When we reached Raymond we had left the valleys behind us and were in
the rough country preceding the long climb up through the high Sierras
to Wawona. It was late afternoon, and as we drove along we enjoyed the
wooded hills and the far views over deep gulleys to the mountains
beyond, in the afternoon sunshine. We met but few people on the steep,
rocky mountain road. At one point we passed a roadside group of campers
for the night. They had unharnessed their weary horses, had built a
fire, and were preparing their supper. The water-trough used by
travelers was close by, and they had pure spring water for their needs.
There were two families, with a host of children, going up into the pine
woods to one of the sawmills where the men were to work. The young
mother of one family had with her a little three-weeks-old baby, fat and
rosy-looking as his proud father held him before the fire. The poor
mother was very weary and disheartened. "I am not used to this," she
said, as she folded up some bits of clothing that she had been washing
for the children. The wagons looked as if furniture and clothing had
been piled in "higgledy pigglety." The children and their parents slept
as best they could on top of this lumpy mass. One little girl of twelve
or so had a tear-stained face and a look of real suffering in her blue
eyes. She had hurt her ankle in running up and down the mountain roads
with the other children. I felt sorry for the poor child, as it was
evident that her sprained ankle would have little care in this itinerant
household. We were glad that the tired company had the mild evening air
in which to lie down and rest.
As we went on, the scenery grew wilder and the road grew rougher.
Something ailed our machine, too. It transpired that we had a bad spark
plug and there was nothing for it but to return to Raymond and have
things put right in the little garage there. We did so and then we made
the foolish mistake of deciding to go on, although the shadows were
deepening, toward Wawona. So once more we climbed the narrow, rutted
mountain road. It was astonishing how fast the twilight fell. We had
thought that we still had a good hour before darkness came on, but it
grew dark alarmingly fast, and we were soon driving along in forest
blackness over the uneven road. We kept the horn going for fear of
meeting something around the sharp corners which were so numerous, but
the road was utterly lonely. Tall pines stood close to the roadside, the
lamps of the motor throwing a light here and there upon their massive
trunks. Clusters of manzanita branches brushed against our machine, the
light flashing upon them, showing their lovely green leaves arranged
like shining rosettes around their wine-colored stems. Everything was
wet with recent rain and wonderfully beautiful as the light of the lamps
flashed here and there. At last we passed a little cottage by the
roadside. There was a dim light in the house. The door opened and the
figure of a man appeared dark against the background of the lighted
room. We called out to him and asked how much farther Miami Lodge was.
"Just a few miles," he said, and very kindly offered to telephone to the
Lodge that we were coming, so they would have some supper for us. It
seemed a long distance to us as we crept cautiously around the shoulder
of the mountain, down steep pitches and up long slopes. But at last we
saw the welcome lights of the Lodge. How pleasant it was to see an open
fire in the sitting room, to eat a hot supper in the delightful dining
room, and to find a dainty sleeping room furnished with a woman's taste.
Miami Lodge is a half-way house between Raymond and Wawona. It is an
ideal resting spot for people who love the pine woods and the quiet and
solitude of the forest.
[Illustration: 1. Summit of Pass between Raymond and Wawona, entering
Yosemite Valley. 2. Miami Lodge, on way to Yosemite.]
In the morning we were on our way to the Big Trees. We decided to leave
our car at a humble but very pleasant little forest inn called Fish Camp
Hotel, presided over by some Maine people who long ago left the pines of
Maine for the pines of California. They have a mountain ranch which they
leave in the summer to come up into the higher forests and to keep a
little hostel and grocery store. It is a long walk from Fish Camp Hotel
to the boundary fence of the National Park where the famous Big Trees
are. If one prefers to drive one's car over a somewhat rocky but
perfectly passable mountain road and to leave it just outside the
fence, one can do so. In this way, one's walking powers are kept fresh
for the memorable expedition among the Big Trees. One needs a long day
in which to see the Trees. We felt sorry for the tourists who were being
driven about and who had only an allotted time in which to see the
Trees. We had our luncheon with us and were independent. We walked miles
along the Park drives. We stood under the Trees, of which there are some
five hundred, gazing up at their distant tops. We amused ourselves by
measuring their enormous girths with our arms. Most of the time we
simply gazed at them from one vantage point and another, lost in wonder
at their height, so much greater than we had dreamed, and at their bulk,
so enormous as to be difficult to take in. The Big Trees were far
bigger, far grander, far more beautiful in their coloring than we had
been prepared for. When the afternoon sunlight struck their trunks and
they glowed with the wonderful soft, deep red which is their color, we
were enchanted. We felt awed, too, not only by their great size, but by
their great age. We were in the presence of hoary old men, a detached
little company of Ancients who were living long, long before our
generation ever came upon the scene, and who had passed through much of
the world's history. It was with a glowing sense of satisfaction and
happiness and wonder that we came away from our leisurely day among the
Trees. Some day we hope to go back and to repeat that experience.
[Illustration: 1. Camp Ahwahnee, Yosemite Valley. 2. Grizzly Giant,
Mariposa Big Trees. 3. Yosemite Falls. 4. Cabin in Mariposa Grove.]
We met later a gentleman who said that he had spent such a day, had had
a supper with the forest keeper who sells photographs and souvenirs in
his little cottage, and then had lain down to sleep on the pine needles
under the great Trees themselves. "I saw the stars pinnacled in their
branches," said he.
We had a comfortable night at Fish Camp Hotel, our fellow guests at the
next table being a party of Scotch stone-cutters who had come up for a
holiday from the granite quarry at Raymond where they were quarrying and
shaping stones for some Sacramento public buildings. Bagpipes came out
in the evening and the air was full of Scotch music and Scotch jokes.
The next morning we drove on to Wawona, passing over the height of the
grade and descending a little to come into the lovely Wawona meadows, in
whose midst stands the old white wooden hotel which has dispensed
delightful hospitality under the same landlords for forty years past.
Mr. Washburn is the only one left of the brothers who built up the
Wawona Hotel, and his son now bears the burden of the hotel
administration.
People are always coming and going at Wawona. They are either on their
way to the Yosemite; or having seen the Yosemite they are on their way
out with a look at the Big Trees, eight miles away, as they pass by. We
left our machine at the Wawona garage and took the 12 o'clock stage
drawn by four splendid horses, to drive through the meadow and along the
mountain for thirty miles to the Yosemite Valley. Later, the Wawona road
was to be opened to motor travel. But the leisurely way of approach by
the stage was very agreeable. The drive ran through the forest. We saw a
pheasant in the bracken by the roadside with her brood of little ones.
She walked with her head high, affecting a careless dignity to hide her
anxiety, while her babies crouched close to the ground and looked like
little brown dots as they skimmed along.
In the late afternoon, we saw a coyote out for his supper. Our stage
driver cracked his whip at him and shouted his contempt. We saw the
beautiful deer cross and recross the road, coming down to their
drinking places. They are protected by the State and come and go with
only the mountain lion to frighten them. And at last after twenty miles
of drive through tall pines we came to the famous Inspiration Point
where the first view of the Valley burst upon us. We had been driving
over a high plateau, and now we were to descend more than a thousand
feet into the deep cut which forms the Yosemite. Our stage driver
evidently took a genuine pleasure, the pleasure of the showman, in
reining up his horses at the psychological moment and allowing us to
drink in the view that burst dramatically upon us. There was the green
level floor of the Valley far below us; there was El Capitan rising in
massive grandeur, a sheer wall of rock, in evening greys and lavenders,
above the Valley; there was the Bridal Veil--a silver thread of water
falling six hundred feet. And beyond were the Valley walls rising in the
distance. In my opinion everyone who wishes to have the most striking
entrance to the Yosemite should come in by the Wawona road, and have the
great view at Inspiration Point fire the imagination first. A little
lower down, we came again on the winding road to the same view, only
from a lower vantage point and therefore more intimate. This point is
known as Artists' Point; and after this we were hurrying down the
mountain slope, the eager horses well aware that they were approaching
food and rest.
Soon we were on the Valley floor, walls rising to the left and right of
us, and ahead of us. Behind us was the way out of the Valley and above
us was the mountain road by which we had just come down. Tourists were
dropped at various camps, and we drove on to Camp Curry, the last
stopping point of the stage. The Yosemite Valley is somewhat like a
blind alley. It has but one entrance on the level of the Valley floor.
As you drive to the farther end of the Valley, you become aware that you
are approaching nearer and nearer to mountain walls, and ere long you
are literally against a barrier, all the way from a thousand to three or
four thousand feet in height. Anyone who would leave the Yosemite by
other than the entrance on the Valley level at its one end must climb.
Camp Curry has the great advantage of being located in the closed end of
the valley and thus very near to many of the mountain trails. Its
proprietor and landlord has built up Camp Curry to be the big,
cosmopolitan, happy, democratic settlement that it now is. The food in
the dining pavilion is plain but well cooked, and abundantly served in
family fashion. The little tents with their two single beds are very
comfortable. The camp fire at night, around which almost the entire camp
assembles in that intimacy and yet detachment, which belongs to those
who dream before a camp fire, is the heart of the camp life, where Mr.
Curry gives nightly a family talk on trees, rocks, flowers, and trails.
Hot water is a plentiful luxury at Camp Curry, and the host often says,
"Camp Curry is on the water wagon, but it is a hot water wagon."
[Illustration: 1. Driving Home the Cows. 2. Meeting in the Great
American Desert. 3. Bridal Veil from Artist's Point, Yosemite Valley.]
"A year ago," says Mr. Curry, "we put up 10,000 lunches--that meant
20,000 wooden plates, and some 50,000 pieces of white tissue paper. You
can see how necessary it is to burn or bury your luncheon papers when
you have eaten your lunch on the trails, or in the forests."
Never in any other place in the United States have I heard so much talk
of tramps and trails as at Camp Curry in the Yosemite Valley. Most
Americans seem to be too indolent or too unused to walking to have the
enthusiasm of the trampers and the mountain climbers whom one meets in
Europe. But I felt that I was back in the atmosphere of the Tyrol and
of Switzerland when I reached Camp Curry and saw the people starting off
in the morning for long days of walking and climbing. "I arrived at Camp
Curry late in the afternoon just as the people were coming from their
day's walks," said a young lady to me. "I thought I had never seen such
disreputable looking people. Their boots were muddy, their hair was
dishevelled, their faces were flushed and sunburnt. But in a day or two
I was coming in from long walks in just the same condition myself." But
who that can walk and climb would forego the thrilling pleasure of the
long climb to Glacier Point, and the long climb past Nevada and Vernal
Falls, and down again into the Valley? Who would miss the long climb up
to the Yosemite Falls, where one from a perilous and yet protected
vantage point just above the Falls sees that great volume of water
launch itself for the awful plunge into the air, and so down into the
Valley? Fortunately, there are sturdy mules and horses, sure-footed and
plodding, for those who prefer riding to climbing. No one need miss the
truly grand experience of the view from Glacier Point, where by staying
over night at the hotel one may have both sunset and sunrise. What a
world of mountains one looks out upon! There is Half Dome, looking as if
a gigantic hand had thrust it up through the earth and into the air,
leaving its other half far, far below. There stretches before one a
vast, upper country of irregular table lands and peaks, many still white
with snow. One is really looking far out over the remote regions of the
snowy, pine-covered, high Sierras.
[Illustration: 1. Royal Arches, Yosemite Valley. 2. View into Yosemite
Valley. 3. Dome and Half Dome, Yosemite Valley.]
We took a day for a long excursion to Cloud's Rest. This meant
twenty-two miles of mule riding, but it also meant an even more
comprehensive and exalted view from the mountain's top, of frozen lakes
below, deep canyons, lofty mountain peaks where storms were raging far
away, and solitary table lands. Only people of endurance can take such a
jaunt, as one's joints grow very weary and aching from the slow riding
hour after hour. When we were at Camp Curry, a party of some forty
Germans, men and women, were there for the pleasure of "doing" the
entire Valley. No climb was too hard for them. They were known as the
"German climbing bunch." Every morning one might see them with their
paper bags of luncheon and their climbing-sticks, walking gaily along
to the beginning of some one of the mountains trails. They entertained
us at the evening camp fire with their German songs, and were altogether
an energetic and genial company.
The open air life and the grandeur of the trails were very hard to
leave, but we came away one noon and once more drove back to Wawona.
There we were detained for a week by a break in the car. We started out
one morning when the rain was pouring to take the Mariposa road. We
found that with no chains and with the machine slipping and sliding on
the steep clay road, progress would be impossible. I tried to help the
matter by putting freshly cut branches of odorous balsam fir under the
wheels to help them grip. I walked behind the machine with a log,
throwing it under the wheels as they advanced foot by foot, T. fighting
at the steering wheel like the pilot of a drifting ship. But it was
impossible to make headway. We met some teamsters who had evidently been
taking something hot to counteract the discomfort of their wet
exteriors. One said solemnly of the sun when we expressed a wish that it
would appear, "Yes, the sun is our father, and our step-father." Then he
added, "I'd worship the sun if I were a heathen. I kinder do, now." He
went on irrelevantly, "I do think Roosevelt's one of the best men we've
got. I do think so. I do so." We were close to a deserted logging camp,
which looked doubly melancholy in the falling rain. There was the
deserted runway, there were the empty cottages, with broken windows and
doors swinging open. Back of the cottages were piles of tin cans. One
cottage still bore its old name, "Idle Burg." All about were blooming
columbines and the odorous balsam.
There was nothing for it but to go back to Wawona, which we did. When we
reached there, we found that we had a broken spring. We spent several
days waiting for a new spring to come up from Raymond. In the meantime
we discovered the loveliness of the Wawona meadows and explored the
walks about the hotel. We went down to the blacksmith shop to see the
big stage horses shod and the smith handle them as if they were his
children. "California is God's country," said he. "I came here forty
years ago, but I aint done much for myself until the last two or three
years." At last the motor car was ready, and we had once more a drive
through the forest, stopping for a delightful dinner and evening at
Miami Lodge. The next day we were dropping down from the high Sierras
by the Mariposa road. Turning to the right, before reaching Raymond, the
foothills of the Sierras made very rough, broken country for travel, and
our road was indifferent. We passed poor little ranches dropped in among
the rocks and gulleys. We saw lonely looking women sitting on the
porches of unpainted wooden ranch houses, and finally we came to
Mariposa, which reminded me of Bret Harte more than any other place I
had seen in California.
[Illustration: 1. In the Lower Sierras, California. 2. Eastern Slope of
Sierras.]
Mariposa is a mining town from which the miners have departed. In mining
days it was a busy center, with miners eating and drinking, and walking
up and down its little street. But some of the mines have been closed,
the miners have gone to other districts, and the town is left high and
dry. A few men were hanging idly about in front of the dreary looking
little stores. The two places that seemed to be alive were a general
department store kept by an Italian, and a little restaurant kept by a
Chinaman. We bought our gasoline from Mr. Trabucco and went in to have
some tea at John Chinaman's place. He was a shrewd looking, middle-aged
Chinaman in a very pessimistic mood. "You see dis town? You see more'n I
do," he said sadly. We assured him that we saw very little town. Indeed,
Mariposa is just the sad little shell of a town from which most of the
life has moved away, leaving the dingy little wooden buildings along the
dusty street. Our Chinaman charged us fifteen cents apiece for a single
cup of tea, flanked by some very stale store cookies, which he took from
the show window. He evidently felt that he should make hay while the sun
was shining. From Mariposa, we had a long afternoon drive over lonely,
rolling country to Snelling. When we reached its one little hotel, we
found that we were too late for supper. California has an eight hour
law, and domestic servants cannot be kept over time. In large hotels
they have different shifts; but in country places the landlord must let
his cook go at the appointed time. However, our host was disposed to be
accommodating. "The missus and I are always here," he said, and went
over to buy a bit of steak for our supper. We were very tired after the
extremely rough driving in the foothills, and slept heavily.
Snelling lies in a valley where there is evidently plenty of warmth and
water. The fig trees are wonderfully luxuriant. We passed some
beautiful grain ranches the next morning and so came to Stockton, where
at the Hotel Stockton we saw the red, white, and blue sign that was to
guide us across the continent. We were at last on the Lincoln Highway,
the old road with the new name which runs from ocean to ocean and which
is destined to be one of the famous highways of the world.
The Stockton Inn is a beautiful modern hostel, European in plan, with
every convenience, not to say luxury. One should go up on its roof
garden for an afternoon cup of tea just for the pleasure of looking down
on the San Joaquin River, whose headwaters run up into the town. Boats
lie all along the piers, and it looks very like a bit of Holland. I
could have easily believed that I was looking down on an Amsterdam canal
from the roof garden of the Stockton Hotel. All through California, but
more particularly between Monterey and Los Angeles and along the coast,
we had seen workmen tramping from place to place, sometimes alone,
usually in bands of six or seven. They carried their blankets rolled on
their backs, and many of them were clear-eyed, respectable looking men.
We saw one such man in Stockton on his way to take the river boat. He
had his blanket on his back, and he wore a somewhat battered straw hat.
His trousers were ragged, and he looked as if he had tramped many a
weary mile. He was tall and bony, with a sandy beard. I took him to be a
Scot. I was so anxious to help the poor fellow out that I urged T. to
speak to him and offer him a suit of clothes. To our surprise the man
refused them in a very free and easy, genial way. "O, nay, thank you,"
he said, "I'm doin' all right."
[Illustration: 1. Roof Garden, Stockton Hotel. 2. Head of San Joaquin
River, Stockton.]
Stockton is a city with wide streets, an open plaza, and a Courthouse
surrounded by a border of green lawn and palm trees. I saw a turbaned
Hindoo lying asleep under a palm tree in the afternoon sun on the
Courthouse lawn. White men lay asleep near him. It was at Stockton that
we saw our first rodeo or round-up. The rodeo is a part professional and
part amateur Wild-West show. The cowboys wear their gayest shirts, of
red and pink and variegated silks. They wear their handsomest "chaps" or
riding trousers, cut very wide, and made of buckskin or of sheepskin
with the wool side out. They have on their widest-brimmed, highest
crowned sombreros and their most ornately stitched boots. The cowgirls
are in brown or grey velveteen, or perhaps in khaki. They, too, wear
broad-brimmed hats and riding boots with spurs. Some of them wear red
silk handkerchiefs knotted about their necks. We saw such an exhibition
of cattle lassoing and of roping and throwing steers, of rope spinning
and of trick riding as we had never before seen. Doubtless it is an old
story for Californians, but it was all new and interesting to us. The
most interesting feat was the roping and throwing of a steer. Two men
ride down the steer, and as one of them approaches the beast he slips
off his horse and catches the steer with a lightning stroke around his
neck. He endeavors by casting his weight on the beast's neck and by
dexterously twisting it to throw the animal. Usually he succeeds; but
sometimes a stubborn beast refuses to be taken by surprise, plants his
feet firmly, and lowers his dangerous horns. Then follows a locked
struggle, and it is a serious matter for the cattleman if his hold
slips.
[Illustration: 1. and 2. Cowboy Rodeo, Stockton, Cal. 3. Hereford Bull,
Wyoming. 4. Cowboy Rodeo, Laramie, Wyoming.]