Cluster of Tents, Glen Alpine Springs
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Sleeping out-of-doors is one of the features of the place, an invigorating, rejuvenating joy, which Mark Twain affirmed was able to destroy any amount of fatigue that a person's body could gather. Visitors are given their choice of a comfortable bed in the open, in a cottage, tent, or one of the main buildings. There are practically no rules at Glen Alpine save those that would operate in any respectable home. No liquors are sold, and visitors are frankly told that "If they must have liquid stimulants they must bring them along." In order that those who desire to sleep may not be disturbed by the thoughtlessness of others, music is prohibited after ten o'clock. One of the delights of the place is the nightly camp-fire. Here is a large open space, close to the spring, surrounded by commodious and comfortable canvas seats, that will easily hold eight or ten persons, the blazing fire is started every evening. Those who have musical instruments—guitars, banjos, mandolins, flutes, cornets, violins, and even the plebeian accordion or the modest Jew's-harp—are requested to bring them. Solos, choruses, hymns and college songs are indulged in to the heart's content. Now and again dances are given, and when any speaker arrives who is willing to entertain the guests, a talk, lecture or sermon is arranged for.

Three things are never found at Glen Alpine. These are poison-oak, rattlesnakes and poisonous insects. The rowdy, gambling and carousing element are equally absent, for should they ever appear, they speedily discover their lack of harmony and voluntarily retire.

While the Glen Alpine resort is not situated directly on one of the lakes, it owns over twenty boats on eight of the nearby lakes, and the use of these is freely accorded to its guests. That it is in close proximity to lakes and peaks is evidenced by the following table, which gives the distance in miles from the hotel:

Miles
2-½ Angora Lake ¼ Modjeska Falls
4 American Lake 3-½ Observation Point
6 Avalanche Lake 4-¼ Olney Lake
3-¼ Alta Morris Lake 4-¼ Pit Lake
7 Azure Lake 6 Pyramid Lake
5 Center Lake 4-¾ Rainbow Lake
5-½ Crystal Lake 2-¾ Susie Lake
5-¾ Crater Lake 3-½ Susie Lake Falls
6 Cup Lake 2-¾ Summit Lake
4-¾ Cathedral Lake 6 Snow Lake
5-½ Echo Lake 4½ Tamarack Lake
2 Fallen Leaf Lake 6 Tallac Lake
5-¼ Floating Island Lake 7 Tahoe Lake
4-¼ Forest Lake 6½ Velma Lakes
6 Fontinalis Lake 3-¼ Woods, Lake of the
1-¼ Glen Alpine Falls 3-½ Angora Peak
1-¼ Grass Lake 5-¼ Dicks Peak
4-¾ Grouse Lake 5-½ Jacks Peak
3-½ Glmore Lake 2-½ Keiths Dome
3-¼ Heather Lake 7 Pyramid Peak
3-¼ Half Moon Lake 6-½ Ralston Peak
5 Kalmia Lake 3-¾ Richardsons Peak
1 Lily Lake 5 Upper Truckee River
2-¼ Lucile Lake 4-¾ Mt. Tallac
3-¾ LeConte Lake 7 Mt. Agassiz
2-½ Margery Lake 3 Cracked Crag

As the proprietors of Glen Alpine ask: "Where else outside of Switzerland is there a like region of lakes (forty-odd) and world of Sierran grandeur, such air with the tonic of altitude, mineral-spring water, trout-fishing, and camaraderie of kindred spirits!"

Desolation Valley, Looking Toward Mosquito Pass
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While the foregoing list gives a comprehensive suggestion of the wide reach of Glen Alpine's territory there are several especial peaks and lakes that are peculiarly its own. These are Pyramid, Agassiz, Dicks, Jacks, Richardsons, Ralston, and the Angora Peaks, Mount Tallac, Mosquito Pass, and Lakes Olney, LeConte, Heather, Susie, Grass, Lucile, Margery, and Summit with Lake of the Woods and others in Desolation Valley, Gilmore, Half Moon, Alta, Morris, Lily, Tamarack, Rainbow, Grouse, and the Upper and Lower Echo. Desolation Valley and all its surroundings is also within close reach. This is some four miles westward of Glen Alpine Springs, and is reached by way of easy mountain trails under sweet-scented pines and gnarled old junipers; besides singing streams; across crystal lakes, through a cliff-guarded glade where snowbanks linger until midsummer, ever renewing the carpet of green, decking it with heather and myriad exquisite mountain blossoms. On, over a granite embankment, and lo! your feet are stayed and your heart is stilled as your eyes behold marvelous Desolation Valley. Greeting you on its southern boundary stands majestic Pyramid Peak, with its eternal snows. Lofty companions circling to your very feet make the walls forming the granite cradle of Olney, the Lake of Mazes. The waters are blue as the skies above them, and pure as the melting snows from Pyramid which form them. He who has not looked upon this, the most remarkable of all the wonder pictures in the Tahoe region, has missed that for which there is no substitute.

Grass Lake, near Glen Alpine Springs
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The whole Glen Alpine basin,—which practically extends from the Tallac range on the north, from Heather Lake Pass (the outlet from Desolation Valley) and Cracked Crag on the west and southwest, Ralston Peak and range to the south and the Angora Peaks on the east,—is one mass of glacial scoriations. Within a few stone-throws of the spring, on a little-used trail to Grass Lake, there are several beautiful and interesting markings. One of these is a finely defined curve or groove, extending for 100 feet or more, above which, about 1½ feet, is another groove, some two to four feet wide. These run rudely parallel for some distance, then unite and continue as one. Coming back to the trail—a hundred or so feet away,—on the left hand side returning to the spring, is a gigantic sloping granite block, perfectly polished with glacial action, and black as though its surface had been coated in the process. Near here the trail ducks or markers are placed in a deep grooving or trough three or four feet wide, and of equal depth, while to the right are two other similar troughs working their winding and tortuous way into the valley beneath.