The first mile or two from the Tavern is through avenues of second growth timber just tall enough to be delightful. In turn we passed many of the choice residences that are making Tahoe growingly popular as a summer home, and then crossed Ward Creek and Blackwood Creek. This latter is one of the principal trout spawning streams of Tahoe, and to prevent fishermen from catching the fish that seek the stream at the spawning season the Fish Commissioners have placed a buoy out in the Lake, some twenty-five hundred feet away, within which bound it is illegal to catch fish.
While many trees have been logged from this region there are still enough to make it forest-like, and as the road winds and turns it affords glimpses and full views, sometimes for only a moment or two, and again for a minute or more, of the placid-faced blue Lake on the left, or the snowy mountain summits straight ahead or on the right. What rich contrasts of color, what revelations of majesty and sublimity each new turn affords!
The first eight miles is fairly level road and close to the Lake, but eight miles out, just before reaching McKinney's, the new portion of the State Highway begins, and it has been engineered to give scenic and romantic effect all along the way. In road building no longer is it necessary to consider the cheapest and nearest way. "Give us the most scenic," cry the motorists, "we'll pay the bills and our machines will speedily eat up any extra distance we may be required to travel to obtain the best scenery of the country." From now on the whole trip is one of carefully engineered surprises and revelations. Colwell's Moana Villa, and Pomin's new and beautiful place are passed and then we ascend, and suddenly Meek's Bay is revealed to us, a glorious symphony in blues, deepening and richening into pure amethyst, with lines, patches and borders of emerald and lapis lazuli. Beyond rise hill-studded slopes leading the eye higher and higher until, anchored in a sky as blue as is the Lake below, are the snowy-white crowns of the Rubicon Peaks, with here and there a craggy mass protruding as though it were a Franciscan's scalp surrounded by pure white hair. Up and down we glide, the soft purring of the motor as we run on the level changing to the chug-chugging of the up-pulls, or the grip of the brake as we descend. Every few feet new vistas of beauty are projected before us. The moving pictures are all exquisite. Indeed, after many studies of this incomparable Lake Tahoe I verily believe there is no more beautiful spot on it than Meek's Bay seen from this road.
To get its full charm we stop the machine for a while. Looking back we discover that the curve where we rest is a marvelous outlook point. We have ascended to a good height and look down upon the Lake. There are light blue, emerald green, deep blue in patches and in long irregularly shaped points. Here are Como, Maggiore, Lugano and Windermere all in one, though as yet free from the houses and artificial gardens on the slopes. But Nature such as this needs none of man's adornment to make it perfect.
| Rubicon Point, Lake Tahoe
Click photo to see full-sized. |
Starting the engine again we circle around the point and come immediately into another charming circlet of views. Between Meek's Bay and Rubicon Point is another little recess in the lakeshore, Grecian Bay, a good second to the one I have just described. Here we particularly notice the effect of the many varieties of trees, their dark trunks, branches and foliage set out almost in silhouette against the pure color of the Lake below. These elevated stretches of road are a constant joy and delight. They afford us glad surprises every few moments in such views of the Lake as we could not otherwise obtain.
Crossing Lonely Gulch, watched over by the serene pure loveliness of the snowy peaks above, a good climb up a steep stretch of road brings us to the shoulder of Rubicon Point. Winding in and out, twining and twisting around and around, we reach Rubicon Park, from which place we get a perfect view of the whole Lake from one end to the other.
To-day there are a score or more of fishermen out in their little boats, and strange to say, all of them near enough to be seen, are fishing in a patch of deep blue. The water there must be deeper than elsewhere, for there is where they invariably get their best catches.
In marked contrast to the blue is a great finger of emerald thrust out from a nearby point, as if in warning not to dare pass its mysterious border.
Now we come to the wild and rugged scenery. We are hemmed in on the right by towering crags and walls of massive gray rock. Shattered and seamed, scarred and disintegrated, they look as though earthquake and lightning shock and the storms of a thousand years had battled with them. They give a new touch of grandeur and almost awesome sublimity to the scene.