Above Vernal Falls we skirted the base and climbed partly around the side of Liberty Cap, one of the great granite domes of the valley, until we reached the top of the cliff over which the Nevada Falls plunge.  Well up on the side of this cliff, in an inaccessible retreat, our guide, who had traversed this route for twenty-two years, showed me an ancient but now abandoned eagle’s nest.  The noble birds, in late years, not liking the coming of the thousands of excursionists who passed that way daily, forsook their home for some other locality.

The trail now winds around the mountainsides, finally crossing the canyon above the Illiouette Falls.  In a short time we are at Glacier Point.  As you go out to the iron railing erected on the outer edge of a flat rock on the extreme edge of the cliff, and look down into the valley below you, you can not help a shrinking feeling, and you are only too glad soon to move back and get a view from safer quarters.

Overhanging Rock.

The celebrated overhanging rock is at this point.  It is a piece of granite, say four or five feet wide, flat on top, but with rounding edges.  It sticks out from the cliff several feet.  Foolhardy people walk out to the edge of it and make their bow to imaginary audiences over three thousand feet below.  One of the guides with our party, wearing heavy “chaps” (bear-skin overalls) walked out upon this rock, took off his hat, waved it over his head, posed for his photograph, even took a jig step or two, stood on one foot and peered into the abyss below with apparent unconcern.  Earlier in life I might have taken a similar chance, but it would be a physical impossibility for me to do it now.  We feasted our eyes on the magnificent view.

We were now nearly level with the Half Dome (our elevation was seven thousand one hundred feet), below us the beautiful valley with its winding river, bright meadows and stately forests.  Horses staked out on the meadow looked like dogs; people, like ants.  The Yosemite, Vernal, Nevada and Illilouette Falls, Mirror Lake, the roaring cascades above, the Happy Isles, all the peaks of the upper end of the Valley, and mountains for miles and miles beyond, snowcapped and storm-swept, were in plain sight.

After an appetizing lunch at the hotel, we took the short trail for the valley.  It is three and a half miles long, almost straight up and down, and is hard riding or walking.  But the journey was soon ended, and that night we again slept the sleep of the joyously tired.

Morning came too soon, ushering in another perfect mountain day.  We simply loafed around, never tiring of looking at the river or falls in sight, or the everlasting cliffs above us.  We put in an hour or two watching a moving-picture outfit photographing imitation Indians.

Views Through A “Claude Lorraine Glass.”