Part 24

The road is redeemed from monotony, however, by the section known as the "Ridge Route" between Saugus and Bakersfield—thirty miles of the most spectacular highway in California. This superlative feat of engineering supersedes the old-time Tejon Pass trail, long the "bete noir" of the Inland Route. It cost the state of California nearly a million dollars to fling this splendid road along the crest of the great hill range that must needs be crossed, to pave it with solid concrete, and to adequately guard its many abrupt turns. It rises from an elevation of about 1000 feet above Saugus to 5300 feet at the highest point, near the northern terminus of the grade, but so admirably have the engineers done their work that nowhere is the rise more than six per cent.

No description or picture can give any idea of the stupendous grandeur of the panorama that unrolls before one as he traverses this marvelous road. Vast stretches of gigantic hills interspersed with titanic canyons—mostly barren, with reds and browns predominating—outrun the limits of one's vision. Nearer Saugus greenery prevails in summer and at the northern end there is some fine forest. In winter snow not infrequently falls throughout the entire length of the ridge and affords the variation of a dazzling winter spectacle to anyone hardy enough to make the run, which is rather dangerous under such conditions.

Any extended tour of California must surely include the Ridge Route. If one is minus a car of his own he still can make the trip quickly and comfortably in one of the motor stages which ply daily between Los Angeles and Bakersfield. At the San Francisco end of the Inland Route there is some pretty hill scenery between Stockton and Oakland, which has been referred to elsewhere in this book. If one were making the trip between San Francisco and Los Angles only one way, there would need be no hesitancy in selecting the Coast road, on the score of greater scenic beauty and historic interest. If he should be seeking the easier run and quicker time he would choose the Inland Route. If, as in the case of the average tourist, he is out to see as much of California as possible and expects to make the round trip between north and south, he will naturally go by one route and return by the other.

XVI

OUR RUN TO YOSEMITE

No extended motor tour of California could lay claim to thoroughness if Yosemite Valley and Lake Tahoe were omitted from its itinerary, and I therefore avail myself of the opportunity to add chapters giving briefly the experience of our runs to these popular national playgrounds.

Yosemite was closed to automobiles prior to 1915 and it was only through the strenuous exertions of the Automobile Club of Southern California that the authorities finally consented to remove the ban. The decree was issued apparently with fear and hesitation and the motorist was hedged about with restrictions and hampered with endless red tape regulations.

The dire results so freely predicted did not materialize in any great degree. There were few serious accidents and the motors, as a rule, met little difficulty in negotiating the roads to and within the park. As a consequence the rules have been relaxed with each succeeding year and many of the most annoying regulations abandoned or reduced to mere formalities. We made our trip in September of the Panama-Pacific year, and during the previous months of the season nearly two thousand cars had preceded us into the park. We did not have to demonstrate that "either set of brakes would lock the wheels to a skid;" in fact, I am very dubious on this point. We did not have to get up at an unearthly hour to enter or leave the park and the time schedule imposed on us was so reasonable that none but the speed maniac would care to exceed it, even had no severe penalty been attached.

There are several routes by which one may enter and leave the park pending the happy days longed for by the Auto Club when a broad, smooth road—"no grades exceeding five per cent"—shall convey the joyful motorist to this Earthly Paradise of the Sierras. You can go from Fresno via Coarse Gold, from Merced via Coulterville, from Stockton via Chinese Camp, or from Madera via Raymond. You can now even reach the park from the east by the new Tioga road, branching off the Sierra Highway at Mono Lake, should you be seeking the wildest and most difficult route of all.

We decided, after an extended canvas of the pros and cons of the matter, to make our initial venture via the Madera route, returning by the way of Big Oak Flat and Stockton. We passed the night at Fresno and left Madera late in the afternoon of the following day with the intention of stopping for the night at Raymond, some twenty-five miles distant. However, we found the prospect for comfortable quarters in that forlorn-looking little hamlet so unpromising that we decided, in accordance with a genial garage man's advice, to go on to Miami Lodge.

"It's only thirty miles," he said; "and a mighty comfortable place; you ought to reach there before it gets dark. Shall I telephone them to hold dinner for you?"

All of which sounded good to us as we contemplated prospective accommodations in Raymond, and with a speedy acquiescence we were away for Miami Lodge. Ten miles per hour, said the garage man, would be a good average "for a greenhorn" over the road we were to traverse—a ridiculously low estimate, we thought, but we had not proceeded far before we agreed with his conservatism. A narrow and exceedingly tortuous trail plunged into the hills, threading its way among giant pines or creeping precariously along steep hillsides and around abrupt corners deep with dust and at times laboriously steep. Now and then it emerged into pleasant little glades and on entering one of these we saw a young mountain lion trotting leisurely toward the thicket. Of course our small rifle was under a pile of baggage, unloaded, and the cartridges in a grip, but we consoled ourselves with remarks about the extreme improbability of hitting him even if we had the gun.

It was sunset by the time we had covered little more than half the distance and while we regarded the approaching darkness with some apprehension, for the road showed no signs of improvement, we forgot it all in our admiration for the enchanting scene. Many were the magnificent vistas opening through the pines skirting our road along the mountainside. Purple hills topped with dark forests stretched away to a crimson sky; shadowy canyons sloped far beneath us, their mysterious deeps shrouded in a soft blue haze. It was a constantly changing yet always entrancing picture until the color faded from the skies and the canyons were blotted out by the gathering blackness. Then the road demanded our undivided attention, for we covered the last ten miles in pitch darkness and our neglected headlights proved in very poor condition.

The Lodge is a comfortable rustic inn set in the pines on a hillside which slopes down to a clear creek dammed at one point into a small lake. The little valley forms a natural amphitheater surrounded by the forest-clad hills and is altogether a pleasant and restful spot well away from noise and disturbance of any kind. The creek is stocked with rainbow trout and big game is fairly common—attractions which bring many sportsmen to the Lodge. It is easy of access by auto stages which run daily during the season.

Beyond Miami Lodge we found the road even more trying than it was southward. Heavy grades and sharp turns continued, and deep dust and rough stretches caused much discomfort. We met many motor trucks and several heavy wagons drawn by six or eight horses, which made ticklish work in passing on the narrow grades and which stirred up clouds of yellow dust. As the sun mounted, the day became intolerably hot, making it necessary to elevate our cape top, which combined with the dust to interfere with our view of the scenery.

We reached Wawona, at the park entrance, in time for the noonday luncheon at the pleasant old inn which has been the haven of sightseers for nearly half a century. It is delightfully situated in a little vale amidst a group of towering pines and all about it green meadows stretch away to the forest-clad hills that surround it on every hand. Through the valley runs the South Merced, famous for its mountain trout, a delicacy which guests at the inn sometimes enjoy. About the main hotel building are scattered several isolated cottages for the accommodation of guests who may be particular about privacy and plenty of light and air. There are numerous beautiful drives in the vicinity aside from the Mariposa Grove trip. One of these follows the river for some distance and another makes a circuit of the valley.

We had no time for these, as we were intent upon reaching Yosemite for the night and the regulation is that you check in at the final station by six o'clock. About a mile from Wawona we found the cabin of the ranger who issued tickets for the south entrance to the park. The formalities detained us but a few moments, since, with the great influx of motor tourists during the exposition year, much of the original red tape was dispensed with. A copy of the rules and regulations was given us and the time of our entrance was stamped upon the ticket to be delivered to the superintendent at Yosemite village. The action of our small rifle was sealed and, with a friendly caution that it would be unwise to exceed the limit, we were ordered to proceed. Knowing something of the trip from previous experience we felt no uneasiness about exceeding the two hours and twenty-seven minutes, minimum time allowed for covering the twenty-eight and nine-tenths miles between the station and Yosemite garage. No one but a confirmed speed maniac would care to exceed this very reasonable limit and anyone wise enough to admire the scenery along the road as it deserves to be admired might well consume twice the minimum time.

For some miles after entering the park we climbed the long, steady grade following the South Merced Canyon, always at a considerable distance above the stream, which we could see at intervals through the pines, flashing over its rock-strewn bed. There was scarcely a downward dip in the road for the first half-dozen miles, and we could not but recall the distressing efforts of the horses as they toiled painfully upward on our former trip while we sat disconsolately enveloped in smothering clouds of dust. What a contrast we found in the steady, cheerful hum of our engine as it drove our car onward at not less than the permitted speed of fifteen miles, leaving the dust behind us and affording unhindered views of the endless panoramas of canyons and hills. Not often, even in California, will one come across finer individual cedars, sugar pines and yellow pines than he will see here—splendid, arrow-straight shafts several feet in circumference, often rising to a height of two or even three hundred feet. It is pleasant to think that they are immune from the lumberman's ax and guarded carefully against devastating fires. We paused at times in the shade of these forest Titans and contemplated the wide range of hills and valleys beyond the canyon—particularly at Lookout Point, some seven or eight miles from Wawona. Here we beheld a seemingly endless panorama of forest-clad hills stretching away until lost in the infinite distance of the lucent afternoon. Once before we had beheld the same scene—at sunset, the hills shrouded in an amethyst haze, the valleys dim with purple shadows, and the sky resplendent with crimson and gold. Nothing could have shown more impressively the wonderful variations of the same landscape at different hours of the day or proved more completely that one must come many times to see the beauty of Yosemite.

Continuing a few miles farther we came to the top of the grade leading down into the valley. We recalled it as a stiff, strenuous road, winding around sharp curves and often along the edge of sheer precipices which gave us many thrills from our high perch beside the driver of our four-in-hand. We had traversed mountain roads so much worse in the meanwhile that Wawona grade really seemed quite tame from a motor car and even the ladies took only languid interest in its twists and turns. We paused for the third time at Inspiration Point and we can not help envying those who are so fortunate as to come into Yosemite by this road and thus get their first glimpse of the valley from Inspiration Point. Perhaps the view from Glacier Point is as glorious but one is not likely to come upon it so suddenly and is somehow expecting stupendous things, but Inspiration Point bursts on the wayfarer from the Wawona all unaware and he sees unfold before him almost in an instant all the marvelous sights that have made Yosemite a world's wonder.

It is the third time we have viewed this wonderful scene and we have been fortunate in coming each time at a different period of the day—morning and evening and early afternoon. Each has shown us a different phase of the beauty of Yosemite, for the variation of light and consequent changes of coloring have everything to do with the view from Inspiration Point.

We proceeded slowly and cautiously down the steep switchbacks leading to the floor of the Valley, a long, low-gear grind, for regulations forbid disengaging gears on roads in the park. The descent did not seem nearly so precarious as when we first made it in the regulation coach-and-four—the road appeared to have been widened at the turns; maybe this was only in our imagination, due to greater familiarity with mountain roads. We were enough at our ease to enjoy the splendid vistas of the valley and mountains which were presented from a hundred viewpoints as we slowly descended, something that we hardly did the first time. Nor did the time seem so long, though I really doubt if we went down so quickly as our dashing driver piloted his coach-and-four over this three-mile grade on our first trip. We soon found ourselves on the floor of the valley with Bridal Veil Falls waving like a gossamer thread above us—it was in September and the waterfalls were all at lowest ebb. The four miles along the floor to Yosemite was a joy ride indeed and we felt no desire to infringe the low speed limit imposed on motor cars. What though we had seen this wondrous array of stupendous cliffs, domes, pinnacles and towers many times before, familiarity does not detract from their overpowering majesty and changeful beauty.

Our excuse for a third visit to Yosemite was chiefly that we wanted to go by motor car; we had seen most of the sights and made most of the trail trips and drives, so there was little to do but lounge about in the hotel and vicinity for the rest of the afternoon. I visited the garage, which was merely a huge tent with open sides where the cars were parked in care of an attendant. There was apparently a very good machine shop which seemed to have plenty of work, for break-downs are not uncommon. The manager asked us if we would favor him by carrying a new axle to a motorist who was laid up at Crane Flat, near the entrance to the park on the road by which we expected to leave the next morning.

The regulations require that motor cars leave by the Big Oak Flat road between 6:00 A. M. and 4:00 P. M., and the first-named hour found us ready for departure, as we had been warned that a strenuous day's work lay before us. It is only one hundred and twenty-three miles to Stockton; hence we concluded that the strenuousness must be due to something besides long distance—a surmise which we did not have to wait long to verify. About two miles from the hotel, following the main valley road, we came to a sign, "Big Oak Flat Route," and turned sharply to the right, crossing the Merced River. Immediately we began a sharp ascent over a dusty trail through thickly standing pines.

Coming out of the trees we find ourselves on a narrow road cut in the side of the almost perpendicular cliff. It is fair at first, screened from the precipitous drop alongside by a row of massive boulders which have the psychological effect of making us feel much more at ease, though I doubt if they would be of much use in stopping a runaway car. Nevertheless, they are a decided factor in enabling us to enjoy the wonderful views of mountain and valley that present themselves to our eager eyes as we slowly climb the steep ascent. We are sure that we see many vistas quite equal to the view from the much-vaunted Inspiration Point, but they are not so famous because far less accessible.

The road grows rougher and dustier as we climb slowly upward; the boulder balustrade disappears and we find ourselves on a narrow shelf, with infrequent passing places, running along the edge of a cliff that falls almost sheer beneath us. We pause occasionally to contemplate the marvelous scene beneath. The whole floor of the valley is now visible; its giant trees seem mere shrubs and the Merced dwindles to a silver thread; across the narrow chasm we now look down on the Cathedral Spires, the Three Sisters, and Sentinel Rock; we see Bridal Veil Fall swaying like a gossamer against the mighty cliff, and beyond we have an endless vista of forest-clad mountains. Three thousand feet above the valley we enter a forest of mighty pines; the road winds among them in sharp turns and the grades are very steep and deep with dust. We are not very familiar with our car, which we leased from a Los Angeles dealer, and as we near the summit the motor loses power and can not be cajoled into propelling the car over the last steep, dusty pitch. After an hour of fruitless effort we appealed to the foreman of a road gang which, fortunately for us, was at work close by, and he helped the balky engine out with a stout team of horses.

"What's the damage?" we gratefully asked of our rescuer.

"Just a bottle of whiskey, stranger, if you happen to have one along."

We expressed regret at our inability to meet the very modest request and our friend had to be content with coin of the realm instead. Later on an auto expert told us that the carburetor on this particular car will not work satisfactorily at an elevation of seven thousand feet.

Crane Flat is nothing more than the ranger station on the road and the official took up our "time card"—we came by a safe margin of two or three hours—and removed the seals from our "game-getter." We delivered the axle entrusted to our care, but found that the owner of the broken-down car had accepted the situation philosophically and gone fishing—his third day of this pleasant pastime, while waiting for repairs.

Two or three miles from Crane Flat we came to the Tuolumne Grove of Big Trees, where there are numerous giant redwoods, though not so many or so huge as those of Mariposa. A short detour from the main route took us to the Dead Giant, the most remarkable tree of this grove. It is tunneled like the Wawona tree in Mariposa and we had the sensation a second time of driving through a redwood. The remains of the Dead Giant are one hundred feet high and one hundred and five feet in circumference; scientists estimate that the tree must have been at least forty feet in diameter and perhaps four hundred feet high—larger and higher than any redwood now living. It was destroyed perhaps three hundred years ago by fire or lightning. The General Lawton of this grove is one of the most beautiful redwoods in existence and there is also a Fallen Giant still growing greenly although lying prone, its roots not being entirely severed.

It was lunch time when we reached Sequoia, though we were only twenty-nine miles from Yosemite—a pretty insignificant showing for a half-day's run, from a mileage point of view, but it had been strenuous enough to make us tired and ravenously hungry. And hunger proved a very good sauce for the meal which we got at Crocker's Hotel, which is about all there is of Sequoia. And I am not complaining of Crocker's Hotel, either. I think they did very well when one considers that all their supplies must be hauled eighty miles by wagon road—naturally, canned stuff and condensed milk prevailed.

Beyond Crocker's the characteristics of the country were about the same. A rough, dusty trail, winding through pine-clad hills with occasional heavy grades, carried us along for a good many miles. We occasionally passed a remote little station with a general store and "garage" bearing evidence of its origin in an old-time blacksmith shop. Colfax Gate, Smith's, Garrett, and Big Oak Flat—which showed little reason for the distinction of giving its name to the road—were all the same type, with nothing to invite even a casual glance from the tourist unless he needed gasoline or oil.

At Priest's there is a country hotel, a haunt of hunters and ranchmen; but we recall Priest's chiefly because it gives its name to one of the most beautiful bits of road engineering in California. It follows the very crest of a giant hill range overlooking a beautiful valley some two or three thousand feet below. Alongside there is nothing to break the full sweep of one's vision—not a tree or even a shrub intervenes between the roadbed and the precipitous slope beneath. Although the road is wide enough for easy passing at any point, the very baldness of its outer edge is enough to give a decided thrill to nervously inclined people and our driver received more advice and caution from the rear seat than had been offered him on far more dangerous roads with occasional rocks or trees alongside.

At Jacksonville the road comes down almost to the level of the Tuolumne River and we found ourselves on the border of the old gold-mining region made famous by the tales of Bret Harte. There are still several placer mines in operation along the river—the road passes a very large one at the foot of Chinese Camp grade, and the river is sullied for miles by the muddy washings from the mill. Chinese Camp grade is one of the worst encountered on our entire trip; it is steep and terribly rough, and dust a foot deep hides the ruts and chuck holes, so we were compelled to "go it blind." It was a four-mile plunge and scramble around sharp curves,—half smothered and blinded by dense dust clouds which rose before we could get away from them, we made slow progress over the dreadful road. At the hilltop, however, we were rewarded for our strenuous scramble by a magnificent view of the river canyon and a wide panorama of forest-clad hills with the emerald thread of the Tuolumne winding through them.

A short distance over a stony trail brought us into the main street of Chinese Camp, if we may so designate the wide, dusty section of road lined with wooden shacks of which every other one seemed a saloon. The appearance of the buildings warranted the guess on our part that there has been little change in this primitive hamlet since Bret Harte visited it, nearly a half century ago. Not far from here are many other camps and villages which found enduring fame in the stories of this most representative of all earlier California writers. Sonora, Angel's Camp, Tuttletown, San Andreas, Mokelumne, and other places familiar in Harte's pages may all be reached in a detour of fifty miles or so from the Big Oak Flat road. Most of these towns, like Chinese Camp, have made little progress since they were mirrored in the tales which appeared in the old Overland and Argonaut of San Francisco.