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rivers. Four river systems originate in this region. Far in the north a lake, more than eleven thousand feet high, lying at the western foot of Mount Goddard, begins the South Fork of the San Joaquin River, which drains the park's northern area. Incidentally, it has cut a canyon of romantic beauty, up which the John Muir Trail finds its way into the park. The northern middle area of the park is drained by the Middle and South Forks of the Kings River, which find their origins in perhaps forty miles of Sierra's crest. The drainage basins of these splendid streams cover nearly half of the park's total area, and include some of the biggest, as well as some of the wildest and most beautiful mountain scenery in the world. Bounded upon their west by an arc of snowy mountains, separated by the gigantic Monarch Divide, flanked by twisted ranges and towering peaks, they cascade westward through meadows of rank grasses and vividly colored wild-flowers, alternating with steep-sided gorges and canyons of sublimity. Dropping thousands of feet within a few miles, they abound in cascades and majestic falls, between which swift rapids alternate with reaches of stiller, but never still, waters which are the homes of cut-throat trout. Each of these rivers has its canyon of distinguished magnificence. The Tehipite Valley of the Middle Fork and the Kings River Canyon of the South Fork are destined to world celebrity. The southwestern area of the park is drained by five forks of the beautiful Kaweah River. These streams originate on the north in the divide of the South Fork of the Kings River, and on the east in a conspicuously fine range known as the Great Western Divide. They wind through the wooded valleys of the Sequoia National Park. Upon their banks grow the monsters of the American forest. The southern area is drained by the Kern River, into which flow the waters of Mount Whitney and his giant neighbors. The Kern Canyon is one of Roosevelt's noblest expressions. Flowing southward between precipitous walls three thousand feet and more in height, flanked upon the east by monsters of the High Sierra, and on the west by the splendid elevations of the Great Western Divide, it is a valley supremely fitted for the highest realization of the region's gifts of enjoyment. From camps beside its trout-haunted waters, it is a matter of no difficulty for those equipped for the trail to reach the summit of Whitney, on the one hand, and the
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