But glaciers, back in their white solitudes, work apart from men,
exerting their tremendous energies in silence and darkness. Outspread,
spirit-like, they brood above the predestined landscapes, work on
unwearied through immeasurable ages, until, in the fullness of time, the
mountains and valleys are brought forth, channels furrowed for rivers,
basins made for lakes and meadows, and arms of the sea, soils spread for
forests and fields; then they shrink and vanish like summer clouds.
Chapter 12
How Best to Spend One's Yosemite Time
One-Day Excursions
No. 1.
If I were so time-poor as to have only one day to spend in Yosemite I
should start at daybreak, say at three o'clock in midsummer, with a
pocketful of any sort of dry breakfast stuff, for Glacier Point,
Sentinel Dome, the head of Illilouette Fall, Nevada Fall, the top of
Liberty Cap, Vernal Fall and the wild boulder-choked River Canyon. The
trail leaves the Valley at the base of the Sentinel Rock, and as
you slowly saunter from point to point along its many accommodating
zigzags nearly all the Valley rocks and falls are seen in striking,
ever-changing combinations. At an elevation of about five hundred feet a
particularly fine, wide-sweeping view down the Valley is obtained, past
the sheer face of the Sentinel and between the Cathedral Rocks and
El Capitan.
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