stage days "Pap." Church always stopped here and gave his passengers
the opportunity to drink of the water, while he made discourse as to
its remarkable coldness. Five years ago a land slide completely buried
it, and the road had to be cut through again. Ever since the spring
has been partially clogged and does not flow freely, but it is cold
enough to make one's teeth ache.

In the winter of 1881-2 a land-and-snow-slide occurred a little beyond
Deer Park Station. Watson was carrying the mail on snow-shoes at the
time and saw it. There had been a five foot fall of snow in early
March, and a week or two later came a second fall of seven feet.
Something started the mass, and down it came, rushing completely
across the river and damming it up, high on the other side, and the
course of the slide can clearly be seen to-day. It is now, however,
almost covered with recent growth of chaparral, and thus contributed
to one of the most beautiful effects of light and shade I ever saw.
The mountain slope on one side was completely covered with a growth of
perfect trees. Through these came pencillings of light from the rising
sun, casting alternate rulings of light and shadow in parallel lines
on the glossy surface of the chaparral beyond. The effect was enhanced
by the fleecy and sunshiny clouds floating in the cobalt blue above.

Near the mouth of Bear Creek the river makes a slight curve and also
a drop at the same time, and the road, making a slight rise, presents
the view of a beautiful stretch of roaring and foaming cascades.
Here the canyon walls are of bare, rocky ridges, of white and red
barrenness, with occasional patches of timber, but very different from
the tree-clad slopes that we have enjoyed hitherto all the way down
from the Tavern.

Beyond is a little grove of quaking aspens. Their leaves, quivering
in the morning breeze, attract the eye. Crossing the railway, the road
makes a climb up a hill that at one time may have formed a natural dam
across the river. Here is a scarred tree on the left where Handsome
Jack ran his stage off the bank in 1875, breaking his leg and
seriously injuring his passengers.

Crossing the next bridge to the left at the mouth of Squaw Creek, six
miles from the Tavern, on a small flat by the side of the river is
the site of the town of Claraville, one of the reminders of the Squaw
Valley mining excitement.

Just below this bridge is an old log chute, and a dam in the river.
This dam backed up the water and made a "cushion" into which the logs
came dashing and splashing, down from the mountain heights above. They
were then floated down the river to the sawmill at Truckee.

At Knoxville we forded the river at a point where a giant split
bowlder made a tunnel and the water dashed through with roaring speed.
Retracing our steps for a mile or so we came to the Wigwam Inn, a
wayside resort and store just at the entrance to Squaw Valley. To the
right flows Squaw Creek, alongside of which is the bed of the logging
railway belonging to the Truckee Lumber Co. It was abandoned two or
three years ago, when all the available logs of the region had been
cut. Most of the timber-land between Squaw Creek and Truckee, on both
sides of the river, was purchased years ago, from its locators, by the
Truckee Lumber Company. But Scott Bros., purchased a hundred and
sixty acres from the locators and established a dairy in Squaw Valley,
supplying the logging-camps with milk and butter for many years past.

For forty years or more this region has been the scene of active
logging, the work having begun under the direction of Messrs.
Bricknell and Kinger, of Forest Hill. The present president of the
Truckee Lumber Co. is Mr. Hazlett, who married the daughter of
Kinger. This company, after the railway removed from Glenbrook and was
established between Tahoe and Truckee, lumbered along the west side of
Tahoe as far as Ward Creek.

Entering the valley we find it free from willows, open and clear. The
upper end is surrounded, amphitheater fashion, by majestic mountains,
rising to a height of upwards of 9000 feet. Clothed with sage-brush at
the lower end and rich grass further up, even to the very base of the
mountains, it is, in some respects, the prettiest valley in the whole
of this part of the Sierra Nevadas.

The upper meadows are full of milk cows, quietly grazing or lying down
and chewing their cuds, while just beyond the great dairy buildings
is the unpretentious cottage of the Forest Ranger. Remnants of old log
chutes remind one of the logging activities that used to be carried on
here.

One of the most observable features of Squaw Valley is its level
character. This is discussed in the chapter on glacial action.

On the right the vein of quartz which out-crops at Knoxville is
visible in several places and the various dump-piles show how many
claimants worked on their locations in the hope of finding profitable
ore.

Half way up the valley is an Iron Spring, the oxydization from which
has gathered together a large amount of red which the Indians still
prize highly and use for face paint.

How these suggestions excite the imagination--old logging chutes,
mining-claims and Indians. Once this valley rang with the clang of
chains on driven oxen, the sharp stroke of the ax as it bit into the
heart of the tree, the crash of the giant trees as they fell, the rude
snarl of the saw as it cut them up into logs, the shout of the driver
as he drove his horses alongside the chute and hurried the logs down
to the river, the quick blast of the imprisoned powder, the falling
of shattered rocks, the emptying of the ore or waste-bucket upon the
dump--all these sounds once echoed to and from these hillsides and
mountain slopes.

Now everything is as quiet and placid as a New England pastoral scene,
and only the towering mountains, snow-clad even as late as this in the
fall, suggest that we are in the far-away wilds of the great West.

But Squaw Valley had another epoch, which it was hoped would
materially and forever destroy its quiet and pastoral character. In
the earlier days of the California gold excitement the main road
from Truckee and Dormer Lake went into Nevada County and thus on to
Sacramento. In 1862 the supervisors of Placer County, urged on by the
merchants, sent up a gang of men from Placerville to build a road from
Squaw Valley, into the Little American Valley, down the Forest Hill
Divide, thus hoping to bring the emigrant travel to Forest Hill,
Michigan Bluff, and other parts of Placer County.

It was also argued that emigrants would be glad to take this new road
as all the pasture along the other road was "eaten off." Over this
historic road we are now about to ride.

As we look up it is a forbidding prospect. Only brave men and sanguine
would ever have dared to contemplate such a plan. The mountain cliffs,
separated and split, arise before us as impassable barriers. Yet one
branch of the old trail used to pass through the divide to the right,
over to Hopkins Springs, while the one that was converted into the
wagon road took the left-hand canyon to the main divide.

We now begin to ascend this road at the head of Squaw Valley, and in
five minutes, or less, are able to decide _why_ it was never a
success. The grade is frightful, and for an hour or more we go slowly
up it, stopping every few yards to give our horses breath. All the way
along we can trace the blazes on the trees made over sixty years
ago. It is hard enough for horses to go up this grade, but to
pull heavily-ladened wagons--it seems impossible that even those
giant-hearted men, used to seeing so many impossible things
accomplished, could ever have believed that such a road could be
feasible. What wonderful, marvelous, undaunted characters they must
have been, men with wills of inflexible steel, to overcome such
obstacles and dare such hardships. Yet there were compensations. Squaw
Creek's clear, pellucid, snow-fed stream runs purling, babbling or
roaring and foaming by to the right. These pioneers with their women
and children had crossed the sandy, alkali and waterless deserts.
For days and weeks they had not had water enough to keep their faces
clean, to wash the sand from their eyes. Now, though they had come
to a land of apparently unscalable mountains and impassable
rock-barriers, they had grass for the stock, and water,--delicious,
fresh, pure, refreshing water for themselves. I can imagine that when
they reached here they felt it was a new paradise, and that God was
especially smiling upon them, and to such men, with such feelings,
what could daunt, what prevent, what long stay their onward march.

As we ascend, the mountains on our right assume the form of artificial
parapets of almost white rock, outlined against the bluest of blue
skies. There is one gray peak ahead, tinged with green. The trail is
all washed away and our horses stumble and slide, slip and almost
fall over the barren and rough rocks, and the scattered bowlders, a
devastating cloud-burst could not wash away.

Here is a spring on the left, hidden in a grove of alders and willows,
and now new and more fantastic spires arise on the right. Higher up we
see where those sturdy road-builders rolled giant rocks out of their
way to make an impassable road look as if it could be traversed.

Reaching the point at the foot of Squaw Peak at last we look back over
Squaw Valley. In the late summer tints it is beautiful, but what must
it be in the full flush of its summer glory and perfection? Then
it must be a delight to the eye and a refreshment to the soul. How
interesting, too, it is to rehabilitate it as a great glacial lake.
One can see its pellucid waters of clear amethystine blue and imagine
the scenes that transpired when the ancestors of the present Indians
fished, in rude dugouts, or on logs, or extemporized rafts, upon its
surface. Now it is covered with brown, yellowish grass, with tree-clad
slopes rising from the marge.

Turning to the right we find ourselves in a country of massive
bowlders. They seem to have been broken off from the summits above and
arrested here for future ages and movements to change or pass on.

The road grows severer than ever, and we cannot help again picturing
those old heroes driving their wagons up, while the women and children
toiled painfully on foot up the steep and rocky slopes. Could anything
ever daunt them after this? any obstacle, however insurmountable,
discourage them? any labor, however severe, compel them to turn back?

Though there is a deep pathos in all these memories, the heroism of it
makes our blood tingle with pride that such men and women belonged to
us, that we are privileged to live in the land their labors, loves and
lives have sanctified.

We turn to the right; a tiny waterfall, which in the season must be
quite a sight, trickles down near by; we are now advancing directly
upon the serrated ridge of fantastic spires that have long accompanied
us. We now find those white-seeming pinnacles are of delicate pinks,
creams, blues, slates and grays. In one place, however, it seems for
all the world as if there were a miniature Gothic chapel built of
dark, brownish-black lava. Another small patch of the same color and
material, lower down, presents a gable end, with windows, reminding us
of the popular picture of Melrose Abbey in the moonlight.

Now we are lined on either side by removed bowlders, but the road! ah
the road! who could ever have traveled over it? Trees twenty feet high
have now grown up in the roadway. To the left Squaw Peak (8960 feet)
towers above us, while we make the last great pull through the rocky
portion ere we come to the easier rise to the shoulders of Granite
Chief. Here the road was graded out from the side of a granite
mountain, blasted out and built up, but it is now sadly washed out.
Further up, a broad porphyritic dyke crosses our path, then more
trees, and we come to the gentle slope of a kind of granitic sand
which composes the open space leading to the pass between Granite
Chief on the right, and a peculiar battlemented rock, locally known
as Fort Sumpter, on the left. This was named by the Squaw Valley
stampeders who came over the trail in the early days of the Civil War,
when all patriots and others were excited to the core at the news that
Fort Sumpter had been fired upon. On one of the highest points stands
a juniper on which a big blaze was cut by the early road-makers, so
that there need be no doubt as to which way the road turned. Other
nearby trees, in their wild ruggedness and sturdy growth, remind us
of a woman whose skirts are blown about by a fierce wind. Their
appearance speaks of storms braved, battles of wind and snow and ice
and cold fought and won, for they have neither branch nor leaf on the
exposed side, and on the other are pitiably scant.

As we cross the sandy divide, over which a wagon could drive anywhere,
we find white sage in abundance. Expansive vistas loom before us,
ahead and to the right, while Squaw Peak now presents the appearance
of a vast sky-line crater. We seem to be standing on the inside of it,
but on the side where the wall has disappeared. Across, the peak has a
circular, palisaded appearance, and the lower peaks to the right seem
as if they were the continuation of the wall, making a vast crater
several miles in diameter. The plateau upon which we stand seems as
if it might have been a level spot almost near the center of the bowl.
Fort Sumpter is a part of this great crater-like wall and Granite
Chief is the end of the ridge.

As a rule there is a giant bank of snow on the saddle over which the
trail goes between Ft. Sumpter and Granite Chief, but this year (1913)
it has totally disappeared. It has been the driest season known for
many years.

Looking back towards the Lake a glorious and expansive view is
presented. Watson Peak, Mt. Rose, Marlette Peak, Glenbrook and the
pass behind it, are all in sight and the Lake glistening in pearly
brilliancy below.

At the end of the Squaw Peak ridge, on the right, is a mass of
andesite, looking like rude cordwood, and just above is a mass of
breccia very similar to that found in the Truckee Valley a few miles
below Tahoe Tavern.

Below us, at the head of Squaw Creek is a small blue pond, scarcely
large and important enough to be called a lake, yet a distinctive
feature and one that would be highly prized in a less-favored
landscape.

On the very summit of the ridge we get fine views of Mounts Ralston,
Richardson, Pyramid Peak and the whole Rock Bound Range, while close
at hand to the north is Needle Peak (8920 feet), and to the south,
Mt. Mildred (8400 feet). To our left is Fort Sumpter, to the right the
Granite Chief, and between the two a stiff breeze is blowing.

Have you ever stood on a mountain ridge or divide when a fierce gale
was blowing, so that you were unable to walk without staggering, and
where it was hard to get your breath, much less speak, and where it
seemed as if Nature herself had set herself the purpose of cleansing
you through and through with her sweetening pneumatic processes? If
not, you have missed one of the blessed influences of life.

Rough? harsh? severe? Of course, but what of that, compared with the
blessings that result. It is things like that that teach one to
love Nature. Read John Muir's account--in his _Mountains of
California_--and see how he reveled in wind-storms, and even
climbed into a tree and clung to its top "like a bobolink on a reed"
in order to enjoy a storm to the full.

Immediately at our feet lie the various mazes of canyons and ravines
that make the diverse forks of the American River. In one place is
a forbidding El Capitan, while in another we can clearly follow for
miles the Royal Gorge of this many branched Sierran river. To the
right is Castle Peak (9139 feet) to the north and west of Donner Lake,
while nearby is Tinker's Knob (9020 feet) leading the eye down to
Hopkins' Soda Springs. Beyond is Donner Peak (8135 feet) pointing
out the location of Summit Valley, just to the left (west) where the
trains of the Southern Pacific send up their smoke-puffs and clouds
into the air.

At our feet is the Little American Valley, in which is the road, up
the eastern portion of which we have so toilsomely climbed. With a
little pointing out it is possible to follow the route it followed on
the balance of its steep and perilous way. Crossing the valley beneath
it zig-zagged over the bluff to the right, through the timber to the
ridge between the North and Middle Forks, then down, down, by Last
Chance to Michigan Bluff. The reverent man instinctively thanks God
that he is not compelled to drive a wagon, containing his household
goods, as well as his wife and children, over such roads nowadays.

Just before making the descent we succeed in getting a suggestive
glimpse of what is finely revealed on a clear day. Slightly to the
south of west is Mount Diablo, while northwards the Marysville Buttes,
Lassen's rugged butte, and even stately Mt. Shasta are in distinct
sight. At this time the atmosphere is smoky with forest fires and the
burning of the tules in the Sacramento and other interior valleys,
hence our view is not a clear one.

It did not take us long to reach the old stage-station in the Little
American Valley. Here Greek George--he was never known by any other
name--had a station, only the charred logs remaining to tell of some
irreverent sheep-herder or Indian who had no regard for historic
landmarks. The pile of rocks which remain denote the presence of
the chimney. When the new stage-road was built and travel over this
road--always very slim and precarious--completely declined, Greek
George removed, but his log hotel and bunk-house remained until a few
years ago.

We lunch by the side of the old chimney and ruminate over the scenes
that may have transpired here in those early days.

On our way back we pass the stumps of two large firs which were
undoubtedly cut down to supply George's houses with shakes. At the
base of Ft. Sumpter we leave the trail down which we have come, with
the intention of going--without a trail--down Whisky Creek, over
several interesting meadows to Five Lake Creek, and thence up by the
Five Lakes, over the pass into Bear Creek Canyon, past Deer Park to
the Truckee River and thus to the Tavern.

With such an excellent guide as Bob Watson we have no hesitation in
striking out in any direction and in a short time Mt. Mildred (8400
feet) is on our right.

Great groves of willows and alders cover immense areas of the canyon's
sides, while we pass a giant red fir with a diameter of fully six
feet.

When about half a mile from Five Lake Creek the largest portion of
the canyon is taken up with irregular masses of granite over which a
glacier, or glaciers, have moved. The striation and markings are down
the valley, and looking up from below the canyon for a mile or more
it has the appearance of a series of irregular giant steps, each step
gradually sloping back to the step above. From above the course of
the glacier seems clear. It must have flowed downwards, polishing and
smoothing each step in turn, then falling over the twenty, thirty
or fifty feet high edge to the next lower level, to ascend the next
slope, reach the next precipice, and so on.

At the point where we strike Five Lake Creek, in a large expanse of
meadow, we pass a camp, where in the distance we can clearly see three
men and a woman. Deer hunters probably. We give them a cheery Halloo!
and pass on.

Five Lake Creek here makes a sharp bend into the canyon which is a
continuation of the canyon down which we have been traveling, and
enters the Rubicon River at Hell Hole. We, however, turn _up_
the Creek to the northeast, here striking the regular Hell Hole trail
built a few years ago by Miss Katherine Chandler, of Deer Park. Just
ahead of us, appearing through a grove of trees near to where the Five
Lakes are nestling, is a perfectly white cloud, absolutely startling
in the vividness of its contrast to the deep blue of the sky and the
equally deep green of the firs and pines.

A wilderness of bowlders compels the winding about of the trail, but
we hear and see Five Lake Creek, roaring and dashing along, for it
has a large flow of water and its course is steep and rocky. We pass
through groups of willows, wild currants and alders, enter a sparsely
wooded meadow and in a few moments see the first of the Five Lakes.
There is but little difference in their levels, though their sizes
vary considerably. The first one is the largest. Here is a log cabin
and two or three boats. These are owned by the Deer Park Springs
resort, and are for their fishing and hunting patrons. They also own a
hundred and sixty acres here, which include the area of the lake. The
two first or lower lakes are the largest and the deepest. It is their
flow which makes Five Lakes Creek. The three upper lakes are smaller
and shallower. It is said that a divide used to separate the two lower
from the three upper lakes, and the flow from the latter descended
through Bear Creek, past Deer Park, into the Truckee River and thence
into far-away Pyramid Lake in Nevada.

From this point the trail is clear and well defined, being traveled
constantly during the season by guests of Deer Park Springs. Passing
through a fine nursery of beautiful and exquisite red firs we drop
into the canyon of Bear Creek. To the left are great andesite crowns
on the mountain tops. Here also are more glacially polished masses and
cliffs of granite, clearly indicating great glacial activity in the
upper part of this canyon. The trail is ticklish in a few places, with
steps up and down which our horses take gingerly, but nothing which
need excite an extra heart-beat to one used to mountain trails.

In less than half an hour we are at Deer Park Springs, drinking its
pleasant waters, and while we still have six and a half miles to go
to the Tavern it is over easy and ordinary road, and therefore our
pleasant trip is practically at an end.

*       *       *       *       *

TO ELLIS PEAK

Homewood is the natural starting point for Ellis Peak (8745 feet) as
the trail practically leaves the Lake high-road at that point, and
strikes directly upon the mountain slope. Hundreds make the trip on
foot and it is by no means an arduous task, but many prefer to go
horse-back or burro-back. In its upward beginnings the trail follows
the course of an old logging chute for a distance of some two miles,
the lake terminus of which is now buried in a nursery of white fir and
masses of white lilac. There are a few cedars and pines left untouched
by the logger's ax, but they are not prime lumber trees, or not one of
them would now be standing.

To the right is Dick Madden Creek, which, like all the streams on the
eastern slopes of the great western escarpment of Lake Tahoe, comes
dashing and roaring down steep and rocky beds to the Lake.

When at about 7000 feet we find few other than red firs and mountain
pines. Here is a wonderful nursery of them that have secured a firm
hold upon life. Throughout the whole region the year 1913 seems to
have been a most kindly one for the untended, uncared for baby-trees.
There has been comparatively little snowfall for three successive
years, and this has given the young trees a chance. As soon as their
heads appear above the snow and they are not battered down by storm
they can make their way, but if the heavy snow falls and remains upon
them too long, they are either smothered, or so broken down, that life
becomes a fearful struggle and scores of them succumb. Yet in spite
of this fact hemlocks and red firs seem to prefer the north or shady
slopes of the mountains and invariably thrive much better there than
where there is sunnier exposure.

When about three miles up from the Lake we reach a richly-grassed
meadow, about five acres in extent, confined in a bowl-shaped rim,
broken down at the east side, through which a rivulet, which flows
across the meadow, finds outlet. This is undoubtedly one of the many
mountain lakes of the region, too shallow and with too sluggish a flow
of water into it to clear itself of the detritus washed down from the
disintegrating slopes above, hence it ultimately filled up and entered
upon a new life as a meadow.

On the upper side of the meadow the trail passes through a glorious
grove of hemlocks, the clean and clear "floor" of which leads one to
the observation that hemlocks generally seem to be hostile to other
and lesser growth coming in to occupy the ground with them.

Sierran heather of purple color now appears here and there in patches
and we find quantities of it further along. There are also several
peculiar puff-balls, and close by a remarkable fungus-growth like a
cauliflower, fully a foot in diameter.

Nearing the summit we come to another meadow followed by another
grove, where scarcely any trees but hemlocks are to be seen. Here
also we see great beds of the California primrose which grows with a
straight upright stem crowned with blood-red or deep scarlet flowers
above a rich duster of leaves. These flowers generally can be found
blooming quite late in the season, following the snowline as the
summer's sun makes it climb higher each day. When the winter's snows
have been extra heavy the plants are covered and no flowers appear, as
the snow melts too late, but when there is a lesser amount they bloom
as freely as ever, apparently none the worse for their dormant period.

Over the peak billowy white clouds are tossing, like giant cradles
built of the daintiest and most silvery cloud-stuff to be found in the
heavens for the rocking of the cloud-babies to sleep.

On a sister peak to Ellis Peak, just to the south, is to be seen
a remarkable and strikingly picturesque cluster of hemlocks. It
is almost circular in form, with eight trees in the center, and
twenty-three on the outer rim, which is over a hundred feet in
circumference. Seldom does one see so interesting a group of trees
anywhere, even when planted, and these, of course, are of native
growth.

The summit itself is of broken and shattered granite, which has
allowed a scraggly mountain pine to take root and grow close to the
U.S. Geological Survey monument. A fierce gale was blowing from the
west, and turning toward the tree-clad slopes of the east, we stood
in the wind, with the everlasting blue above and the glorious and
never-failing green beneath. Unconsciously there sprang to my lips
Joaquin Miller's lines:

And ever and ever His boundless blue,
And ever and ever His green, green sod,
And ever and ever between the two
Walk the wonderful winds of God.

Braving the wind and looking over the steep precipice to the west we
see, some four hundred or five hundred feet below us, so that it seems
that we might almost throw a stone into it, a small lake. This is
Bessie Lake, named after Mrs. C.F. Kohl, of Idlewyld. It discharges
its surplus waters into Blackwood Creek, and has several times been
stocked with fish. In the mid-distance is Loon Lake, which is the
head-waters of the California Ditch, which follows over the Georgetown
Divide, carries water some forty to fifty miles, and is distributed
by its owners, the Reno Water and Electric Power Co., for mining,
irrigation and domestic purposes.

East of Loon Lake are Spider and Pleasant Lakes, all of which we
are told are connected with one another and controlled by the same
company. Another lake, Bixly or Bixby, slightly to the north of
Pleasant, is also connected.

To the east of Pleasant Lake, Buck Island and Rock Bound Lakes were
dazzlingly brilliant in the mid-day sun.

One has but to look at the map to realize what a comprehensive survey
is possible in every direction from Ellis Peak. There is no wonder
that it is so popular. The panorama is unobstructed--the outlook
practically complete and perfect. Though the whole of the Lake is not
revealed, there is sufficient of it to make a transcendent picture.
Every peak to the north and on the eastern side is in sight, while the
Tallac range, and the near-by mountains make one long for an aeroplane
that he might step from peak to peak without the effort of journeying
by land to their elevated summits.

On the left side of Tinker's Knob is a peak, unmarked on the map, to
which the name of Lion Peak has been given, for the following reason:
Some years ago former Governor Stanford's nephew, who has been a
visitor for many years at Hopkins' Spring, was climbing, together with
a companion, over this peak, when they came to a cave. Lighting a rude
torch they thoughtlessly entered it and had barely got well inside
before they saw the two fierce eyes of a mountain lion glaring at
them. Surprised and startled, they were about to turn and run, when
the astonished animal sprang past them and disappeared before they
recollected they had a gun.

It should not be overlooked that Ellis Peak is the most eastern
mountain of the Sierran divide. East, its drainage empties into Lake
Tahoe and thus eastward into the Big Basin; west, into the Rubicon,
thence to the American, the Sacramento and finally out by the Golden
Gate to the Pacific.

To the west of the Rubicon Peaks is a chain of lakes in the valley
below known as the Rock Bound Lakes. There are nine of these in all,
though several of them are practically unknown except to the few
guides and the sheepmen who range over the surrounding mountains.

As far as the eye can see, westward, there are distinct glacial
markings, a wonderful revelation of the widespread and far-reaching
activity of these glaciers borne on the highest crests of the Sierras.
The canyon in which the Rubicon River flows is definitely outlined, as
is also the deep chasm known as Hell Hole. Near by is Bear Lake, about
the same size and appearance as Watson Lake, its overflow emptying
into the Rubicon.

Close at hand to the north and west are Barker's Peak, Barker's Pass,
and Barker's Creek, and these decide us to go home by way of Barker's
Pass instead of the way we came. Accordingly we drop down, returning
a short distance to the south, over the western slope of Ellis Peak to
Ellis Valley. Both peak and valley receive their name from Jock Ellis,
a Squaw Valley stay-behind, who entered the cattle and sheep business,
and pastured his animals in this rich and well-watered region.

On our way we pass through the most remarkable white fir nursery we
have yet seen. Not far away were a few hoary monarchs from the still
hanging but burst open cones of which winged seeds were flying before
the breeze. These potential firs were carried in many cases over a
mile before they found lodgement. It was a beautiful and delightful
demonstration of Nature's lavish method of preserving this useful
species of tree alive.

Sweeping now to the north and east we make a rapid descent of some six
hundred or seven hundred feet to Barker's Pass, the elevation of which
is about 7000 to 7500 feet, the nearby Peak having an elevation of
about 8500 feet. It is a round, bare mountain, and seems as if it
ought to be marked higher (on the map) than it is.

Rapidly dropping we come to a peculiar mass of stratified rock,
acutely tilted, unlike any found elsewhere in the region except
on Five Lake Creek on the way to Hell Hole. Just before reaching
Blackwood's Creek the trail passes through rude piles of breccia
similar to that of the Devil's Playground near the Truckee River. It
may be perfectly possible that one of the volcanic flows that covered
large portions of the High Sierras, after the Cretaceous degradations
had taken place, came from a vent, or volcano, near by, and slowly
flowed down Blackwood Creek, leaving vast masses behind which have
rapidly disintegrated until these are all that remain.

These conjectures occupy our brain until we reach the Lake again,
alongside of which the road soon brings us back to our starting point,
after another most enjoyable, instructive, healthful and delightful
day.

The foregoing are but samples of a hundred similar trail trips that
can be taken from every part of the Lake, and from all the resorts.
Each place has its chosen trips, and though, of course, there are many
points of similarity, there are enough individualities to make each
trip distinctive.

My friends often ask me what food and drink I take along on such
hiking or riding trips. Generally the hotel provides a luncheon, but
personally, I prefer a few Grant's crackers (a thick, hard cracker
full of sweet nutriment, made at Berkeley, Calif.), a handful of
shelled nuts--walnuts, pecans, or almonds, a small bottle of Horlick's
Malted Milk tablets, a few slabs of Ghirardelli's milk chocolate, and
an apple or an orange. On this food I can ride or walk _days at a
time_, without anything else. Grant's crackers, Horlick's Malted
Milk tablets, and Ghirardelli's chocolate are the best of their kind,
and all are nutritious to the full, as well as delicious to the
taste. For drink I find Horlick's Malted Milk the most comforting and
invigorating, and it has none of the after "letting-down" effects that
accompany coffee drinking.




CHAPTER XVI

CAMPING-OUT TRIPS IN THE TAHOE REGION


There are many trips in the Tahoe Region which can be made, with
greater or lesser ease, on foot or horseback, in one day, so that one
can sleep in his hotel each night. On the other hand there are some
highly desirable trips that can be taken only by camping-out, and
to these I wish to commend those of my readers of both sexes who
are strong enough to care for such intimate contact with God's
great-out-of-doors.

To me one of Life's greatest delights, appealing alike to body, mind
and soul, is a camping-out trip. Breathing day and night the pure air
of mountain and forest,--occasionally swept by breezes from desert and
ocean,--exercising one's body into vigorous healthfulness, sweating
in the sun with life-giving labor,--even though it be only tramping
or riding up and down trails,--sauntering over meadows, rambling and
exploring untrailed spaces, under giant sky-piercing trees; lying down
at night on the restful brown Mother Earth; sleeping peacefully and
dreamlessly through delicious star-and-moon-lit nights, cooled and
refreshed by the night winds, awakening in the morning full of new
life and vigor, to feel the fresh tang of the air and the cool
shock of the wash (or even plunge) in the snow-or-spring-fed stream;
companioning with birds and bees, chipmunks and squirrels, grouse and
quail, deer and antelope, trees and plants, shrubs and flowers, lava
and granite, lakes and creeks, rivers and ponds; smelling the sweet
fragrance of the trees, shrubs, plants and vines; bathing in an
atmosphere of calm and quiet that seems almost Divine; covered with
a sky as cloudless and pure blue as the dome of heaven itself, and
which, at night, changes into a rich blue-black velvet, studded with
silvery emblazonments, that dance and dazzle in the pellucid air;
listening to the varied voices of Nature, each eager to give tongue
to its joy; eating healthful, simple food with appetite and relish;
absorbing the assurance that Nature means good and nothing but good to
man, thus coming nearer to the heart of God; losing the fret and
worry of money-getting and all other of Life's lower ambitions and
strivings; feeling the inflow of strength,--physical, mental and
spiritual; gaining calmness, serenity, poise and power;--is there any
wonder that a man so blessed should speak and write with radiant and
exuberant enthusiasm of that which has been so lavish to him. This is
what camping-out (in part) means to me.

Hence, when I leave home for a mountain trip I always put into my
_Indestructo_[1] an extra blue flannel shirt, riding boots and
breeches (or a pair of overalls), a cap, and a bottle of Vaseline. The
hunter and fisherman, of course, will bring his especial equipment,
as, also, will the geologist or botanist.

The first essentials of a successful camping-out trip are personal.
One must have the receptive and acceptive spirit. No matter what
comes it is for the best; an experience worth having. Nothing must be
complained of. The "grouch" has no place on a camping-trip, and one
who is a "grouch," a "sissy," a "faultfinder," a "worrier," a
"quitter," or who cannot or will not enter fully into the spirit of
the thing had better stay at home.

[Footnote 1: _Indestructo_ is the name given to a trunk that has
been such a delight to me for its enduring and useful qualities, that
I cannot refrain from "passing it on." A poor trunk, to a constant
traveler, is a perpetual nuisance and worry. My trunks always gave
me trouble until I got an _Indestructo_. Since then I have had
freedom from all such distress. It is fully insured for five years.]

If experiences are met with that are disagreeable, meet them as a man
should; a woman always does,--or always has on trips taken with me.
The "self-pitier," the "self-indulgent," the "fearful" also had better
stay at home.

The next essentials are a good guide--such as is suggested by the
Dedication of this book--and good saddle-and-pack-animals, good
bedding, good food and the proper season. Then if the spot you have
chosen contains anything worth while, you cannot fail to have an
enjoyable, interesting, educative, health-giving and generally
profitable time.

In outfitting for such a trip always put into your pocket (and in the
pack a reserve supply) a few Grant's crackers, a handful of Horlick's
Malted Milk tablets, and a cake of Ghirardelli's chocolate. With
these you are safe for a whole day or two, or more, if anything should
happen to separate you from your pack animal, or you should desire to
ride on without stopping to prepare a noon, or later, camp meal.

The Tahoe Region offers scores of just such trips, where for one or
two months each year for a dozen years a visitor may camp-out in some
new region. For instance, every student of God's handiwork should go
up to Deer Park, camp-out at Five Lakes, and study the evidences of
lava flows at the head of Bear Creek. Go to the Lake of the Woods and
spend a week there, tracing the glacial movements that made Desolation
Valley. Take such a trip as I enjoyed to Hell Hole on the Rubicon,
but take more time for it than I could give; cross the range to the
Yosemite, and thus link the two sublimest parts of the Sierras in
your memory; follow the old trails that used to echo to the voices of
pioneers from Michigan Bluff, Last Chance, Hayden Hill, etc.; go out
with one of the Forest Rangers and get a glimpse into his wonderful
life of activity, independence and solitude. Thus you will come in
contact with larger conceptions, fuller ideas, deeper sympathies,
higher aspirations than is possible where you follow the ordinary
routine of the ordinary, mediocre, self-contented man. Thank God for
the spark of discontent, of ambition, of aspiration, of desire to
see beyond, to know more, to climb higher, to solve the mysteries, to
abolish the unknown.

Then, if you dare the perils and joys of winter, get Bob Watson,
or some other expert on snow-shoes to go with you over Tahoe's wild
wastes of snow. Emulate Snow-shoe Thompson, a short sketch of
whose life and adventures will be found in my book, _Heroes of