First Tourist Visitors to Yo Semite, by James M. Hutchings (1888)

The 27th marks the 150th anniversary of the first tourist party, led by James Mason Hutchings, to Yosemite and there’s a copy of the story online.

Hutchings: “Believe me there is an indescribable charm steals over the heart when wandering among the untrodden fastnesses of the mountains for the first time, especially under circumstances similar to ours. We were entering a mysterious country%u2014to us unknown. The journey before us was full of uncertain lights and shadows%u2014so might its ending possibly be. Our guides were Indians, and from a tribe that bore no enviable reputation; and were, moreover, strangers to us. They were conducting us among the unbroken solitudes of the forest, and away from civilization.

The roads near the settlements left behind, there was scarcely the outline of an Indian trail visible; unused as they had been, all were now overgrown, or covered up with leaves, as dead as the hopes of the Indians that once trod them. The boughs of seemingly impenetrable thickets were parted asunder, and our way forced through them in silence. Not a sound relieved the unbroken stillness of our discursive progress. Even the woods were voiceless with the songs of birds. A band of deer might occasionally shoot across an opening, or a covey of grouse beat the air heavily with their wings in clumsy flight; but these were all that could be seen or heard of life, except our own desultory or nonsensical converse.”

It’s a very interesting story and I urge you to spend a few minutes and read it. You may remember James Mason Hutchings as one of the original proprietors of the Yosemite Grant.