6 Read the story from Lisa's diary and match its parts with these titles. There is one extra title.
1. THE MARIPOSA GROVE
2. THE ANCIENT VOICES OF YOSEMITE
3. YOSEMITE FALLS
4. HALF DOME
5. A GREAT CONSERVATIONIST
6. A MAGICAL PLACE
It finally happened! All of us Nature Club members have gone to hike in Yosemite National Park, one of the most beautiful national parks in the world. Pm writing this from the Wawona campgrounds where we have come to stay after a long day, one of the most wonderful days of my life. Today we visited just the heart of the park, Yosemite Valley, and some of the sights around it. Pm going to write about everything I have seen here for my friends to read when I get back home.
a Yosemite Valley is a magical place. Once a visitor enters, he finds himself in a dreamlike world.
The sun is warm, and the air is so fresh and crisp that it seems to be sparkling. The bright blue sky is filled with the colours and songs of 247 species of birds. When you raise your face to the clouds, ancient mountains greet you. When you look straight ahead, you see rainbows in the many waterfalls of Yosemite. When you look down, you find yourself on a beautiful carpet of a thousand wildflowers. The unearthly beauty of this place made our group cry with excitement. Later our ranger told us that the first Europeans who saw this valley are said to have reacted in exactly the same way. It happened in
1851 when the Mariposa Battalion, which had been following an Indian tribe, got over the mountains and entered the valley. People from the battalion never forgot what they saw and soon stories of Yosemite Valley's beauty spread all over the country. People started to come especially to visit this place. A lot of them liked the place so much that they decided to stay. Soon houses were built and the wild meadows became home to cattle and orchards.
b In 1868 a young Scottish immigrant, John Muir, arrived in San Francisco and asked for the way to "anywhere that's wild". People told him about the magical valley in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada and so he went there. He is believed to have shouted with joy when he first saw Yosemite, and this place became the love of his life. During the next several years, he took any job that would take him there. He went everywhere and noticed everything. His observations were recorded in his diaries. Later these diaries were published and made the valley
even more popular. Muir was happy for people to come, but he also got worried about whether the next generations would be able to see this unique place. A lot of land seemed to have been taken by gold prospectors and land speculators. More and more land was occupied by cattle. Muir wanted the Yosemite he loved to be preserved in its original state. He wrote about the problem and managed to attract public attention to it. A few years later the federal government established Yosemite National Park to protect the unique nature of this place. So it is thanks to Muir's work that today we are able to see this magical wilderness. Our guide called Muir one of the founders of the American conservation movement. He explained to us that conservationists work to protect nature which includes animals, plants and natural resources for future generations. A lot of famous people from Christopher Columbus and Theodore Roosevelt to Bill Clinton and Leonardo Di Caprio have been conservationists.
***
c We entered the park through the Arch Rock Entrance and soon found ourselves in Yosemite Valley. This is where tourists can get everything they need: shops, restaurants, cabins, visitor centres and picnic facilities.
Our first stop was Glacier Point. From there we had a fantastic view of the whole of Yosemite National Park. The scene was dominated by Half Dome, which is said to be the most recognized natural wonder of Yosemite. It is a huge granite mountain which looks like half of it has been cut away. Everybody started making jokes about where the other half had gone, however our guide told us that Half Dome was believed to have never been a complete dome. Then we noticed some rocks overhanging from the cliff next to us. It was prohibited to step
on them. The guide told us that a lot of people have been known to have posed on them. It used to be a kind of a tradition. As it is over 1,000 metres above the valley floor, I thought this tradition was crazy. So I was glad for modern tourists to have been warned of the danger.
***
d Then we hurried to see the famous Yosemite Falls. We learned from our guide that these falls are the fifth tallest in the world, so I expected to see something really impressive. The waterfalls were beautiful indeed, but they didn't seem so tall to me. I was much more impressed by Bridal Veil Falls. These falls are famous for their mist which seems to be floating in the air. It is a fantastic sight, especially in the early afternoon when the falls are lit by direct sunlight.
***
e After the beauty of Bridal Veil Falls, I thought nothing could surprise me more, however, I was wrong. The guide kept the park's most amazing secret until the end when we finally entered Mariposa Grove and saw THEM. I have to use capital letters here because I don't know how to describe what we saw. Think of the largest living things on the planet which are also the oldest and the rarest. Can you guess what they are? I'm talking about the Giant Sequoias, a type of redwood tree. These huge trees grow only on the west coast of the US and in one valley in China. They are as high as a 35-storey building and grow as straight as a flagpole. That's why they are sometimes called "God's flagpoles". A mature tree can weigh more than 3,000,000 kilograms. A single branch of a Giant Sequoia is larger than most trees.
These trees are ancient. Some of them were believed to have been more than 4,000 years old when they were cut down. It was exciting to think that the trees that we saw were already big when Christ was born and that their seeds already existed when the Egyptian Pharaohs ruled the Nile Valley. Everybody in our group wanted to know why so few trees are left. Our guide told us that there used to be more. In fact, modern civilization have only known about Giant Sequoias for 200 years, but in that short time, people discovered the value of this wood and quickly cut down 99 per cent of them. Its wood is known to have been valued for its beauty, light weight, resistance to fire and decay. So my grandmother's redwood antique armchair is probably made of sequoia. I'll have to ask her when I get back.
Although sequoias seem magnificent and powerful, these trees are very fussy when it comes to climate. They need a lot of moisture and an even temperature. It mustn't be too hot or too cold for sequoias to survive. The guide said that sequoias produce millions of seeds, however very few seeds become trees. A seed can be eaten by a squirrel or it can even get burnt by a forest fire, but most often a cone with good seeds is taken home by tourists. Our guide was likely to have been watching us the whole time because his words made a few people blush. Obviously, these people were embarrassed to have taken some cones. I later watched them put the cones back on the forest floor. They would have made great souvenirs, but everybody wanted a new tree to be given a chance. Wasn't that much more important?
We took a lot of pictures of the Giant Sequoias and walked through the California Tunnel Tree. This tree had been cut to allow horses and carriages to ride through in the old days. Nobody wanted to leave, but it was time to go to our campground. Our first day in Yosemite was coming to an end.
1. THE MARIPOSA GROVE
2. THE ANCIENT VOICES OF YOSEMITE
3. YOSEMITE FALLS
4. HALF DOME
5. A GREAT CONSERVATIONIST
6. A MAGICAL PLACE
It finally happened! All of us Nature Club members have gone to hike in Yosemite National Park, one of the most beautiful national parks in the world. Pm writing this from the Wawona campgrounds where we have come to stay after a long day, one of the most wonderful days of my life. Today we visited just the heart of the park, Yosemite Valley, and some of the sights around it. Pm going to write about everything I have seen here for my friends to read when I get back home.
a Yosemite Valley is a magical place. Once a visitor enters, he finds himself in a dreamlike world.
The sun is warm, and the air is so fresh and crisp that it seems to be sparkling. The bright blue sky is filled with the colours and songs of 247 species of birds. When you raise your face to the clouds, ancient mountains greet you. When you look straight ahead, you see rainbows in the many waterfalls of Yosemite. When you look down, you find yourself on a beautiful carpet of a thousand wildflowers. The unearthly beauty of this place made our group cry with excitement. Later our ranger told us that the first Europeans who saw this valley are said to have reacted in exactly the same way. It happened in
1851 when the Mariposa Battalion, which had been following an Indian tribe, got over the mountains and entered the valley. People from the battalion never forgot what they saw and soon stories of Yosemite Valley's beauty spread all over the country. People started to come especially to visit this place. A lot of them liked the place so much that they decided to stay. Soon houses were built and the wild meadows became home to cattle and orchards.
b In 1868 a young Scottish immigrant, John Muir, arrived in San Francisco and asked for the way to "anywhere that's wild". People told him about the magical valley in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada and so he went there. He is believed to have shouted with joy when he first saw Yosemite, and this place became the love of his life. During the next several years, he took any job that would take him there. He went everywhere and noticed everything. His observations were recorded in his diaries. Later these diaries were published and made the valley
even more popular. Muir was happy for people to come, but he also got worried about whether the next generations would be able to see this unique place. A lot of land seemed to have been taken by gold prospectors and land speculators. More and more land was occupied by cattle. Muir wanted the Yosemite he loved to be preserved in its original state. He wrote about the problem and managed to attract public attention to it. A few years later the federal government established Yosemite National Park to protect the unique nature of this place. So it is thanks to Muir's work that today we are able to see this magical wilderness. Our guide called Muir one of the founders of the American conservation movement. He explained to us that conservationists work to protect nature which includes animals, plants and natural resources for future generations. A lot of famous people from Christopher Columbus and Theodore Roosevelt to Bill Clinton and Leonardo Di Caprio have been conservationists.
***
c We entered the park through the Arch Rock Entrance and soon found ourselves in Yosemite Valley. This is where tourists can get everything they need: shops, restaurants, cabins, visitor centres and picnic facilities.
Our first stop was Glacier Point. From there we had a fantastic view of the whole of Yosemite National Park. The scene was dominated by Half Dome, which is said to be the most recognized natural wonder of Yosemite. It is a huge granite mountain which looks like half of it has been cut away. Everybody started making jokes about where the other half had gone, however our guide told us that Half Dome was believed to have never been a complete dome. Then we noticed some rocks overhanging from the cliff next to us. It was prohibited to step
on them. The guide told us that a lot of people have been known to have posed on them. It used to be a kind of a tradition. As it is over 1,000 metres above the valley floor, I thought this tradition was crazy. So I was glad for modern tourists to have been warned of the danger.
***
d Then we hurried to see the famous Yosemite Falls. We learned from our guide that these falls are the fifth tallest in the world, so I expected to see something really impressive. The waterfalls were beautiful indeed, but they didn't seem so tall to me. I was much more impressed by Bridal Veil Falls. These falls are famous for their mist which seems to be floating in the air. It is a fantastic sight, especially in the early afternoon when the falls are lit by direct sunlight.
***
e After the beauty of Bridal Veil Falls, I thought nothing could surprise me more, however, I was wrong. The guide kept the park's most amazing secret until the end when we finally entered Mariposa Grove and saw THEM. I have to use capital letters here because I don't know how to describe what we saw. Think of the largest living things on the planet which are also the oldest and the rarest. Can you guess what they are? I'm talking about the Giant Sequoias, a type of redwood tree. These huge trees grow only on the west coast of the US and in one valley in China. They are as high as a 35-storey building and grow as straight as a flagpole. That's why they are sometimes called "God's flagpoles". A mature tree can weigh more than 3,000,000 kilograms. A single branch of a Giant Sequoia is larger than most trees.
These trees are ancient. Some of them were believed to have been more than 4,000 years old when they were cut down. It was exciting to think that the trees that we saw were already big when Christ was born and that their seeds already existed when the Egyptian Pharaohs ruled the Nile Valley. Everybody in our group wanted to know why so few trees are left. Our guide told us that there used to be more. In fact, modern civilization have only known about Giant Sequoias for 200 years, but in that short time, people discovered the value of this wood and quickly cut down 99 per cent of them. Its wood is known to have been valued for its beauty, light weight, resistance to fire and decay. So my grandmother's redwood antique armchair is probably made of sequoia. I'll have to ask her when I get back.
Although sequoias seem magnificent and powerful, these trees are very fussy when it comes to climate. They need a lot of moisture and an even temperature. It mustn't be too hot or too cold for sequoias to survive. The guide said that sequoias produce millions of seeds, however very few seeds become trees. A seed can be eaten by a squirrel or it can even get burnt by a forest fire, but most often a cone with good seeds is taken home by tourists. Our guide was likely to have been watching us the whole time because his words made a few people blush. Obviously, these people were embarrassed to have taken some cones. I later watched them put the cones back on the forest floor. They would have made great souvenirs, but everybody wanted a new tree to be given a chance. Wasn't that much more important?
We took a lot of pictures of the Giant Sequoias and walked through the California Tunnel Tree. This tree had been cut to allow horses and carriages to ride through in the old days. Nobody wanted to leave, but it was time to go to our campground. Our first day in Yosemite was coming to an end.