HOLIDAYS AND FUN.
The people of the land of the “big bonanza” do not toil always and
without ceasing; but, as in other lands, give some time to pleasure and
recreation.
There are a number of places of summer resort to which all may flee for
a few weeks each year during the hot weather of July and August. Most
popular among these is Lake Tahoe, situated high among the grand scenery
of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and distant but thirty-five miles from
Virginia City. No land can boast a more beautiful sheet of water than
Lake Tahoe, and its surroundings form a fit setting for such a gem.
Donner Lake, also in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and situated but a few
miles north of Lake Tahoe, is almost as popular as the latter, though it
is much smaller. Its surroundings are, however, grand and picturesque,
turn which way we may.
There are, besides, Webber and Independence Lakes, which are in the same
neighborhood, and which are easy of access. In Hope Valley on or near
the summit of the Sierras, where many pleasure-seekers go, there is
found fine trout-fishing in all the brooks, and excellent quail and
grouse-shooting everywhere among the hills. Indeed, for those who have
the time and means to spend a few weeks in the bracing atmosphere and
amid the wild and picturesque scenery of the mountains, there is no lack
of attractions. The man of meditative disposition, who is weary of the
bustle and strife and the noise and crowds of towns, will wander along
by himself and be happy in many and many a place away up by the tall
peaks in the grand solitudes, where whispers from heaven seem to come
down through the pines.
Lake Tahoe lies one mile and a quarter above the level of the sea, and
is surrounded on all sides by most romantic and picturesque mountain
scenery. The lake is about thirty miles in length from north to south,
and from eight to fifteen miles in width. It lies partly in California
and partly in Nevada. Its waters are of extraordinary purity and
clearness and, in places, have been sounded to a depth of over two
thousand feet.
There are several fine bays around the lake, the largest and most
beautiful of which is that known as Emerald Bay, which is over two miles
long. This bay is about four hundred yards wide at its mouth, but
rapidly widens inland. It is completely land-locked and is surrounded
with timbered hills, many of which are covered with rugged and
picturesque rocks, which tower among and above the pines, and other
evergreen-trees. There are some small islands in the bay which add much
to its beauty, and on all sides are to be obtained fine views of immense
rocky cañons. Eagle Cañon contains some vast piles of rocks, with clumps
of pines scattered here and there among them, and a whole day might be
spent in rambling through it without exhausting its many beauties. Cave
Rock, on the eastern shore of the lake is a huge pyramid of granite
which occupies a very picturesque position and which contains on one
side a cavern of considerable extent. In the neighborhood of this rock
tall and beautiful pines are seen quite down to the shore of the lake.
The view from what is called Rocky Point, on the eastern shore, looking
toward Cave Rock is also very fine. Another fine view in the direction
of Cave Rock is obtained from the Sierra Rocks. The view to the
northward from Sierra Rocks, toward Rocky Point, is one in which are
found several picturesque tree-covered points of rocky land, extending
far out into the waters of the lake. Indeed, there are new beauties to
be found in all directions.
[Illustration: VIEWS ON LAKE TAHOE.]
Zephyr Cave, also on the eastern shore of the lake is a most romantic
spot and the scenery is such as to set the artist thinking of his
pencils the moment he enters the little bay. The Shakespeare-Rock,
plainly visible from the Glenbrook House, on the southern shore of the
lake, is so called on account of there being in the rugged outlines of
its face a striking resemblance to the features of the immortal poet.
All who visit the lake desire first of all to see this rock. Like many
other things of the kind, there is much in the position from which it is
viewed, and not a little in the imaginative powers of the person viewing
it. The water of the lake is so transparent that pebbles on its bottom
can be distinctly seen at the depth of fifty or sixty feet. When out
upon the water in a boat during a time when it is perfectly calm, one
seems suspended in mid-air. It is not easy to swim in the waters of the
lake. Owing to the great altitude and consequent decrease of atmospheric
pressure, the water is much less dense then the water of a lake or
stream at the level of the sea. On account of this lack of density and
buoyancy, the bodies of persons drowned in the lake never rise to the
surface. Many have been drowned in Lake Tahoe, but a body has never yet
been recovered.
Leaving the lake and rambling off into the surrounding country, much
that is grand and romantic is to be found. From the western summit is to
be had a magnificent panoramic view of the lake and the valley or basin
in which it is situated, with all the surrounding mountains. The tourist
may extend his rambles above Lake Tahoe to Fallen Leaf Lake, one of the
most beatiful little lakes in the mountains. Cascade Lake and other
small lakes will also be found worthy of a visit. About the shores of
Lake Tahoe will frequently be encountered the huts of the Washoe
Indians. They are generally found in some romantic spot, and, with their
uncouth occupants, add not a little to the picturesqueness of the
region. Some of the old saw-mills are also of a rather unusual style and
will attract the attention of the tourist and the artist.
At “Yank’s Station,” on the Placerville road, a short distance from the
shore of the lake, is to be seen a most singular freak of nature to
which the name of “Nick of the Woods” has been given. It is a large knot
in a crotch of a cedar-tree, which forks a few feet from the ground, but
it looks like a work of art. It startlingly resembles the head of an old
man. In looking upon this marvel of nature we can very easily imagine it
to be some hoary-headed old sinner thus wedged into the crotch of the
tree and imprisoned for all time on account of some grievous offence
committed about the time that he was thus placed in the stocks. So
natural and perfect is this head of an old man, and such an expression
of patient suffering is seen in every feature of the face, that many
persons will not believe that it is wholly the work of nature until
after having closely examined it. “Yank’s” and all of the other stations
along the Placerville road, were places of much importance during the
early days of Washoe, when all the machinery and supplies of every kind
came over the mountains on wagons.
When the teamsters stopped at night or noon, the road in front of the
stations at which they halted would be blockaded for a great distance,
and it looked almost as though all the teams in California were crossing
the Sierras in one grand caravan. Now, since the completion of the
Central Pacific, and Virginia and Truckee Railroads, the travellers on
the old mountain-roads are few, and nothing of the old life and bustle
is seen at the once famous stations. Even the old Lake House, at Tahoe,
though it was built of good pine-logs and was very warm and substantial,
has given way to more stylish structures. Times are changed and few but
pleasure-seekers are now seen on the old road where once the sounding
“blacksnake” awoke the echoes far and wide among the hills.
The tourist who wishes to see as much as possible of the mountains may
go to the Big Tree Grove, Calaveras county, California, from Lake Tahoe,
by taking what is called the Big Tree Road. On this road he will find
many beautiful valleys, and much romantic scenery at an elevation of
from seven to nine thousand feet above the level of the sea. At Lake
Tahoe there are large and well-kept hotels at several points, two or
three small steamboats and a great fleet of sail and row-boats, with
fishing-tackle of all kinds, as trout abound in the waters of the lake.
Tourists from the East who desire to visit the lake while on their way
to California can do so very conveniently by leaving the Central Pacific
Railroad at Reno and taking the cars of the Virginia and Truckee
Railroad to Carson City, a distance of thirty-one miles, thence by stage
to the lake, a distance of fourteen miles.
[Illustration: NICK-OF-THE-WOODS.]
[Illustration:
HANK MONK.
(_The Famous Stage-driver of the Sierras._)
]
On this stage-line (Benton’s) from Carson to Lake Tahoe will be found
Hank Monk, one of the best known and most famous stage-drivers of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains. He it was who gave Horace Greeley his memorable
ride across the Sierras on the occasion of his visit to California. Mr.
Greeley was anxious to reach Placerville as early in the evening as
possible, as he was expected to make a speech to the people of the town,
and once or twice expressed a fear that he should be behind time. Monk
said nothing, as he was then on a long up-grade. At length the top of
the mountain was reached, and Monk started on the down-grade at a
fearful rate of speed. Mr. Greeley bounded about the coach like a bean
in a gourd, and soon became greatly alarmed. He thrust his head out at
the coach window and tried to remonstrate, but Monk only cried: “Keep
your seat, Horace, I’ll take you through on time!”
Mr. Greeley then remained quiet for a time, when he again became alarmed
as they whirled at lightning speed around some short curve in the road,
and out would come his head, and again Monk would shout: “Keep your
seat, Horace.”
It is safe to say that the philosopher never took a wilder ride, than
that in the Sierras with Hank Monk for his driver.
Monk, in common with all his tribe, hates the sight of one of those
ponderous specimens of architecture in the trunk-line known as the
“Saratoga bandbox.” On one occasion a lady who was stopping at the
Glenbrook House, Lake Tahoe, had a “Saratoga” of the three-decker style
at Carson City, which she wished brought up to the lake. The trunk was
about as long and wide as a first-class spring mattress and seven or
eight feet high. The lady had managed to get it as far as Carson by
rail, but the trouble was to get it up into the mountain. Monk had two
or three times promised to bring it up “next trip,” but always arrived
without it. At last he drove up in front of the hotel one evening, and,
as usual, the lady came out on the veranda to ask if he had brought her
trunk.
Like the immortal Washington, Monk cannot tell a lie, and so he said:
“No, marm, I haven’t brought it, but I think some of it will be up on
the next stage.”
“Some of it!” cried the lady.
“Yes; maybe half of it, or such a matter.”
“Half of it?” fairly shrieked the owner of the Saratoga.
“Yes, marm; half to-morrow and the rest of it next day or the day
after.”
“Why, how in the name of common sense can they bring half of it?”
“Well, when I left they were sawing it in two, and—”
“Sawing it in two! Sawing _my_ trunk in two?”
“That was what I said,” coolly answered Monk. “Two men had a big
cross-cut saw, and were working down through it—had got down about to
the middle, I think.”
“Sawing my trunk in two in the middle!” groaned the lady. “Sawing it in
two and all my best clothes in it! God help the man that saws _my_
trunk!—God help him I say!” and in a flood of tears and a towering
passion she rushed indoors, threatening the hotel-keeper, the
stage-line, the railroad company, the town of Carson, and the State of
Nevada with suits for damages. It was in vain that she was assured that
there was no truth in the story of the sawing—that she was told that
Monk was a great joker—she would not believe but that her trunk had been
cut in two until it arrived intact; even then she had first to examine
its contents most thoroughly, so strongly had the story of the sawing
impressed itself on her mind. Monk’s “Saratoga” joke is still remembered
and told at Lake Tahoe, but the ladies all say that they can’t see that
there is “one bit of fun in it.”
Just here I may say that when at Carson City, by taking the cars of the
Virginia and Truckee Railroad to Virginia City, the “big bonanza” and
all of the big mines, and mills on the Comstock lode may be seen and
explored. The distance is but twenty-one miles.
In passing down the Carson River by rail, the tourists will see a number
of water-mills that are at work on silver ores, and after leaving the
river, and beginning the ascent of the mountain to Virginia, he will see
many miles of the crookedest railroad in the world. Were these wonderful
silver-mines in Chili and Peru, all Americans who found themselves
anywhere within five hundred miles of them would visit and examine them,
even though obliged to bribe a dozen squads of guards in order to attain
their object; but being here on American soil, where they may be reached
in a ride of three hours by rail from the main line of travel, few take
the trouble to visit them. Ladies, as well as gentlemen, may visit and
explore the mines, even to the lowest of the lower levels.
Travellers may leave the Central Pacific Railroad at Reno, take the
Virginia and Truckee Railroad and run up to Virginia City, examine the
mines and mills, return to Carson City and take the stage-line to Lake
Tahoe, cross the lake on a steamer, then take another line of stages,
nine miles, to Truckee, on the line of the Central Pacific again, when
the journey to San Francisco may be resumed.
In passing by stage from Carson City to Lake Tahoe a fine view will be
obtained of the huge lumber-flume of the Carson and Lake Tahoe Lumber
Company, which is twenty-one miles in length and through which seven
hundred cords of wood, or half a million feet of lumber or mining
timbers can daily be delivered at Carson from the eastern summit of the
Sierras. The altitude of the eastern summit is 7,312 feet; of Lake
Tahoe, 6,220 feet; and of the western summit, 7,315 feet; consequently
the lake lies in a basin about 1000 feet in depth.
At the north end of the lake, near Tahoe City, stands the mountain
selected for the Lick Observatory. This astronomical observatory is to
be built with money donated for the purpose by James Lick, a San
Francisco millionaire, and on it is to be mounted the finest and most
powerful telescope that can be manufactured in the world. At Truckee, on
the Central Pacific Railroad, the altitude is 5,860 feet; at Summit
Valley, seventeen miles further west, it is 6,800; and ten miles beyond,
at Cisco, it has decreased to 5,950. Here is the great snow-belt on the
summit of the Sierras. It is here that snow falls to such a depth as to
almost cover up the houses, and here it is that the people travel on
Norwegian snow-shoes in winter, when they travel any other way than by
rail.
About Cisco the snow appears to fall to a greater depth than at any
other point on the mountains. It is a very difficult matter to keep the
track of the railroad open at this place in winter, and at times the
trains are almost buried in the snow. The snow-banks are frequently so
high on both sides of the track that even the smoke-stack of the engine
is hidden when a train passes along.