But if the climb is a strenuous and, to some people, a nerve-racking one, the view from the summit is well worth the trouble. To the east stretches the beautiful San Fernando Valley, lying between the Santa Monica and San Gabriel Ranges. It is a vast, level plain, rapidly being brought under cultivation; the head of the valley just beneath is studded with ranch houses and here and there in the great grainfields stand magnificent oaks, the monarchs of California trees. Summer clouds have gathered while we were crossing the hills and there is a wonderful play of light and color over the valley before us. Yonder is a bright belt of sunshine on the waving grain and just beyond a light shower is falling from the feathery, blue-gray clouds. Still farther, dimly defined, rise the rugged peaks of the Sierras, gleaming with an occasional fleck of snow. On our long glide down the winding grade the wild flowers tempt us to pause—dainty Mariposa lilies, blue larkspur, and others which we can not name, gleam by the roadside or lend to the thickets and grainfields a dash of color.
The new road, since completed, roughly follows the course of the old, but its wide, smooth curves and easy grades bear no resemblance to the sharp angles and desperate pitches of the ancient trail, now nearly vanished. The driver as well as the passengers may enjoy the wide views over the fertile San Fernando Valley and the endless mountain vistas that greet one at every turn. There is some really impressive scenery as the road drops down the canyon toward the ocean. The beach road has also been greatly improved and now gives little hint of the narrow dusty trail we followed along the sea when bound on our first Topango venture.
The little wayside village of Calabasas marked our turning-point southward into the valley. Here a rude country inn sheltered by a mighty oak offers refreshment to the dusty wayfarer, and several cars were standing in front of it. California, indeed, is becoming like England in the number and excellence of the country inns—thanks largely to the roving motor car, which brings patronage to these out-of-the-way places. Southward, we pursued our way through the vast improvement schemes of the San Fernando Land Co. The coming of the great Owens River Aqueduct—which ends near San Fernando, about ten miles from Calabasas, carrying unlimited water—is changing the great plain of San Fernando Valley from a waste of cactus and yucca into a veritable garden. Already much land has been cleared and planted in orchards or grain, and broad, level, macadam boulevards have been built by the enterprising improvement companies. And there are roads—bordered with pines and palms and endless rows of red and pink roses, in full bloom at this time—destined some day to become as glorious as the famous drives about Redlands and Riverside. Bungalows and more pretentious residences are springing up on all hands, many of them being already occupied. The clean, well-built towns of Lankershim and Van Nuys, situated in this lovely region and connected by the boulevard, make strong claims for their future greatness, and whoever studies the possibilities of this fertile vale will be slow to deny them. Even as I write I feel a sense of inadequacy in my descriptions, knowing that almost daily changes are wrought. But no change will ever lessen the beauty of the green valley, guarded on either side by serried ranks of mighty hills and dotted with villages and farmhouses surrounded by groves of peach, apricot, and olive trees. On this trip we returned to the city by Cahuenga Pass, a road which winds in easy grades through the range of hills between the valleys and Hollywood.
Another hill trip just off the San Fernando Valley is worth while, though the road at the time we traversed it was rough, stony, and very heavy in places. We left the San Fernando Boulevard at Roscoe Station on the Southern Pacific Railroad, about four miles beyond the village of Burbank, and passing around the hills through groves of lemon, peach, and apricots, came to the lonely little village of Sunland nestling beneath its giant oaks. Beyond this the narrow road clings to the edges of the barren and stony hills, with occasional cultivated spots on either hand, while here and there wild flowers lend color to an otherwise dreary monotone. The sweet-scented yucca, the pink cactus blooms, and many other varieties of delicate blossoms crowded up to the roadside at the time of our trip through the pleasant wilderness—a wilderness, despite the proximity of a great city.
A few miles brought us to the projected town of La Crescenta, which then had little to indicate its existence except numerous signs marking imaginary streets. Its main boulevard was a stony trail inches deep in sand and bordered by cactus and bayonet plants—but it may be different now, things change so rapidly in California. Beyond this we ran into some miles of highway in process of construction and had much more rough going, dodging through fields, fording streams and arroyos, and nearly losing our way in the falling twilight. Now a broad, smooth highway leads down Verdugo Canyon from La Canada to the pleasant little town of Glendale—a clean, quiet place with broad, palm-bordered streets—into which we came about dusk.
To-day the tourist may make the journey I have just described over excellent concrete roads, though he must make a short detour from the main route if he wishes to pass through Sunland. He may continue onward from Sunland following the foothills, crossing the wide wash of the Tujunga River and passing through orange and lemon groves, interspersed with fields of roses and other flowers grown by Los Angeles florists, until he again comes into the main highway at San Fernando town. Though the virgin wilderness that so charmed us when we first made the trip is no longer so marked, this little run is still one of the most delightful jaunts in Los Angeles County.
Los Feliz Avenue, by which we returned to the city, skirts Griffith Park, the greatest pleasure ground of Los Angeles. Here are more than thirty-five hundred acres of oak-covered hills, donated some years ago by a public-spirited citizen and still in the process of conversion into a great, unspoiled, natural playground for people of every class. A splendid road enters the park from Los Feliz Avenue and for several miles skirts the edge of the hills hundreds of feet above the river, affording a magnificent view of the valley, with its fruit groves and villages, and beyond this the serried peaks of the Verdugo Range; still farther rise the rugged ranks of the Sierras, cloud-swept or white with snow at times. Then the road plunges into a tangle of overarching trees and crosses and recrosses a bright, swift stream until it emerges into a byway leading out into San Fernando Boulevard.
This road has now been extended until it crosses Hollywood Mountain, coming into the city at the extreme end of Western Avenue. It is a beautifully engineered road, though of necessity there are some "hairpin" turns and moderately steep grades. Still, a lively car can make the ascent either way on "high" and there is everywhere plenty of room to pass. No description of the wonderful series of views that unfold as one reaches the vantage points afforded by the road can be adequate. These cover the San Fernando Valley and mountain ranges beyond, practically all of the city of Los Angeles and the plain stretching away to the ocean—but why attempt even to enumerate, since no motorist who visits Los Angeles will be likely to forget the Hollywood Mountain trip.
The crowning beauty of Griffith Park is its unmolested state of nature; barring the roads, it must have been much the same a half century ago. No formal flower beds or artificial ponds are to be seen, but there are wild flowers in profusion and clear rivers and creeks. There are many spreading oak trees, underneath which rustic tables have been placed, and near at hand a stone oven serves the needs of picnic parties, which throng to Griffith Park in great numbers. One day we met numerous auto-loads of people in quaint old-time costumes, which puzzled us somewhat until we learned that the park is a favorite resort for the motion-picture companies, who were that day rehearsing a colonial scene.
While Griffith Park is the largest and wildest of Los Angeles pleasure grounds, there are others which will appeal to the motorist. Elysian, lying between the city and Pasadena, is second largest and affords some splendid views of the city and surrounding country. A motor camp ground for tourists has recently been located in one of the groves of this splendid park. Lincoln—until recently Eastlake—Park, with its zoological garden, lies along El Monte Road as it enters the city, while Westlake is a little gem in the old-time swell residence section now rapidly giving way to hotels, apartments and business houses. A little farther westward is the old-time Sunset Park, unhappily rechristened "Lafayette" during the war, a pretty bit of gardening surrounded by wide boulevards. Sycamore Park, lying along Pasadena Avenue between Los Angeles and Pasadena, is another well-kept pleasure ground and Echo Park, with a charming lake surrounded by palms and trees, is but a block off Sunset Boulevard on Lake Shore Drive. Hollenbeck Park on Boyle Heights in the older residence section east of the river, is very beautiful but perhaps the least frequented of Los Angeles playgrounds. A small tree-bordered lake set in a depression on the hill is crossed by a high arched bridge from which one has charming vistas on either hand.