Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/249

 THE YOSEMITE 207 beckon, we broach the turmoil of the upper cas- cade. Twice as high as Vernal and infinitely more passionate, it springs 600 feet down a wild ter- race of stone whose face is sprayed with strand- like falls. Goaded by the torment of its passage in the higher reaches of the Merced, the Nevada Fall bursts in a white fury of sifting spray that wreaths and floats like escaping vapour. Of all the Valley's waterfalls none has so frantic a re- lease as this, charged with hurtling rock-bruises, harried, hunted, crowded to this sheer abyss. . . . Thus far the track is the same as that which con- ducts to the northeast past Liberty Cap and the mouth of the Little Yosemite to Cloud's Rest. Bound for Glacier Point, we retrace the general direction of the ascent already made to the top of Nevada Falls, and turning west to Panorama Point and the head of Illilouette, there round a curve and come upon Panorama Wall, whose out- look is one of the most comprehensive in the Val- ley. But the view from Glacier Point surpasses it, for there one may glimpse from an awesome edge the rock-sealed cavern below. On Glacier Point there is a modest hotel with auxiliary tents. Approaching it by a shaded road and tethering our animals beneath a group of trees, we get but slight intimation of what is to come until we move toward the pulpit-like protu- berance on the sheer verge of the great precipice,