River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-09-18

ana Tile outer layers are StllI IN
, tact.
A man naturally has some CON-
, junction of conscience at mounting an
animal of little more than double his
own weight, but when he sees one
march off with a full rugged cook stove
and hundred weight of flour or a
bale of barbed wire on each side of
the packsaddle, doubt gives away to
admiration; he sits erect with every
muscle relaxed, every nerve at rest
while the patient creature carries him
indifferently up or down angles of So
= 400 - from the horizontal along
mountain sides extending well nigh
perpendicularly for hundreds of feet
above and below while only a fifteen
inch trail breaks the general slope.
Sometimes for rods this trail is solid
rock, again nothing but the loosest
sand. A mile or so above Thurman's
you leave the Mill Greek striking
across the dividing range toward the
Santa Ana canon. Rising from $500
TT. at Thurman's to 5000 on the sum-
NIT you drop again to near 1000 on the
Santa Ana river. On this part of the
trail is where you get your grandeur
and beauty of scenery as we'll as your
"wild and woolly" place. When we
were school boy the picture in
Monteith's geography of the pack
train in the Andes used to engross our
attention often to the neglect of tit tat
toe, hide the pencil or the old cat S
| game butnow we've been on the ground
| we've seen the llama walk the log,
we We heard Theory of the cougar wild
cat) from the hilltop, and seen the rat.
tier killed in the trail. A burIo train
moves a trifle over two miles an hour
| under favorable circumstances. If a
freight pack gets sidewlse or IA lady's
| hat hangs in the tree-top Thurman
dashes to the rescue while the rest of
the train moves serenely on. The ride
is not irksome; we mounted the bur-
ros at 2:30, but camped on The Santa
Ana fresh and vigorous at P. NJ. One
of the diversions is to see Thurman
correct refractory burro: his own
animal at full gallop (burros gallop of
course] the lengthy mountaineer
swings suddenly to the left side, picks
up stone with h is left hand, winds it
two or three times above his left ear
and lets go straight to the mark.
The proof of the burro is that this
vancouver however sudden swerves
only his body, his feet remaining true
to the trail. The trail along the Santa
Ana consists of five miles uninterest-
ing except for the fact that you must
pass Lewis's (Lewy's). Lewis is also
landmark but of very different ply
steal type from Thurman. Small pale
and crooked, and heir to many of the
ills of humanity, he sought the noun
tains some fourteen years ago as
sheep rancher, pasturing in Bear VAL
ley in the summer and where Red
lands now stands in winter. The adj
vent of orange culture destroyed win
ter pasture while the construction of
Bear Valley reservoir made necessary
a stopping place of the Santa Ana; here |
he took up his abode and lives in COM
parative physical comfort. Though |
cut off for a large part of the year |
from contract with the outside, busy |
world, culture, refinement and the |
spirit of progress have allowed no
moss to accumulate on the spinal col |
umn of this little Englishman. while |
his generosity and good fellowship |
have made 'Seven Oaks popular |
from the mountain to the coast, as a |
summer hotel and camping place.
Our pine tree is located mile above |
'Lewy's" on high, dry, sandy soil and |
has numerous companions of its own
species A stream of cold mountain |
water rushes past the cabin and falls |
into the Santa Ana to join the chorus |
of roaring, splashing, dashing and
rumbling which lulls us to sleep at
night and wakes us to activity in ear |
| ly morn. The speckled beauty and |
the mountain quail stimulate about |
equal pleasure-the 'pursuit" and the
''possession" (which latter we do ac-
tually accomplish. To the south Mt.
San Bernardino presents snow cover |
ed ridge five miles in length with a few
scraggly locks of grey beard trailing
down the canons and together with
the peaks ON the north gets up fire.
duent storms, the magnitude and
grandeur of which must be witnessed
to be appreciated, though we in the
center of valley but ten miles wide
get little more than an occasional
| sprinkle.
Fresh meats are easily kept on ac-
count of the dryness and purity of the
atmosphere; we get food and fruits
| from Redlands any day, our own COW
gives the '.lactal fluid, fresh and
sweet" the thermometer seldom goes
above 200 which is as cool in the
shade as IS in Wisconsin; so all things
considered why shouldn't we be lazy,
contented and fat, and ready to hur-
rah for our home meath the mountain
pines! y. u. billiard.
4