Beyond Ramona to Santa Ysabel and Warner's Hot Springs the characteristics of the country were quite the same. We pursued our way through pleasant valleys between great oak-studded hills clothed with lawnlike verdure to the very summit. Nowhere did we see larger or more symmetrical oaks and in places our road ran under their overarching branches. Every mile between Ramona and Warner's presented some phase of scenic beauty; the road winds through virgin forests, courses through wide, flower-spangled meadows and follows a clear stream for many miles. A lonely ranch-house occasionally reminded us that we were still in the confines of civilization. The only village, Santa Ysabel, is a little supply station for the Indian reservation of the same name. The natives here seemed prosperous and happy and we noticed a little vine-covered church surmounted by the Catholic emblem, which told of their religious preferences.
Warner's Hot Springs proved to be only a country store and post office with a dozen or two adobe cottages which serve as guest-rooms. Substantial meals were served in country style in a large central dining-hall and if accommodations were primitive, charges were correspondingly low. The springs have a good flow of mineral-impregnated water at a temperature of one hundred forty-eight degrees and strong claims are made for their medical properties. It is a very quiet, rural spot and from our cottage veranda we had a fine view of the sunset mountains beyond the wide plain of Mesa Grande. The air was vocal with the song of birds—the trees about our cabin were alive with hundreds of strawberry finches.
They told us that the country about the springs was once a famous hunting-ground and though there is still sport in season, it does not compare with that of a few years since. The beautiful California quail are still numerous, but they have become so shy that it is difficult to bag them. Water fowl are plentiful on the lakes of Warner's Ranch and deer and antelope may be found in the mountains. Fishing is good in the neighboring streams and these attractions bring many sportsmen to Warner's during the season.
ROAD TO WARNER'S HOT SPRINGS
From Photograph by Harold Taylor
For the average motorist, whose chief mission is to "see the country," the attractions of the resort will be quite exhausted in a night's sojourn; indeed, were there a first-class hotel within easy reach he might be satisfied with even a shorter pause. There is nothing nearer northward than Hemet, fifty miles distant, and Riverside is eighty-five miles away. There is a direct road leading through the rugged hills to these points, a third "San Diego route," little used and unknown to motorists generally. It goes by the way of Oak Grove and Aguanga—and the traveler is quite likely to pass these points in blissful ignorance of their existence if he does not keep a sharp lookout. The road is a mere trail winding through sandy river washes, fording streams and finally taking to rugged hills with many steep, rough grades. The signs of the Southern California Auto Club will see you safely through; though there are many places where one would be in a sad quandary were it not for their friendly counsel. The wild beauty of the country, the wide panoramas from the hill crests, the infinite variety and color of the flowers along the way, the giant oaks in the canyons, the stretches of the desert with cactus and scrub cedar, the variegated meadows, and other interesting natural phenomena, will atone for the rough roads and heavy grades, though it is a trip that we would hardly care to make a second time. Beyond Hemet a perfect boulevard to Riverside gave opportunity to make up for time lost in the hills.
Hemet and San Jacinto, two clean little towns about four miles apart, are situated in a lovely valley beneath the snow-crowned peak that gives its name to the latter village. Alfalfa meadows, grain fields and fruit orchards surround them and give an air of peace and prosperity to the pleasant vale. But when we visited the towns a few years later, most of the brick buildings had been leveled to the ground by an earthquake shock—an experience the same places had undergone about twenty years before. It was a sad scene of desolation and destruction, but as the shock occurred on a Sunday, when the brick buildings which suffered most were unoccupied, there was no loss of life. It was noted that concrete and frame structures were little injured and the towns have been rebuilt in such a manner as to be nearly proof, it is believed, against future quakes.
But we were not yet through with the Back Country. They told us at Warner's that there was no more beautiful road in the county than the one following the San Luis Rey River between Pala and Santa Ysabel. It was closed by the landslide at the time, but a few days later we again found ourselves in the quiet streets of Pala, intent on making the trip. We had come direct from Temecula over the "big grade," a little-used road across the great hill range between the Santa Margarita and San Luis Rey Valleys. In all our wanderings I doubt if we found a dozen miles of harder going than our climb over the Pala grade. A rough, narrow trail, badly washed by recent rains, twisted around boulders and among giant trees and pitched up and down frightful grades, often along precipitous slopes. There were several stony fords to be crossed and a wide stretch of heavy sand on the western side of the range. It is a route to be avoided by people inclined to nervous qualms or who dislike strenuous mountain work. No wonder the regular route to Pala runs by way of Fall Brook and Bonsal, though the distance is greater by thirty or forty miles.