For more than three-fourths of the distance the road runs in level, straight stretches, permitting all the speed that any car may be capable of—if the driver is willing to risk his neck and take chances of falling into the clutches of the frequent "speed cop" along the way. In the main it is not a "scenic route"—though one is never out of sight of the mountains. The country is mostly flat and uninteresting—for California—but if it grows too monotonous, Sherman and Grant National Parks and Yosemite are only a few miles off this highway. There are excellent hotels at Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Modesto, and Stockton, and very good ones in several smaller places. A modern hotel, the Durant, has also been built recently at Lebec, just beyond the summit near the northern extremity of the ridge. Lake Castaic, near by, is a good-sized body of water, affording opportunity for boating and fishing and there is much wooded country in the vicinity—attractions which will doubtless make the Durant a popular stopping-place for motorists.
The road is redeemed from monotony, however, by the section known as the "Ridge Route" between Saugus and Bakersfield—thirty miles of the most spectacular highway in California. This superlative feat of engineering supersedes the old-time Tejon Pass trail, long the "bete noir" of the Inland Route. It cost the state of California nearly a million dollars to fling this splendid road along the crest of the great hill range that must needs be crossed, to pave it with solid concrete, and to adequately guard its many abrupt turns. It rises from an elevation of about 1000 feet above Saugus to 5300 feet at the highest point, near the northern terminus of the grade, but so admirably have the engineers done their work that nowhere is the rise more than six per cent.
No description or picture can give any idea of the stupendous grandeur of the panorama that unrolls before one as he traverses this marvelous road. Vast stretches of gigantic hills interspersed with titanic canyons—mostly barren, with reds and browns predominating—outrun the limits of one's vision. Nearer Saugus greenery prevails in summer and at the northern end there is some fine forest. In winter snow not infrequently falls throughout the entire length of the ridge and affords the variation of a dazzling winter spectacle to anyone hardy enough to make the run, which is rather dangerous under such conditions.
Any extended tour of California must surely include the Ridge Route. If one is minus a car of his own he still can make the trip quickly and comfortably in one of the motor stages which ply daily between Los Angeles and Bakersfield. At the San Francisco end of the Inland Route there is some pretty hill scenery between Stockton and Oakland, which has been referred to elsewhere in this book. If one were making the trip between San Francisco and Los Angles only one way, there would need be no hesitancy in selecting the Coast road, on the score of greater scenic beauty and historic interest. If he should be seeking the easier run and quicker time he would choose the Inland Route. If, as in the case of the average tourist, he is out to see as much of California as possible and expects to make the round trip between north and south, he will naturally go by one route and return by the other.
XVI
OUR RUN TO YOSEMITE
No extended motor tour of California could lay claim to thoroughness if Yosemite Valley and Lake Tahoe were omitted from its itinerary, and I therefore avail myself of the opportunity to add chapters giving briefly the experience of our runs to these popular national playgrounds.
Yosemite was closed to automobiles prior to 1915 and it was only through the strenuous exertions of the Automobile Club of Southern California that the authorities finally consented to remove the ban. The decree was issued apparently with fear and hesitation and the motorist was hedged about with restrictions and hampered with endless red tape regulations.
The dire results so freely predicted did not materialize in any great degree. There were few serious accidents and the motors, as a rule, met little difficulty in negotiating the roads to and within the park. As a consequence the rules have been relaxed with each succeeding year and many of the most annoying regulations abandoned or reduced to mere formalities. We made our trip in September of the Panama-Pacific year, and during the previous months of the season nearly two thousand cars had preceded us into the park. We did not have to demonstrate that "either set of brakes would lock the wheels to a skid;" in fact, I am very dubious on this point. We did not have to get up at an unearthly hour to enter or leave the park and the time schedule imposed on us was so reasonable that none but the speed maniac would care to exceed it, even had no severe penalty been attached.
There are several routes by which one may enter and leave the park pending the happy days longed for by the Auto Club when a broad, smooth road—"no grades exceeding five per cent"—shall convey the joyful motorist to this Earthly Paradise of the Sierras. You can go from Fresno via Coarse Gold, from Merced via Coulterville, from Stockton via Chinese Camp, or from Madera via Raymond. You can now even reach the park from the east by the new Tioga road, branching off the Sierra Highway at Mono Lake, should you be seeking the wildest and most difficult route of all.
We decided, after an extended canvas of the pros and cons of the matter, to make our initial venture via the Madera route, returning by the way of Big Oak Flat and Stockton. We passed the night at Fresno and left Madera late in the afternoon of the following day with the intention of stopping for the night at Raymond, some twenty-five miles distant. However, we found the prospect for comfortable quarters in that forlorn-looking little hamlet so unpromising that we decided, in accordance with a genial garage man's advice, to go on to Miami Lodge.