SAND DUNES ON THE NORTH COAST
From painting by N. Hagerup
We had a little official information concerning the road over which we must pass, for a bulletin of the California Highway Commission declared, “Eureka can be reached during the summer months only under the most strenuous conditions by means of the road from San Francisco over the summit of the Bell Springs Mountain, elevation 4100 feet above the sea level. After the first rains the road is impassable for motors and even horse-drawn vehicles, traffic on the route being limited to saddle and pack animals. At Dyerville an ascent of 3937 feet begins up and down grades as high as thirty per cent to the summit, a distance of forty-six miles. The descent, up and down grades exceeding twenty per cent, occupies a distance of twelve miles and ends at the foot of ‘Rattlesnake Grade,’ 2686 feet below. The high altitudes on the route afford magnificent views of the surrounding country in all directions, though the average tourist would no doubt gladly forego the scenic advantages of the Bell Springs Mountain to travel a less strenuous route. The terror of the Bell Springs Mountain, however, in the near future will exist only in memory; the pioneer road of Northern California will be superseded by the Coast Line of the new highway system.”
But all this cheerful prospect for the future could not shorten the Bell Springs road one foot or reduce its frightful grades a single inch so far as we were concerned. It lay before us with all its terror and mystery and it was an even gamble whether the heavy clouds would break away or the drizzle settle down into a steady rain. We tried to realize what a thirty per cent grade was really like; we had passed twenty and possibly twenty-five per cent slopes on our trip. “But a thirty per cent grade,” said the dismayed lady member of the expedition, “that’s one third of straight up. Will any car do that?” She was assured that most cars could accomplish this feat if working well and under favorable conditions, but in a rain—the possible consequences were not pleasant to contemplate.
We descended to breakfast in a mood of gloomy indecision. It seemed imperative for us to leave Eureka in any event. We had instructed our driver to be ready at eight o’clock and he was on hand with his usual promptness.
“Will she do a thirty per cent grade?” I asked jokingly, knowing his unwavering faith in the Pierce.
“She’ll do anything she can get traction on,” he said, “but in the mud—” So his thought was the same as our own, but what was the use pursuing an unpleasant subject?
“We’ve four wheel chains, in any event,” I said and the big car glided forth as calmly as if an unbroken boulevard stretched to the metropolis.
As I look back at it now, I must admit that we committed an act of egregious folly in setting out on this trip in face of what looked like an all-day rain. If it had been an all-day rain we might have been marooned many days in these mighty hills, if, indeed, we had not met with deadly disaster of some sort. Even as it was, we had occasion for real anxiety more than once, as will appear in due course of my story. We felt that if the outlook grew more threatening we could stop at Fortuna, another small wooden town twenty miles distant, where fair accommodations may be had.