It is from twelve
hundred to about five thousand feet deep, and is comparatively narrow,
but there are several roomy, park-like openings in it, and throughout
its whole extent Yosemite natures are displayed on a grand scale--domes,
El Capitan rocks, gables, Sentinels, Royal Arches, Glacier Points,
Cathedral Spires, etc. There is even a Half Dome among its wealth of
rock forms, though far less sublime than the Yosemite Half Dome. Its
falls and cascades are innumerable. The sheer falls, except when the
snow is melting in early spring, are quite small in volume as compared
with those of Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy; though in any other country
many of them would be regarded as wonders. But it is the cascades or
sloping falls on the main river that are the crowning glory of the
canyon, and these in volume, extent and variety surpass those of any
other canyon in the Sierra. The most showy and interesting of them are
mostly in the upper part of the canyon, above the point of entrance of
Cathedral Creek and Hoffman Creek. For miles the river is one wild,
exulting, on-rushing mass of snowy purple bloom, spreading over glacial
waves of granite without any definite channel, gliding in magnificent
silver plumes, dashing and foaming through huge boulder-dams, leaping
high into the air in wheel-like whirls, displaying glorious enthusiasm,
tossing from side to side, doubling, glinting, singing in exuberance of
mountain energy.
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