“Then let’s abandon the boat and hire a car for the return trip to the Tavern,”—a proposition to which all agreed. The car, a good one, was easily secured and we were soon away on what has been described as the most beautiful twenty-five mile drive in the world—a true claim so far as we know; the Columbia River Boulevard or Crater Lake road may rival it for scenic beauty, though these are perhaps too different for fair comparison.
The day was perfect, crystal clear except for a few white clouds drifting lazily across the sky or resting on the summits of the mountains beyond the lake; a day which our driver, an agreeable and intelligent young fellow, declared ideal for seeing Tahoe at its best. For a few miles out of Tallac we ran through a pine forest, catching fugitive glimpses of the blue water through the stately trunks. As we ascended the ridge overlooking Emerald Bay, exclamations of delight were frequent and enthusiastic as the magnificent panorama gradually unfolded to our view. The climax was reached when our driver paused at the summit of the ridge, where the whole of Tahoe spread out before us. Just beneath on one hand lay Emerald Bay; on the other gleamed Cascade Lake—a perfect gem in glorious setting of rock and tree. And the glory of color that greeted our eyes! Exaggerated in descriptions? No mortal language ever conveyed a tithe of its iridescent beauty and never will. One of the ladies exclaimed, “It is like a great black opal,” and knowing her passion for that gem, we recognized the sincerity of her tribute. And, indeed, the comparison was not inapt. There were the elusive, changeful greens and blues, the dark purples, and the strange, uncertain play of light and color that characterizes that mysterious gem. Near the shore line the greens predominated, reaching the deepest intensity in Emerald Bay, just below. Passing through many variations of color, the greens merged into the deep blues and farther out in the lake purple hues seemed to prevail. Along the opposite shore ran the rugged mountain range, the summits touched by cloud-masses which held forth the slightest threat of a summer shower—and, indeed, it came just before we reached the tavern. Overhead the sky was of the deepest azure and clear save for a few tiny white clouds mirrored in the gloriously tinted water. Altogether, the scene was a combination of transcendent color with a setting of rugged yet beautiful country that we have never seen equalled elsewhere and which we have no words to fittingly describe. Even the master artist fails here, since he can but express one mood of the lake—while it has a thousand every day. We have seen the Scotch, Italian and English lakes; we sailed the length of George and Champlain; we admired the mountain glories of Yellowstone Lake; we viewed Klamath and Crater Lakes from mountain heights, but none of them matched the wonderful color variations of Tahoe.
But we are on our way again, descending and climbing long grades which pass through pine forests and come out on headlands from which we gain new and entrancing views of lake and mountains. The road was completed only recently, but it is good in the main, though there are steep pitches and some rough and dusty stretches. At times it takes us out of sight of the lake, but we are compensated by wild and rugged scenery—towering crags and massive walls of gray stone—rising above us on every hand. The road must have presented considerable engineering difficulties; our driver points out a place where a mighty rock of a thousand tons or more was blasted to fragments to clear the way. Far above us on the mountain crests we see gleaming patches of snow which the late summer sun has not been able to dispel. We cross clear mountain streams and wind through groves of pine and spruce. Often as we climb or descend the long grades we come upon new vistas of the lake and mountains and occasionally we ask for a moment’s delay to admire some especially beautiful scene. Then we descend almost to the level of the water, which we see flashing through stately trunks or rippling upon clear, pebbly beaches. We pass various resorts, each surrounded by pines and commanding a beautiful view of the lake. As we approach the Tavern the summer shower that has been threatening begins and to the color glories of sky and lake are added the diamond-like brilliance of the big drops, for the sun is unobscured by the clouds. Beyond a stretch of smooth water, dimmed to dull silver by the blue-gray vapor hanging over it, a rainbow hovers in front of the dim outlines of the distant hills. It was a fitting climax to the most inspiring drive in the many thousands of miles covered by our wanderings.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon and the evening about the Tavern. Especially we admired the casino with its arcade fronting directly on the lake; here amusements of every description tempt the guest who finds time heavy on his hands, but we found more enjoyment in the beautiful scenes from the wide arches. Near by we found a photograph shop in charge of our friend, Valentine of Los Angeles, some of whose splendid pictures adorn this book. He had come to Tahoe before the roads were clear and told us of some desperate work in getting through, spending the night in his car while stuck in a snowdrift.
Circumstances made it impracticable that we remain longer at the Tavern and we left the next morning for Sacramento with the mental resolution that we would come again at our earliest opportunity. That opportunity came a little more than a year later. We again found ourselves in Sacramento on the beginning of the northern tour covered by this book. We had discarded our trouble-making hired car for our own machine, long, low, and heavy, so solidly built that not a single part gave way under the terribly severe conditions of the tour.
Out of Sacramento we followed the new state highway, then almost completed to Placerville. On the way to Folsom we saw much of gold mining under modern conditions. Monstrous floating steam dredges were eating their way through the fields and for miles had thrown up great ridges of stones and gravel from which the gold had been extracted by a process of washing. Something less than two million dollars annually is produced in Sacramento County, mainly by this process, and the cobblestones, after being crushed by powerful machinery, serve the very useful purpose of road-building. Beyond Folsom the highway winds through uninteresting hills covered with short brown grass and diversified with occasional oak trees. We kept a pretty steady upward trend as we sped toward the blue hill ranges, but there were no grades worth mentioning west of Placerville. Before we reached the town we entered the splendid pine forest which continues all the way to Tahoe.
Placerville has little to recall its old-time sobriquet of Hangtown, the name by which it figures in Bret Harte’s stories. Here, indeed, was the very storm center of the early gold furor—but five miles to the north is Coloma, where Marshall picked up the nugget that turned the eyes of the world to California in ’49. Over the very road which we were to pursue out of the town poured the living tide of gold seekers which spread out through all the surrounding country. To-day, however, Placerville depends little on mining; its narrow, crooked main street and a few ancient buildings are the only reminders of its old-time rough-and-tumble existence. It is a prosperous town of three thousand people and handsome homes, with well-kept lawns, are not uncommon. We also noted a splendid new courthouse of Spanish colonial design wrought in white marble, a fine example of the public spirit that prevails in even the more retired California communities. The site of the town is its greatest drawback. Wedged as it is in the bottom of a vast canyon, there is little possibility of regularity in streets and much work has been necessary to prepare sites for homes and public buildings. A certain picturesqueness and delightful informality compensates for all this and the visitor is sure to be pleased with the Placerville of to-day aside from its romantic history. Two fairly comfortable hotels invite the traveler to stop and make more intimate acquaintance with the town, which a recent writer declares is noted for its charming women—an attraction which it lacked in its romantic mining days.
Beyond Placerville the road climbs steadily, winding through the giant hills and finally crossing the American River, which we followed for many miles—now far above with the green stream gleaming through the pines and again coursing along its very banks. There are many deciduous trees among the evergreens on these hills and the autumn coloring lent a striking variation to the somber green of the pines. We had never before realized that there were so many species besides conifers on the California mountains. Maples and aspens were turning yellow and crimson and many species of vines and creepers lent brilliant color dashes to the scene. There was much indeed to compensate for the absence of the flowers which bloom in profusion earlier in the season. We passed several comfortable-looking inns and resorts whose names—Sportsman’s Hall, for instance—indicated retreats for hunters and fishermen.
Georgetown, some forty miles above Placerville, is the only town worthy of the name between the latter place and Tahoe. Beyond here we began the final ascent to the summit of the divide over a road that winds upwards in long loops with grades as high as twenty-five per cent. There were many fine vistas of hill and valley, rich in autumn colorings that brightened the green of the pines and blended into the pale lavender haze that shrouded the distant hills. From the summit, at an altitude of seventy-four hundred feet, we had a vast panorama of lake, forest, and mountain—but I might be accused of monotonous repetition were I to endeavor to describe even a few of the scenes that enchanted us. Every hilltop, every bend in the road, and every opening through the forests that lined our way presented views which, taken alone, might well delight the beholder for hours—only their frequent recurrence tended to make them almost commonplace to us.
