Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/254

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

212 THE TOURIST'S CALIFORNIA Across its narrow mouth a dam is to be built. The entire floor whose " forest growth and garden floor of ferns and flowers surpass Yosemite itself " will be surmerged. Only the cliffs and the water- falls will remain. The walls of the Hetch Hetchy are lower, its beauty is more intimate, but the sequence of its main features bears a remarkable relation to that of the Yosemite. Looking up the Valley from west to east, the Kolana Dome, 2000 feet above the level floor, stands in the same position as Cathe- dral Rocks, and the Cas-cade Cliffs in the same po- sition as Glacier Point. The cataracts of the Grand Gorge of the Tuolumne, which rush down a rocky stair, resemble the Vernal and Nevada Falls. Coming down the Valley, the Royal Arches of the Hetch Hetchy denote the mouth of a canyon fork just as similar arches form in Yosemite one side of the gate to Tenaya Canyon. The Wapama or Hetch Hetchy Falls (1700 feet) resemble Yo- semite Falls, but have a greater volume of water. The Great Chief of the Tuolumne is not so high as El Capitan by nearly half, but it is much the same shape. On either side of it waterfalls veil the cliff; Wapama is to the east, Tueeulala, which John Muir calls " the most beautiful fall I have ever seen," drops to the west in a long straight spout of water which, part way down the wall, divides into a fan-like array of thin-