It is about eight miles long and from 2000 to 3000 feet deep.

The flat meadow bottom is from about three hundred to two hundred yards wide, with gently curved margins about fifty yards wide from which rise the simple massive walls of gray granite at an angle of about thirty-three degrees, mostly timbered with a light growth of pine and streaked in many places with avalanche channels.

Towards the upper end of the canyon the Sierra crown comes in sight, forming a finely balanced picture framed by the massive canyon walls.

In the foreground, when the grass is in flower, you have the purple meadow willow-thickets on the river banks; in the middle distance huge swelling bosses of granite that form the base of the general mass of the mountain, with fringing lines of dark woods marking the lower curves, smoothly snow-clad except in the autumn.
If you wish to spend two days on the Lyell trip you will find a good camp-ground on the east side of the river, about a mile above a fine cascade that comes down over the canyon wall in telling style and makes good camp music.

From here to the top of the mountains is usually an easy day's work.