My rough notes concerning hiking to Ft Monroe
Old Wawona Road (El
Capitan)
(long, lat)
Description:
Starts
at the Wawona Covered Bridge. Crosses the road around the campground.
Around Misquito Creek, it drops below 41 and parallels or crosses it
several times. Dr. John Taylor McLean created the road. Once only one
of two ways into the valley. remarkable achievements of these
pioneers using picks, shovels, black powder and sweat to achieve
their goals. Their only monetary reward was a wage of $40s a month,
food, and lodging.
Soon
after enthusiast James Hutchings began escorting sightseers to view
Yosemite Valley in 1855, Andrew, Milton and Houston Mann built a
45-mile toll horse trail from Mariposa to the already-famous Valley
via the South Fork. Mainly, they followed the old Indian trails. It
was opened August 1, 1856, and operated as a toll route until 1862
when Mariposa County purchased it, declaring it a “Public Highway.”
Until then, tolls were: [“]Man and horse each way, $2.00; pack mule
or horse, each way, $2.00; Footman, $1.00.” 31
In 1869, Galen Clark organized a stock company of eight men to
build a wagon and stage road from Mariposa as far as Clark’s 22
(Wawona) which was used as a toll road from 1870 until 1917. As
early as 1870, Clark had a survey made for a wagon road from his
lodging at Wawona to Yosemite Valley. This road was begun by Chinese
laborers, under the direction of John Conway and Edwin Moore and
finished by Washburn, Chapman & Company in July, 1875. 32
Most of the 16-foot-wide road was constructed during severe winter
weather. The era of the stagecoach, which was to continue, in
jolting, dusty fashion for forty years, began for Yosemite-bound
visitors. By mid-April, 1875, the rough road was passable
for stagecoaches except for a narrow, 300-yard section still under
construction near the old Inspiration Point. To the passengers’
temporary inconvenience and amusement, they walked the unfinished
stretch while their quickly-dismantled stage was carried in pieces by
hand, then reassembled, harnessed up, reboarded and driven off with
considerable aplomb. 32
The Yosemite Stage & Turnpike Company (Washburn brothers),
ran stages from Merced to Wawona via Mariposa where they had a livery
stable.
The road from Raymond to Wawona generally followed the
route of present State Highway 41, while the stage route from
Mariposa, called the Chowchilla Mountain Road, exists today, rutty,
dusty and little-changed from its 1870 route.
The Wawona Hotel
was a logical and popular overnight stop for stage travelers, and the
Yosemite Stage & Turnpike Company, operating two stage schedules
and 700 horses, saw to it that their passengers traveled speedily and
safely, though dustily.
In 1865, 369 hardy, saddle-sore travelers
visited Yosemite. In 1875, mostly in stagecoaches, the Park had 2,423
visitors; 2,590 in 1885; 8,023 in 1902; and in 1914, when automobiles
were allowed on the Wawona Road, 15,154. Travel doubled in 1915 when
31,546 visitors chugged in; 209,166 came in 1925 and 498,289 in 1932,
33
the last year of Washburn ownership.
The Wawona Road accounted
for a number of Yosemite “firsts.” The first automobile to enter
the Valley traveled it in 1900, and 32 miles of it had the honor of
being the first paved road in the Yosemite region in June, 1902 34
Mud and dust were tamed! Soon increased automobile traffic
made oiled roads a necessity and, in 1932, the new, modern Wawona
Road was completed from the South (Fresno) Entrance to Yosemite
Valley.
Place:
CA-CA-Bridalveil
Bridalveil Falls-4,436' (El Capitan) (37.7165936,
-119.6468332)
Bridalveil Meadow-3,894' (El
Capitan) (37.7171491, -119.6598896)
Bridalveil
Moraine-3,930 (El Capitan) (37.7171491,
-119.6568338)
Bridalveil Creek-3,904' (El
Capitan) (37.7188157,
-119.6532226-Mouth)
Bridalveil Campground-6,968'
(Half Dome) (37.6621519,
-119.6207175)
Description:====
Hutchings claimed that he suggested the name on his first
visit to Yosemite in 1855.
'Is it not as graceful , and as
beautiful, as the veil of a bride?' to which I propose that we now
baptize it, and call it, 'The Bridal Veil Fall', as one that is both
characteristic and euthonious.' (Hutchings,
In the Heart,
89) Another who claimed the honor of naming the fall wrote:
We
make bold to call it Bridal Veil; and those who may have the
felicity to witness the stream floating in the embrace of the
morning breeze, will acknowledge the resemblance, and perhaps pardon
the liberty we have taken in attempting to apply so poetical a name
to this Queen of the Valley. (Warren Baer, editor,
Mariposa
Democrat, Aug 5, 1856)
There were some who didn't like
the name at all.
... in 1856, it was christened 'Falls of Louise'
in honor of the first lady of our party who entered the valley.
Thank Heaven, the cataract wouldn't stand this nonsense, and it
seemed to me to be pleading with us to have the 'Bridal Veil' fully
thrown aside; that it might be known forever by its Indian baptism,
'Pohono' (
Boston Transcript, Jan 26, 1861) Other early
names were
Queen of the Valley and
Cascade of the Rainbow.
The Indians did indeed call the fall "Pohono", the
name was still in use in 1863 when the Whitney Survey was there
(Brewer,
Up and Down, 404. See
Pohono
Trail for the differing explanations of the
word's meaning.)
The names of the meadow and the moraine
appear only on the 1:24,000 map. (YNP)
From Brownings
Places
Names of the Sierra Nevada ====
PĆ³hono. The
Bridal Veil Fall; explained to signify a blast of wind, or the night
wind, perhaps from the chillness of the air occasioned by coming
under the high cliff and near the falling water, or possibly with
reference to the constant swaying of the sheet of water from one
side to the other under the influence of the wind. Mr. Hutchings,
more poetically, says that “Pohono” is “an evil spirit, whose
breath is a blighting and fatal wind, and consequently to be dreaded
and shunned.”
From
THE YOSEMITE BOOK by Josiah D.
Whitney (1869)
According to GNIS:
Bridalveil Campground is also
called Bridalveil Creek Campground: The Official Map of Mariposa
County and Communities. Modesto, California: Compass Maps, 1990
Bridalveil Creek: In Yosemite
National Park, heads at Ostrander Lake and trends northwest to the
Merced River just south of mile marker 122 at Bridalveil Moraine in
southwestern Yosemite Valley
Bridalveil Falls: :In
Yosemite National Park, 620 ft plunge over the south wall of
Yosemite Valley on Bridalveil Creek between the north slope of
Leaning Tower and the southwest slope of Cathedral Rocks. Also
called:
Bridal Veil Falls:
Browning, Peter. Yosemite Place Names. Lafayette, California:
Great West Books, 1988. p16
Pohono: U.S. Geological Survey.
Geographic Names Phase I data compilation (1976-1981).
31-Dec-1981. Primarily from U.S. Geological Survey 1:24,000-scale
topographic maps (or 1:25K, Puerto Rico 1:20K) and from U.S. Board
on Geographic Names files. In some instances, from 1:62,500 scale
or 1:250,000 scale maps.
Falls of Louise: Browning,
Peter. Yosemite Place Names. Lafayette, California: Great West
Books, 1988. p16
Cascade of the Rainbow:
Browning, Peter. Yosemite Place Names. Lafayette, California:
Great West Books, 1988. p16
Bridalvail Meadows: In Yosemite
National Park, at the base of the south wall of Yosemite Valley,
0.8 km (0.5 mi) west of Bridalveil Fall on the south bank of Merced
River near between mile marker 121 and 122.
Bridalveil Moraine: In
Yosemite National Park, on the south wall of Yosemite Valley, 0.96
km (0.6 mi) west of Bridalveil Falls and 6.2 km (3.9 mi) southwest
of Yosemite Village.
1988
Letter from N King Huber discussing
the naming of this moraine and why he felt it should not be named
1987
Form from Martuch showing where the moraine
is
1989
Form from James Schubert saying the old
location of Bridalveil Moraine is inaccurate
I do not know how the name
Bridalveil Moraine got applied to the published
location;
probably another confused fieldman or editor. There really is
a
small, hard to find moraine at that location. .... As
the USGS field checker of
this information, I concur that the
moraine at this described location is
the most prominent and
noteworthy of the several in the Yosemite Valley. It
seems
perfectly acceptable to officially tame it Bridalveil Moraine.
-
1930
map showing location of the moraine
1972
map showing the wrong location of the
moraine
- This moraine marks the westward progress of the Tioga
glacier
El
Capitan-7,569' (Yosemite Quad, El Capitan) (37°44′03″N
119°38′16″W)
El Capitan Meadow-3,953'
(Yosemite Quad, El Capitan) (37.7238155,
-119.6354441)
El Capitan Bridge-3,953' (Yosemite
Quad, El Capitan) (37.7238155, -119.6312772)
El
Capitan Moriane-7,713' (Yosemite Quad, El Capitan) (37.7415924,
-119.6585020)
El Capitan Gully-4,675' (Yosemite
Quad, El Capitan) (37.7411111, -119.6372222)
Description:
The name was given by the Mariposa
Battialian in 1851... "The native Indian name ... is
To-to-konoo-lah, from To-to-kon, the Sandhill Crane, a chief of the
First People, (C. Hart Merriam in SCB 10, no.2. Jan 1917, 206)
"The
famous cliff, El Capitan, the Captain, is a Spanish interpretation
of the Indian name To-tock-ah-noo-lah, meaning the "Rock
Chief'" (Bunnel, Report, 1889-90, 9) "Upon one occasion I
asked [Tenaya], 'Why do you call the cliff To-to-konoo-lah? The
Indian's reply was, "Because he looks like one...Come with me
and see...As the Indian reached a point a little above and some
distance from the cliff, he triumphantly pointed to the perfect
image of a man's head and face, with side whiskers, and with an
expression of the sturdy English type and asked, 'Does he not look
like To-to-konoo-lah? The 'Rock Chief' or 'Captain', was again
Sandino's [the interpreter's] interpretation of the word while
viewing the likeness." (Bernell, Discovery, 1911,
214-15)
There is also a legend type of explanation that is
repeated throughout Yosemite literature. Galen Clark says that
To-to-konoo-lah is from the measuring worm (tul-tok-a-na) which
crawled up the face of the rock to rescue two small boys who were
beyond being saved by any other creatures of the valley (Clark,
92-95)
According to one source, the original English name was
"Crane Mountain," not for the reason given above, but for
the sandhill cranes that entered the valley by flying over the top
of El Capitan. (YNN 34, no 1, Jan 1955:6) And finally, Hutchings'
California Magazine 1, no 1, July 1856: 3, called it "Giant's
Tower". (YNP)
From GNIS:
Place:
CA-Artist Point
Artist Point-4,701' (El Capitan)
(37.7121494, -119.6748902)
Artist
Creek-3,855' (El Capitan) (37.7174269,
-119.6729459)
Description:See Chapter 24 in
Sharon Giacomazzi's
Trails and Tales of Yosemite and the Central
Sierra. Thomas Hill painted the 10'x6' painting
Great
Canyon of the Sierras from Artist Point.
Many other paintings c
an be found by Googling
artist
point yosemite painting.
Thomas
Hill is the most noted artist who worked at this point. From
sketches he made here, he painted the Great
Canyon of the Sierras in
1871. Also he painted Yosemite
Valley.
This painting gathered top honors in the 1876 Philadelphia
Centennial Exposition. He eventually worked out of Wawona at what is
now the Ranger Station there. For paintings of his, look at the
Yosemite Museum, Oakland Museum and Sacramento's Crocker
Museum.Many
hiking blogs and trail descriptions say that Thomas Ayers painted
his famous picture
here. But I am not so sure. Giacomazzi's account seems a lot more
authoritative. Also the perspective of the picture is wrong for
Artist Point.
There
is a benchmark at the 4,701' level. denoting Artist point.
From GNIS:
Trips:
September
2, 2014-Day trip with Kevin and Connor
from McGurk Meadow to Bridalveil Parking lot
-
-
-
References:
Pohono Bridge-3,868' (El Capitan)
(37.7165937, -119.6660010)
Pohono Meadow-7,211'
(Half Dome) (37.6582632, -119.5843261)
Pohono
Trail-6,857' (Half Dome) (37.7049275,
-119.6123862)
Description:"Pohono. The Bridal
Veil Fall , explained to signify a blast of wind, or the night-wind
... or possibly with reference to the constant swaying of the sheet
of water from one side to the other under the influence of the wind.
Mr. Hutchings, more poetically, says that 'Pohono' is an evil spirit
whose breath is a blighting and fatal wind, and consequently to be
dreaded and shunned." (Whitney, Yosemite Guide-Book, 1870,
16)
"The whole basin drained, as well as the meadows
adjacent, was known to us of the battalion, as the Pohono branch and
meadows... I Have recently learned the Po-ho-no means a daily
puffing wind, and when applied to fall, stream or meadow, means a
simply the fall, stream, or meadow of the puffing wind, and when
applied to the tribe of Po-ho-no-chess, who occupied the meadows in
summer, indicated that they dwell on the meadows of that stream....
Mr. Hutchings' interpretation is entirely fanciful, as are most of
his Indian translations." (Bunnell, Discovery, 1911, 212-213.)
(YNP)
From GNIS:
At
the elevation around 5,600 feet we arrived at Fort Monroe. These
structures were removed when the Wawona Tunnel was completed in July
of 1933.
Fort
Monroe was named for George F. Monroe, a stage driver for the
Yosemite Stage Line. The "fort" was a stage team relay
station, and a place where stage line customers and other travelers
camped.
Monroe came to California with his
uncle from his native Georgia in 1856 to meet his parents who had
recently moved to
Mariposa
as part of the gold rush. George was 12 at the time. George's father
Louis became a successful barber in Mariposa,[
citation
needed] and eventually
bought and lived on a prosperous ranch south east of town.
In
1866 Monroe started working for the Wabash brothers, who ran the
Yosemite Stage Line, and eventually got promoted to driver. He was
said to excel at taking the team over the treacherous road, which
included many sharp drop offs at the side of the road and numerous
tight switch backs. He never had an accident that cost the company
money nor injury to his passengers.
[1]
It is thought that an accident precipitated his own death at the age
of 42. According to one account, he was riding as a passenger in the
stage when a horse got away from the driver, and George clambered to
the front horse to stop the team, in the course of which he injured
himself. A few days later, after complaining of feeling ill, he died
at his parents ranch. He was their only child.
[2]Monroe
was said to be well known to travelers from Europe, as well as
throughout the United States. Among his passengers over the years
were presidents
Grant,
Garfield
and
Hayes
The
location retained Monroe's name after his death. It was always a
site of significance, from the stage and horse era of the late 19th
century, well into the automobile era when for a time it was an
entrance station, and was said to have a fine automobile camp.[3]
When the Wawona
Tunnel was built, the upper road was converted into part of the
Pohono Trail, whose starting point is now located at the Tunnel
View parking
lot.
J
Smeaton Chase: Yosemite Trails
We camped at Fort
Monroe, and ate our supper between exclamations at the sunset color
on the pines and cedars on the opposite hillside. The level light
illuminated the forest with a radiance that was indescribably royal
and august, and the great trees stood thoughtful and reverent,
ripening their harvest in the golden air.
From
just beyond our camp there opened a wonderful outlook to the west.
The land here falls away almost precipitously two thousand feet to
the caƱon of the Merced, where it forms a sweeping amphitheatre at
the point where Tamarack Creek enters from the north. Opposite, the
unbroken forest rises to the high ridge that is held by the Merced
Grove of Sequoias, and which here forms the watershed between the
Merced and Tuolumne systems.
In
the gathering dusk the myriad pinnacles of the forest rose into a
pale, clear sky, down which the new moon passed musingly to sink
behind the western mountains.
Place:
CA-Inspiration Point (Yosemite)
Inspiration Point-5,381' (El Capitan)
(37.7138160, -119.6879465)
Old Inspiration
Point-6,532' (El Capitan) (long, lat)
Description:Old Inspiration Point is where Major
Savage first saw Yosemite Valley. Hutchings came in later and saw
Yosemite first from here as well.
From GNIS:
Inspiration Point: In Yosemite
National Park, north of the Merced River at mile marker 120 and on
the southwest wall of Yosemite Valley, 1.4 km (0.9 mi) east of
Turtleback Dome and 1.4 km (0.9 mi) northwest of Old Inspiration
Point.
Old Inspiration Point: In
Yosemite National Park, on the far southwest wall of Yosemite Valley
, above the Mereced River at mile marker 120. Also called:
Open-eta-noo-ah:
Browning, Peter. Yosemite Place Names. Lafayette, California: Great
West Books, 1988. p208
- Mount Beatitute: Browning, Peter.
Yosemite Place Names. Lafayette, California: Great West Books,
1988. p105
An easier way, but longer to arrive at New Inspiration Point is to
go up the Old Wawona Road.If you pass by the Pohono junction,
eventually it curls back onto New Inspiration Point.
