SOUTHERN PACIFIC SOUTH BR N PACIFIC REPRESENTATIVES PASSENGER DEPARTMENT Chas. S. Fee, Passenger Traffic Manager San Francisco, Cal. JAS. HoRSBURGH, Jr., General Passenger Agent San Francisco. Cal. R. A. Donaldson, Assistant General Passenger Agent San Francisco, Cal. H. R. Judah, Assistant General Passenger Agent San Francisco, Cal. Paul Shoup. Assistant General Passenger Agent San Francisco, Cal. T. A. Graham, Assistant General Passenger Agent Los Angeles, Cal. Wm. McMurray, General Passenger Agent, Oregon Lines Portland, Ore. J. M. Scott, Assistant General Passenger Agent. Oregon Lines Portland, Ore. D. E. Burley, General Passenger Agent, Lines East of Sparks Salt Lake City, Utah D. S. Spencer Assistant Gen. Pass. Agent, Lines East of Sparks Salt Lake City, Utah Thos. J. Anderson, General Passenger Agent, G.H. & S. A. Ry. Houston, Texas Jos. Hellen, General Passenger Agent, T. & N. O. R. R. Houston, Texas F. E. Batturs, General Passenger Agent, M. L. & T. R. R New Orleans, La. M. O. BiCKNELL, General Passenger Agent, Sonora Ry Tucson, Arizona Geo. F. Jackson, Assistant General Passenger Agent, Sonora Ry Guaymas, Mexico DISTRICT, GENERAL AND TRAVELING AGENTS Atlanta, Ga.-J. F. Van Rensselaer. General Agent 124 Peachtree Street Baltimore, Md.— B. B. Barber, Agent Piper Building Boston, Mass.— E. E. Currier. New England Agent 170 Washington Street Butte, Mont.— F D. Wilson D. F. & P. A., O S. L. K. R. 105 North Main Street Chicago, III.— W. G. Neimyer, General Agent 120 Jackson Boulevard Cincinnati, Ohio— W. H. Connor. General Agent 53 East Fourth Street Denver, Colo.— W. K. McAllister. General Agent 313 Railway Exchange Building Des Moines Ia.— J. W. Turtle. Traveling Passenger Agent 313 West 5th Street Detroit, Mich — F. B. Choate, General Agent 11 Fort Street El Paso, Texas--A. W. Reeves, General Agent, G. H. & S. A. Ry Fresno. Cal.— C. M. Burkhalter, District Passenger & Freight Agent 1013 J. Street Kansas City, Mo.— H. G. Kaill, General Agent 901 Walnut Street Mexico City, Mex.— W. C McCormick, General Agent Calle Gante. No. 8 Monterey, Mex.— E. F. O'Brien, General Agent Old P. O. Building New York, N. Y.— L. H. Nutting, Gen. Eastern Passenger Agent 349 Broadway Oakland, Cal.— G. T. Forsvth, Dist. Pass. & Freight Agent 13th and Franklin Sts. Philadelphia, Pa.— R. J. Smith, Agent 632 Chestnut Street Pittsburg, Pa.— G. G. Herring General Agent 708-9 Park Building Reno, Nev.— E. W. Clapp, District Passenger and Freight Agent Sacramento, Cal.— John C, Stone, District Passenger and Freight Agent Salt Lake City, Utah— D. R. Grav, District Pass, and Freight Agent 201 Main Street San Diego, Cal.— F. M. Frye, Commercial Agent 901 Fifth Street San Francisco, Cal.— A. S^ Mann, District Pas.senger Agent 884 Market Street San JosK, Cal.— E. Shillingsburg, Dist. Pass, and Freight Agt 40 E. Santa Clara Street Seattle, Wash.— E. E. Ellis, General Agent 619 First Avenue St. Louis, Mo.— L. E. Townsley. General Agent 903 Olive Street St. Paul, Minn.— H. F. Carter, Traveling Passenger Agent 376 Robert Street Syracuse, N. Y.— P\ T. Brooks, New York State Agent 212 West Washington Street Tacoma, Wash.— Robt. Lee. Agent 1108 Pacific Avenue Tucson, Ariz.— E. G. Humphrey, District Passenger and 1-reight Agent Washington, D. C— A J. Posto'n Gen.Agt.Washinglon-Sunset Route,5ii PennsyKania Av. Hong Kong, China— T. D. McKay,General Passenger Agent, S. F, O. R. Rudolph Falck. General European Passenger Agent, Amerikahaus, 25, 27 Ferdinand Stras.se, Hamburg, Germany; 49 Leadenhall Street, London. E. C. England; 15 Pall Mall, London, W. C, England; 25 Water Street, Liverpool, England; iiS Wynhaven S. S., Rotterdam, Netherlands; 11 Rue Chapelle de Grace, Antwerp, Belgium; 39 Rue St. Augustin, Paris, France. Rings and Rem Canyons and the Giant Forest of California By A. J. WEllS m^ San Francisco 1907 I l^ ^^ u .S5W39 KINGS RIVER CANYON This great gorge is on the South Fork of the Kings River, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, about 100 miles southeast of Yosemite Valley. John Muir has called it "a second Yosemite," and Professor J. D. Whitney said of it that "it strongly resem- bles Yosemite in some of its grand features." 1 went to see it with some misgivings, unwilling to admit that the glorious Val- ley had a rival, but, climbing down the steep trail which leads to the foot of the canyon, its beauty and grandeur grew upon me, and when I had ridden to camp between its towering granite walls and beside its silvery river, I was forced to con- fess that Yosemite was not exceptional in its greatness. The Kings Canyon curves but little, so that the view is unobstructed, and you are reminded often of Inspiration Point. The great precipices of naked granite slope away at a high angle, and the tine wide meadows, the scattering groves of pine and cedar, the dashing and turbulent river, with dark depths and placid green pools and roaring white cascades, and the lofty and forested mountain slopes back of the canyon walls, make an impressive picture. Save in places, the walls are not so sheer and so con- tinuous as in Yosemite, and the magnificent waterfalls are lack- ing, but the Canyon itself is vaster, and if the streams and falls, the canyons and mountain peaks immediately adjacent be in- cluded, the region is as interesting and attractive as Yosemite. Dr. David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University, even says that Kings River Canyon "is bigger, wider, with higher walls which slope out of sight, and the mountains into which it rises are far wilder and more stupendous." And the late Dr. Joseph Le Conte said the Kings River Canyon "belongs to the same type as Yosemite, i. e., a valley with vertical walls and a flat floor, as contrasted with the usual V-shaped valleys of mountains generally. In Kings River the walls are equally high and equally vertical, and the floor similarly, though not equally flat." Elsewhere Dr. Le Conte says that "barring the wonderful waterfalls," the view from the Grand Lookout "will compare well with that of Yosemite from Inspiration Point or Eagle Point." You approach the canyon through a wilder and more beau- tiful region. The scenery is a constant delight, the silent forest full of interest, and every summit as you climb out of the canyons is crowned with surprises. You are exploring; it is a new country that lies before you ; jou are with the first adven- Glacier Monument. turous party in the primeval forest, and every mile has its charm, its revelations of tree and rock, of stream and canyon, and glimpses of far-off snowy summits, over seas of verdure. "Effort, and expectation, and desire — And something evermore about to be," keeps you alert, sustained, unwearied, until you stand at the Grand Outlook, and the great huge canyon lies at your feet. Climbing down the three-mile zigzag trail, during which you descend 3,300 feet, you have such glimpses of the meadows, the park-like trees, the shining river and the enclosing mighty walls that you forget how rugged the trail was in absorption of the glory of the vision that opens before you. Then the ride up the floor of the canyon — that splendid fur- row plowed by the glacier — through flowers and meadows, by lines of lateral moraines, among incense cedars and sugar pines, and beside smooth, hard granite walls lifted defiantly to the heavens 3,000 to 3,500 feet high, while the river, three times the volume of the Merced, shouts as if glad of its escape into sun- shine out of the dark canyons where it was born — what sur- prises the ride has, and what enjoyment! You must be a vet- eran of the mountains if you can make that journey for the fi..t time without a tumult of emotion — or a crick in your neck from looking up. It is part of the spurious culture of today to be, or affect to be, proof against surprise, and to stifle emotion as a mark of crudeness, but happy the man who keeps fresh the founts of feeling in the presence of great Nature. He will enjoy these vast solitudes, and not be ashamed if the very greatness and splendor of what he sees wrings a cry of admiring wonder from his lips. Dr. Le Conte, critical, scholarly, inured to scenes of grandeur in the mountains, says of his experiences in this re- gion : "The trail becomes steeper and rougher, cascades and falls more frequent and more beautiful, and the scenery grander and more impressive, until finally as we approached the summit I could not refrain from screaming with delight." Standing on the narrow shelf at the summit of Mt. Stan- ford (9,175 ft.), overlooking the canyon, and 14,000 feet above the sea. Dr. Jordan once said: "I have never seen a more magnificent mountain panorama. I have seen the mountains of this continent from Alaska to Mexico, and I have tramped many mountain miles in the Alps, but such a comprehensive view of mountain masses and peaks and amphitheaters and can- yons, of all the details of mountain sculpture on the tremendous scale that we are looking on now, I have never before seen." East Lake, near Mt. B reive East Jldctfr, Biibbs Creek This is the glory of the Kings River Canyon — its magnifi- cent setting. It lies embedded in the grandest mountains — the very culminating summits of the Sierra. Here are the Cali- fornian Alps. Here, at the rim of the giant cliffs which enclose the secluded valley, the mountains may be said to begin, and they sweep upward on both sides from 7,000 to 10,000 feet above the river. The dominating peaks of the Sierra are closely clustered here, the ridges are densely forested ; there are count- less clear trout streams flowing through green meadows ; glacial lakes, the "eyes of the landscape," are very numerous, while at the very crest of the mountain range we look over the wall into Nevada, 8,000 feet below us, but only 10 miles away. The opulent western slope takes from 60 to 70 miles to climb up 14,000 feet ; the eastern rock wall plunges abruptly down with a grade of 1,000 feet to the mile. In this region Mt. Wliitney is tlie highest peak, 14,502 feet; but Mt. Williamson is scarcely lower (14,500 feet); Mt. Tyndall's slender summit is 14,386 feet in the air; ]\It. Jordan is 14,275; the slender Milestone is about 14,000, and the great Kaweahs 13.752, while Junction Peak, Crag Ericsson, Crag- Reflection, Mt. Brewer, the University of California Peak and others are only a little short of 14,000 feet. To the north. along the main crest of the range, are Striped Mountain, 13,248 ; Split Mountain. 14,146; Middle Palisade, 14,070; Mt. Sill, 14,198; Haeckel, 13,500; Darwin, 13,854; Humphreys, 14,055 feet, and lesser peaks below the crest. Further west are Charvbdis, 13,158; Scylla, 13,018, and Mt. Goddard, 13,602 feet, and un- named groups of peaks which no foot has climbed. It is a wilderness of lofty summits — the Alps of a region that will one day be famous. From several of these great peaks Owens Valley, on the east of the range, can be seen, the farms appearing like squares Grand Sentinel, Looking up Kings River. On a checker board, and 10,000 feet below the town of Inde- pendence, Inyo County, appears in the midst of green alfalfa fields. The nearer foreground from almost any of the great summits of this region, is filled with savage chasms and a mighty array of snowy peaks and clear, emerald lakelets scat- tered all about, with here and there a glacier or a glacial meadow further down, and a foaming stream. The view from Alta Peak, a day's travel southward, I found full of interest, and to those who are equal to the harder climbing, the summits of Whitney or Tyndall or Mt. Stanford will show scenes of unparalleled grandeur. «?***.--^^^. . ^i^^^^^^^H w^^^ M *^^^'~ - .t' * '4, Grand Sentinel, Kings River. TJic Floor of tlic Canyon. This, \vc repeat, is the setting in which Kings River Canyon is forever fixed— the scenic gold which holds the gem of the Southern Sierra. The canyon is really a valley, and im- presses one as Yosemite does, at once with its beauty and its grandeur. The floor is nearly flat, sloping from the north enough to keep the river always on the lower side. There are some detached rocks, dropped by the river of ice long ago, but for the most part the seven-mile ride up the valley shows alter- nate meadows and forest spread out in park-like beauty. When John Muir first saw the region, it was a vast flower garden. It is still a Garden of the Gods. A CAMP IN Tliis camp may be your own, or it may be Tur r AN VON ^^^^ °"^ established at Copper Creek. Here THE C A INYO IN Kanawyers Camp provides good meals and beds, and the two or three cabins will give you the shelter of a roof, or, if you prefer, you may occupy a tent, or put your cot out under the stars. Over against your camp will be the Grand Sentinel, a ma- jestic granite rock splendidly colored, and 3,500 feet high, with the river singing at its base, and the view up or down the canyon is one to stir a poet or an artist. From Copper Creek as a base of supplies various excursions can be made, some on foot in a few hours, some on horseback requiring days. Thus you may explore the recesses of Paradise Canyon as far as Mist Falls, or visit Roaring River Pool for a delightful view and a good catch of trout. The stream in the one case tumbles over a series of inclines, and in the other excitedly plunges through an opening in the solid rock into a wide green pool. Roaring River comes into the canyon about half way from the lower end to the camp, and its course is marked on the maps, "Impassable Gorge." What Mr. Muir calls "booming cascades" must be in that gorge, a good sized river getting down over 3,000 feet without ever once being shaken "loose and free in the air to complete the glory of this grandest of Yosemites." PARADISE This is made by Kings River as it comes down from the north, beating its way for CAIN YO IN miles in a chain of cascades and falls, roar- ing, tossing, surging, filling the canyon with its tumult. The walls rise from 3,000 to 5,000 feet, and about 8 miles up stand back and make room for charming meadows and gravelly flats. It is a place of great solitude, but the meadow, one grand waterfall and several smaller ones, makes the solitude musical. BUBBS Leaving Paradise Canyon on the left, we may P___,- go up Bubbs Creek for a long excursion. It is a trail often rugged, and keeps close to a creek full of big fishing pools, falls and cascades, and the music of the tumbling white torrent that has worn its way into the heart of the granite rocks. The trail leads to Kearsarge Pass, where the mighty continental divide is thrust up to an elevation of 12.056 feet at its lowest point, a score of sharp peaks cutting the sky line far above the pass, while between rush the streams or gleam the icy lakes born of storms and snow^s and glaciers. Vidette Meadow is a beautiful camping place overlooked by 10 two splendid peaks, North and South Vidctte. A glorious place is Lake Bryanthus, where the mountain splendor seems to cul- minate. Here the view of Mt. Brewer is magnificent, while the fine outlines of East and West Videttes, the pinnacled and splintered peaks of Kearsarge, the conical and symmetrical form of University Peak, the huge bulk of Stanford, and the loftier summit of Mt. Keith, Charlotte Peak with Charlotte Lak« at its foot — all are embraced in the view. Kearsarge Pass is two miles beyond Lake Bryanthus, the highest of all the Sierra passes. It is the sharp edge of the mountain range — the rocky backbone of the Sierras, so narrow that your horse strides it standing on both sides of the range at once. It is worth the long climb to stand here on this divid- ing ridge and look down the steep eastern wall to where Owens Valley lies spread out like a map, while around you tower the great mountain masses with sharp peaks, the summit crests of the continent, full of an awful fascination. TEHIPITE VALLEY This will well repay a visit. It is on the Middle Fork of the Kings River, and the trip will require from three to five days. The valley is the Yosemite of the Middle Fork, and is about three miles long, with walls from 2,500 to 4,000 feet high. Several small cascades spring from a great height and sing and shine on the canyon walls, one seen from the front seeming a nearly continuous fall about 2,000 feet high. A grander fall is called Tehipite, and challenges instantaneous attention and admiration. University Peak, beyond Lake Bryanthus. Camping in Cedar Grove. As a thing imbued with life, the sparkling water seems to hesitate at the Hp of the fall 1,800 feet above you, and then, like a torrent of molten silver, plunges headlong down, flashing back the sun- light, shattered here and there into spray amid which rainbows dance, and at last, gathering its forces once more, springs to a final leap of 400 feet over a sheer precipice into a beautiful pool, fit bath for Diana and her nymphs. The Tehipite Dome, towering above the foaming river, its truncated cone, not unlike that of Liberty Cap in the Yosemite, sparkling in the sunshine against the clear turquoise of the sky, should not be overlooked and, with the Tehipite Pinnacles, is worth traveling far to see. The reward of such a trip is not, moreover, all at the journey's end, the way leads through the everchanging, the bewildering beauties of the High Sierras, by surging streams, through shady forest groves, by rocky defile and park-like spaces where a myriad blooms gild your own and your horse's feet with pollen dust and make every breath inhaled of the fragrant upland air, a delight. There are trout to catch on the way, and the choicest of places for the noonday halt or the night encampment. The mystery of Nature seems not to awe, but welcome, as you penetrate deeper into these solitudes and learn more of her ways and wonders. Tehipite Valley itself, sunny and smiling amid its romantic setting, retains all its wild simplicity and is very beautiful. 12 The Tehipite Dome. THE GIANT FOREST The Sequoia National Park is the most extensive of the Forest Parks of CaHfornia now under the protection of the United States Government. Jt consists of seven townships, bounded on the east by the High Sierra, on the north by Kings River, and on the south by Kern River, and it is guarded by a troop of cavalry. Elsewhere in the State the great trees exist in detached groups or small groves, but on this lower southern slope of the range, and below its highest peaks, they are growing in true forest form, being fairly continuous over an area of 8 or 10 miles long by half as wide. This is the real Giant Forest, the only one in the world that in the fullest sense deserves the name. Yet the sequoia does not here grow apart, constituting a forest of its own ; it is found among the sugar and yellow pines, the red and silver firs, and the incense cedars, and walk- ing through the silent aisles it is a joy to come upon a family of the Sequoias, the dark cinnamon brown or red of the fluted trunks in strong contrast with the gray of the pine trunks and the green of the foliage. From some high point on the trail you look over a sea of verdure, billowy, but silent, as the mountainous waves sink or rise with the undulations of the land, and in the vast expanse the eye quickly learns to locate the giants of the forest by their loftier stature, and the shape of the great rounded dome that swells above the green canopy, and to tell where the real forest of sequoias sweeps along ridges, rise out of the deep canyons, or camps on sunny plateaus. Mountaineers say there are more than 5,000 of these giants over 15 feet in diameter and from 200 to 300 feet high, and many thousand more of lesser girth. It is indeed a forest of giants, dispersed over many miles and sociably growing with trees of shorter pedigree and less dig- nity. "The king of all the conifers of the world," John Muir says, and he describes them as extending across the basins of On the Trail. General Sherman, Giant Forest. the Kaweah and Tiile Rivers in noble forests, broken only by deep canyons. "Advancing southward, the giants become more and more irrepressibly exuberant, heaving thtir massive crowns into the sky from every ridge and slope." It is a picture to be cherished by every lover of these great trees. If they are to survive on these sunny western mountains — if our descendants, 10.000 years hence, are to see them repeating their long history and displaying their majestic beauty on these lofty plateaus, and on the borders of these deep canyons, it will be because they are "irrepressibly exuberant" in this magnificent forest, and resow Tlic High Sierra from Mount Rixford. themselves in the moister shadows and in the sunny openings, the tender younghng springing up beside the venerable patriarch, and platoons of saplings crowding up the slopes which the elders have deserted. It adds to one's joy in this forest to see these young Sequoias. Professor Asa Gray looked at the giants in Calaveras Grove and said, "Thev will not hold their own" ; but Trout lurk in the pools and rapids of Kings River. the distinguished botanist never saw the Giant Forest, nor these "plantations of God" renewing their youth over miles of splen- did territory, and bidding fair for immortality here in "the most glorious and beautiful region of America," or he would not have sighed over the dearth of seedlings in the frequented and trampled grove. ,Jh ' f ;'^ %: - ,( i. , 1 ' . ^^^p rn^rn. ^ '^yC^''* ^..,- %: 1: M Wm^^A ■■ * ■ m r The older trees impress you with a sense of personahty. They are so great as at times to be oppressive, and you creep about among them as an insect. At other times they stir your reverence, and without affectation you are ready to stand bare headed before them and to abjure all shams and pretenses. They stir your imagination ; you picture them dispersed, before the Age of _ Ice, over several continents, and after that long winter, surviving here alone on this California mountain side, and you wonder why in the Creation's scheme all the world, except California, should be left without an idea of what a tree Road to Moro Rock, Giant Forest. ^TME KETTtC ^yr THE GIANT FOREST AND VICINITY Reproduced ar perhission from map by prof j.nije coNTE.copyRiGMT tsoo may be — how great, how beautiful and stately in form, how unexampled in duration of life, and you think of the vigorous tree by your side as alive when the ]\Iaster was born in Bethle- hem, as tossing its green branches in the summer air when Joseph was ruling Egypt, or exuberant with young life when Helen was carried away from Troy. The age of these trees is variously estimated at from 5,000 to 8,000 years. The average size of a full grown tree, favorably situated, is given by Mr. Muir as 275 feet high and 29 feet diameter near the ground. Specimens 25 feet in diameter, he says, are not rare, and a few are nearly 300 feet high. "The largest I have yet met in my wanderings is a majestic old monument in the Kings River forest. It is 35 feet 8 inches in diameter inside the bark, four feet from the ground." The shape of these trees is as striking 19 as their size. Look at them! What grace, what proportion, what poise! They taper slowly, and a limb rarely breaks out below 100 feet, and the great fluted pillar would adorn a temple of the gods. The instep of the tree is adjusted to its bulk, and is not excessive, and the tree stands squarely over its own cen- ter of gravity. The foliage is scanty. A tree that must lift its In the Giant Forest. Mist Falls. Roarinv River Falls. head 300 — in a few cases 325 and even 375 — feet in the air, and wrestle with the storms of 5,000 years, cannot carry full sail. The root system is not extensive, and does not penetrate deeply. It is not sufficient to account for the wonderful growth of the tree, which is believed to feed upon the air through the papery lamination of its bark. The bark is often thick, but excessively so only in the case of a few trees. I have met one familiar with the Giant Forest who thinks that a distinct variety of the Sequoia bears thick bark, and of many examined I have found none where the bark approximated two feet. A large propor- tion show bark but five or six inches thick. The specimens ex- hibited in curio stores are exceptional. The sequoia's cousin, or nearest relative, is the S. scmpervircns or redwood of the Coast. A tree of more distant kinship is the swamp cypress of the Southern Atlantic Coast, itself also a survival of the glacial age, and the only other surviving relative is the Glypfostrobus of China, a modified form of the cypress (taxodium) . It is not easy to account for the survival of the Big Trees on this western slope of the Sierras, but this is certain: they are connoisseurs of climate, and grow where it is neither cold nor hot, but in a mid-region, where sunshine is abundant, but tempered by elevation, and where the cold of winter is modified by proximity to the valley, and where the snow when it falls is both mantle and moisture. You can confidently make a sum- mer camp where the sequoia grows, for the climate is simply ideal, w:hile the forest is open and sunny, never damp or with a musty odor of decay. It is a country fashioned so magnifi- cently, painted so vividly, watered so abundantly, its scenery so commanding and beautiful, its primeval fastnesses so little dis- turbed, and its climate so nearly perfect, as to make it an ideal place for a vacation for those who enjoy nature in her own wild gardens. The whole region — the canyon and the forest — is destined to become as famous in its way as the better known Yosemite Valley, with a wider range of interesting points ac- cessible from a central camp. Sunrise un Brxanthus Lake. THE CAMP IN Near the lower end of the Sequoia National Park, at Round Meadow, is Camp Sierra. THE FOREST j^ j^ ^^^^jj established and reached directly by stage from Lemon Cove. Located in the very midst of the great trees, Camp Sierra may be a point of departure for many delightful days. Here the party or the individual may be equally at home, and excursions may be made on foot or by the pack and saddle train with a guide. The trails are numerous and easily trodden, and will lend themselves to solitary enjoyment, if one wishes to be alone among these giants of other ages. The tallest tree in the forest is said to measure 340 feet. We measured one fallen tree, which spans beautiful Crescent ^leadow, and estimating the length of the top, which was gone, made it 310 feet. We measured the "Gen. Sherman" beside the trail and found it 80 ft. in girth eight feet above the ground. We called attention to the fact that "Roosevelt" was not a very large tree. A colored trooper, who stood by, instantly said : "But the tree is young. It will grow." The trails are marked by these great fluted columns, alive in every twig and fibre, and the oldest apparently good for some thousands of years yet to come. Moro Rock, Crescent Meadow, the Sherman Tree, the Mar- ble Fork of the Kaweah, and Sunset Rock are favorite short excursions. A picnic on Moro Rock, with its perpendicular face of 2000 feet, is an easy tramp by a charming trail. From Sunset Rock may be seen the Marble Canyon, the San Joaquin Valley and the Coast Range faintly outlined. In the Marble Fork you will find yourself looking straight down the vertical face of rocks into emerald pools you can not reach with your longest lines. A longer excursion will take you to Alta Meadows, and the feeblest can climb Alta Peak, 11,522 feet. From its summit we enjoyed a splendid panorama of peaks and canyons. Few of the higher peaks offer a wider range of vision. The meadows, with grass and flowers, good water and a group of trees under which to camp, are immediately at the foot of the peak, and you pluck a bouquet of flowers as you go up in August, and on the summit take a hand at snowballing with the zest of other days. The streams here are the Marble and Middle Forks of the Kaweah River. Both are fine mountain streams, clear, flowing swiftly, with deep pools and small falls — ideal places for trout to lie. Both can be reached from camp on foot, with no diffi- culty to daunt a fly-fisher. Otlicr excursions are to Kern Canyon, the trail over Fare- well Gap in plain sight from Alta Meadows, and to Kings Can- yon and home by Grant National Park, if you like. It is an enchanting region, and from the camp as a base you may spend the summer without a dull day. 24 " ■i' NATIONAL ! 1 PARK I i/LAKE s'tquoiA HUCKlEBESBY _ VAL LEV ,■ MEADOW t^.„> -I, \ MEADOWS

aVa~ *- KINGS RIVER CANON SHOWING TRAIl/ PROM THE GIANT FOREST 61ANT FOREST REPaOQucED BY PERMISSiON FROM MAP BV PROFJ.M.LE CONTl, COPYRIGHT 1900 29 Daily Schedule between Visalia and Millwood Stations Outward Trip Miles Single Trip Rate Lv. Visalia Ar. Staffords Ar. Aukland Ar. Badger* Ar. Millwood o i8 25 35 55 6:00 a. m, 7:30 a. m. 10:00 a. m, 11:30 a. m. 5:00 p. m. Daily $1.00 2.50 3.50 5.00 Stations Inward Trip Miles Single Trip Rate Lv. Millwood Ar. Badger Ar. Aukland Ar. Staffords * 20 30 37 55 6:00 a. m. 8:00 a. m. 9:00 a. m. 1:00 p. m. 3:30 p. m. Daily |3-50 2.50 1.50 " 1 .00 Ar. Visalia *Stop for Lunch The rate from San Francisco to General Grant National Park and return is $19.40, and from San Francisco to Copper Creek and return is $26.00. The uniform rate for meals after leaving Visalia is fifty cents, save where a rate is secured by the week or month or for the trip. Camp rate, including meals, is $2.00 per day, but lower rates are made for guests remaining for any length of time. For parties desiring to camp out in the canyon, transporta- tion of persons and camping outfit will be provided from Mill- wood to Copper Creek and return for $7.00; a day and a half going, and a day and a half returning. Additional transportation will be provided at the rate of $2.50 a day, including meals and camp, to any part of the region. The hire of guide will be extra as noted. Special rates will be made for large parties. It should be noticed that the Grant Forest can be reached from the canyon, and that parties going first to the forest can take the trail also to the canyon ; that is to say, you can go in one way and return another. The Way to the Giant Forest GIANT FOREST Ts reached by Rroder and Hopping's stage line from Lemon Cove Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. A hotel at Lemon Cove provides for the first night and rooms will be reserved upon notice. The mountain road is one of tlie l)cst in the State, and, hugging 30 the north hillsides, has much coolness and shade under oaks and maples, the last twelve miles being in the pines. There is no trail riding or packing on the way, the stages going at once into Camp Sierra at Round Meadow over the Government road. Then you are shut in l)y such a forest as can be seen nowhere else in the world. Giant Forest Via Exeter and Lemon Cove Lv. Visalia 6:15 a.m. 10:40 a.m. 4:54 p.m. Ar. Exeter 6 :43 a. m. 10 :57 a. m. 5 :16 p. m. Lv. Exeter 6 :50 a. m. 1 1 :05 a. m. 5 :22 p. m. Ar. Lemon Cove 7 :15 a. m. 11 :33 a. m. 5 :47 p. m. The connection for Giant Forest this season is via the Visa- lia Electric Railroad to Lemon Cove from Exeter. The stage trip has been shortened by about twenty miles, so that now one travels only thirty-nine miles, over a good road, a portion of which was built by government, and is one of the finest mountain roads in the country. Regular stages leave Lemon Cove three times a week — Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 6:00 a. m., but await the 7:15 a. m. train when so notified. Special stages also will be run on other days if the number (five people) offers, and notice is duly given in advance. June, July, August and September is the season to visit the forest and mountains. The trip to Giant Forest is pleasantly diversified — canyon scenery, with striking glimpses now and then of the high peaks in the distance, Alta, Silliman and the Kaweahs. It takes about eleven hours to make the stage trip, and the cost each way from Lemon Cove to the forest is $6.50, or $12.00 round trip. At Sierra Camp, in the midst of the forest, one meets a most cordial hospitality ; cots in tents kept scrupulously clean by a tidy housekeeper, and good meals served in a pleasant f *'< "^ tMHSHJI^B 1 '*»?£ ' •*^%aM^^ ^ ^ Lake Charlotte. dining-room. Every evening a rousing camp-fire blazes and good cheer and fellowship prevail. Board at camp, $2.00 a day, $12.00 a week. Excellent pack animals and guides may be engaged for the High Sierras, Kings River and Kern Canyons at reasonable rates. The vacation season at Giant Forest is delightful. If you have anyone wishing to visit this great region, you rnay assure them they will find their anticipations more than realized. How to Get to Kern Canyon This wild region may be reached from Camp Sierra or from Lone Pine on the Nevada side of the range. Adventurous parties may make their way down from the Kings River region past Mount Stanford and among the giant peaks around the head waters of the Kern River, but a well-marked trail addi= much to the comfort in the High Sierra. The Hockett Trail from near Lone Pine is well known and will be generally used from Nevada, but from the California side the best route is from the Giant Forest over Farewell Gap via Mineral King. Arrangements can be made from Camp Sierra. Only Personal Belongings Needed Part of the comfort of such a trip as we have outlined is that everything is provided. You take but your personal belongings, and on the stage, on the trail, at the camps, every- where, you are amply and fully furnished. Food is abundant and well cooked, extra blankets are at hand, horses are gentle, and every want is anticipated. You need only take your satchel as for a railway journey. The Tehipite sheet of the United States Geological Survey's atlas will be found very valuable and costs but live cents. Pro- fessor J. N. Le Conte, of the University of California, has also mapped this region in great detail. The heart of the Sierra holds nothing more attractive than the great gorge of the Kings River, the Kern River, and the Grand Forest. For a midsummer outing it offers more beauty of land- scape, more variety of rock sculpture, more sublimity of canyon walls and mountain peak and cliff, more fascination of forest and meadow and glacial lake, and more enjoyment for the sportsman in trout pools and streams of almost virgin water, more beauty of the wild and aboriginal than any other section of the great range. The fine photographs used in illustration of this booklet were taken by Messrs. H. C. Tibbitts and Edward T. Parsons Questions will be answered and more specific information given by Agents of the Southern Pacific at Visalia and Sanger, or by the Information Bureau, 884 Market St., San Francisco. 32 SOUTHEIRN PaCIFIO Pu B LI C ATI O N S The following: books descriptive of the different sections of country named, have been prepared with great care from notes and data gathered by local agents with a special eye to fullness and accuracy. They are up-to-date hand-books about five by seven inches in size, profusely illustrated from the best photographs, and from a series invaluable to the tourist, the settler and the investor. They will be sent to any address postage paid, on receipt of four cents each. The Sacramento Valley of California, 96 pages, 5 x 7 in. The San Joaquin Valley of California, 96 pages, 5 x 7 in. The Coast Country of California, 96 pages, 5 x 7 in. California South of Tehachapi, 96 pages 5x7 in. King and Kern Canyons and Giant Big Trees of California, 20 pages, Forest, 32 pages, 5x7 in. 7 x 10 in. Lake Tahoe and the High Sierra, 48 Wayside Notes Along the Sunset pages, 5 X 7 in. Route, 96 pages, 5 x 7 in. The New Arizona, 96 pages, 5x7 in. Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa The New Nevada, 80 pages, 5 x 7 in. Grove, 48 pages, 5x7 in. The following publications, most of which are illustrated, will be sent free of charge, but one cent for each in stamps should be enclosed for postage. Big Tree Folder Lake Tahoe Resorts, folder California Climatic Map, folder Oregon, Washington, Idaho Eat California Fruit Shasta Re.sorts, folder Klamath Country Yosemite Valley, folder Sunset Magazine — A beautifully illustrated monthly magazine deal- ing with land and seas west of the Rockies, 192-224 pages. Best ol Western stories and descriptive matter. Including magnificent premium, Road of a Thousand Wonders, with 120 beautiful Pacific Coast views in four colors. The annual subscription is $1.50. 15 cents per copy. Any news-stand. Requests should be addressed to Chas. S. Fee, Passenger Traffic Manager South- ern Pacific, San Francisco, Cal. A-160— (5-29-07) — 25m LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS LowExcursibiindltiy TO CALIFORNIA MOUNTAI N RESORTS are made from the principal points on the Pacific Coast by the Southern Pacific. Each sum- mer, very low round-trip rates from all points in the East to and THROUGH California give inexpensive opportunity to visit the wonderful resorts of the Sierra Nevada. Ask or write any agent. Southern Pacific