Goucher College - Donnybrook Fair Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

Page 10 text:

iEl ignrtal WW? :5 e , K L PORTAL is one of the entrances into the Yosemite Valley. It is the gateway through which by far the larger number of travellers pass into the valley; the open door to one of natures wonderlands. Through El Portal come three classes of tourists. Those of the flrst class have heard of the glories of the Yosemite. They are ready to be surprised. They take everything at a highly appraised value. All is entrancing. They are in continual amazement. They represent the super- ficial. The second class is composed of tourists quite the opposite. Almost everything is disappointing to them. El Capitan is not so high nor so imposing as they expected to 6nd it; the Bridal Veil Fall and all the other long leaps of water are not so bewitching; Mirror Lake does not throw back so clear an image as its picture shows. There is dust, thick dust to plocl through; the trails are narrow, steep and rocky; to get to the heights one has to trudge on foot or ride a slow stepping mule. These tourists are fault-finders. H CD r J egg KQLJ JG F36; The third class is neither surprised nor disappointed. The peaks, perhaps, do not seem so lofty and the waterfalls so high as they expected. Getting about is often weari- some, and the meals are not always the best. But there is a conviction, based on the experience of thousands of travellers, that here in this valley the Almighty has revealed Eight