Middle Cathedral Rock

It is 3,300 feet high, a plain, severely simple, glacier-sculpted face of granite, the end of one of the most compact and enduring of the mountain ridges, unrivaled in height and breadth and flawless strength.

Across the valley from here, next to the bridal veil, are the picturesque Cathedral Rocks, nearly 2,700 feet high, making a noble display of fine yet massive sculpture.

They are closely related to El Capitan, having been eroded from the same mountain ridge by the great Yosemite Glacier when the valley was in the process of formation.

Next to the Cathedral Rocks on the south side towers the Sentinel Rock to a height of more than 3,000 feet, a telling monument of the glacial period.

Almost immediately opposite the Sentinel are the Three Brothers, an immense mountain mass with three gables fronting the valley, one above another, the topmost gable nearly 4,000 feet high.

They were named for Three Brothers, sons of old Tenaya, the Yosemite chief, captured here during the Indian War, at the time of the discovery of the valley in 1852.

Only once during all the years I have lived in the valley have I seen it in full flood bloom.

In 1871 the early winter weather was delightful, the days all sunshine, the nights all starry and calm, calling forth fine crops of frost crystals on the pines and withered ferns and grasses for the morning sunbeams to sift through.