sweden, South America, and Africa. Long and
intimately he associated with Nature in the Yosemite National Park.
He married in 1879, and for ten years devoted a part of his time to
business, amassing a fair fortune. But in each of these years he managed to
have several weeks in the wilderness.
He had a large share in arousing the public interest that led to the creation
of forest reserves. For years he splendidly led the movement for National
Parks. His work and his writing glorified the scenic outdoors.
In his Autobiography he says, "When I was a boy in Scotland I was fond
of everything that was wild, and all my life I've been growing fonder and
fonder of wild places and wild creatures." In his boyhood Wisconsin home
he was so enraptured with Nature that, as he says, he could hardly believe
his senses except when he was hungry or his father was thrashing him.
In another case he says, "Every wild lesson a love lesson; not whipped
into us but charmed into us." Commenting on leaving college, he declares,
"I was only leaving one university for another, the Wisconsin University for
the University of the Wilderness." Stevenson wrote, "There should be
nothing so much a man's business as his amusements." John Muir's
amusements occupied the major part of his life, and the result is an
inspiring and ennobling influence on the world. More than anything else,
his work is likely immeasurably to help the human race by getting us
outdoors.
While ever enjoying the beauty of Nature, he was continually searching
for facts. He had the poetic appreciation of Nature. He was the greatest

genius that ever with words interpreted the outdoors. No one has ever
written of Nature's realm with greater enthusiasm or charm. He once said,
"In drying plants, botanists often dry themselves." He also felt that "dry
words and dry facts will not fire hearts." Much that he wrote is prose poetry
or is enlivened with the poetic fire of his genius.
His writings contain a wealth of National Parks material, and I wish that
every child might know of them. His books are: "The Mountains of
California," "Our National Parks," "Stickeen," "My First Summer in the
Sierra," "The Yosemite," "The Story of my Boyhood and Youth," "Travels
in Alaska," and "A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf."
In December, 1914, the grandest character in National Parks history and
in nature literature vanished into that mysterious realm into which all trails
inevitably lead. He had rendered mankind a vast and heroic service. His
triumphs were of the very greatest. They were made in times of peace for
the eternal cause of peace. We are yet too close to the deeds of this
magnificent man to comprehend their helpfulness to humanity. His practical
labors and his books are likely to prove the most influential force in this
century for the profitable use of leisure hours.
He has written the great drama of the outdoors. On Nature's scenic stage
he gave the wild life local habitation and character—did with the wild folk
what Shakespeare did with man. He puts the woods in story, and in his story
you are in the wilderness. His prose poems illuminate the forest, the storm,
and all the fields of life. He has set Pan's melody to words. He sings of sun-
tipped peaks and gloomy cañons, flowery fields and wooded wilds. He has
immortalized the Big Trees. His memory is destined to be ever associated
with the silent places, with the bird-songs, with wild flowers, with the great
glaciers, with snowy peaks, with dark forests, with white cascades that leap
in glory, with sunlight and shadow, with the splendid National Parks, and
with every song that Nature sings in the wild gardens of the world.

XXI
NATIONAL PARKS THE SCHOOL OF
NATURE

Why not each year send thousands of school-children through the
National Parks? Mother Nature is the teacher of teachers, these Parks the
greatest of schools and playgrounds. No other school is likely so to inspire
children, so to give them vision and fire their imagination. Surely the
children ought to have this extraordinary opportunity.
The percentage of children aroused and started to greatness by schools of
prison-like policy is small indeed. The proper place for at least a part of
every child's schooling is the great outdoors. In our great National Parks we
have an unrivaled outdoor school that is always open; in it is a library, a
museum, a zoölogical garden, and a type of the wilderness frontier. In this
school-children are brought into contact with actual things, and become
personally acquainted with useful facts, instead of merely reading about
them. No better surroundings can be devised for developing common sense.
Learning under such conditions is delightful, yet it is discipline—a
discipline that develops, not mere drudgery that discourages. Education
cannot be separated from enjoyment. "Let us live for our children," said
Froebel, the early exponent of the school of Nature. It is doubtful if we
could do more for our young folk, for the nation, and for humanity than to
have ample National Parks and opportunities for the children to enjoy them.
If each boy or girl—or any traveler—were to follow a particular line of
nature-study during vacations, and give most of his time to one species of
tree, flower, bird, or to the characteristic scenic feature of the region visited,
each would return with a new and pleasant resource, and would have
something definite and worth while to report to his friends.
One of the greatest inheritances of each individual is imagination. The
child instinctively believes in fairies. Unfortunately, the imagination too

often is stifled and extinguished in childhood. It is imagination that "bodies
forth the forms of things unknown," and makes all objects interesting. It
lights the path of education and throws changing color and romance over
every act and scene in life. It gives a magic spell to existence. This
matchless torch may be set blazing by a visit to the wonderland of a
National Park where wilderness is king—where the fairies live.
Often, the chief incentive that starts a child toward the acquiring of an
education is interest in this fairyland of Nature. Interest is the highroad to
education. Interest the mind and it will grow like a garden. The National
Parks have, through this fact, an educational value which entitles them to be
ranked among the strongest potential forces of our pedagogical system.
I have never known any one who had enjoyed the pleasure that comes
from even a little knowledge of natural history to sink into the empty-
headed pastime of trying to see crude forms in Nature's story-book. Usually,
an individual given to this, when on an outing, is a bore to his companions.
I simply cannot understand how people find pleasure in trying to discover
animal forms, or various zoölogical figures, in the geological formations of
the mountains, while the beholders are in the midst of a thousand objects of
real interest. Such an exercise may be called humbug imagination.
Playing in the outdoors—especially when there is intimate association
with birds and flowers, trees and waterfalls, mountains and storms—is one
of the best ways of training the senses. The study of geology and
glaciology, of the manners and customs of the beaver and the bear, gives
physical and mental and spiritual development of the best possible kind.
The outdoors gives originality and individuality, and develops that master
quality called the creative faculty, with which usually are found associated
courage and wholesome self-reliance.
Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University, says:—
The best part of all human knowledge has come by exact and studied observation made through
the senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. The most important part of education has always
been the training of the senses through which that best part of knowledge comes. This training has
two precious results in the individual besides the faculty of accurate observation—one the acquisition
of some sort of skill, the other the habit of careful reflection and measured reasoning which results in
precise statement and record.

The pioneer men and women, and the children of pioneers, had few
books, but they were wide-awake people and made excellent neighbors.

Scores of great men and women with character as well as intelligence have
known little of books, but they had the ability to think—they had
individuality. They had courage and kindness.
Mother Nature is ever ready to train the growing child. By using our
wonderful National Parks for schools, we may give the boys and girls of to-
day even better nature training than the pioneers received from their
environment. Huxley says, "Knowledge gained at second hand from books
or hearsay is infinitely inferior in quality to knowledge gained at first hand
by direct observation and experience with Nature."
Many of the noblest pages of history were made by grand men and
women whom Nature inspired. A poet says that all grand and heroic deeds
were conceived in the open air. A nation composed of park-using people is
prepared for the emergencies of war and also for the finer achievements of
peace. Park life will keep the nation young.
Some of our thoughtful people are saying, "Better playgrounds without
schools than schools without playgrounds." The Parks used as a part of the
school system should develop, enrich, and equip with happy, helpful
material the growing mind of man.
In "The Training of the Human Plant," Luther Burbank says:—
Any form of education which leaves one less able to meet every-day emergencies and occurrences
is unbalanced and vicious, and will lead any people to destruction.
Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, waterbugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud-turtles,
elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb, brooks to wade in, water-lilies,
woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand,
snakes, huckleberries, and hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived
of the best part of his education.
By being well acquainted with all these they come into most intimate harmony with nature, whose
lessons are, of course, natural and wholesome.
A fragrant beehive or a plump, healthy hornet's nest in good running order often become object
lessons of some importance. The inhabitants can give the child pointed lessons in punctuation, as
well as caution and some of the limitations as well as the grand possibilities of life; and by even a
brief experience with a good patch of healthy nettles, the same lesson will be still further impressed
upon them. And thus by each new experience with homely natural objects the child learns self-
respect and also to respect the objects and forces which must be met.

The wild gardens of Nature are the best kindergartens. The child who
breathes the pure air among the pines, and plays among the birds and
flowers, has the greatest of advantages. The child stirred with ideal hopes
to-day will create nobly to-morrow. Children from Nature's Book and

School stand highest in the examinations of life and carry life's richest
treasures: health, individuality, sincerity, wholesome self-reliance, and
efficiency. Touched with nature, they are natural and, like Tiny Tim, they
love everybody. Nature wins the heart of childhood. Children playing and
dreaming in outdoor fairylands make one of the sweetest, dearest stories
lived or learned on Nature's loving breast.
One of the best lessons gained from the wholesome atmosphere of the
Parks is the duty of preserving natural beauties. We need Parks to prevent
the extermination of our friends the wild flowers. A few years ago the
following simple appeal for the wild flowers was written for me by Maud
Gardner Odel:—
What will you with our bodies,
Rude Ravishers of flowers,
Despoiler of our loveliness
To please your idle hours?
The life you pluck so gayly
Will perish in a day;
The form you praise so lightly,
Turn swiftly to decay;
But leave us on our hillside
With wind and bird and bee,
Insure us our inheritance
Of immortality,—
Your sons shall know our fragrance,
Your daughters feel our charm.
Oh, Friend of Future Ages,
Do not the Wild Flowers harm!
Columbine,
Gentian,
Iris, and Others.
Photographs made in National Parks could be used in homes, schools,
hotels, etc.; they might well displace many of the pictures now in use. These
photographs should embrace the grander scenes and the lovelier landscapes.
Among the subjects handled would be the Big Trees, Yellowstone Falls,
Yosemite Falls, the Grand Cañon, wild flowers and glaciers on Mount
Rainier, the lakes in Glacier National Park, timber-line in the Rocky

Mountain National Park, Crater Lake, and the ruins in the Mesa Verde.
Among the animals pictured would be the grizzly bear, the mountain sheep,
the mountain goat, the antelope, and the beaver; among the birds, the water-
ouzel, the solitaire, the cañon wren, the eagle, the hummingbird, and the
ptarmigan.
We need to know our country. Purposeful travel is educational. Our
National Parks should stimulate travel, and a trip to them is an educational
advantage to any one making it. One can hardly be especially interested in
any single feature of these Parks without also becoming acquainted with
others.
Each year every city should honor itself by sending a number of
individuals to study one or more of these Parks. Each school should send its
brightest pupil; chambers of commerce might send representatives;
women's clubs, D.A.R. organizations, and even the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A.
might well be represented in such a delegation. This custom would give us
nation-wide knowledge and sympathy.
It appears impossible to exaggerate the importance of knowing our
wilderness lands—the frontier of yesterday.
During all the years—the long centuries between cave and cottage—our
good ancestors ever traveled among Nature's inspiring pictured scenes.
With interest and with awe they watched the silent movements of the clouds
across the sky; they heard with speechless wonder the mysterious echo that
lived and mimicked in the viewless air; they puzzled over the strange,
invisible wind that shook the excited trees and whispered in the rustling
grass. They saw the wondrous sunrise; the light of day; the darkness; the
fireflies in the forest; the lonely, changing moon. They heard the echoing
crash of thunder. Lightning,—the branched golden river in the cloud
mountains of the sky,—the clouds themselves, and the silken rainbow, were
woven into beautiful myths. Thus, through changing seasons and the
passing years, these splendid facts and fancies in Mother Nature's school
fired the imagination with poetic wonder-tales and built the brain for our
restless, triumphant race. The pathway to the Heroic Age lies out with
Nature.

XXII
WHY WE NEED NATIONAL PARKS

The Piute Indians have a legend which says that just at the close of
creation the woman was consulted. She at once called into existence the
birds, the flowers, and the trees. That is the kind of a woman with whom to
start a world. We still need park places full of hope and beauty, with birds,
flowers, and trees, that with their help we may live long and happily and
harmoniously upon a beautiful world.
Scenic parts of this poetic and primeval world—parts rich in loveliness
and grandeur—are saved for us in our National Parks. The National Parks
and Monuments are filled with Nature's masterpieces, and contain splendid
scenic and scientific features not elsewhere to be seen. The traveler might
spend a lifetime in them without exhausting even their best attractions.
A National Park is an island of safety in this riotous world. Splendid
forests, the waterfalls that leap in glory, the wild flowers that charm and
illuminate the earth, the wild sheep of the sky-line crags, and the beauty of
the birds, all have places of refuge which parks provide.
A National Park is a fountain of life. It is a matchless potential factor for
good in national life. It holds within its magic realm benefits that are health-
giving, educational, economic; that further efficiency and ethical relations,
and are inspirational. Every one needs to play, and to play out of doors.
Without parks and outdoor life all that is best in civilization will be
smothered. To save ourselves, to prevent our perishing, to enable us to live
at our best and happiest, parks are necessary. Within National Parks is room
—glorious room—room in which to find ourselves, in which to think and
hope, to dream and plan, to rest and resolve.
Nature, like our best friends, will have us do our best. King Lear led the
typical purposeless indoor life. He was surrounded with pomp and senseless
ceremony. He was in the midst of enemies of sincerity and individuality. He
decayed. He was turned outdoors. Across the stormy moor he wandered,

followed by his faithful Fool. At the door of the hovel he hesitated. Urged
by the Fool, he agreed to take shelter inside. In a brief time with Nature on
the moor he had become acquainted with himself and had developed
universal sympathy. Standing in the storm at the entrance to the hovel, he
uttered this noble cry of compassion:—
"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these?"
National Parks provide climate for everybody and scenery for all. If we
play in the scenes where fairies live, for us all will be right with the world.
Parks give purpose, noble purpose, to life. They are the "Never-Never-
Land" in which we shall ever be growing, but never grow up.
The great peaks with age-old ice and snow, the mountain-high waterfalls
that rush and roar, the waveless lakes that show the cloud and the blue, the
waves of wind that shake the steadfast trees, the songs of birds that ring
through the wilderness, the many-colored flowers and glorious sunsets—
these waken and inspire us. We are glad to be living, and life's duties are
done with happiest hands. We need these enchanted places. I am thankful to
the pioneers who saw the wilderness scenes and were thoughtful enough to
save the National Parks for us.
Robert Louis Stevenson says, "A man's most serious business is his
amusements"; and some one else has said:—
We need more plain pleasures, for recreation rightly used is a resource for the common purposes of
daily life that is entitled to rank with education, with art, with friendship. It is one of the means
ordained for the promotion of health and cheerfulness and morality. Vice must be fought by welfare,
not restraint; and society is not safe until to-day's pleasures are stronger than its temptations.
Amusement is stronger than vice and can strangle the lust of it. Not only does morality thus rest back
on recreation, but so does efficiency. One half of efficiency and happiness depends upon vitality, and
vitality depends largely upon recreation, especially the simple recreation of the open air.

How and where people play determines the character of individuals and
the destiny of their country. Success in life-work depends upon play and
relaxation. Blue Monday did not originate outdoors. It is doubtful if any
other influence produces so many good habits as a park. Parks keep a nation
hopeful and young.

The better and stronger nation of the future will be a park-using nation.
Many wrecked nations have tried to get along without outdoor parks and
recreation-places. It is but little less than folly to spend millions on forts and
warships, on prisons and hospitals, instead of giving people the opportunity
to develop and rest in the sane outdoors.
The population of the United States now numbers a hundred millions and
is growing with amazing rapidity. The harassing, exacting life of to-day
makes outdoor life more important than ever before. Even in the country,
more play places are needed. Most of the parklike places in the country
have fallen into private hands to the exclusion of the public, but in every
State in the Union a number of scenic places are available. These might
well be secured by the public and made into city and county, state and
national parks.
The intensity of love for native land depends chiefly upon the loveliness
of its landscapes—upon its scenery. The great scenic places of a land should
be owned by the public and often seen by the public. We cannot love an
ugly country. Beauty satisfies the world's great longing. Hatred and
prejudice may be taught, but the love of land must be inspired—and
inspired by the scenic loveliness of that land. "The beautiful is as useful as
the useful." Some time a Secretary of Parks and Recreation may be the most
honored member of the President's Cabinet.
Develop National Parks, and there is no danger that the people will fail to
use them. They will help us to build a vast travel industry. In each of the
years immediately preceding the European war, more than half a million
Americans went to Europe. Each individual spent not less than a thousand
dollars, a total of five hundred million dollars—this exclusive of large sums
spent for works of art, jewelry, and clothing. Why should not such vast
expenditures be made in our own country instead of in foreign lands?
Scenery is an asset, and parks, multiplied and properly managed, would
greatly help to keep our money at home as well as to educate and refine our
people.
The existing National Parks—and there will be others—are a vast
undeveloped resource of enormous potential value. They are a golden field
that will grow the more with reaping! The Parks have the power to change
and better the habits of a nation. They may arouse in us the desire to spend

most of our spare time, and lead to the fashion of holding most of our social
gatherings, outdoors.
Lack of national unity is perilous. A nation divided against itself is not
strong. Internal strife sometimes is worse than foreign war. The people of
the United States are united in name, but are they doing good team-work?
The mingling of people from all quarters in their own great National Parks
means friendly union. The Westerner ought to know the Easterner; the
Easterner should be acquainted with the Westerner, and he ought also to see
the magnificent distances in the West. Travel to National Parks will promote
such acquaintance in the happiest circumstances. Greatly it would help the
general welfare of the nation if the citizens of the United States were better
acquainted with their own country, its resources, its people, and its
problems. The debates on various public measures in Congress show a lack
of national unity that arises from a lack of national information. A people
united is a nation well prepared.
I sometimes think that getting really acquainted with some person, or
with some fact, is a great event. There is nothing like acquaintance for
promoting friendship, sympathy, and coöperation. To bring the capitalist
and the laborer—all classes—together in the Park's august scenes, is bound
to encourage acquaintance and to prevent misunderstandings. All this
means unity, friendship, and will keep war drums in the background.
He who feels the spell of the wild, the rhythmic melody of falling water,
the echoes among the crags, the bird-songs, the wind in the pines, and the
endless beat of wave upon the shore, is in tune with the universe. And he
will know what human brotherhood means; will understand the heart of the
democratic poet who declares, "A man's a man for a' that."
In Nature's ennobling and boundless scenes, the hateful boundary-lines
and the forts and flags and prejudices of nations are forgotten. Nature is
universal. She hoists no flags of hatred. Wood-notes wild contain no
barbaric strains of war. The supreme triumph of parks is humanity. And as I
have said elsewhere, some time it may be that an immortal pine will be the
flag of a united and peaceful world.
John Muir felt that National Parks were the glory of the country and
should make this country the glory of the earth. I feel certain that if Nature
were to speak she would say, "Make National and State Parks of your best
wild gardens, and with these I will develop greater men and women."

XXIII
THE TRAIL

National Parks will insure the perpetuation of the primitive and poetic
pathway, the Trail.
The trail is as old as the hills. In every wild corner of the world it is the
dim romantic highway through "No Man's Land." Ever intimate with the
forest and stream, this adventurous and primitive way has an endless
variety. Its scenes shift and its vistas change. It has the aroma of the
wilderness. It always leads to a definite place over a crooked and alluring
way. With eager haste it may go straight to some poetic point, but usually it
winds with many a delightful delay. I think of it as watching the white
cascades, listening to the echoes, delaying by the lonely shore, spending
hours in the forest primeval, leisurely crossing the grassy, sun-filled glades,
skirting the time-stained crags and vanishing into the heights, looking down
into the valley, and tarrying where artists would linger. Somewhere it leads
to a lake.

TRAIL NEAR TIMBER-LINE, INDIAN
HENRY'S PARK, MOUNT RAINIER

At the primitive beaver house it takes a look as it crosses the expanded
brook upon the beaver dam. A fallen tree gives it a way across the river. In a
gorge it hears the ouzel from the rocks pour forth his melody—joyous notes
of happy, liquid song.
It crosses a moraine to examine the useful débris that the Ice King
formed while he was sculpturing the mountains and giving lines to the
landscape. Clouds bound for definite ports in the trailless sky adorn its
realm with floating shadows. It passes a picturesque old landmark, a pine of
a thousand years. In this one spot the ancient pine has stood, an observing
spectator, while the seasons and the centuries flowed along. His
autobiography is rich in weather lore, full of adventures, and filled with
thrilling escapes from fires, lightning, and landslides. During his thousand
years, strange travelers and processions have passed along. He often saw
victor and victim and the endless drama of the wilderness.
The trail is followed by wild life, and along it the wild flowers fill the
wild gardens. It has the spirit of the primal outdoors. It extends away ever
to the golden age. Many a night this way across the earth is as thick with
fireflies as the great Milky Way across the sky with stars. The moon, the
white aspens, and the dark spruces pile it with romantic shades, and on a
sunny day it is often touched by the fleeting shadow of an eagle in the sky.
This old acquaintance would have you carry your own pack, and, like
your best friend, expects your best on every occasion. The trail compels you
to know yourself and to be yourself, and puts you in harmony with the
universe. It makes you glad to be living. It gives health, hope, and courage,
and it extends that touch of nature which tends to make you kind. This
heroic way conducted our ancestors across the ages. It should be preserved.
It has for us the inspiration of the ages.
A dim trail led our wandering primeval ancestors out from the twilight. It
was a trail ever winding, shadowy, and broken, but ever under the open sky
and ever from "yesterday's seven thousand years." It had its beginning in
the walks of beasts that prowled the solemn primeval forests. Over it our
half-lost ancestors painfully advanced. A fallen tree was their first bridge
and a floating log their first boat. They wondered at the strange alternating
day and night at which we still wonder. With joy they watched the shining
dawn, and with fear and dread they saw the dusk of dying day. They learned
the endless procession of seasons. The mysterious movements of wind and

water aroused their curiosity, and with childlike interest they followed the
soft and silent movements of the clouds. The wide and starry sky appealed
strangely, strongly, to their imagination, and in this luminous field of space
their fancy found a local habitation and a name for the thousand earthly
fears and factors of their lives. They dared the prairie, climbed the hills, but
long kept close to the forest.
After hard and fearful ages—after "a million years and a day"—the
camp-fire came at last. This fragment of the Immortal Sun conquered the
cold and the night, and misery and dread gave way to comfort and hope. No
more the aspen trembled. It became a dancing youth, while the strange,
invisible echo was a merry hiding child. The fireflies changed to fairies, and
Pan commenced to pipe the elemental melody of the wild.
Nature ever showed her pictures and interested her children in fairylands.
Winter, cold and leafless; spring, full of song and promise; the generous
wealth of summer; and autumn with its harvest and color, came and
disappeared, and came again through all the mysterious years. Lightning,
the echo, with roar and whisper of the viewless air, the white and lonely
moon, the strange eclipse, the brilliant and fleeting rainbow,—Nature's
irised silken banner,—the mystery of death, these seeds of thought bloomed
into the fanciful, beautiful myths and legends that we know.
Once, like a web of joy, trails overspread all the wild gardens of the
earth. The long trail is gone, and most others are cut to pieces and ruined.
The few broken remnants are but little used.
The traveler who forgets or loses the trail will lose his way, or miss the
best of life. The trail is the directest approach to the fountain of life, and this
immortal way delays age and commands youth to linger. While you delay
along the trail, Father Time pauses to lean upon his scythe. The trail
wanders away from the fever and the fret, and leads to where the Red Gods
call. This wonderful way must not be buried and forgotten.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

A
ACT OF DEDICATION OF THE
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

An Act to set apart a Certain Tract of Land lying near the Headwaters
of the Yellowstone River as a Public Park.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled,—That the tract of land in the
Territories of Montana and Wyoming lying near the headwaters of the
Yellowstone River and described as follows, to-wit: Commencing at the
junction of Gardiner's River with the Yellowstone River and running east to
the meridian, passing ten miles to the eastward of the most eastern point of
Yellowstone Lake; thence south along the said meridian to the parallel of
latitude, passing ten miles south of the most southern point of Yellowstone
Lake; thence west along said parallel to the meridian, passing fifteen miles
west of the most western point of Madison Lake; thence north along said
meridian to the latitude of the junction of the Yellowstone and Gardiner's
Rivers; thence east to the place of beginning, is hereby reserved and drawn
from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and
dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit
and enjoyment of the people; and all persons who shall locate, or settle
upon, or occupy the same or any part thereof, except as hereinafter
provided, shall be considered trespassers and removed therefrom.
Sec. 2. That said public park shall be under the exclusive control of the
Secretary of the Interior, whose duty it shall be, as soon as practicable, to
make and publish such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary or
proper for the care and management of the same. Such regulations shall
provide for the preservation from injury or spoliation of all timber, mineral
deposits, natural curiosities or wonders within said park, and their retention
in their natural condition.

The Secretary may, in his discretion, grant leases for building purposes,
for terms not exceeding ten years, of small parcels of ground, at such places
in said park as shall require the erection of buildings for the accommodation
of visitors; all of the proceeds of said leases, and all other revenue that may
be derived from any source connected with said park, to be expended under
his direction in the management of the same and the construction of roads
and bridle-paths, and shall provide against the wanton destruction of fish
and game found within said park and against their capture or destruction for
the purpose of merchandise or profit. He shall also cause all persons
trespassing upon the same after the passage of this act to be removed
therefrom, and generally shall be authorized to take all such measures as
shall be necessary or proper to fully carry out the objects and purposes of
this act.
Approved March 1, 1872.
Signed by:
James G. Blaine, Speaker of the House.
Schuyler Colfax, Vice-President of the United States and President of the
Senate.
Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States.

B
THE NATIONAL PARKS AT A GLANCE

ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY IN THE ORDER OF THEIR
CREATION
(Number, 17; total area, 9776 square miles)

Area in
National
Location square Distinctive characteristics
Parks
miles
46 hot springs possessing
Hot Springs Middle curative properties—Many hotels
1½
(1832) Arkansas and boarding-houses—20
bathhouses under public control.
More geysers than in all rest of
world together—Boiling springs
—Mud volcanoes—Petrified
forests—Grand Cañon of the
Yellowstone, remarkable for
gorgeous coloring—Large lakes
—Many large streams and
Yellowstone Northwestern
3348 waterfalls—Vast wilderness
(1872) Wyoming
inhabited by deer, elk, bison,
moose, antelope, bear, mountain
sheep, beaver, etc., constituting
greatest wild bird and animal
preserve in world—Altitude 6000
to 11,000 feet—Exceptional
trout-fishing.
Yosemite Middle 1125 Valley of world-famed beauty—
(1890) eastern Lofty cliffs—Romantic vistas—

California Many waterfalls of extraordinary
height—3 groves of Big Trees—
High Sierra—Large areas of
snowy peaks—Water-wheel falls
—Good trout-fishing.
The Big Tree National Park—
12,000 sequoia trees over 10 feet
Middle
Sequoia in diameter, some 25 or 36 feet in
eastern 252
(1890) diameter—Towering mountain-
California
ranges—Startling precipices—
Fine trout-fishing.
Created to preserve the celebrated
Middle General Grant Tree, 35 feet in
General
eastern 4 diameter—6 miles from Sequoia
Grant (1890)
California National Park and under same
management.
Largest accessible single peak
glacier-system—28 glaciers,
Mount
West central some of large size—48 square
Rainier 324
Washington miles of glacier, 50 to 500 feet
(1899)
thick—Wonderful sub-alpine
wild-flower fields.
Lake of extraordinary blue in
crater of extinct volcano, no inlet,
Crater Lake Southwestern
249 no outlet—Sides 1000 feet high
(1902) Oregon
—Interesting lava-formations—
Fine trout-fishing.
Most notable and best preserved
Mesa Verde Southwestern
77 prehistoric cliff dwellings in
(1906) Colorado
United States, if not in the world.
Many sulphur and other springs
Southern
Platt (1906) 1 ⁄8 possessing medicinal value,
1
Oklahoma
under Government regulation.
Glacier Northwestern 1534 Rugged mountain region—250
(1910) Montana glacier-fed lakes—60 small
glaciers—Peaks of unusual shape

—Precipices thousands of feet
deep—Fine trout-fishing.
Heart of the Rockies—Snowy
Rocky
North middle range, peaks 11,000 to 14,250
Mountain 400
Colorado feet altitude—Remarkable
(1915)
records of glacial period.
Hawaii Hawaiian Vast volcanoes—Craters—
117
(1916) Islands Tropical plants and birds.
Lassen
Northern Active volcano, volcanic records,
Volcanic 123
California lakes, hot springs, and forests.
(1916)
"The Great One"; highest peak in
Mount
Central North America, 20,300 feet; vast
McKinley 2200
Alaska big-animal range; enormous
(1917)
glaciers; wild flowers.

Other National Parks are:—

Sully's Hill (1904) North Dakota Wooded hilly tract on Devil's Lake.
Wind Cave (1903) South Dakota Large natural cavern.
Casa Grande Ruin (1892) Arizona Prehistoric Indian ruin.

For National Park booklets and other Park information address The Director, National Park
Service, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.

C
PROPOSED NATIONAL PARKS

Region Location Characteristics
Grand Cañon Arizona The Grand Cañon.
Near Denver, Magnificent peak, primeval forests, lakes,
Mount Evans
Colorado and alpine flora.
Mount Baker
Northwestern Extinct or sleeping volcano; thirty square
(the Indian
Washington miles of glaciers, forests, and wild flowers.
Kulshan)
Sawtooth Precipitous mountains, alpine lakes, heavy
Central Idaho
Mountains forests, flowery meadows, clear streams.
Ozark Northern
Rare river and mountain landscapes.
Mountains Arkansas
Mount Northeastern Rare combination of river, hill, forest,
McGregor Iowa bluff, and plains.
Pajarito
Pajarito Cliff Plateau, near Many vast prehistoric ruins of wonderful
Cities Santa Fé, Indian civilization.
New Mexico.
Western Highest peak east of the Rockies, 6711 feet
Mount
North high; quiet scenery of the South
Mitchell
Carolina Appalachians.
The most frequently climbed 14,000-foot
Central
Pike's Peak peak in the world; excellent view-point,
Colorado
rising abruptly from the plains.
Northern Lake Shore; extraordinary aggregation of
Dunes
Indiana plants from warm, cold, wet and dry zones.
Magnificent mountains, individual in form
Southwestern
San Juan and color, with large scene-commanding
Colorado
plateaus.

Western Lake-dotted plateau that towers near
Grand Mesa
Colorado splendid horizons.
Bighorn Northern A towering, rocky, scenic alpine-island area
Mountains Wyoming in the sea of plains.
International
Park between
Stupendous waterfall; might well become
Niagara Falls Canada, and
an international park.
New York
near Buffalo
Northern Highest peak in northern California; alpine
Mount Shasta
California flowers; lava deposits; scenery.
Northern
Oregon, near
Mount Hood Volcanic peak; icefields and forests.
Columbia
River
Roosevelt Enormous dam; vast reservoirs; desert
Arizona
Project areas; cactus park; historic ground.
Cañon de Towering monolithic rocks; high vertical
Arizona
Chelly colored cañons; cliff dwellings.
Near Los
Sierra Madre mountains; rare plant life;
Sierra Madre Angeles,
commands unusual scenes.
California

D
NATIONAL MONUMENTS

ADMINISTERED BY THE INTERIOR DEPARTMENT

When Area
Name Location Description
created (acres)
Remarkable natural rock
Sept. 24,
Devil's Tower Wyoming 1152 tower, of volcanic origin,
1906
1200 feet in height.
Prehistoric cliff dwelling ruin
of unusual size, situated in a
Montezuma Dec. 8,
Arizona 160 niche in face of a vertical
Castle 1906
cliff; of scenic and
ethnological interest.
Enormous sandstone rock
eroded in form of a castle,
upon which inscriptions have
New Dec. 8, been placed by early Spanish
El Morro 160
Mexico 1906 explorers; contains cliff
dweller ruins; of great
historic, scenic, and
ethnological interest.
Contains numerous cliff
dweller ruins, including
New Mar. 11,
Chaco Cañon 20,629 communal houses in good
Mexico 1907
condition and but little
excavated.
Muir Woods California Jan. 9, 295 Contains one of the most
1908 noted redwood groves in
California; was donated by
Hon. William Kent, Member

of Congress; located seven
miles from San Francisco.
Contains many spirelike rock
formations, 600 to 1000 feet
Jan. 16,
Pinnacles California 2080 high, which are visible for
1908
many miles; also numerous
caves and other formations.
Contains ruins of Franciscan
mission dating from sixteenth
Sept. 15,
Tumacacori Arizona 10 century, until recent years in
1908
fair preservation, but now
rapidly disintegrating.
Contains magnificent gorge,
depth from 800 to 2000 feet,
July 31,
Mukuntuweap Utah 15,840 with precipitous walls and
1909
many waterfalls. Of great
beauty and scenic interest.
Shoshone Sept. 21, Cavern of considerable
Wyoming 210
Cavern 1909 extent, located near Cody.
Contains three natural
bridges, among largest
examples of their kind.
Largest bridge is 222 feet
Natural Sept. 25,
Utah 2740 high, 65 feet thick at top of
Bridges 1909
arch; arch is 28 feet wide;
span 261 feet; height of span
157 feet. Other two are only
slightly smaller.
One of the most important of
New Nov. 1, earliest Spanish mission ruins
Gran Quivira 160
Mexico 1909 in the Southwest. Monument
also contains Pueblo ruins.
Sitka Alaska Mar. 23, 57 Park of great natural beauty
1910 and historic interest as scene
of massacre of Russians by
Indians. Contains 16 totem

poles of best native
workmanship.
Unique natural bridge of
great scientific interest and
Rainbow May 30,
Utah 160 symmetry. Height 309 feet
Bridge 1910
above water; span is 278 feet,
in shape of rainbow.
Immense limestone cavern of
great scientific interest,
Lewis and May 16, magnificently decorated with
Montana 160
Clark Cavern 1911 stalactite formations. Cavern
now closed to public because
of depredations by vandals.
Contains many lofty
May 24, monoliths and is wonderful
Colorado Colorado 13,883
1911 example of erosion; of great
scenic beauty and interest.
Contains abundance of
petrified coniferous trees, one
Petrified July 31,
Arizona 25,625 of which forms a small
Forest 1911
natural bridge. Is of great
scientific interest.
Contains numerous pueblo or
Mar. 14,
Navajo Arizona 360 cliff dweller ruins, in good
1912
preservation.
Contains splendid collection
Papago Jan. 31, of characteristic desert flora
Arizona 2050
Saguaro 1914 and numerous pictographs.
Interesting rock formations.
Contains deposits of fossil
Oct. 4, remains of prehistoric animal
Dinosaur Utah 80
1915 life of great scientific
interest.
Sieur de Mount July 8, About Beautiful island scenery,
Monts Desert 1916 5000 mountains, lakes, meadows,
numerous varieties of birds

Island, and plants. Historical
Maine Associations.
Magnificent specimen of a
Northeast
volcanic cinder cone, 8000
Corner
Capulin 1916 681 feet high; crater 1500 feet in
New
diameter, cone-shaped;
Mexico
numerous "blister cones."

ADMINISTERED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

When Area
Name Location Description
created (acres)
Contains numerous cliff
Gila Cliff New Nov. 16, dweller ruins of much
160
Dwellings Mexico 1907 interest and in good
preservation.
Contains numerous cliff
Dec. 19, dweller ruins of much
Tonto Arizona 640
1907 interest and in good
preservation.
Contains the most
Grand Jan. 11, wonderful portion of the
Arizona 806,400
Cañon 1908 Grand Cañon of the
Colorado.
Contains a limestone cavern
of much beauty and
South Feb. 7,
Jewel Cave 1280 considerable extent, limits
Dakota 1908
of which are as yet
unknown.
Of much interest from
geological standpoint as
Dec. 7, example of eccentric
Wheeler Colorado 300
1908 erosion and extinct volcanic
action. Of much scenic
beauty.

Extensive caves in
Oregon July 12, limestone formation of
Oregon 480
Caves 1909 much beauty. Magnitude not
entirely ascertained.
Spectacular mass of
hexagonal basaltic columns,
Devil July 6, like an immense pile of
California 800
Postpile 1911 posts. Said to rank with
famous Giant's Causeway,
in Ireland.
Contains many objects of
great and unusual scientific
Mount Apr. 17, interest, including many
Washington 299,370
Olympus 1912 glaciers. Is summer range
and breeding-ground of
Olympic elk.
Contains cliff dwellings of
Walnut Nov. 30,
Arizona 960 much scientific and popular
Cañon 1915
interest.
Contains vast numbers of
cliff dweller ruins, with
New Feb. 11,
Bandelier 18,000 artificial caves, stone
Mexico 1916
sculpture and other relics of
prehistoric life.

ADMINISTERED BY THE WAR DEPARTMENT[1]

Big Hole
Montana
Battle-Field
Cabrillo California

[1] "Lincoln National Park or Reservation" in Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln's
birthplace, was established in 1916 and is administered by the War Department.
It might well become a regular National Park.

E
DOMINION NATIONAL PARKS OF CANADA

(Number, 11; total area, 7945 square miles)

Area
Name of Date of in
Location Distinctive characteristics
park creation square
miles
Scenic park; Banff Hot
Springs; Hoodoos; Lake
Louise; Victoria and Lefroy
Rocky Glaciers; Lakes in the
Mountains Alberta 1886 1800 Clouds; Mount Temple,
Park 11,626 feet; Valley of the
Ten Peaks; Mt. Assiniboine,
11,860 feet; Bow River
Valley.
Yoho Valley; Lakes O'Hara
and MacArthur; Takakkaw
Falls; Twin Lakes; Emerald
British Lake; Natural Bridge;
Yoho Park 1886 560
Columbia President Range and
Glacier; Kickinghorse River,
Ottertail Range and Valley;
Fossil Beds.
Mount Sir Donald and
highest peaks of the
British Selkirks; great Illecillewaet
Glacier Park 1886 468
Columbia and Asulkan Glaciers;
Nakimu marble caves;
Marion Lake, Rogers Pass.

Mount Revelstoke; Clach-
na-coodin Range and Ice-
Revelstoke British
1914 95 Field; Automobile Road
Park Columbia
building to summit of Mount
Revelstoke; Lake Eva.
Athabasca River and Valley;
Yellowhead Pass; the oldest
route across the Rockies;
historic associations;
Maligne Lake and Cañon;
Jasper Park Alberta 1907 4400 Fiddle Creek Cañon;
Punchbowl Falls; Mount
Robson, 13,036 feet, and
highest peaks of the
Canadian Rockies; Miette
Hot Springs.
Waterton Lakes; Cameron
Falls, Bertha and Beaver
Waterton
Alberta 1895 423 Lakes; beautiful Wilson
Lakes Park
Range; exceptional fishing;
great game preserve.
Among the Thousand
St.
140 Islands of the St. Lawrence;
Lawrence Ontario 1905
acres especially for summer
Islands Park
campers.
Historic park; old fort;
Fort Howe New 19 memorials of United Empire
1913
Park Brunswick acres Loyalists, French régime,
Lady Latour.
Animal park; home of the
Buffalo Canadian government
Alberta 1907 162
Park buffalo herd, numbering
over 2000 head.

Animal park; established for
Elk Island the protection of the elk,
Alberta 1899 16
Park moose, deer; also herd of
buffalo.
Maple
Animal park; established for
Creek
Saskatchewan 1914 19 the preservation of the
Antelope
antelope.
Reserve

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY
National Park Publications issued by the Department of the Interior
(To be had from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.)

Geological History of the Yellowstone
Arnold Hague
National Park
Walter Harvey
Geysers
Weed
Joseph S.
Geological History of Crater Lake, Oregon
Diller
Some Lakes of Glacier National Park M. J. Elrod
Sketch of Yosemite National Park and an
account of the origin of the Yosemite and F. E. Matthes
Hetch Hetchy Valleys
Origin of the Scenic Features of the Glacier Marius R.
National Park Campbell
Ellsworth
The Secret of the Big Trees
Huntington
Glaciers of Glacier National Park William C. Alden
The Glacier National Park; A Popular Guide Marius R.
to its Geology and Scenery Campbell
Excavation and Repair of Sun Temple, Mesa J. Walter
Verde National Park Fewkes
Fossil Forests of the Yellowstone National F. H.
Park Knowlton
Mount Rainier and its Glaciers F. E. Matthes

Forests of Mount Rainier National Park G. F. Allen
Features of the Flora of Mount Rainier
J. B. Flett
National Park
Forests of Yosemite, Sequoia and General
C. L. Hill
Grant National Parks
Forests of Crater Lake National Park J. F. Pernot

The National Park Service, Interior Department, is constantly issuing
special publications that deal with particular phases of one or more National
Parks. A bibliography may be had from the Department of the Interior
giving a pretty complete list of all books, pamphlets, and magazine articles
which contain information concerning any one or all National Parks. There
are also a number of government publications which touch upon special
phases of plant and animal life and geology. All issues of the Sierra Club
Bulletin, Mazama, and The Mountaineer, contain more or less interesting
matter that pertains to one or more National Parks.

Books Concerning Many National Parks
Nature and Science on the Pacific Coast
Wild Animals at Home E. T. Seton
Our National Parks John Muir
Western Wild Flowers Margaret Armstrong
Flora of Colorado Rydberg
Mountain Wild Flowers of America Julia Henshaw
Rocky Mountain Wild Flowers Clements
Handbook of Birds of Western United Florence Merriam
States Bailey
Wild Animals at Home E. T. Seton
The Mammals of Colorado Warren
The Adventures of James C. Adams Hittel
In Beaver World Mills
Manual of the Trees of North America Sargent
Field-Days in California Torrey
Trees of California Jepson

Three Wonderlands of the American
Thomas D. Murphy
West

Books Concerning the Yellowstone National Park
Gen. H. M.
The Yellowstone National Park
Chittenden
Catalogue of the Flora of Montana and the
Yellowstone National Park. Memoirs of the Rydberg
New York Botanical Garden, vol. 1
Our National Recreation Parks Nicholas Senn
Southern California, Grand Canyon of the
John L.
Colorado River, Yellowstone National Park.
Stoddard
Lectures, vol. 10
U. S. Geological Survey, Monograph 32, part 2. Descriptive
Geology Petrography, and Paleontology of the Yellowstone
National Park.

Books Concerning the Rocky Mountain National Park

A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains Bird
Wild Life on the Rockies Mills
The Spell of the Rockies Mills
In Beaver World Mills
The Story of Estes Park Mills
Rocky Mountain Wonderland Mills

Books Concerning the Mesa Verde National Park

Cliff Dwellers of Mesa Verde G. Nordenskiöld
The Land of the Cliff Dwellers Chapin
Government publications:
Antiquities of Mesa Verde National Park, Bulletin Nos.
41 and 51, together with Excavations and Repair of Sun
Temple.

Books Concerning the Glacier National Park

The Ascent of Chief Mountain, in Hunting in
Henry L.
Many Lands, edited by Theodore Roosevelt and
Stimson
George B. Grinnell.
Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park Schultz

Books Concerning Yosemite National Park

Indians of the Yosemite Valley Galen Clark
In the Heart of the Sierras Hutchins
Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada Clarence King
The Yosemite John Muir
My First Summer in the Sierras John Muir
Three Wonderlands of the American Thomas D.
West Murphy
A Yosemite Flora Hall

Books Concerning Mount Rainier National Park
The Mountain that was God Williams
Mount Rainier Meany

Bibliography of the Dominion National Parks of Canada

Through the Heart of the Canadian
Frank Yeigh
Rockies
Canada's West and Farther West Frank Carrel
The Fair Dominion R. E. Vernede
The New Garden of Canada F. A. Talbot
Lawrence J. Burpee,
Among the Canadian Alps
F.R.G.S.
Climbs and Explorations in the Norman Collie,
Canadian Rockies F.R.S.
The Canadian Rockies Prof. A. P. Coleman
In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies Sir James Outram

Among the Selkirk Glaciers W. S. Green
A. O. Wheeler,
The Selkirk Range
F.R.G.S.
The Selkirk Mountains; A Guide for A. O. Wheeler,
Mountain Climbers F.R.G.S.

Published by the Dominion Parks Branch, Department of Interior,
Ottawa

Glaciers of the Rockies and the Prof. A. P. Coleman,
Selkirks F.R.G.S.
Handbook to the Rocky Harlan I. Smith, Geological
Mountains Park Museum Survey, Ottawa
Geology of the Canadian Charles Camsell,
National Parks Geological Survey, Ottawa
Nakimu Caves
Fish and Their Habitat in the
Rocky Mountains Park.

GUIDE TO THE NATIONAL
PARKS

BY
LAURENCE F. SCHMECKEBIER

Introduction

The National Parks of the United States are in process of great
development as regards the building of roads and trails and the operation of
hotels and camps. It is likely that from year to year additional trips will be
scheduled and new camps established. The rates given are from the latest
data available and may be considered stable, although they are likely to
vary slightly from year to year in sympathy with general fluctuations in
prices.
Railway rates are given for side trips to all the Parks from the main
transcontinental lines, and through rates are given to the important Parks
from the principal gateways. The rates are the latest ones in effect and are
quoted in order to give the reader a general idea of the cost. The latest rates
and combinations of tours may be obtained at any coupon ticket office or
from the passenger representatives of the roads tributary to the Parks. There
is given on pages 427-31 a schedule showing the cost of side trips on the
regular transcontinental tours.

Railroads to the National Parks and the Grand Cañon

Yellowstone Park: Northern Pacific to Gardiner, Montana; Oregon
Short Line to Yellowstone, Montana: Chicago, Burlington & Quincy
to Cody, Wyoming.
Yosemite Park: Yosemite Valley to El Portal, California.
Sequoia Park: Southern Pacific or Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé to
Visalia, California.
General Grant Park: Southern Pacific to Sanger, California.
Mount Rainier Park: Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul to Ashford,
Washington.
Crater Lake Park: Southern Pacific to Medford or Kirk, Oregon.
Glacier Park: Great Northern to Glacier Park or Belton, Montana.

Mesa Verde Park: Denver & Rio Grande to Mancos, Colorado.
Rocky Mountain Park: Union Pacific to Fort Collins or Greeley,
Colorado; Colorado & Southern to Boulder, Loveland, Longmont, or
Fort Collins, Colorado; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy to Longmont
or Lyons, Colorado; Denver & Salt Lake to Granby, Colorado.
Grand Cañon: Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé to Grand Cañon, Arizona.
Lassen Volcanic Park: Southern Pacific to Red Bluff or Westwood,
California; Western Pacific to Keddie, California.
Hawaii Park: Steamer service from Honolulu, Hawaii.
Mount McKinley Park: No railroad connection until government
railroad across Alaska is completed.
Hot Springs Reservation: Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific; St. Louis
Iron Mountain & Southern; and Memphis, Dallas & Gulf to Hot
Springs, Arkansas.
Casa Grande Ruin: Southern Pacific to Florence or Casa Grande,
Arizona.
Wind Cave Park: Chicago & Northwestern or Chicago, Burlington &
Quincy to Hot Springs, South Dakota.
Platt Park: Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé or St. Louis & San Francisco
to Sulphur, Oklahoma.
Sully's Hill Park: Great Northern to Devil's Lake, North Dakota.

Railroads to Canadian Parks

Rocky Mountains Park: Canadian Pacific to Banff or Laggan, Alberta.
Yoho Park: Canadian Pacific to Field, British Columbia.
Glacier Park: Canadian Pacific to Glacier, British Columbia.
Jasper Park: Grand Trunk Pacific or Canadian Northern to Jasper,
Alberta.
Revelstoke Park: Canadian Pacific to Revelstoke, British Columbia.
Waterton Lakes Park: Canadian Pacific to McLeod or Pincher Creek,
Alberta.
Buffalo Park: Grand Trunk Pacific to Wainwright, Alberta.

Elk Island Park: Canadian Pacific to Lamont, Alberta.
St. Lawrence Islands Park: New York Central to Clayton, New York;
Grand Trunk to Kingston, Ontario.
Fort Howe Park: Canadian Pacific to St. John, New Brunswick.

Cost of Side Trips on Trans-Continental Tours

oute A. Principal National Parks:—

To Seattle or Tacoma via Great Northern, Northern Pacific, or Chicago,
Milwaukee & St. Paul; to Portland via Northern Pacific, Great Northern, or
Oregon & Washington Railroad & Navigation Company; to San Francisco
via Southern Pacific; to Ogden via Southern Pacific or Western Pacific; to
Denver via Union Pacific or Denver & Rio Grande; any road to starting-
point. Round trip from Chicago, $90. Round trip from St. Louis, $87.50.
Round trip from Kansas City, $89.57.

oute B. Principal National Parks and the Grand Cañon of the Colorado:
—
To Seattle or Tacoma via Great Northern, Northern Pacific, or Chicago,
Milwaukee & St. Paul; to Portland via Northern Pacific, Great Northern, or
Oregon & Washington Railroad & Navigation Company; to San Francisco
via Southern Pacific; to Denver via Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé; any road
to starting-point. Round trip from Chicago, $90. Round trip from St. Louis,
$87.50. Round trip from Kansas City, $89.57.

Yellowstone Park—side trips from Routes A and B:
On tickets via Northern Pacific: From Livingston, Montana, via Northern
Pacific to Gardiner, northern entrance, and return, $3.00.
On tickets via Great Northern: From Havre, Montana, on west-bound
tickets and from Shelby, Montana, on east-bound tickets via Great Northern
and Northern Pacific to Gardiner, northern entrance, and return, $15.70.
On tickets via Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul or Northern Pacific: From
Butte, Montana, via Oregon Short Line to Yellowstone, Montana, western
entrance, and return, $12.25.

On tickets via Burlington to Billings, thence via Northern Pacific or
Great Northern to Seattle or Tacoma, there is no charge for side trip via
Cody, Wyoming, to eastern entrance.
On tickets via Northern Pacific: From Billings, Montana, via Burlington
to Cody, Wyoming, and return, $6.90; stage fare to Park entrance extra.

Yellowstone Park—side trip from Route A only:—
All tickets on this route read via Ogden, Utah; side trip via Oregon Short
Line to Yellowstone, Montana, western entrance, and return, $12.25.

Glacier Park—side trips from Routes A and B:—
On tickets reading via Great Northern, stopover may be obtained at
Belton or Glacier Park Stations without extra charge; no side trip necessary.
On tickets reading via Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul: From Butte,
Montana, via Great Northern to Belton or Glacier Park Stations, and return,
$13.35.
On tickets reading via Northern Pacific: From Butte or Helena, Montana,
via Great Northern to Belton or Glacier Park Stations, and return. From
Butte, $13.35. From Helena, $13.15.

Mount Rainier Park—side trips from Routes A and B:—
Tacoma via Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul to Ashford and return, $4.00;
stage fare Ashford to Paradise Valley and return, $5.00.

rater Lake Park from Routes A and B:—

Stopover allowed at Medford or Kirk on Southern Pacific without extra
charge. Stage fare: Medford to Crater Lake and return, $16.50; Kirk to
Crater Lake and return, $6.00; Medford to Crater Lake, thence Kirk or vice
versa, $11.25.

assen Volcanic Park from Routes A and B:—

Stopover allowed at Red Bluff on Southern Pacific without extra charge;
stage fare to Park $10.00 in each direction.

assen Volcanic Park from Route A only:—

On tickets reading via Southern Pacific: From Fernley, Nevada, via
Southern Pacific to Westwood, California, and return, $6.85; stage fare[1] to
Park $6.00 round trip.
On tickets reading via Western Pacific stopover allowed at Keddie,
California, without extra charge; stage fare[1] to Park $14.00 round trip.
[1] No regular service on stage line.

Yosemite Park—side trip from Route A:—
San Francisco via Southern Pacific or Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé to
Yosemite Village, round trip, rail and stage, $23.00.

Yosemite Park—side trip from Route B only:—
Merced via Yosemite Valley Railroad to Yosemite Village, round trip, rail
and stage, $18.50.

equoia Park—side trip from Route A:—

San Francisco via Southern Pacific or Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé to
Visalia and Giant Forest, round trip, rail and stage, $24.00.

equoia Park—side trip from Route B only:—

Visalia to Giant Forest, round trip, rail and stage, $13.30.

Yosemite and Sequoia Parks—side trip from Route A:—
Tourists should buy ticket to Giant Forest, stopover at Merced in one
direction, and buy side trip to Yosemite. San Francisco via Atchison,
Topeka & Santa Fé or Southern Pacific to Giant Forest and return, round
trip, rail and stage, $24.00. Merced to Yosemite Village, round trip, rail and
stage, $18.50.

General Grant Park—side trip from Route A:—
San Francisco to General Grant Park and return, rail and stage, $20.00.

General Grant Park—side trip from Route B only:—
Stopover at Sanger may be obtained without extra charge; stage fare to
Park, round trip, $8.00.

Grand Cañon—side trip from Route B only:—
From Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé at Williams to Grand Cañon, round
trip, $7.50.

Mesa Verde Park—side trip from Routes A and B:
Denver via Denver & Rio Grande to camp in Park, round trip, $35.00.

Mesa Verde Park—side trips from Route A, and only on tickets reading via
Denver & Rio Grande:—
From Grand Junction to camp in Park, round trip, $33.30. From
Montrose to camp in Park, round trip, $28.90. From Grand Junction to
camp in Park, thence to Denver via Antonito and Alamosa, $30.00.

ocky Mountain Park—side trip from Routes A and B:—

Denver to Estes Park and return, rail and stage, $9.60.

Equipment

As all the scenic Parks are in high mountain country, the tourist should be
sure to wear warm clothing suitable for rough outdoor use. Woolen trousers
or riding-breeches are desirable, not only because of their warmth, but also
because they offer better protection in rainy weather. Woolen underwear is
recommended because it prevents the body from becoming chilled when a
rest is taken when the climber is perspiring; nothing is more uncomfortable
or dangerous than cotton underwear wet with perspiration. Women who
expect to climb should wear riding-breeches, as bloomers get caught on
bushes and offer too much resistance to the wind. A flannel middy blouse
allows free use of the arms and body and is far superior to the shirt-waist. A
felt hat is best for both men and women; it may be pulled over the eyes as a
protection from the sun, and it is far superior to a cap during a rainstorm.
Heavy, comfortable shoes and woolen socks or stockings are essential for
those who are going to tramp. Wet shoes may be worn if the socks are dry;
the shoes will feel cold and clammy at first, but a little brisk tramping will
soon make the feet warm and comfortable.
Motorists should bear in mind that the high altitude causes a marked
reduction in the power of the engine, so that much more gasoline will be

required than at sea-level. Care should be taken that the engine does not
become heated on long grades.

Yellowstone National Park

Location: Northwestern Wyoming, southern Montana, and eastern Idaho.
Area: 3348 square miles. Season: June 20 to September 15. Address of
supervisor: Yellowstone Park, Wyoming.

Railroad Connections

Yellowstone Park is reached by railroads on three sides—on the north
by the Northern Pacific, on the west by the Oregon Short Line, and on the
east by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy.
The following rates apply to all entrances or entering via one entrance
and leaving via another: Chicago, $47.50; St. Paul, $39.50; St. Louis,
$44.50; Kansas City, $37.00; Seattle, $33.15; San Francisco, $66.25.
The Northern Pacific Railway reaches the Park at Gardiner, the northern
entrance, by way of a branch leaving the main line at Livingston, Montana.
Side trip from Gardiner, $3.00.
The Oregon Short Line reaches the Park at Yellowstone, Montana, the
western entrance. This line makes connection with transcontinental roads
passing through Salt Lake City or Ogden, and with the Chicago, Milwaukee
& St. Paul at Butte, Montana. Round trip in connection with through tickets
Salt Lake City or Ogden or Butte to Yellowstone, $12.25. Connection may
also be made at Butte with the Northern Pacific Railway.
The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy reaches Cody, Wyoming, 63 miles
from the eastern entrance by a good automobile road. All tickets from
eastern points on the Burlington system are honored via Cody to the Park
boundary without extra charge.
Tourists holding transcontinental tickets via the Great Northern may
make the side trip to Yellowstone Park for $15.70 (see p. 428) additional.
Tickets including transportation to Denver, Yellowstone Park, and
Glacier Park are sold at the following rates: Chicago, $58.00; St. Louis,
$55.00; Kansas City, $47.50.

Coupon tickets may be purchased covering railroad transportation,
accommodation at hotels or camps, and automobile transportation in the
Park.

Automobile Routes

From the Lincoln Highway the Park may be reached by two routes—on
the east from Cheyenne, Wyoming, and on the west from Ogden, Utah. The
route from Cheyenne passes through Chugwater, Wheatland, Douglas,
Casper, Lost Cabin, Thermopolis, Worland, Basin, and Cody to the eastern
entrance, the total distance being 541 miles. From Ogden the route leads
through Pocatello and Idaho Falls to Yellowstone, Montana, the western
entrance. The distance by this route is 324 miles.
From the Yellowstone Trail the Park may be reached from Billings via
Cody to the eastern entrance (175 miles); Livingston to Gardiner, northern
entrance (55 miles); Bozeman to Yellowstone, western entrance (93 miles);
Butte to Yellowstone, western entrance (170 miles).
Automobiles entering the Park are required to pay $7.50 for a single trip
or $10.00 for a season permit. Speed limits range from 8 to 20 miles per
hour.

Hotels and Camps

The Yellowstone Park Hotel Company operates hotels at Mammoth Hot
Springs (Mammoth Hotel), Upper Geyser Basin (Old Faithful Inn),
Yellowstone Lake (Lake Hotel), and Grand Cañon (Grand Cañon Hotel). It
also maintains a lunch-station at Pahaska on the road to Cody. The rates at
the hotels are $6.00 per day for rooms without bath. The Fountain Hotel at
Lower Geyser Basin is not open.
The Yellowstone Park Camping Company operates permanent camps at
Mammoth Hot Springs, Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Lake, Grand
Cañon, and Tower Falls. The rate at the camps for the regular 5-day trip
through the Park is $18.00. Rates per day range from $3.25 to $4.00,
according to the class of tents.

Transportation

The familiar Concord coaches that were for so many years a feature of
travel in the Yellowstone have been discontinued and transportation is now
by means of automobile stages. All the transportation is furnished by one
corporation, the camping companies no longer operating coaches as was the
practice before the consolidation. The automobiles will make the circular
tour in 2 days, but this allows no time for seeing anything at the hotels or
camps. Coupon tickets covering hotel and transportation within the Park are
not sold for less than a 5-day trip.
The regular tour of the Park by the automobile stages costs $25.00.
Surreys may be obtained for drives at the important points, but it is far more
satisfactory to walk, as the distances are not great.
The hotels will furnish guides for $5.00 per day and saddle horses for
$3.50 per day. The camps will supply saddle-horses for $3.00 per day, and
guides for $4.50.

Principal Points

The places generally visited are Mammoth Hot Springs, the Upper
Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Lake, the Grand Cañon of Yellowstone River,
and Mount Washburn. All these points lie on the main road system that is
traversed by the automobile coaches. The distances along this route are as
follows:—
Points of interest and distances on circular tour on main
road from Gardiner, Montana, northern entrance
Miles
Mammoth Hot Springs (Mammoth Hotel, permanent camp) 5
Hoodoos and Silver Gate 8
Golden Gate and Rustic Falls 9
Swan Lake 10
Willow Park 14
Apollinaris Spring 15

Obsidian Cliff 17
Beaver Lake 17½
Roaring Mountain 20½
Twin Lakes 21
Bijah Spring 22
Fryingpan 23
Norris Geyser Basin 25
Elk Park 27
Gibbon Meadows 28
Artists (Gibbon) Paint Pot 29
Gibbon Cañon 29½
Beryl Spring 30
Soda and Iron Springs 33
Gibbon Falls (80 feet) 33½
Cañon Creek 34
Road to western entrance 35
Cascades of Firehole River }
Road to western entrance 39½
Nez Percé Creek 43
Lower Geyser Basin 45
Excelsior Geyser 48
Biscuit Basin 51
Upper Geyser Basin (Old Faithful Inn, permanent camp) 54
Kepler Cascade 56
Lone Star Road 57½
Continental Divide 62½
De Lacy Creek 63½
Shoshone Point 64½
Continental Divide 69½
Lake View
Duck Lake } 72
Thumb of Yellowstone Lake 73
Arnica Creek 78½

Natural Bridge }
Bridge Creek 84½
Yellowstone Lake (Lake Hotel permanent camp) 89
Lake outlet 90
Mud Volcano 96½
Grotto Springs 97
Hayden Valley 100
Alum Creek 102
Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone River (Cañon Hotel, permanent
105
camp)
Dunraven cut-off 112
Top of Mount Washburn 116
Tower Falls Road 119
Tower Falls (132 feet) 125½
Permanent camp 127½
Petrified trees 128½
Blacktail Deer Creek 140
Lava Creek, Undine Falls (60 feet) 143
Mammoth Hot Springs 148
Gardiner 153

Click on the map to enlarge it

By permission of the National Park Service, Department
of the Interior
TRAVEL-GUIDE MAP OF THE YELLOWSTONE
NATIONAL PARK
WYOMING-MONTANA-IDAHO

Distances from Yellowstone, Montana, western
entrance, to main road

Miles

Via Cañon Creek:—
Ranger Station 3
Junction of Gibbon and Firehole Rivers 13
Cañon Creek, main road. (This point is 35 miles from
Gardiner; for
17
distances beyond this point see table of distances from
Gardiner)
Via Firehole River:—
Cascades of the Firehole River direct via road up Firehole
River. (This point is 39½ miles
15½
from Gardiner; for distances beyond this point see table of
distances from Gardiner)

Points of interest and distances from Cody, Wyoming,
via eastern entrance to main road

Miles
Eastern entrance 63
Sylvan Pass 71
Sylvan Lake 72
Cub Creek 76
Turbid Lake 83
Lake outlet, main road. (This point is 90 mile from Gardiner; for
91
distances from this point see table of distances from Gardiner)

Points of interest and distances from Jackson, Wyoming,
via southern entrance, to main road
Miles

Southern entrance 25
Lewis Falls (upper, 80 feet; lower, 50 feet) 34
Lewis Lake, south end 36
Trail to Shoshone Lake 41
Continental Divide 43½

Thumb of Lake, main road. (This point is 73 miles from
Gardiner; for
48
distances beyond this point see table of distances from
Gardiner)

Mammoth Hot Springs

Here are located the famous terraces, the Mammoth Hotel, the abandoned
army post of Fort Yellowstone, and the headquarters of the Park Supervisor.
The terraces are near the hotel, and the tourist will have no difficulty in
finding his way over them. The principal ones are Minerva, Mound, Pulpit,
Jupiter, Angel, Cleopatra, and Hymen. Near the southwest end of the
terraces is the Devil's Kitchen—a cave which may be visited. Another
peculiar rock formation beyond the Devil's Kitchen is the mass of travertine
known as the White Elephant.

Upper Geyser Basin

The Upper Geyser Basin contains more active geysers than all the other
geyser regions in the world. Several days might well be spent roaming
among the geysers and observing the varied phenomena.
The more important ones are listed in the table on page 439.

Height Duration of
Geyser Interval
(feet) eruption
10 to 15
Artemisia 50 24 to 30 hours
minutes
3 to 5 times at 12-hour intervals
Bee Hive 200 6 to 8 minutes
following Giantess
24 to 26 hours: quiet 4 to 7 days,
Castle 50-75 30 minutes then plays 3 or 4 times at intervals
stated
Cub, large 60 8 minutes With Lioness
Cub, small 10-30 17 minutes 2½ hours
Daisy 70 3 minutes 85 to 90 minutes

Fan 15-25 10 minutes Irregular
Giant 200-250 60 minutes 6 to 14 days
Giantess 150-200 12 to 36 hours Irregular; 5 to 40 days
15 to 30
Grand 200 Irregular; 1 to 2 days
minutes
Grotto 20-30 Varies 2 to 5 hours
About 1
Jewel 5-20 5 minutes
minute
About 2 to 4
Lion 50-60 Irregular; usually 2 to 17 times a day
minutes
About 10
Lioness 80-100 Irregular
minutes
Mortar 30 4 to 6 minutes Irregular
Oblong 20-40 7 minutes 8 to 15 hours
Old
120-170 4 minutes 60 to 95 minutes
Faithful
Riverside 80-100 15 minutes 6 hours
Sawmill 20-35 1 to 3 hours Irregular; usually 5 to 8 times a day
20 to 60
Spasmodic 4 Irregular; usually 1 to 4 times a day
minutes
10 minutes to
Turban 20-40 Irregular
3 hours

The following springs are well worth a visit:—

Black Sand Spring (about 55 by 60 feet).
Chinaman. Punch Bowl.
Emerald Pool. Sponge.
Morning Glory. Sunset Lake.

Grand Cañon

The tourist would do well to spend some time at the Grand Cañon, as its
wonderful beauty cannot be grasped in a short time.
If the cañon is to be viewed from the northern rim a high, steel bridge is
crossed over Cascade Creek. At the east end of the bridge a path leads to the
right down the edge of the gulch to Crystal Falls, a lovely little falls, that is
often overlooked in the presence of the larger attractions. This path can be
followed to top of the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone, 308 feet high, but
dangerous. Another path from the end of the bridge leads to the left; this is a
short cut to the Cañon Hotel. The main road winds up the hill, affording
here and there glimpses of the Grand Cañon. At the top of the hill are the
stairs to the Lower Falls. A few hundred feet farther the branch road to the
hotel and to Mount Washburn turns out to the left.
On the road about 1 mile from Cañon Junction is Lookout Point, reached
by walking a hundred feet out to the right of the road. Down the gulch to
the right of Lookout Point is a rather steep trail leading to Red Rock, a fine
point from which to view the Lower Falls. Grand View and Castle Ruins are
other good points from which to view the cañon.
But better yet is Inspiration Point, at the end of this road. This point,
Artist's Point, Lookout Point, and the edge of the Lower Falls are the best
places from which to view the wonders of the Cañon. The view from each
is different from the others, and each merits a careful inspection from the
tourist. This cañon is some 20 miles in length, but it is only the first 3 miles
below the Lower Falls that carry the wonderful colors.

Side Trips

Some of the best scenery in the Park lies off the regular lines of travel
and many interesting side trips may be taken if the time is available.

From Mammoth Hot Springs
Around Bunsen Peak via Buffalo Corral, Middle Gardiner Cañon,
Sheepeater Cliffs, Osprey Falls, and Golden Gate; distance, 12 miles; guide
not necessary.
Summit of Bunsen Peak. Distance, 7 miles in each direction; saddle
horses may be ridden to the top; guide not necessary.
Electric Peak (11,100 feet). This is the highest mountain in the Park and a
fine view is obtained on all sides. The distance is 10 miles in each direction,
8 miles of which may be done on horseback; as the path over the remaining
2 miles is difficult and somewhat dangerous, a guide should be employed.
Mount Everts. Saddle-horses may be ridden up from either end and over
the top; total distance is about 15 miles, and no guide is needed.
Buffalo herds. A small herd of buffalo is kept about 1 mile south of
Mammoth Hot Springs, on the road to Bunsen Peak. The main herd is kept
on Lamar River, about 30 miles to the east and about 12 miles from the
Wylie Camp at Tower Falls.
Specimen Ridge and the Fossil Forest are 24 miles southeast by a good
wagon road; thence 4 miles by trail. A guide will be needed by all tourists
except experienced campers.
Northeastern portion of Park. A trip could be made to include the
petrified trees, Tower Falls, main buffalo herd, Specimen Ridge and Fossil
Forest, and some of the best fishing in the Park in Yellowstone River in
vicinity of Tower Falls, Lamar River and Slough Creek. Permanent camp
near Tower Falls provides accommodations after Mount Washburn Road is
opened in the spring. There is a wagon road to Tower Falls, Slough Creek,
and Soda Butte, but other points would have to be reached by trail, and
guide and pack-train would be needed. Excellent camping places in
abundance on this trip.
Fishing trips. One-day fishing trips from Mammoth Hot Springs may be
made with rig, saddle-horse, or even on foot by good pedestrians, as
follows: South on main road to Obsidian Creek, Indian Creek, Upper
Gardiner and branches, and Glen Creek, for small Eastern brook trout;

distance, 4 to 10 miles. East to Lava Creek, 5 miles, for small native or
Eastern brook trout, or to Blacktail Deer Creek, 8 miles, for small native or
rainbow trout. East or northeast to main Gardiner River for whitefish,
native, Loch Leven, and Eastern brook trout. North, 6 miles to Yellowstone
River for whitefish and native trout.

From Upper Geyser Basin
From Upper Geyser Basin an interesting side trip is to Shoshone Lake
and Geyser Basin. The route is 4½ miles by road via Lone Star Geyser,
thence 8 miles by trail. This trip offers good fishing for Loch Leven, lake,
and Eastern brook trout. A guide is needed.

From Lake Hotel
From the Lake Hotel interesting trips may be made by motor boat to the
region around the lake, which is not reached by roads.

Camping Trips

As the distance between the regular stopping-places are too long for any
except the most active and hardened trampers, the tourist who desires to see
the Park leisurely should travel on horseback, by wagon, or in his own
automobile. Camping outfits and supplies may be obtained at Gardiner,
Yellowstone, and Cody. The names of outfitters may be obtained from the
Park Supervisor. There are general stores in the Park at Mammoth Hot
Springs, Upper Geyser Basin, and at the outlet of Yellowstone Lake.
Public automobile camps are provided at Mammoth Hot Springs, Upper
Geyser Basin, outlet of Yellowstone Lake, and the Grand Cañon. At these
places there are fireplaces that may be used in common by the tourist and
there are designated areas for tents and for parking.

Clothing

The tourist making the ordinary trip on the automobile stage will not
need any special clothing except a sweater or overcoat or other warm

clothing for cool days. Heavy shoes or rubbers should be worn on trips
through the geyser basins. A linen duster will prove very useful; dusters
may be rented at the hotels and camps. Persons camping out in the Park
should be provided with woolen riding-breeches or trousers, flannel shirts,
light woolen underwear, felt hats, ponchos, and stout shoes. Women should
wear middy blouses and cloth skirt or riding-breeches; a waterproof cape
may be substituted for the poncho.

Fishing

There is good fishing in almost all of the many streams for cut-throat,
Eastern brook, Loch Leven, Von Behr, rainbow, and lake trout and
whitefish. The best fishing is, of course, in the streams farthest from the
roads. The best fishing near the roads is in Yellowstone Lake and River,
Firehole River, Madison River, Lamar Creek and Slough Creek. The fish in
Yellowstone Lake are not very game and the quality is likely to be poor.
The fly-fishing is best after August 1, but on the higher portions of some of
the streams it is good in July. Flies and tackle of all kinds can be bought or
rented in the Park. The flies generally used are the following: march brown
(early fishing); black gnat; grizzly king; professor; brown hackle; cow
dung, dark; cow dung, light; gray hackle, yellow body; abbey; coachman;
royal coachman; Parmacheene belle; queen of waters; Jock Scott; silver
doctor; white miller (for late evening).
A fishing license is not required.

Yosemite National Park

Location: Middle eastern California. Area: 1125 square miles. Season:
May 1 to November 1. Address of Supervisor: Yosemite, California.

For many years the name Yosemite National Park has been considered
synonymous with Yosemite Valley, because only within the last year has it
been possible for any one except an experienced mountaineer to enjoy the
beauties of the wonderful area of mountains and forest that lies beyond the
great Valley. Only a part of it is now supplied with permanent camps, but it
is expected that more of these will be established and that more and more of
this beautiful Park will be accessible every year. Yosemite is the only great
Park that is accessible throughout the year. The season extends from May 1
to November 1, but the hotel in Yosemite Valley is open during the winter
for those who desire to see the Park in its winter dress of snow. In winter,
however, the higher portions of the Park are accessible only to hardened and
experienced mountaineers.

Railroad Connections

The Yosemite Valley Railroad reaches the western border of Yosemite
Park at El Portal. This road connects with the Southern Pacific and the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroads at Merced, where stopovers may be
obtained on tourist tickets, and excursion ticket to Yosemite Village may be
purchased for $18.50 for the round trip. Through sleeping and parlor cars
are also operated from San Francisco to El Portal by way of the Southern
Pacific Railroad. The round-trip fare from San Francisco to Yosemite
Village is $23.00. During the season the Park may also be reached by
automobile stage from Fresno or Merced on the Southern Pacific and
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroads. The latest automobile rates from
these points by way of the Yosemite Stage and Turnpike Company are as
follows:—

Automobile stage fares from Fresno or Merced to—

Yosemite via Mariposa Big Trees, Wawona, and Inspiration Point, in
$14.25
each direction
Yosemite via Mariposa Big Trees, Wawona, and Inspiration Point,
including side trip Chinquapin to Glacier Point and return, in each 19.25
direction
Yosemite and return to either point via Mariposa Big Trees,
24.00
Wawona, and Inspiration
Yosemite and return to either point via Mariposa Big Trees,
Wawona, and Inspiration Point, including side trip Chinquapin to 29.00
Glacier Point and return
Wawona, in each direction 8.50
Wawona and return to either point, including side trip to Mariposa
15.00
Big Trees
Wawona and return to either point, without side trip to Mariposa Big
14.00
Trees

Automobile Routes

The motorist approaching California over the Lincoln Highway should
turn south at Ely and reach the Tioga Road at the eastern border of the Park
near Mono Lake; distance about 200 miles. There are two routes from San
Francisco: via Stockton, Modesto, and Coulterville, 210 miles; or via San
José, Gilroy, Los Baños, Fresno, and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, 280
miles. The best route from Los Angeles is by way of Saugus, Neenach,
Bakersfield, Tulare, Fresno, and Mariposa Grove of Big Trees; distance 365
miles.
The entrance fee for an automobile is $5.00 for a single trip, or $8.00 for
a season permit. Speed limits range from 8 to 20 miles per hour. On account
of the snow the Tioga Road is generally not open before July 15 or after
October 1, the Big Oak Flat Road not before May 15 or after November 1,
the Wawona Road not before May or after November. Motor-cycles are not
allowed in the Park.
Click on the map to enlarge it

By permission of the National Park Service, Department
of the Interior
TRAVEL-GUIDE MAP OF THE
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK CALIFORNIA

Hotels and Camps

At Yosemite Village in the Valley a new modern hotel is now under
construction, but accommodations are now furnished by the old Sentinel
Hotel, which has been refurnished, and by a number of camps.

Hotel and Camps in Yosemite Valley

Operated by Desmond Park Service Company:—
$4 to
Sentinel Hotel, per day
$5
Yosemite Falls Camp, wooden bungalows, per day 3.50
El Capitan Camp, wood frames covered with canvas and wood
2.50
floors, per day
Camp Lost Arrow, operated by W. M. Sell, Jr., per day 2.50
Camp Curry, operated by Curry Camping Company, per day 2.50
Camp Ahwahnee, operated by W. M. Sell, Sr., per day 3.75

At Glacier Point, above the Valley, the Desmond Park Service Company
operates the New Glacier Point Hotel, with a uniform rate of $4.00 per day.
At Tenaya Lake, Tuolumne Soda Springs, and Merced Lake the Desmond
Park-Service Company operates permanent camps known as lodges. These
lodges have wood frames covered with canvas and wood floors. The rate at
all of the lodges is $3.00 per day, with an additional charge of $1.00 when
the lodge is occupied exclusively by one person.
Eight miles from the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, but outside the Park,
is the Wawona Hotel at Wawona; rates are from $4.00 to $5.00 per day.

Tours

The main roads in Yosemite National Park are the Tioga Road, which
crosses the Park in an east-west direction almost in its center; the Big Oak
Flat Road, by which Yosemite Valley may be reached from Modesto and
Stockton; the Coulterville Road, by which Yosemite Valley may be reached
from Merced; El Portal Road, between the terminus of the Yosemite Valley
Railroad and Yosemite Valley; the Wawona Road, connecting Yosemite
Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees; and the Glacier Point Road,
extending from the Wawona Road to Glacier Point. Travel between points
in the Park that are not contiguous to these roads must be made on foot or
horseback over the many trails that connect the principal points of interest.
Yosemite Village is the center of all activities in the Park and practically
all the trips radiate from this point. Every variety of trip may be taken,

ranging from a single day excursion to the peaks surrounding the Valley to a
9-day tour of the High Sierra. Arrangements may be made for extended or
special trips, but the tours and trips listed below include the more important
points of interest. All of these trips are under the supervision of the
Desmond Park Service Company and are made on horseback unless
otherwise noted. The rates include transportation only. Meals and lodging
may be obtained at Glacier Point Hotel and at the lodges at the regular rates.

One-day trips:—

Vernal and Nevada Falls, round trip
$3.00

Vernal and Nevada Falls, Glacier Point and return, continuous,
3.00
round trip
Vernal and Nevada Falls and Clouds Rest, round trip 3.00
Glacier Point and Sentinel Dome via Union Point (short trail),
3.00
round trip
Yosemite Point, round trip 3.00
Eagle Peak, round trip 3.00
Pohono Trail to Fort Monroe, thence by automobile from Fort
5.00
Monroe via Wawona Road to Valley
North Dome via Mirror Lake, and return via Yosemite Falls, or vice
3.00
versa
Lake Tenaya via Tenaya Cañon, round trip 3.00
Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, and Fissures via Union Point (short
3.00
trail) and return

Two-day trips:—
Happy Isles, Vernal and Nevada Falls, Glacier Point Hotel, Sentinel
8.00
Dome, Taft Point, Dewey Point, and Inspiration Point
Mirror Lake, Tenaya Lake Lodge, Nevada and Vernal Falls 6.00

Three-day trips:—

Happy Isles, Vernal and Nevada Falls, Merced Lake Lodge,
9.00
Merced Soda Springs, and Washburn Lake
Mirror Lake, Tenaya Lake Lodge, Nevada and Illilouette Falls, and
9.00
Glacier Point Hotel

Four-day trips:—
Mirror Lake, Merced Lake Lodge, Merced Soda Springs,
12.00
Washburn Lake, Nevada and Vernal Falls
Mirror Lake, Tenaya Lake Lodge, White Cascades, Le Conte,
12.00
California, Nevada, and Illilouette Falls, and Glacier Point Hotel

Five-day trips:—
Mirror Lake, Tenaya Lake Lodge, Tuolumne Meadows, Soda
Springs, Tuolumne Soda Springs Camp, Donohue Pass, Mount
15.00
Lyell, Glen Aulin Falls, Magee Lake, Eagle Peak, and Yosemite
Point

Six-day trips:—
Mirror Lake, Tenaya Lake Lodge, White Cascades, Le Conte, and
California Falls, Soda Springs, Tuolumne Soda Springs Camp,
18.00
Tuolumne Meadows, Donohue Pass, Mount Lyell, Eagle Peak,
and Yosemite Point

Seven-day trips:—
Mirror Lake, Tenaya Lake Lodge, White Cascades, Le Conte and
California Falls, Tuolumne Meadows, Soda Springs, Tuolumne
21.00
Soda Springs Camp, Donohue Pass, Mount Lyell, Nevada and
Illilouette Falls, and Glacier Point Hotel

Eight-day trips:—
Mirror Lake, Tenaya Lake Lodge, White Cascades, Le Conte and
California Falls, Tuolumne Meadows, Soda Springs, Tuolumne
24.00
Soda Springs Camp, Donohue Pass, Mount Lyell, Merced Lake
Lodge, Merced Soda Springs, and Washburn Lake

Nine-day trips:—