Chapter 1

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Transcriber's Note

The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

The photograph "The Rainbow Natural Bridge, Utah", facing page 8, is missing from the source document even though presented in the List of Illustrations.

THE BOOK OF

THE NATIONAL PARKS

THE BOOK OF THE NATIONAL PARKS

BY

ROBERT STERLING YARD

CHIEF, EDUCATIONAL DIVISION, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AUTHOR OF "THE NATIONAL PARKS PORTFOLIO" "THE TOP OF THE CONTINENT," ETC.

WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1919

PREFACE

In offering the American public a carefully studied outline of its national park system, I have two principal objects. The one is to describe and differentiate the national parks in a manner which will enable the reader to appreciate their importance, scope, meaning, beauty, manifold uses and enormous value to individual and nation. The other is to use these parks, in which Nature is writing in large plain lines the story of America's making, as examples illustrating the several kinds of scenery, and what each kind means in terms of world building; in other words, to translate the practical findings of science into unscientific phrase for the reader's increased profit and pleasure, not only in his national parks but in all other scenic places great and small.

At the outset I have been confronted with a difficulty because of this double objective. The role of the interpreter is not always welcome. If I write what is vaguely known as a "popular" book, wise men have warned me that any scientific intrusion, however lightly and dramatically rendered, will displease its natural audience. If I write the simplest of scientific books, I am warned that a large body of warm-blooded, wholesome, enthusiastic Americans, the very ones above all others whose keen enjoyment I want to double by doubling their sources of pleasure, will have none of it. The suggestion that I make my text "popular" and carry my "science" in an appendix I promptly rejected, for if I cannot give the scientific aspects of nature their readable values in the text, I cannot make them worth an appendix.

Now I fail to share with my advisers their poor opinion of the taste, enterprise, and intelligence of the wide-awake American, but, for the sake of my message, I yield in some part to their warnings. Therefore I have so presented my material that the miscalled, and, I verily believe, badly slandered "average reader," may have his "popular" book by omitting the note on the Appreciation of Scenery, and the several notes explanatory of scenery which are interpolated between groups of chapters. If it is true, as I have been told, that the "average reader" would omit these anyway, because it is his habit to omit prefaces and notes of every kind, then nothing has been lost.

The keen inquiring reader, however, the reader who wants to know values and to get, in the eloquent phrase of the day, all that's coming to him, will have the whole story by beginning the book with the note on the Appreciation of Scenery, and reading it consecutively, interpolated notes and all. As this will involve less than a score of additional pages, I hope to get the message of the national parks in terms of their fullest enjoyment before much the greater part of the book's readers.

The pleasure of writing this book has many times repaid its cost in labor, and any helpfulness it may have in advancing the popularity of our national parks, in building up the system's worth as a national economic asset, and in increasing the people's pleasure in all scenery by helping them to appreciate their greatest scenery, will come to me as pure profit. It is my earnest hope that this profit may be large.

A similar spirit has actuated the very many who have helped me acquire the knowledge and experience to produce it; the officials of the National Park Service, the superintendents and several rangers in the national parks, certain zoologists of the United States Biological Survey, the Director and many geologists of the United States Geological Survey, scientific experts of the Smithsonian Institution, and professors in several distinguished universities. Many men have been patient and untiring in assistance and helpful criticism, and to these I render warm thanks for myself and for readers who may benefit by their work.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE vii

THE BOOK OF THE NATIONAL PARKS

ON THE APPRECIATION OF SCENERY 3

I. THE NATIONAL PARKS OF THE UNITED STATES 17

THE GRANITE NATIONAL PARKS

GRANITE'S PART IN SCENERY 33

II. YOSEMITE, THE INCOMPARABLE 36

III. THE PROPOSED ROOSEVELT NATIONAL PARK 69

IV. THE HEART OF THE ROCKIES 93

V. MCKINLEY, GIANT OF GIANTS 118

VI. LAFAYETTE AND THE EAST 132

THE VOLCANIC NATIONAL PARKS

ON THE VOLCANO IN SCENERY 145

VII. LASSEN PEAK AND MOUNT KATMAI 148

VIII. MOUNT RAINIER, ICY OCTOPUS 159

IX. CRATER LAKE'S BOWL OF INDIGO 184

X. YELLOWSTONE, A VOLCANIC INTERLUDE 202

XI. THREE MONSTERS OF HAWAII 229

THE SEDIMENTARY NATIONAL PARKS

XII. ON SEDIMENTARY ROCK IN SCENERY 247

XIII. GLACIERED PEAKS AND PAINTED SHALES 251

XIV. ROCK RECORDS OF A VANISHED RACE 284

XV. THE HEALING WATERS 305

THE GRAND CANYON AND OUR NATIONAL MONUMENTS

ON THE SCENERY OF THE SOUTHWEST 321

XVI. A PAGEANT OF CREATION 328

XVII. THE RAINBOW OF THE DESERT 352

XVIII. HISTORIC MONUMENTS OF THE SOUTHWEST 367

XIX. DESERT SPECTACLES 385

XX. THE MUIR WOODS AND OTHER NATIONAL MONUMENTS 404

ILLUSTRATIONS

Zoroaster from the depths of the Grand Canyon _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE

The Rainbow Natural Bridge, Utah 8

Middle fork of the Belly River, Glacier National Park 12

General Grant Tree 18

The Giant Geyser--greatest in the world 22

The Yosemite Falls--highest in the world 26

El Capitan, survivor of the glaciers 44

Half Dome, Yosemite's hooded monk 46

The climax of Yosemite National Park 56

The greatest waterwheel of the Tuolumne 56

Tehipite Dome, guardian rock of the Tehipite Valley 82

East Vidette from a forest of foxtail pines 84

Bull Frog Lake, proposed Roosevelt National Park 90

Under a giant sequoia 90

Estes Park Plateau, looking east 96

Front range of the Rockies from Bierstadt Lake 96

Summit of Longs Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park 110

The Andrews Glacier hangs from the Continental Divide 114

A Rocky Mountain cirque carved from solid granite 114

Mount McKinley, looming above the great Alaskan Range 128

Archdeacon Stuck's party half-way up the mountain 128

The summit of Mount McKinley 128

In Lafayette National Park 134

Sea caves in the granite 134

Frenchman's Bay from the east cliff of Champlain Mountain 140

Lassen Peak seen from the southwest 152

Lassen Peak close up 152

Southeast slope of Mount Rainier 162

Mount St. Helens seen from Mount Rainier Park 166

Mount Adams seen from Mount Rainier Park 166

Sluiskin Ridge and Columbia Crest 172

Mount Rainier seen from Tacoma 172

Mount Rainier and Paradise Inn in summer 174

Winter pleasures at Paradise Inn, Mount Rainier 174

Dutton Cliff and the Phantom Ship, Crater Lake 190

Sunset from Garfield Peak, Crater Lake National Park 190

Applegate Cliff, Crater Lake 194

Phantom Ship from Garfield Peak 194

The Excelsior Geyser which blew out in 1888; Yellowstone 216

One of the terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone 216

Yellowstone Valley from the upper fall to the lower fall 220

The lower fall and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone 220

The Teton Mountain from Jackson Hole, south of Yellowstone 228

The lava landscape of the Yellowstone and Gibbon Falls 228

The Kilauea Pit of Fire, Hawaii National Park 238

Within the crater of Kilauea 238

The Great Gable of Gould Mountain 272

The Cirque at the head of Cut Bank Creek 272

Ptarmigan Lake and Mount Wilbur, Glacier National Park 276

Scooped both sides by giant glaciers 276

Showing the Agassiz Glacier 282

Beautiful Bowman Lake, Glacier National Park 282

Prehistoric pottery from Mesa Verde 298

Sun Temple, Mesa Verde National Park 302

Spruce Tree House from across the canyon 302

On Hot Springs Mountain, Hot Springs of Arkansas 308

Bath House Row, Hot Springs of Arkansas 308

Sunset from Grand View, Grand Canyon National Park 340

Camping party on the South Rim 344

Down Hermit Trail from rim to river 344

Through the Granite Gorge surges the muddy Colorado 346

When morning mists lift from the depths of the Grand Canyon 346

El Gobernador, Zion National Monument 362

Zion Canyon from the rim 364

The Three Patriarchs, Zion Canyon 364

Casa Grande National Monument 374

Prehistoric cave homes in the Bandelier National Monument 374

Tumacacori Mission 376

Montezuma Castle 376

Roosevelt party in Monument Valley 386

Rainbow Bridge in full perspective 386

The Petrified Forest of Arizona 396

Petrified trunk forming a bridge over a canyon 396

Cathedral Isle of the Muir Woods 406

Pinnacles National Monument 412

The Devil's Tower 412

MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

PAGE

Cross-section of Crater Lake showing probable outline of Mount Mazama 189

Cross-section of Crater Lake 191

Map of Hawaii National Park 230

FACING PAGE

Outline of the Mesa Verde Formation 290

Outlines of the Western and Eastern Temples, Zion National Monument 356

AT END OF VOLUME

Map of Yosemite National Park, California.

Proposed Roosevelt National Park and the Sequoia and General Grant National Parks, California.

The Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.

Mount Rainier National Park, Washington.

Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.

Glacier National Park, Montana.

Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado.

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.

Zion National Monument, Utah.

THE BOOK OF THE NATIONAL PARKS

The Book of the National Parks

ON THE APPRECIATION OF SCENERY

To the average educated American, scenery is a pleasing hodge-podge of mountains, valleys, plains, lakes, and rivers. To him, the glacier-hollowed valley of Yosemite, the stream-scooped abyss of the Grand Canyon, the volcanic gulf of Crater Lake, the bristling granite core of the Rockies, and the ancient ice-carved shales of Glacier National Park all are one--just scenery, magnificent, incomparable, meaningless. As a people we have been content to wonder, not to know; yet with scenery, as with all else, to know is to begin fully to enjoy. Appreciation measures enjoyment. And this brings me to my proposition, namely, that we shall not really enjoy our possession of the grandest scenery in the world until we realize that scenery is the written page of the History of Creation, and until we learn to read that page.

The national parks of America include areas of the noblest and most diversified scenic sublimity easily accessible in the world; nevertheless it is their chiefest glory that they are among the completest expressions of the earth's history. The American people is waking rapidly to the magnitude of its scenic possession; it has yet to learn to appreciate it.

Nevertheless we love scenery. We are a nation of sightseers. The year before the world war stopped all things, we spent $286,000,000 in going to Europe. That summer Switzerland's receipts from the sale of transportation and board to persons coming from foreign lands to see her scenery was $100,000,000, and more than half, it has been stated apparently with authority, came from America. That same year tourist travel became Canada's fourth largest source of income, exceeding in gross receipts even her fisheries, and the greater part came from the United States; it is a matter of record that seven-tenths of the hotel registrations in the Canadian Rockies were from south of the border. Had we then known, as a nation, that there was just as good scenery of its kind in the United States, and many more kinds, we would have gone to see that; it is a national trait to buy the best. Since then, we have discovered this important fact and are crowding to our national parks.

"Is it true," a woman asked me at the foot of Yosemite Falls, "that this is the highest unbroken waterfall in the world?"

She was the average tourist, met there by chance. I assured her that such was the fact. I called attention to the apparent deliberation of the water's fall, a trick of the senses resulting from failure to realize height and distance.

"To think they are the highest in the world!" she mused.

I told her that the soft fingers of water had carved this valley three thousand feet into the solid granite, and that ice had polished its walls, and I estimated for her the ages since the Merced River flowed at the level of the cataract's brink.

"I've seen the tallest building in the world," she replied dreamily, "and the longest railroad, and the largest lake, and the highest monument, and the biggest department store, and now I see the highest waterfall. Just think of it!"

If one has illusions concerning the average tourist, let him compare the hundreds who gape at the paint pots and geysers of Yellowstone with the dozens who exult in the sublimated glory of the colorful canyon. Or let him listen to the table-talk of a party returned from Crater Lake. Or let him recall the statistical superlatives which made up his friend's last letter from the Grand Canyon.

I am not condemning wonder, which, in its place, is a legitimate and pleasurable emotion. As a condiment to sharpen and accent an abounding sense of beauty it has real and abiding value.

Love of beauty is practically a universal passion. It is that which lures millions into the fields, valleys, woods, and mountains on every holiday, which crowds our ocean lanes and railroads. The fact that few of these rejoicing millions are aware of their own motive, and that, strangely enough, a few even would be ashamed to make the admission if they became aware of it, has nothing to do with the fact. It's a wise man that knows his own motives. The fact that still fewer, whether aware or not of the reason of their happiness, are capable of making the least expression of it, also has nothing to do with the fact. The tourist woman whom I met at the foot of Yosemite Falls may have felt secretly suffocated by the filmy grandeur of the incomparable spectacle, notwithstanding that she was conscious of no higher emotion than the cheap wonder of a superlative. The Grand Canyon's rim is the stillest crowded place I know. I've stood among a hundred people on a precipice and heard the whir of a bird's wings in the abyss. Probably the majority of those silent gazers were suffering something akin to pain at their inability to give vent to the emotions bursting within them.

I believe that the statement can not be successfully challenged that, as a people, our enjoyment of scenery is almost wholly emotional. Love of beauty spiced by wonder is the equipment for enjoyment of the average intelligent traveller of to-day. Now add to this a more or less equal part of the intellectual pleasure of comprehension and you have the equipment of the average intelligent traveller of to-morrow. To hasten this to-morrow is one of the several objects of this book.

To see in the carved and colorful depths of the Grand Canyon not only the stupendous abyss whose terrible beauty grips the soul, but also to-day's chapter in a thrilling story of creation whose beginning lay untold centuries back in the ages, whose scene covers three hundred thousand square miles of our wonderful southwest, whose actors include the greatest forces of nature, whose tremendous episodes shame the imagination of Dore, and whose logical end invites suggestions before which finite minds shrink--this is to come into the presence of the great spectacle properly equipped for its enjoyment. But how many who see the Grand Canyon get more out of it than merely the beauty that grips the soul?

So it is throughout the world of scenery. The geologic story written on the cliffs of Crater Lake is more stupendous even than the glory of its indigo bowl. The war of titanic forces described in simple language on the rocks of Glacier National Park is unexcelled in sublimity in the history of mankind. The story of Yellowstone's making multiplies many times the thrill occasioned by its world-famed spectacle. Even the simplest and smallest rock details often tell thrilling incidents of prehistoric tunes out of which the enlightened imagination reconstructs the romances and the tragedies of earth's earlier days.

How eloquent, for example, was the small, water-worn fragment of dull coal we found on the limestone slope of one of Glacier's mountains! Impossible companionship! The one the product of forest, the other of submerged depths. Instantly I glimpsed the distant age when thousands of feet above the very spot upon which I stood, but then at sea level, bloomed a Cretaceous forest, whose broken trunks and matted foliage decayed in bogs where they slowly turned to coal; coal which, exposed and disintegrated during intervening ages, has long since--all but a few small fragments like this--washed into the headwaters of the Saskatchewan to merge eventually in the muds of Hudson Bay. And then, still dreaming, my mind leaped millions of years still further back to lake bottoms where, ten thousand feet below the spot on which I stood, gathered the pre-Cambrian ooze which later hardened to this very limestone. From ooze a score of thousand feet, a hundred million years, to coal! And both lie here together now in my palm! Filled thus with visions of a perspective beyond human comprehension, with what multiplied intensity of interest I now returned to the noble view from Gable Mountain!

In pleading for a higher understanding of Nature's method and accomplishment as a precedent to study and observation of our national parks, I seek enormously to enrich the enjoyment not only of these supreme examples but of all examples of world making. The same readings which will prepare you to enjoy to the full the message of our national parks will invest your neighborhood hills at home, your creek and river and prairie, your vacation valleys, the landscape through your car window, even your wayside ditch, with living interest. I invite you to a new and fascinating earth, an earth interesting, vital, personal, beloved, because at last known and understood!

It requires no great study to know and understand the earth well enough for such purpose as this. One does not have to dim his eyes with acres of maps, or become a plodding geologist, or learn to distinguish schists from granites, or to classify plants by table, or to call wild geese and marmots by their Latin names. It is true that geography, geology, physiography, mineralogy, botany and zoology must each contribute their share toward the condition of intelligence which will enable you to realize appreciation of Nature's amazing earth, but the share of each is so small that the problem will be solved, not by exhaustive study, but by the selection of essential parts. Two or three popular books which interpret natural science in perspective should pleasurably accomplish your purpose. But once begun, I predict that few will fail to carry certain subjects beyond the mere essentials, while some will enter for life into a land of new delights.

Let us, for illustration, consider for a moment the making of America. The earth, composed of countless aggregations of matter drawn together from the skies, whirled into a globe, settled into a solid mass surrounded by an atmosphere carrying water like a sponge, has reached the stage of development when land and sea have divided the surface between them, and successions of heat and frost, snow, ice, rain, and flood, are busy with their ceaseless carving of the land. Already mountains are wearing down and sea bottoms are building up with their refuse. Sediments carried by the rivers are depositing in strata, which some day will harden into rock.

We are looking now at the close of the era which geologists call Archean, because it is ancient beyond knowledge. A few of its rocks are known, but not well enough for many definite conclusions. All the earth's vast mysterious past is lumped under this title.