''I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite,'' wrote Adams, who first visited the part at the age of fourteen and returned every year of his life thereafter. This new book presents the essence of Adams' long association with Yosemite: sixty-six memorable photographs of glacial lakes and craggy peaks, cascading waterfalls and granite monliths, lone tree and sylvan streams. Here are Moon and Half Dome, Clearing Water Storm, and El Capitan, Winter, Sunrise- images that have become veritable icons of the American wilderness. Selections from Adams' writings about the park and its environment, and an introductory essay that reveals the prescience of Adams' views on park-management issues, enhance this majestic photographic portrait of Yosemite National Park by America's foremost landscape photographer.