Yosemite: Disregarding Parsons Lodge

(Continued from Yosemite: Following John Muir’s Trail)

Featured Photo: “Lyell Fork, Tuolumne Meadows”  Yosemite National Park, California—2023

Edward Taylor Parsons was born in 1861 near Rochester, New York, and spent his boyhood working on his father’s farm. Despite having little prior formal education, at the age of eighteen he entered the Rochester Academy, and three years later, enrolled at the University of Rochester, graduating with the class of 1886. He intended to study law, but family circumstances called for immediate financial assistance, so he took a job as one of the first salesmen for the Sherwin-Williams Company, with Chicago as his home base.

In his work, he traveled throughout the west, eventually settling in San Francisco around 1900. He developed a love for the western mountains and joined the Sierra Club, where he helped create and lead their program of summer mountain outings. In 1907, Parsons married Marion Randall—as able and enthusiastic a mountaineer as himself—whom he met on one of the Sierra Club outings a few years prior. He also served on the Club’s board of directors for nearly ten years, a position his wife assumed after his death, becoming the Club’s first woman board member. Interestingly, she also assisted John Muir in getting his manuscripts ready for publication.

Edward Parsons’ death in 1914 was attributed to failing health that resulted from the devastating fight over the fate of Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley. It is no mere coincidence that John Muir died that same year, from the same cause. I will have more to write about Hetch Hetchy in a later post.

Following Parsons’ death, the Sierra Club set up a memorial fund to build a small structure near Soda Springs in Tuolumne Meadows, that would serve as a permanent Club headquarters and meeting place. Construction began in the summer of 1915, as soon as the High Sierra trails were passable. The stones for the walls—pink feldspar and grey granite—were gathered onsite. Logs, hardware, and cement were packed in by mule. The galvanized iron for the roof was brought in by truck.

The building consists of a single room—symmetrical and rectangular in plan—approximately 1,040 square feet, with a large interior fireplace and walls that are two to three feet thick. In 1973, the Sierra Club sold the property to the National Park Service for inclusion in Yosemite National Park. Parsons Lodge is now used as a high country nature center, and still stands as a historical monument to the early leader of the Sierra Club, for whom it is named.

And I knew none of this before I left Soda Springs to follow the short path that led to Parsons Memorial Lodge. (I pieced the story together from multiple online and print sources, including websites of the Sierra Club, National Park Service, Wikipedia, and Flying Dawn Marie, along with Worster’s biography of John Muir, all of which you can check out if you’d like to learn more.)

On the way to the lodge, I passed a large boulder—possibly another “erratic”, like we had seen at Olmsted Point—left by the melting icefield which had once covered the meadow.

In the near distance, I saw the river that runs through the meadows, with a trail alongside and a bridge across. I made a mental note to find my way there before I finished my hike, but for now, I kept walking until I reached Parsons Lodge. Because I did not know its history and significance, I was not impressed as I looked at the simple, humble building. Even though it was a lovely stone and wood structure, I did not take a picture of the lodge (just as I had not taken a photo earlier of the cabin beside the springs). And even though the door was open, and a few visitors were going in and out, I chose not to go inside.

Instead, I turned my back on Parsons Lodge and looked out across Tuolumne Meadows, as I contemplated where to go next. “Was that all there was to the lodge?” I asked myself. I saw a path that led slightly uphill, with a sign pointing the way to the Tuolumne Meadows Visitor Center. I took one last look at the lodge—still unmoved to take a photo—then followed the trail to a high point that provided a glimpse of the river through the trees, with the path running beside it. Recalling my mental note, I saw this was the route I wanted.

I walked down the rocky trail until it curved to join the sandy path along the river…

…and continued eastward through Tuolumne Meadows—the direction that would eventually take me back to the starting point of my hike. I approached the simple, but beautifully crafted bridge of wood upon stone, stopping to take in the gorgeous view looking westward (today’s Featured Photo), as the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River continued its course across the meadows. Then, walking half-way across the bridge, I captured the same view midstream…

…and zoomed in on the gently rippling, clear mountain water below me…

…before turning around for a shot of Lembert Dome, across the meadows back to the east.

Aware that I’d been gone for about 20 minutes, I started walking across the meadows toward Lembert Dome where my sister was (hopefully) waiting patiently. It shouldn’t have taken too long for me to get back the car—no more than 10 minutes—if I didn’t make any stops. But that was unlikely…of course I stopped—I had a camera after all—first for another photo of Lembert Dome across Lyell Fork…

…then for the view of Lembert Dome across the meadows.

I stopped for another photo of Lembert Dome when I got back to the wide path of the John Muir Trail, commemorating the two hikers ahead of me in the shadows, who were among the few people I saw during my walk on this glorious day.

Venturing into the small grove of Ponderosa pines, I had another view of Lembert Dome…

…eventually reaching an open area with a different look, having a contiguous rocky base, that was polished smooth and slightly rounded, probably due to glaciers from long ago.

Farther along, I came to another stretch of the meadows with small boulders scattered throughout, and another stand of trees, with Lembert Dome (of course) beyond everything else.

While I was still walking through this stretch of the meadows—before my hike ended and I rejoined my sister—there was one more photo I had to take.

I nearly laughed out loud, looking up at Lembert Dome towering in the distance, as I stood before this miniature, similarly-shaped boulder (at the bottom of the photo), imagining it was a baby-dome-wannabe. Then I hurried along and soon found my way back to our car, parked in the shady spot beyond the locked gate, along the paved road where it joined the dirt drive.

I might have startled my sister when I opened the car door—I think she had been dozing lightly. I apologized for surprising her, then reassured her that we had indeed reached our destination of Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite’s high country. I also apologized for having been gone 40 minutes—she said it was okay—and I proceeded to relate the highlights from my 1.5-mile round-trip hike along the John Muir Trail. I asked if she had been alright on her own. She replied, “At one point I got a little scared, realizing I was all alone in this out-of-the-way spot, but I got over that. I was mainly just peaceful and content.” She paused, then added, “Waiting for you to return from your walk was a small price to pay. I’m just so glad to be with you on this trip!” I assured her the feeling was mutual.

On that wonderful October afternoon, we were both happy our trip through the high country was not yet over. We were about to leave Yosemite National Park through its eastern gate at Tioga Pass to take in even more magnificent scenery. Of course, as I wrote in an earlier post, we were fortunate to even be driving along Tioga Road—with beautiful weather to boot—since the route we were traveling would be closed just a month later due to high-elevation snows, with access only to skiers and snowshoers until the following summer.

Before leaving our parking spot near Lembert Dome to pull back onto the side road that would connect us again with Tioga Road, I typed the name of our next destination into my iPhone’s Apple Maps to get GPS directions. We were headed to the small town of Lee Vining, population 861, where we hoped to find a much-needed—and well-deserved—cup of coffee.

(To be continued…)