year before I reached
California, when all the walls were striped with thundering waterfalls.

He was a fine, erect, whole-souled man, between six and seven feet high,
with a broad, open face, bland and guileless as his pet oxen. No
stranger to hunger and weariness, he knew well how to appreciate
suffering of a like kind in others, and many there be, myself among the
number, who can testify to his simple, unostentatious kindness that
found expression in a thousand small deeds.

After gaining sufficient means to enjoy a long afternoon of life in
comparative affluence and ease, he died in the autumn of 1876. He sleeps
in a beautiful spot near Galen Clark and a monument hewn from a block of
Yosemite granite marks his grave.

Chapter 15

Galen Clark

Galen Clark was the best mountaineer I ever met, and one of the kindest
and most amiable of all my mountain friends. I first met him at his
Wawona ranch forty-three years ago on my first visit to Yosemite. I had
entered the Valley with one companion by way of Coulterville, and
returned by what was then known as the Mariposa trail. Both trails were
buried in deep snow where the elevation was from 5000 to 7000 feet
above sea level in the sugar pine and silver fir regions. We had no
great difficulty, however, in finding our way by the trends of the
main features of the topography. Botanizing by the way, we made slow,
plodding progress, and were again about out of provisions when we
reached Clark's hospitable cabin at Wawona. He kindly furnished us with
flour and a little sugar and tea, and my companion, who complained of
the be-numbing poverty of a strictly vegetarian diet, gladly accepted
Mr. Clark's offer of a piece of a bear that had just been killed. After
a short talk about bears and the forests and the way to the Big Trees,
we pushed on up through the Wawona firs and sugar pines, and camped in
the now-famous Mariposa grove.

Later, after making my home in the Yosemite Valley, I became well
acquainted with Mr. Clark, while he was guardian. He was elected again
and again to this important office by different Boards of Commissioners
on account of his efficiency and his real love of the Valley.

Although nearly all my mountaineering has been done without companions,
I had the pleasure of having Galen Clark with me on three excursions.
About thirty-five years ago I invited him to accompany me on a trip
through the Big Tuolumne Canyon from Hetch Hetchy Valley. The ca