All the wide, fan-shaped upper portion of the basin
is covered with a network of small rills that go cheerily
on their way to their grand fall in the Valley, now
flowing on smooth pavements in sheets thin as glass,
now diving under willows and laving their red roots,
oozing through green, plushy bogs, plashing over small
falls and dancing down slanting cascades, calming
again, gliding through patches of smooth glacier meadows
with sod of alpine agrostis mixed with blue and white
violets and daisies, breaking, tossing among rough
boulders and fallen trees, resting in calm pools,
flowing together until, all united, they go to their
fate with stately, tranquil gestures like a full-grown
river. At the crossing of the Mono Trail, about
two miles above the head of the Yosemite Fall, the
stream is nearly forty feet wide, and when the snow
is melting rapidly in the spring it is about four feet
deep, with a current of two and a half miles an hour.
This is about the volume of water that forms the Fall
in May and June when there had been much snow the
preceding winter; but it varies greatly from month
to month. The snow rapidly vanishes from the
open portion of the basin, which faces southward,
and only a few of the tributaries reach back to perennial
snow and ice fountains in the shadowy amphitheaters
on the precipitous northern slopes of Mount Hoffman.
The total descent made by the stream from its highest
sources to its confluence with the Merced in the Valley
is about 6000 feet, while the distance is only about
ten miles, an average fall of 600 feet per mile.
The last mile of its course lies between the sides
of sunken domes and swelling folds of the granite that
are clustered and pressed together like a mass of bossy
cumulus clouds. Through this shining way Yosemite
Creek goes to its fate, swaying and swirling with
easy, graceful gestures and singing the last of its
mountain songs before it reaches the dizzy edge of
Yosemite to fall 2600 feet into another world, where
climate, vegetation, inhabitants, all are different.
Emerging from this last canyon the stream glides, in
flat lace-like folds, down a smooth incline into a
small pool where it seems to rest and compose itself
before taking the grand plunge. Then calmly,
as if leaving a lake, it slips over the polished lip
of the pool down another incline and out over the
brow of the precipice in a magnificent curve thick-sown
with rainbow spray.
Long ago before I had traced this fine stream to its
head back of Mount Hoffman, I was eager to reach the
extreme verge to see how it behaved in flying so far
through the air; but after enjoying this view and getting
safely away I have never advised any one to follow
my steps. The last incline down which the stream
journeys so gracefully is so steep and smooth one
must slip cautiously forward on hands and feet alongside
the rushing water, which so near one’s head
is very exciting. But to gain a perfect view
