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Yosemite is so wonderful that
we are apt to regard it as an exceptional creation, the only valley of its
kind in the world; but Nature is not so poor as to have only one of
anything. Several other yosemites have been discovered in the Sierra that
occupy the same relative positions on the range and were formed by the same
forces in the same kind of granite. One of these, the Hetch Hetchy Valley,
is in the Yosemite National Park, about twenty miles from Yosemite, and is
easily accessible to all sorts of travelers by a road and trail that leaves
the Big Oak Flat road at Bronson Meadows a few miles below Crane Flat, and
to mountaineers byway of Yosemite Creek basin and the head of the middle
fork of the Tuolumne.
It is said to have been
discovered by Joseph Screech, a hunter, in 1850, a year before the discovery
of the great Yosemite. After my first visit to it in the autumn of 1871, I
have always called it the "Tuolumne Yosemite," for it is a wonderfully exact
counterpart of the Merced Yosemite, not only in its sublime rocks and
waterfalls but in the gardens, groves and meadows of its flowery park-like
floor. The floor of Yosemite is about four thousand feet above the sea; the
Hetch Hetchy floor about thirty-seven hundred feet. And as the Merced River
flows through Yosemite, so does the Tuolumne through Hetch Hetchy. The walls
of both are of gray granite, rise abruptly from the floor, are sculptured in
the same style and in both every rock is a glacier monument.
Standing boldly out from the
south wall is a strikingly picturesque rock called by the Indians, Kolana,
the outermost of a group twenty- three hundred feet high, corresponding with
the Cathedral Rocks of Yosemite both in relative position and form. On the
opposite side of the Valley, facing Kolana, there is a counterpart of El
Capitan that rises sheer and plain to a height of eighteen hundred feet, and
over its massive brow flows a stream which makes the most graceful fall I
have ever seen. From the edge of the cliff to the top of an earthquake talus
it is perfectly free in the air for a thousand feet before it is broken into
cascades among, talus boulders. It is in all its glory in June,, when the
snow is melting fast, but fades and'. vanishes toward the end of summer. The
only fall I know with which it may fairly be compared is the Yosemite Bridal
Veil; but it excels even that favorite fall both in height and airyfairy
beauty and behavior. Lowlanders are apt to suppose that mountain streams in
their wild career over cliffs lose control of themselves and tumble in a
noisy chaos of mist and spray. On the contrary, on no part of their travels
are they more harmonious and self-controlled. Imagine yourself in Hetch
Hetchy on a sunny day in June, standing waist-deep in grass and flowers (as
I have often stood), while the great pines sway dreamily with scarcely
perceptible motion. Looking northward across the Valley you see a plain,
gray granite cliff rising abruptly out of the gardens and groves to a height
of eighteen hundred feet, and in front of it Tueeu1a1asilvery scarf burning
with irised sun-fire. In the first white outburst at the head there is
abundance of visible energy, but it is speedily hushed and concealed in
divine repose, and its tranquil progress to the base of the cliff is like
that of a 'downy feather in a still room. Now observe the fineness and
marvelous distinctness of the various sun-illumined fabrics into which the
water is woven; they sift and float from form to form down the face of that
grand gray rock in so leisurely and unconfused a manner that you can examine
their texture, and patterns and tones of color as you would a piece of
embroidery held in the hand. Toward the top of the fall you see groups of
booming, comet-like masses, their solid, white heads separate, their tails
like combed silk interlacing among delicate gray and purple shadows, ever
forming and dissolving, worn out by friction in their rush through the air.
Most of these vanish a few hundred feet below the summit, changing to varied
forms of cloud-like drapery. Near the bottom the width of the fall has
increased from about twenty-five feet to a hundred feet. Here it is composed
of yet finer tissues, and is still without a trace of disorder - air, water
and sunlight woven into stuff that spirits might wear.
So fine a fall might well
seem sufficient to glorify any valley; but here, as in Yosemite, Nature
seems in nowise moderate, for a short distance to the eastward of Tueeulala
booms and thunders the great Hetch Hetchy Fall, Wapama, so near that you
have both of them in full view from the same standpoint. It is the
counterpart of the Yosemite Fall, but has a much greater volume of water, is
about seventeen hundred feet in height, and appears to be nearly vertical,
though considerably inclined, and is dashed into huge outbounding bosses of
foam on projecting shelves and knobs. No two falls could be more unlike -
Tueeulala out in the open sunshine descending like thistledown; Wapama in a
jagged, shadowy gorge roaring and thundering, pounding its way like an
earthquake avalanche.
Besides this glorious pair
there is a broad, massive fall on the main river a short distance above the
head of the Valley. Its position is something like that of the Vernal in
Yosemite, and its roar as it plunges into a surging trout- pool may be heard
a long way, though it is only about twenty feet high. On Rancheria Creek, a
large stream, corresponding in position with the Yosemite Tenaya Creek,
there is a chain of cascades joined here and there with swift flashing
plumes like the one between the Vernal and Nevada Falls, making magnificent
shows as they go their glacier-sculptured way, sliding, leaping, hurrahing,
covered with crisp clashing spray made glorious with sifting sunshine. And
besides all these a few small streams come over the walls at wide intervals,
leaping from ledge to ledge with bird-like song and watering many a hidden
cliff-garden and fernery, but they are too unshowy to be noticed in so grand
a place.
The correspondence between
the Retch Hetchy walls in their trends, sculpture, physical structure, and
general arrangement of the main rock-masses and those of the Yosemite Valley
has excited the wondering admiration of every observer. We have seen that El
Capitan and Cathedral rocks occupy the same relative positions in both
valleys; so also do their Yosemite points and North Domes. Again, that part
of the Yosemite north wall immediately to the east of the Yosemite Fall has
two horizontal benches, about five hundred and fifteen hundred feet above
the floor, timbered with golden-cup oak. Two benches similarly situated and
timbered occur on the same relative portion of the Hetch Hetchy north wall,
to the east of Wapama Fall, and on no other. The Yosemite is bounded at the
head by the great Half Dome. Hetch Hetchy is bounded in the same way, though
its head rock is incomparably less wonderful and sublime in form.
The floor of the Valley is
about three and a half miles long, and from a fourth to half a mile wide.
The lower portion is mostly a level meadow about a mile long, with the trees
restricted to the sides and the river-banks, and partially separated from
the main, upper, forested portion by a low bar of glacier-polished granite
across which the river breaks in rapids.
The principal trees are the
yellow and sugar pines, digger pine, incense cedar, Douglas spruce, silver
fir, the California and golden-cup oaks, balsam cottonwood, Nuttall's
flowering dogwood, alder, maple, laurel, tumion, etc. The most abundant and
influential are the great yellow or silver pines like those of Yosemite, the
tallest over two hundred feet in height, and the oaks assembled in
magnificent groves with massive rugged trunks four to six feet in diameter,
and broad, shady, wide-spreading heads. The shrubs forming conspicuous
flowery clumps and tangles are manzanita, azalea, spiraa, brier-rose,
several species of ceanothus, calycanthus, philadeiphus, wild cherry, etc.;
with abundance of showy and fragrant herbaceous plants growing about them or
out in the open in beds by themselves - lilies, Mariposa tulips, brodiaas,
orchids, iris, spraguea, draperia, collomia, collinsia, castilleja,
nemophila, larkspur, columbine, goldenrods, sunflowers, mints of many
species, honeysuckle, etc. Many fine ferns dwell here also, especially the
beautiful and interesting rock-ferns - pe1la, and cheilanthes of several
species - fringing and rosetting dry rock-piles and ledges; woodwardia and
asplenium on damp spots with fronds six or seven feet high; the delicate
maidenhair in mossy nooks by the falls, and the sturdy, broad-shouldered
pteris covering nearly all the dry ground beneath the oaks and pines.
It appears, therefore, that
Hetch Hetchy Valley, far from being a plain, common, rockbound meadow, as
many who have not seen it seem to suppose, is a grand landscape garden, one
of Nature's rarest and most precious mountain temples. As in Yosemite, the
sublime rocks of its walls seem to glow with life, whether leaning back in
repose or standing erect in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms
and calms alike, their brows in the sky, their feet set in the groves and
gay flowery meadows, while birds, bees, and butterflies help the river and
waterfalls to stir all the air into music - things frail and fleeting and
types of permanence meeting here and blending, just as they do in Yosemite,
to draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with her.
Sad to say, this most
precious and sublime feature of the Yosemite National Park, one of the
greatest of all our natural resources for the uplifting joy and peace and
health of the people, is in danger of being dammed and made into a reservoir
to help supply San Francisco with water and light, thus flooding it from
wall to wall and burying its gardens and groves one or two hundred feet
deep. This grossly destructive commercial scheme has long been planned and
urged (though water as pure and abundant can be got from sources outside of
the people's park, in a dozen different places), because of the comparative
cheapness of the dam and of the territory which it is sought to divert from
the great uses to which it was dedicated in the Act of 1890 establishing the
Yosemite National Park.
The making of gardens and
parks goes on with civilization all over the world, and they increase both
in size and number as their value is recognized. Everybody needs beauty as
well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and
cheer and give strength to body and soul alike. This natural beauty- hunger
is made manifest in the little windowsill gardens of the poor, though
perhaps only a geranium slip in a broken cup, as well as in the carefully
tended rose and lily gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city
parks and botanical gardens, and in our magnificent national parks - the
Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, etc. - Nature's sublime wonderlands, the
admiration and joy of the world. Nevertheless, like anything else worth
while, from the very beginning, however well guarded, they have always been
subject to attack by despoiling gain-seekers and mischief-makers of every
degree from Satan to Senators, eagerly trying to make everything immediately
and selfishly commercial, with schemes disguised in smug- smiling
philanthropy, industriously, shampiously crying, "Conservation,
conservation, panutilization," that man and beast may be fed and the dear
Nation made great. Thus long ago a few enterprising merchants utilized the
Jerusalem temple as a place of business instead of a place of prayer,
changing money, buying and selling cattle and sheep and doves; and earlier
still, the first forest reservation, including only one tree, was likewise
despoiled. Ever since the establishment of the Yosemite National Park,
strife has been going on around its borders and I suppose this will go on as
part of the universal battle between right and wrong, however much its
boundaries may be shorn, or its wild beauty destroyed.
The first application to the
Government by the San Francisco Supervisors for the commercial use of Lake
Eleanor and the Hetch Hetchy Valley was made in 1903, and on December 22 of
that year it was denied by the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Hitchcock, who
truthfully said: -
Presumably the Yosemite
National Park was created such by law because of the natural objects of
varying degrees of scenic importance located within its boundaries,
inclusive alike of its beautiful small lakes, like Eleanor, and its majestic
wonders, like Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite Valley. It is the aggregation of
such natural scenic features that makes the Yosemite Park a wonderland which
the Congress of the United States sought by law to reserve for all coming
time as nearly as practicable in the condition fashioned by the hand of the
Creator - a worthy object of national pride and a source of healthful
pleasure and rest for the thousands of people who may annually sojourn there
during the heated months.
The most delightful and
wonderful campgrounds in the Park are its three great valleys - Yosemite,
Hetch Hetchy, and Upper Tuolumne; and they are also the most important
places with reference to their positions relative to the other great
features - the Merced and Tuolumne Canons, and the High Sierra peaks and
glaciers, etc., at the head of the rivers. The main part of the Tuolumne
Valley is a spacious flowery lawn four or five miles long, surrounded by
magnificent snowy mountains, slightly separated from other beautiful
meadows, which together make a series about twelve miles in length, the
highest reaching to the feet of Mount Dana, Mount Gibbs, Mount Lyell and
Mount McClure. It is about eighty-five hundred feet above the sea, and forms
the grand central High Sierra camp-ground from which excursions are made to
the noble mountains, domes, glaciers, etc.; across the range to the Mono
Lake and volcanoes and down the Tuolumne Caņon to Hetch Hetchy. Should Hetch
Hetchy be submerged for a reservoir, as proposed, not only would it be
utterly destroyed, but the sublime caņon way to the heart of the High Sierra
would be hopelessly blocked and the great camping ground, as the watershed
of a city drinking system, virtually would be closed to the public. So far
as I have learned, few of all the thousands who have seen the park and seek
rest and peace in it are in favor of this outrageous scheme.
One of my later visits to the
Valley was made in the autumn of 1907 with the late William Keith, the
artist. The leaf-colors were then ripe, and the great godlike rocks in
repose seemed to glow with life. The artist, under their spell, wandered day
after day along the river and through the groves and gardens, studying the
wonderful scenery; and, after making about forty sketches, declared with
enthusiasm that although its walls were less sublime in height, in
picturesque beauty and charm Hetch Hetchy surpassed even Yosemite.
That any one would try to
destroy such a place seems incredible; but sad experience shows that there
are people good enough and bad enough for anything. The proponents of the
dam scheme bring forward a lot of bad arguments to prove that the only
righteous thing to do with the people's parks is to destroy them bit by bit
as they are able. Their arguments are curiously like those of the devil,
devised for the destruction of the first garden - so much of the very best
Eden fruit going to waste; so much of the best Tuolumne water and Tuolumne
scenery going to waste. Few of their statements are even partly true, and
all are misleading.
Thus, Hetch Hetchy, they say,
is a "low- lying meadow." On the contrary, it is a high- lying natural
landscape garden, as the photographic illustrations show.
"It is a common minor
feature, like thousands of others." On the contrary it is a very uncommon
feature; after Yosemite, the rarest and in many ways the most important in
the National Park.
"Damming and submerging it
one hundred and seventy-five feet deep would enhance its beauty by forming a
crystal-clear lake." Landscape gardens, places of recreation and worship,
are never made beautiful by destroying and burying them. The beautiful sham
lake, forsooth, would be only an eyesore, a dismal blot on the landscape,
like many others to be seen in the Sierra. For, instead of keeping it at the
same level all the year, allowing Nature centuries of time to make new
shores, it would, of course, be full only a month or two in the spring, when
the snow is melting fast; then it would be gradually drained, exposing the
slimy sides of the basin and shallower parts of the bottom, with the
gathered drift and waste, death and decay of the upper basins, caught here
instead of being swept on to decent natural burial along the banks of the
river or in the sea. Thus the Hetch Hetchy dam-lake would be only a rough
imitation of a natural lake for a few of the spring months, an open
sepulcher for the others.
"Hetch Hetchy water is the
purest of all to be found in the Sierra, unpolluted, and forever
unpollutable." On the contrary, excepting that of the Merced below Yosemite,
it is less pure than that of most of the other Sierra streams, because of
the sewerage of campgrounds draining into it, especially of the Big Tuolumne
Meadows camp-ground, occupied by hundreds of tourists and mountaineers, with
their animals, for months every summer, soon to be followed by thousands
from all the world.
These temple destroyers,
devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for
Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift
them to the Almighty Dollar.
Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam
for water- tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple
has ever been consecrated by the heart of man. |
