When was yosemite falls discovered

They rode into Yosemite in and in pursuit of the Ahwahneechee, a branch of the southern Miwok. Some Indians were killed and their village was burned. The survivors were driven from the valley and returned later only in small, heartbroken bands.

The vigilantes brought back stories of a breathtaking seven-mile-long gorge framed by monumental cliffs, now known as El Capitan and Half Dome, and filled with serene meadows and spectacular waterfalls.

The first tourists began arriving in Yosemite a few years later, and by the early s, a steady trickle of them, most from San Francisco, miles away, was turning up in summer.

Traveling for several days by train, stagecoach and horseback, they would reach Mariposa Grove, a stand of some ancient giant sequoias, where they would rest before embarking on an arduous descent via 26 switchbacks into the valley. Once there, many did not stray far from the few rustic inns, but others would camp out in the forests, eating oatcakes and drinking tea, hiking to mountain vistas such as Glacier Point, reading poetry around campfires and yodeling across moonlit lakes.

By , a group of Californians, aware of what had happened to Niagara Falls, successfully lobbied President Abraham Lincoln to sign a law granting the roughly seven square miles of the valley and Mariposa Grove to the state "for public use, resort and recreation"—some of the first land in history set aside for its natural beauty.

Thus, when Muir came to Yosemite in , he found several dozen year-round residents living in the valley—even an apple orchard. Because of a gap in his journals, we know little about that first visit except that it lasted about ten days. He returned to the coast to find work, promising himself to return. It would take him over a year to do so. In June , Muir signed on as a shepherd to take a flock of 2, sheep to Tuolumne Meadows in the High Sierra, an adventure he later recounted in one of his most appealing books, My First Summer in the Sierra.

Muir came to despise his "hoofed locusts" for tearing up the grass and devouring wildflowers. But he discovered a dazzling new world. He made dozens of forays into the mountains, including the first ascent of the 10,foot granite spire of Cathedral Peak, with nothing but a notebook tied to his rope belt and lumps of hard bread in his coat pockets. By fall , Muir had decided to stay full time in the valley, which he regarded as "nature's landscape garden, at once beautiful and sublime.

Muir lived there for 11 months, guiding hotel guests on hikes and cutting timber for walls to replace bedsheets hung as "guest room" partitions. Muir's letters and journals find him spending hour after hour simply marveling at the beauty around him.

We have a vivid picture of Muir at this time thanks to Theresa Yelverton, a. Viscountess Avonmore, a British writer who arrived in Yosemite as a year-old tourist in the spring of Carr had told her to seek out Muir as a guide and the pair became friends. Early Inhabitants Yosemite Valley was home to the Ahwahneechee people for thousands of years before settlers arrived in the area.

Although not the first Native American tribe, the Ahwahneechee were present when the first outsiders encountered them in the s. In fact, the tribe is responsible for the naming of Yosemite Valley.

Called "Ahwahnee", the valley became "Yosemite" due to the mispronunciation of settlers. During to fervor of the California Gold Rush in , the valley was slated to be cleared by the United States Army, resulting in a conflict with the tribe. Chief Tenaya put up a resistance and the fight culminated into the Mariposa Wars.

The Native American eventually relented, were captured, and relocated to a reservation, thus ending the tribal habitation of Yosemite Valley and ushering in the era of the settler. Early Settlers and Pioneers Years before the Mariposa Wars, the Sierra Nevada had been visited by small parties of fur trappers, though none ventured into Yosemite Valley, with was thought impassable.

The first confirmation of a non-Native American visitor was in , only two years before the conflict with the native tribes. With the Gold Rush in the s came miners, some of which were killed in the wars with the Army.

It was not until after the tribe was relocated that tourists began to slowly trickle into the Valley. Most of the tourists were early photographers and artists seeking to capture the beauty of the wilderness. Journalists wrote articles detailing the majesty of the valley and there were numerous sketches and photographs displayed in exhibits to bring awareness of Yosemite to Americans.

Galen Clark was one of the first settlers to establish a permanent residence within Yosemite. The Mariposa Grove in Wawona Valley is shrouded by the Giant Sequoia trees and was isolated by the Merced River before a bridge was built to ease crossing the water in Clark erected a Pioneer Village made up of several rustic cabins, a hotel for tourists, and a ranch in the Valley.

Today, the Pioneer Village is a historical landmark and the oldest buildings have been preserved for tourists and posterity. There are around residents that live in Wawona all year round but the population increases during tourist season due to the availability of cabins for rent. Galen Clark saw the potential of the location and the need to preserve the wilderness for future generations.

Clark would prove to be one of the frontrunners in the effort to declare Yosemite a National Park. Geologically, the Sierra Nevada is a huge block of the Earth's crust that has broken free on the east along a bounding fault system and has been uplifted and tilted westward. This combination of uplift and tilt, which is the underlying geologic process that created the present range, is still going on today.

As the world grew colder, beginning about 2 or 3 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada had risen high enough for glaciers and a mountain icefield to form periodically along the range crest. When extensive, the icefield covered much of the higher Yosemite area and sent glaciers down many of the valleys. Glacial ice quarried loose and transported vast volumes of rubble, and used it to help scour and modify the landscape.

Much of this debris eventually accumulated along the margins of the glaciers and in widely distributed, hummocky piles. The greatest bulk of this debris, however, was flushed out of the Sierra to the Central Valley by streams swollen with meltwater formerly stored in the glaciers as ice and released as the glaciers melted away. Although many of today's general landforms existed before modification by glacial action, some of them surely did not.

Can you imagine the Yosemite landscape with no lakes? Virtually all the innumerable natural lakes in the park are the result of glacial activity.

But even these lakes are transitory, doomed to be filled with sediment and become meadows; many lakes already have undergone this transformation. Yosemite Valley itself once contained a lake. The vast majority of Yosemite is comprised of plutonic igneous rocks. Plutonic rock forms deep underground when molten rock cools and solidifies very slowly, allowing large crystals to form.

In contrast, volcanic igneous rocks form at the surface when molten rock cools and solidifies quickly, resulting in small crystals. Granite, granodiorite, tonalite, quartz monzonite, and quartz monzodiorite are all forms of plutonic rock that are found in Yosemite, and are loosely referred to as granitic rocks.

Quartz diorite, diorite and gabbro are plutonic rocks found in Yosemite, but are not technically considered to be granitic rocks. Plutonic rocks are primarily comprised of 5 minerals: quartz, potassium feldspar, plagioclase feldspar, biotite, and hornblende. Plutonic rocks, including granitic rocks, differ primarily in the relative proportions of quartz and feldspar, although texture is also an important consideration.

The plutonic rocks were generally formed during the Cretaceous period. Volcanic igneous rocks are erupted onto the Earth's surface and cool and solidify much more quickly than plutonic igneous rocks.

This circumstance, connected with the fact of the two whom we had sent out not returning, satisfied me that they had no intention of coming in. My command then set out to search for the rancheria. The party which went up the left toward Canyarthia [? The boys pursued them up the mountain on the north side of the river, and when they had got near the top, helping each other from rock to rock on account of the abruptness of the mountains, the first intimation they had, of the Indians being near was a shower of huge rocks which came tumbling down the mountain, threatening instant destruction.

Several of the men were knocked down, and some of them rolled and fell some distance before they could recover, wounding and bruising them generally. One man's gun was knocked out of his hand and fell 70 feet before it stopped, whilst another man's hat was knocked off his head without hurting him.

The men immediately took shelter behind large rocks, from which they could get an occasional shot, which soon forced the Indians to retreat, and by pressing them close they caught the old Yosemite chief, whom we yet hold as a prisoner. In this skirmish they killed one Indian and wounded several others. You are aware that I know this old fellow well enough to look out well for him, lest by some stratagem he makes his escape. I shall aim to use him to the best advantage in pursuing his people.

I send down a few of my command with the pack animals for provisions; and I am satisfied if you will send me 10 or 12 of old Ponwatchi's best men 3 I could catch the women and children and thereby force the men to come in.

The Indians I have with me have acted in good faith and agree with me in this opinion. Thus far I have made it a point to give as little alarm as possible. After capturing some of them I set a portion at liberty, in order that they might assure the others that if they come in they would not be harmed.

Notwithstanding the treachery of the old chief, who contrived to lie and deceive us all the time, his grey hairs saved the boys from inflicting on him that justice which would have been administered under other circumstances. Having become satisfied that we could not persuade him to come in, I determined on hunting them, and if possible running them down, lest by leaving them in the mountains they would form a new settlement and a place of refuge for other ill-disposed Indians who might do mischief and retreat to the mountains, and finally entice off those who are quiet and settled in the reserve.

On the 20th of May the train of pack animals and provisions arrived, accompanied by a few more men than the party which went out after provisions, and Ponwatchi, the chief of the Nuchtucs Nuchu tribe with 12 of his warriors. On the morning of the 21st we discovered the trail of a small party of Indians traveling in the direction of the Monos' country.

We followed this trail until 2 o'clock next day, 22d, when one of the scouting parties reported a rancheria near at hand. Almost at the same instant a spy was discovered watching our movements. We made chase after him immediately and succeeded in catching him before he arrived at the rancheria, and we also succeeded in surrounding the ranch and capturing the whole of them.

This chase in reality was not that source of amusement which it would seem to be when anticipated. Each man in the chase was stripped to his drawers, in which situation all hands ran at full speed at least four miles, some portion of the time over and through snow 10 feet deep, and in this 4-mile heat all Ponwatchi gained on my boys was only distance enough to enable them to surround the rancheria while my men ran up in front.

Two Indians strung their bows and seized their arrows, when they were told that if they did not surrender they would be instantly killed. They took the proper view of this precaution and immediately surrendered. The inquiry was made of those unfortunate people if they were then satisfied to go with us; their reply was they were more than willing, as they could go to no other place.

From all we could see and learn from those people we were then on the main range of the Sierra Nevada. The snow was in many places more than 10 feet deep, and generally where it was deep the crust was sufficiently strong to bear a man's weight, which facilitated our traveling very much. Here there was a large lake completely frozen over, which had evidently not yet felt the influence of the spring season. This place appearing to be their last resort or place where they considered themselves perfectly secure from the intrusion of the white man.

In fact those people appear to look upon this place as their last home, composed of nature's own materials, unaided by the skill of man. The conduct of Ponwatchi and his warriors during this expedition entitled him and them to much credit. They performed important service voluntarily and cheerfully, making themselves generally useful, particularly in catching the scattered Indians after surprising a rancheria. Of the Yosemities, few, if any, are now left in the mountains.

It seems that their determined obstinacy is entirely attributable to the influence of their chief, whom we have a prisoner, among others of his tribe, and whom we intend to take care of.

Altogether Capt. Bowling's command spent about two weeks in the valley on this occasion. The main purpose of the expedition having been accomplished, a return was made to the headquarters on the Fresno and the Indians were placed on the reservation. Teneiya, however, chafed under restraint and appealed repeatedly for permission to return to the mountains. Finally, on his solemn promise to behave, he was allowed to go back to the valley, taking his immediate family with him.

In a short time a number of his old followers made their escape from the reservation and were supposed to have joined him. No attempt was made to bring them back and no complaint was heard against the Yosemites during the winter of On the 20th of May, , a party of eight prospectors started from Coarse Gold Gulch on a trip to the upper waters of the Merced River.

They had just entered the Yosemite Valley when they were set upon by a band of Indians, and two of them, named Rose and Shurborn, were killed and a third badly wounded. The others got away and after enduring great hardships arrived again at Coarse Gold Gulch on the 2d of June.

The same day about 30 or 40 miners set out to punish the treacherous Yosemites. This party found and buried the bodies of the murdered men, but they were compelled to return without punishing the perpetrators of the deed. The commander at Fort Miller having been informed of these events, a detachment of Regular soldiers under Lieut.

Moore, with scouts and guides, was at once dispatched into the mountains. On arriving in the Yosemite Valley this expedition surprised and captured five Indians. Clothing said to belong to the murdered men being found upon them, they were summarily shot. The remainder of the Yosemites with their old chief Teneiya made their escape and fled over the mountains into the Mono country. Thither the soldiers pursued, but were unable to catch any of them.

The party lost a few horses, killed by the Indians, explored the region about Mono Lake, discovered some gold deposits, and then returned to the fort on the San Joaquin by a route that led south of the Yosemite Valley. This expedition was made in June and July, Teneiya and his fellow tribesmen seem to have remained among the Monos until the summer of , when they returned once more to the Yosemite Valley.

They repaid the hospitality of the Monos by stealing a number of their horses. This proceeding stirred the wrath of the Monos, and they determined to wreak summary vengeance upon their erstwhile guests. They put on their war paint and descended suddenly upon the Yosemites while the latter were in the midst of a gluttonous feast. Old Teneiya had his skull crushed by a rock hurled from the hand of a Mono warrior and all except a handful of his followers were slain.

The tribe was virtually exterminated, though a few of their descendants still survive.