About three miles west of the
Domes, the south wall of the Valley is interrupted by a deep _canon_
leading in a nearly southeast direction. Through this _canon_ comes the
Middle Fork, and along its banks lies our course to the great
"Pi-wi-ack" (senselessly Englished as "Vernal") and the Nevada Falls.
For three miles from our camp opposite the Yo-Semite Fall the _canon_ is
threaded by a trail practicable for horses. At its termination we
dismounted, sent back our animals, and, strapping their loads upon our
own shoulders, struck nearly eastward by a path only less rugged than
the trackless crags around us. In some places we were compelled to
squeeze sideways through a narrow crevice in the rocks, at imminent
danger to our burden of blankets and camp-kettles; in others we became
quadrupedal, scrambling up acclivities with which the bald main
precipice had made but slight compromise. But for our light marching
order,--our only dress being knee-boots, hunting-shirt, and
trowsers,--it would have been next to impossible to reach our goal at
all.
But none of us regretted pouring sweat or strained sinews, when, at the
end of our last terrible climb, we stood upon the oozy sod which is
brightened into eternal emerald by the spray of Pi-wi-ack. Far below our
slippery standing steeply sloped the walls of the ragged chasm down
which the snowy river charges roaring after its first headlong plunge;
an eternal rainbow flung its shimmering arch across the mighty caldron
at the base of the fall; and straight before us in one unbroken leap
came down Pi-wi-ack from a granite shelf nearly four hundred feet in
height and sixty feet in perfectly horizontal width.
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