BY RAIL TO LAKE TAHOE
Lake Tahoe is fifteen miles from Truckee, which is one of the mountain
stations on the main line of the Southern Pacific Railway (Central
Route), two hundred and eight miles from San Francisco, thirty-five
miles from Reno, Nevada, and five hundred and seventy-four miles
from Ogden, Utah. By the San Joaquin Valley route via Sacramento, the
distance to Los Angeles is five hundred and eighty miles, or by San
Francisco and the Coast Line six hundred and ninety-two miles.
During the summer season trains run frequently through, making Tahoe
easily accessible.
From the east the traveler comes over what is practically the long
known and historic overland stage-road, over which so many thousands
of gold-seekers and emigrants came in the days of California's gold
excitement. Every mile has some story of pioneer bravery or heroism,
of hairbreadth escape from hostile Indians or fortuitous deliverance
from storm or disaster. It was over this route the pilgrims came who
sought in Utah a land of freedom where they might follow their
own peculiar conceptions of religion and duty, untrammeled and
uninterfered with by hostile onlookers and disbelievers. Here came the
home-seekers of the earlier day, when California was still a province
of Mexico; those who had been lured by the glowing stories of the Land
of the Sun Down Sea, where orange and lemon, vine and fig flourished
and indicated the semi-tropic luxuriance and fruitfulness of the land.
[Illustration: Truckee, Calif., Where Travelers Take Trains for
Lake Tahoe]
[Illustration: Crossing the Truckee River Near Deer Park Station]
[Illustration: Placerville, El Dorado Co., California]
[Illustration: Vineyard on the Automotive Highway between Placerville
and Lake Tahoe]
From the west the railroad traverses, in the main, the continuation
of this old overland road. After leaving the fertile valley of the
Sacramento and rising into the glorious foot-hills of the Sierras,
every roll of the billows of the mountains and canyons wedged in
between is redolent of memories of the argonauts and emigrants. Yonder
are Yuba, Dutch Flat, the North Fork, the South Fork (of the American
River), Colfax, Gold Run, Midas, Blue Canyon, Emigrant Gap, Grass
Valley, Michigan Bluff, Grizzly Gulch, Alpha, Omega, Eagle Bird, Red
Dog, Chips Flat, Quaker Hill and You Bet. Can you not see these camps,
alive with rough-handed, full-bearded, sun-browned, stalwart men,
and hear the clang of hammer upon drill, the shock of the blast, the
wheeling away and crash of waste rock as it is thrown over the dump
pile?
And then, as we look up and forward into the sea of mountain-waves
into the heart of which we ride, who but Joaquin Miller can describe
the scene?
Here lifts the land of clouds! Fierce mountain forms,
Made white with everlasting snows, look down
Through mists of many canyons, mighty storms
That stretch from Autumn's purple drench and drown
The yellow hem of Spring. Tall cedars frown
Dark-brow'd, through banner'd clouds that stretch and stream
Above the sea from snowy mountain crown.
The heavens roll, and all things drift or seem
To drift about and drive like some majestic dream.
And it is in the very bosom of this majestic scenery that Lake Tahoe
lies enshrined. Its entrancing beauty is such that we do not wonder
that these triumphant monarchs of the "upper seas" cluster around it
as if in reverent adoration, and that they wear their vestal virgin
robes of purest white in token of the purity of their worship.
Thoughts like these flood our hearts and minds as we reach Truckee,
the point where we leave the Southern Pacific cars and change to those
of the narrow-gauge Lake Tahoe Railway and Transportation Company.
After a brief wait, long enough to allow transfer of baggage, we
leave, from the same station, for the fifteen miles' ride to Tahoe
Tavern on the very edge of the Lake.
This ride is itself romantic and beautiful. On the day trains
observation cars are provided, and the hour is one of delightful,
restful and enchanting scenes. The Truckee River is never out of sight
and again and again it reminds one in its foaming speed of Joaquin
Miller's expressive phrase:
See where the cool white river runs.
Before 1900 this ride used to be taken by stage, the railway having
been built in that year. It is interesting here to note that the
rails, the locomotives, the passenger and freight cars were all
transported bodily across the Lake from Glenbrook, on the Nevada side.
There they were in use for many years mainly for hauling logs and
lumber to and from the mills on the summit, whence it was "flumed" to
Carson City.
In those days logging was carried on in the Truckee River Canyon and
the visitor would often have the pleasure of seeing logs "shoot the
chutes" into the river, by which they were floated to the mills at
Truckee. Here is a picture:
Tree, bush, and flower grow and blossom upon either side; and
a little bird, with a throat like a thrush, warbles a canticle
of exquisite musical modulations, so to speak. But the most
stirring sight of all is the system of logging carried on by
the mill companies. "Look! Quick!" ejaculates the driver; and
your gaze is directed to a monster log that comes furiously
dashing from the summit down a chute a thousand feet in length
with twice the ordinary speed of a locomotive. So rapid is
its descent that it leaves a trail of smoke behind it, and
sometimes kindles a fire among the slivers along its way.
Ah! it strikes the water! In an instant there is an inverted
Niagara in the air, resplendent with prismatic and transparent
veils of spray[1].
[Footnote 1: John Vance Cheney in _Lippincott's_.]
The main portion of the canyon is walled in by abrupt acclivities,
upon which majestic trees used to grow, but where now only the growth
of the past twenty-five to fifty years is found, doing its best to
hide the scars and wounds of the logging days.
The river, issuing from the Lake above, dashes down its wild way in
resistless freedom. It is a rapid, all but savage stream, widening
occasionally into sheltered pools exceedingly dark and deep. The
bowlders in its channel, and those crowding down into it from its
farther bank, cause it to eddy and foam with fierce but becoming
pride.
A few miles from the Tavern we pass the scene of the Squaw Valley
mining excitement where the two towns of Knoxville and Claraville
arose as if by magic, tent cities of thousands of inhabitants, lured
hither by a dream of gold, too soon to fade away, leaving nothing but
distress behind.
Deer Park station suggests the leaving point for that charmingly
picturesque resort, snuggling in the heart of Bear Canyon. Now we
pass the masses of tuffaceous breccia that "Pap" Church, the old
stage-driver used to call the Devil's Pulpit, and the devil's this and
that or the other, until many a traveler would wish they were all with
the devil.
This is a remnant of the vast mass of volcanic rock that in long ago
prehistoric times was poured out in molten sheets over the region,
and that formed the range we shall shortly see at the north end of the
Lake--the Mount Pluto range. At some later period either earthquake
convulsion started the break which ultimately eroded and disintegrated
into the great gorge through which the railway has brought us, or
grinding glacier cut the pathway for us.
Here, on the right, is a tiny swinging foot-bridge over the river.
This is the beginning, the suggestion, for the vast suspension bridges
that have allowed the world to cross the great North River from New
York to Brooklyn, and that span great rivers and gorges elsewhere in
the world. Nay! scarcely the beginning. That you find further up and
deeper down in the High Sierras and their shaded and wooded canyons,
where wild vines throw their clinging tendrils across from one shore
to another of foaming creeks, and gradually grow in girth and strength
until they form bridges, over which chipmunks, squirrels, porcupines,
'coons, coyotes, and finally mountain lions, bears, and even men cross
with safety. There is the _real origin_ of the suspension bridge.
But this is a miniature, a model, a suggestion of the big bridges.
It affords ready access to the house on the other side. In winter,
however, the boards are taken up, as the heavy snows that fall and
accumulate might wreck it.
It is hard to realize that, a few months from now, when winter begins,
this railroad must perforce cease its operations. Snow falls, here,
where the sun is now smiling so beneficently upon laughing meadows,
dotted here and there with dainty flowers, to a depth of ten and even
twenty feet. The mail--necessarily much reduced in winter--is first of
all carried in sleighs, then, as the snows deepen, on snow-shoes,
so that those who stay to preserve the "summer hotels" from winter's
ravages may not feel entirely shut out from the living world beyond.
But there is nothing that suggests snow now. We are enjoying the
delights of a summer day or evening, and know that we are near our
journey's end. Suddenly there is a long call of the whistle, a short
curve, and if in the daytime, the Lake suddenly appears, or, if at
night, the lights of the Tavern, and our rail journey is done. We are
deposited in Fairyland, for whether it be day or evening, the Lake
or the Tavern, our senses are thrilled and charmed by everything that
appears.