Project Gutenberg's Out of Doors—California and Oregon, by J. A. Graves

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Title: Out of Doors—California and Oregon

Author: J. A. Graves

Release Date: March 8, 2004 [EBook #11517]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALIFORNIA AND OREGON ***

Produced by David A. Schwan

Out of Doors
California and Oregon

By J. A. Graves

Profusely Illustrated

1912

Contents

A Motor Trip in San Diego's Back Country
A Hunting Trip in the Long Ago
Professor Lo, Philosopher
A Great Day's Sport on Warner's Ranch
Boyhood Days in Early California
Last Quail Shoot of the Year 1911
An Auto Trip Through the Sierras

To the memory of my sons
Selwyn Emmett Graves and Jackson A. Graves, Jr.
Both of whom were nature lovers, this book is lovingly dedicated.

Illustrations

J. A. Graves Frontispiece
Mount Pitt
Cuyamaca Lake, Near Pine Hills
El Cajon Valley, San Diego County, from Schumann-Heink Point, Grossmont
In San Diego County
San Diego Mountain Scene
Fern Brake, Palomar Mountain
The Margarita Ranch House
San Diego and Coronado Islands from Grossmont
Grade on Palomar Mountain
Pelican Bay, Klamath Lake
On Klamath River
Klamath Lake and Link River
Spring Creek
Wood River, Oregon
The Killican
Williamson River
Scorpion Harbor, Santa Cruz Island
Smugglers' Cove, San Clemente Island
Arch Rock, Santa Cruz Island
Cueva Valdez, Santa Cruz Island
Lily Rock, Idyllwild
The Entrance and Mission Arches, Glenwood Mission Inn, Riverside
Magnolia Avenue and Government Indian School, Riverside
Hemet Valley from Foothills on the South
Ferris Valley Grain Field
Orange Groves Looking Southeast Across Hemet Valley, California
View from Serra Memorial Cross, Huntington Drive, Rubuidoux Mountain,
     Riverside
Some Barley
Victoria Avenue, Riverside
A Rocky Stream
Fern Brakes Four Feet in Height at Fine Hills
California White Oak
Another View of Spring Creek
Harvesting in San Joaquin Valley
Nevada Falls from Glacier
Nevada Falls, Close Range
Point Upper Yosemite
Yosemite Falls
Cedar Creek at Fine Hills
Scene Near Fine Hills Lodge

A Motor Trip in San Diego's Back Country.

Come, you men and women automobilists, get off the paved streets of Los Angeles and betake yourselves to the back country of San Diego county, where you can enjoy automobile life to the utmost during the summer. There drink in the pure air of the mountains, perfumed with the breath of pines and cedars, the wild lilacs, the sweet-pea vines, and a thousand aromatic shrubs and plants that render every hillside ever green from base to summit. Lay aside the follies of social conditions, and get back to nature, pure and unadorned, except with nature's charms and graces.

To get in touch with these conditions, take your machines as best you can over any of the miserable roads, or rather apologies for roads, until you get out into the highway recently constructed from Basset to Pomona. Run into Pomona to Gary avenue, turn to the right and follow it to the Chino ranch; follow the winding roads, circling to the Chino hills, to Rincon, then on, over fairly good roads, to Corona. Pass through that city, then down the beautiful Temescal Canyon to Elsinore. Move on through Murrietta to Temecula.

Three Routes.

Beyond Temecula three routes are open to you. By one of them you keep to the left, over winding roads full of interest and beauty, through a great oak grove at the eastern base of Mt. Palomar. Still proceeding through a forest of scattering oaks, you presently reach Warner's ranch through a gate. Be sure and close all gates opened by you. Only vandals leave gates open when they should be closed.

Warner's ranch is a vast meadow, mostly level, but sloping from northeast to southwest, with rolling hills and sunken valleys around its eastern edge. A chain of mountains, steep and timber laden, almost encircles the ranch. For a boundary mark on the northeastern side of the ranch, are steep, rocky and forbidding looking mountains. Beyond them, the desert. The ranch comprises some 57,000 acres, nearly all valley land. It is well watered, filled with lakes, springs, meadows and running streams, all draining to its lowest point, and forming the head waters of the San Luis Rey River.

You follow the road by which you enter the ranch, to the left, and in a few miles' travel you bring up at Warner's Hot Springs, a resort famed for many years for the curative properties of its waters. The springs are now in charge of Mr. and Mrs. Stanford, and are kept in an admirable manner, considering all of the difficulties they labor under. The run from Los Angeles to the springs is about 140 miles, and can be made easily in a day. Once there, the choice of many interesting trips is open to you.

Past Temecula.

After leaving Temecula, another road much frequented by the autoists is the right hand road by the Red Mountain grade to Fallbrook, either to Del Mar, by way of Oceanside, or into the Escondido Valley by way of Bonsal, Vista and San Marcos. The third route, the center one between those I have described, leads to Pala. With a party of five in a six-cylinder Franklin car, I went over the latter route on April 20th, 1911. Every inch of the road was full of interest. We passed through Pala, with its ancient mission of that name, and its horde of Indian inhabitants. The children of the Indian school were having a recess, and they carried on just about in the same manner that so many "pale-faced" children would. Leaving Pala, we followed the main road along the left bank of the San Luis Rey River—where the San Diego Highway Commission is now doing work, which will, when finished, bring one to Warner's ranch by an easy grade—until we had gotten a few miles into the Pauma rancho. We crossed the Pauma Creek, and some distance beyond it we left the river to our right, turned sharply to the left, and ran up to the base of Smith's, or Palomar Mountain. Then came the grade up the mountain.

If you are not stout-hearted, and haven't a powerful machine, avoid this beautiful drive. If you are not driving an air-cooled car, carry extra water with you. You will need it before you reach the top. The road is a narrow zigzag, making an ascent of 4000 feet in a distance of from ten to twelve miles of switch-backing around the face of a steep rock-ribbed mountain. To add to its difficulties, the turns are so short that a long car is compelled to back up to negotiate them. About an hour and a quarter is required to make the trip up the mountain. We did all of it on low gear. When the top is finally reached, the view of the surrounding country is simply beyond description.

Belated Spring.

The mountain oaks of great size and broad of bough, were not yet fully in leaf. Pines and cedars, and to my astonishment, many large sycamores,