Lake Tahoe lies 6,225 feet above sea level, it is 23 miles long and 13 miles wide. Its beauty cannot well be exaggerated. It is as lovely as Italy’s Lake Como, and while the mountains rise round Como to a height of 7,000 feet, these great peaks of the Sierra Nevadas have an elevation of 11,120 feet.
It is quite impossible to do justice to the Tahoe region in short space. There are scores of lakes, linked like a chain, and lying all round Tahoe.
To the aviator this section must look like a glorious breastplate: Tahoe the great central stone with the myriads of smaller lakes round it and the hundreds of glistening, winding rivers making the platinum setting, the whole lying lightly upon the breast of mother earth.
There are numbers of hotels, boarding-houses, and camps in this lake region, but do not let this make you think that it is spoiled by crowding, there are not yet as many houses as there are lakes.
Sacramento, the capital of California, is situated on the east bank of the Sacramento River. The city is finely laid out, with wide, handsome streets. The most important building, which attracts the eye before the traveller reaches the city, is the State Capitol, with a beautiful dome, which recalls that of the National Capitol. The surrounding country is interesting. From Sacramento down to the mouth of the river the banks are like one great garden. Here we get our first view of the beautifully kept olive groves, the soft gray-green of the foliage reminding one of Italy.
From here many charming trips can be made, Sacramento being one of the railway centres for the interior of California. Electric lines also run from here in almost every direction. The trip from this city to San Francisco by boat is well worth while. There is a line of steamers which makes the round trip from San Francisco several times a week.
LODI AND THE CALAVERAS BIG TREES
About 30 miles south of Sacramento lies Lodi, one of the largest grape-growing centres of the state, and from here, by the Valley Spring branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad, may be reached the Calaveras Big Trees and the mining district made familiar to many through Mark Twain’s “Jumping Frog of Calaveras” and Bret Harte’s “Bellringer of Angels.” These writers both lived in the small town of Angels, Calaveras County.
The Calaveras Grove of Big Trees is the farthest north of any of the Big Tree groves, and was the first of these forests discovered. Here may be seen some of the finest specimens of this woodland monarch. There are about 100 trees ranging from 300 to 375 feet in height and from 70 to 90 feet in circumference. From here one may drive to the most important of all the groves in point of number, South, or Stanislaus, Grove, where the trees are not nearly as large, but where there are said to be more than 1,000 of them. In both of these groves, as in the well-known Mariposa Groves, one sees traces of the great damage done by fire. The trees are now carefully guarded, and it is to be hoped that fires from carelessness may never happen again. The average American citizen is becoming more and more awakened to the value of the great nature wonders and their preservation each year, and yet how recent is the tragedy of the Hetch Hetchy Valley.
At Murphys, in the Calaveras district, there is quite a remarkable cave, discovered by the miners in 1850, where there are some curious formations and stalactites.