Hetch Hetchy
The floor of the Valley is about three and a half miles long, and from a fourth to half a mile wide. The lower portion is mostly a level meadow about a mile long, with the trees restricted to the sides and the river banks, and partially separated from the main, upper, forested portion by a low bar of glacier-polished granite across which the river breaks in rapids.
The principal trees are the yellow and sugar pines, digger pine, incense cedar, Douglas spruce, silver fir, the California and golden-cup oaks, balsam cottonwood, Nuttall’s flowering dogwood, alder, maple, laurel, tumion, etc. The most abundant and influential are the great yellow or silver pines like those of Yosemite, the tallest over two hundred feet in height, and the oaks assembled in magnificent groves with massive rugged trunks four to six feet in diameter, and broad, shady, wide-spreading heads. The shrubs forming conspicuous flowery clumps and tangles are manzanita, azalea, spiræa, brier-rose, several species of ceanothus, calycanthus, philadelphus, wild cherry, etc.; with abundance of showy and fragrant herbaceous plants growing about them or out in the open in beds by themselves—lilies, Mariposa tulips, brodiaeas, orchids, iris, spraguea, draperia, collomia, collinsia, castilleja, nemophila, larkspur, columbine, goldenrods, sunflowers, mints of many species, honeysuckle, etc. Many fine ferns dwell here also, especially the beautiful and interesting rock-ferns—pellaea, and cheilanthes of several species—fringing and rosetting dry rock-piles and ledges; woodwardia and asplenium on damp spots with fronds six or seven feet high; the delicate maiden-hair in mossy nooks by the falls, and the sturdy, broad-shouldered pteris covering nearly all the dry ground beneath the oaks and pines.
It appears, therefore, that Hetch Hetchy Valley, far from being a plain, common, rock-bound meadow, as many who have not seen it seem to suppose, is a grand landscape garden, one of Nature’s rarest and most precious mountain temples. As in Yosemite, the sublime rocks of its walls seem to glow with life, whether leaning back in repose or standing erect in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, their brows in the sky, their feet set in the groves and gay flowery meadows, while birds, bees, and butterflies help the river and waterfalls to stir all the air into music—things frail and fleeting and types of permanence meeting here and blending, just as they do in Yosemite, to draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with her.
Yosemite
The Valley is a chasm or gorge—what the Spanish-Americans would call a cañon—of extraordinary depth, and with walls that approach a vertical formation to a singular degree. The average height of the walls is little less than 3000 feet, while in many places they exceed that figure by several hundred feet, and one part (the Half Dome) rises to an elevation of nearly 5000 feet. The sides of the Valley are not regularly continuous. There are bold, projecting angles and deep gaps through which torrents of water descend to the level of the Valley’s floor.
In length the space reckoned as the Valley proper is something over seven miles. The width of the nearly level floor varies from less than a quarter of a mile to three-quarters of a mile...
Floor of the Valley.—This consists of alternate stretches of open meadow and woodland. It is said that when the Valley was first visited by white men the open space was much greater than it now is. The Indians then made a practice of burning all young vegetable growth in order to facilitate their hunting. Since the occupation by whites the fires have been stopped, and in parts of the Valley dense thickets of young pines and other trees have sprung up...
Trees.—Scattered over the floor of the Valley is an abundant growth of large and handsome oak, pine and other trees....
The more numerous trees in the Valley are the following: Black Oak (Quercus Kelloggii), Live Oak (Quercus Chrysolepis), Dwarf Oak (Quercus Dumosa), Sugar Pine (Pines Lambertiana), Yellow Pines (P. Jeffreyi and P. Ponderosa), Douglas Spruce (Abies Douglasii), Silver Firs (A. Concolor, A. Grandis and A. Nobilis), Red Cedar (Libocedrus Decurrens), Rock Maple (Acer Macrophyllum), Quaking Aspen (Populus Tremuliodes), Balm of Gilead (Polulus Balsamifera), Alder (Alnus Veridis), Dogwood, (Cornus Nuttallii), Laurel (Umbellularia Californica), California Nutmeg (Torreya Californica.) There are specimens of Tamarack (P. Contorta) and of Juniper (Juniperus Occidentalis) in places overlooking the Valley.
There is a large variety in the greater and smaller bush growth, but the following are the more common representatives of that class: Azalea (A. Occidentalis), California Lilac (Ceanothus Integerrimus), Manzanita (Arctostaphylos Glauca)—the latter grows all over the mountains, and is very noticeable on account of its oddly contorted red stems and olive-green leaves; Wild Coffee (Rhamnus Californica), Elderberry (Sanbucus Glauca), Chokecherry (Prunus Demissa), Serviceberry (Amelonchier Alnifolia), Blackberry (Rubus Ursinus), Raspberry (Rubus Cacodermis), Thimbleberry (Rubus Nutkamus), Gooseberry (Ribes Meziessii), Currant (Ribes Sanguineum), Spirea Discolor, Spice plant, (Calycanthes Occidentalis,) Wild Rose (Rosa Californica), Buckeye (Aesculus Californica.) The latter, like the Manzanita, is characteristic of California, and appears on all the roads from the foothills to the Valley. In the spring and early summer it is very observable, the white stems, broad and brilliant leaves, and long plumes of white blossoms, making an attractive combination of colors.
