With completion of the Wawona Road, interested parties began applying pressure to make the high country of the Tuolumne River more accessible for winter sports by constructing a tunnel road up through Tenaya Canyon. Herbert C. Hoover, on vacation in Yosemite before becoming President, had ridden horseback from the High Sierra camp at Tenaya Lake down the Snow Creek switchbacks into Yosemite Valley. Impressed with the scenery, he had suggested installing automatic elevators working by electrical power, possibly developed from waterwheels, that would take autos up and down alongside Snow Creek Falls. Hoover thought it would prove a great tourist attraction!
