and a single blanket and go off hunting, for no other
reason than to explore and get acquainted with the
most beautiful points of view within a journey of a
week or two from his Wawona home. On these trips
he was always alone and could indulge in tranquil
enjoyment of Nature to his heart’s content.
He said that on those trips, when he was a sufficient
distance from home in a neighborhood where he wished
to linger, he always shot a deer, sometimes a grouse,
and occasionally a bear. After diminishing the
weight of a deer or bear by eating part of it, he
carried as much as possible of the best of the meat
to Wawona, and from his hospitable well-supplied cabin
no weary wanderer ever went away hungry or unrested.
The value of the mountain air in prolonging life is
well examplified in Mr. Clark’s case. While
working in the mines he contracted a severe cold that
settled on his lungs and finally caused severe inflammation
and bleeding, and none of his friends thought he would
ever recover. The physicians told him he had
but a short time to live. It was then that he
repaired to the beautiful sugar pine woods at Wawona
and took up a claim, including the fine meadows there,
and building his cabin, began his life of wandering
and exploring in the glorious mountains about him,
usually going bare-headed. In a remarkably short
time his lungs were healed.
He was one of the most sincere tree-lovers I ever
knew. About twenty years before his death he
made choice of a plot in the Yosemite cemetery on
the north side of the Valley, not far from the Yosemite
Fall, and selecting a dozen or so of seedling sequoias
in the Mariposa grove he brought them to the Valley
and planted them around the spot he had chosen for
his last rest. The ground there is gravelly and
dry; by careful watering he finally nursed most of
the seedlings into good, thrifty trees, and doubtless
they will long shade the grave of their blessed lover
and friend.
Chapter 16
Hetch Hetchy Valley
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 by way of Yosemite Creek basin and
the head of the middle fork of the Tuolumne.
Copyrights
The Yosemite from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
