The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-05
Where the Snow Queen Is En-
thrOned and Flora is
Unknown.
SUMMER DAYS AT TAHOE
Thomas Magee Recommends the
Mountains to CareWorn
Humanity.

Inc CALL OF ldSG OuuUdy COuJdilCu al
article upon the varieties of climate IN
California and of the difficulty of having
Eastern people believe that We have such
contrasts. The difficulty is nearly as great
with people resident here, who have not
travelled much through the State Two
great flower festivals have just been closed,
one al Los Angeles and the other at Santa
Barbara The same sort of festivals might
easily have been held in many of the towns
of the San Joaquin, Sacramento and So
mona valleys or at Santa Cruz, Tor this IS
early MAY, when the whole face of the val
leys is rich with wild flowers and their
homes with cultivated ones. Had it been
possible quickly to transport the visitors
at the recent flower festivals to the Sierra
Nevada, in the vicinity of Lake Tahoe,
they would have beheld the Winter KING
in his glory as they had a few days before
beheld Queen Flora in her lavish beauty
and colored variety and magnihcence.
/ spent last week at Lake Tahoe on Nor
wegian snowshoes Landing at Glenhook
from Carson, on the east side OF the lake,
where the snow first disappears, l crossed
to McKinneys at Sugar Pine Point on the
west side where there yet was four or i've
feet of snow. | made a trip of eleven
miles TO Il6 huDlCOl QUA . pings, olGu-
ated in a canyon in the very heart OF the
Sierra The view from the eastern summit
walls OF that canyon was one of the widest
and most wintry upon which the eye could
rest, especially as a storm was threatening
and the sky cOlors were somber and lower
ing. From ten to twenty feet OF snow
still lay on the SUBMITS which were IN
sight on the western side of the range, for
there precipitation is very much the most
10, ;eh nd
ice and "hoar frost like ashes" The two
extremes of color covered the whole ex-
pansive and magnifiCently wild landscape;
there was snow on the one hand and black
conifer@ on the other. The SUBMITS are
round-tOpped and easily climbed, and have
an elevation of $500 to II, 900 feet. These
are no mean elevations, and explain not
only the existence of snow-very deep
snow in the sunny month of May-but
why large amounts of it lie there all the
year.
l have for years made it practice to
visit the upper Sierra in winter on snow
shoes, and / hold and in this opinion there
will be no dissent from those who live in
the mountains, that there is no other sea-
son comparable to winter for wildness of
beauty of woods, hardy magniticence of
scenery, bracing climate and sky and cloud
contrasts and splendor. One winter week
in the Sierra on snowshoes, spending each
whole day in the open air, is worth at least
a month there in summer. But the
chief characteristic of winter is the in
tense solemnlty and silence OF the woods
when it is calm. The peace is intense and
profound-I might almost say unearthly-
but the latter in the most agreeable sense.
This peace is intensely acceptable to any
one whose life is spent in the hustle of city
life, but whose soul has not been wholly
sold to the nervous rush. fierce competi-
ton and unnatural hustle. Such peace
is found, in union with parklike beauty
of surroundings, in Wards Greek Canyon,
near Backwood, the latter well-known
mountain valley, bounded by walls 1900 to
1000 feet in height
We jOyOusly pushed up this excessively
beautiful mountain temple, through which
a fine stream OF water was singing and
sparkling over granite powders to
its home in the lake below. One
felt almost out of the world. 1t would,
feature of mountains, woods, snow, per-
feet silence, steel blue sky or falling
crystal icy water the scene was most in
debted for its majesty, perfectly restful at
Effectiveness and pure beauty.
We heard much of the wealth and
variety of flowers of the recent southern
flower shows, but had there been in those
waited, now growing in this State, they
altogether would not probably have been
as one to billion beside the innumerable
flowers of the snow. each of undeviatingly
Rectangular petals, but of innumerable and
exquisite varieties of form.
And the earth-grown flowers are of little
value, valuable for many things as they
are, especially to the senses of sight and
smell, compared to the myriads of frozen
flowers, flowing lightly, noiselessly and
freely from the sky, fleeing the mo dntain
landscape with frozen winter crystals of
the purest shape. Ere long, too, trans
formed to water, they will in the clearest
coolest and widest of streams and rivers
express themselves in the most thoroughly
aerated, and therefore whitest of cascades,
weaving the most beautiful and transitory
of water laces, uttering, meanwhile, the
most nerve-soothing of songs and lullabies,
which he who camps by them wishes he
might hear forever. Many of these falls,
as seen from below, shooting over Yosem-
itic walls, produce the impression on the
beholder that they are shot from the sky.
But there is far too much balm and equa-
bility in the southern counties; and there
fore | am but referring to universally
recognized truth in saying that the best
type of people cannot be produced where
skies are softest and climatic balm is con-
slant.
Even here in San Francisco and it's
vicinity, where we have periodical, bracing
winds and heavy fogs, the climate still
lacks sufficient frost in winter to make it a
typical one. l therefore hold it to be an
absolute duty of parents, where they can
afford it, to give their children and them
selves one or two months change during
the year in the Sierra Nevada The best
time, think, to go there is between Au-
gust and October. Every night of the
latter two months is likely to be keen,
clear, frosty one the stars burning with
intense radiance in the deep, steely sky.
In June and July the ground is damp,
sometimes, and high and cold winds and
rain are not unfrequent. The muscles and
nerves are braced and made most vigorous
in the high mountains, and the lassitude
and want of tone in the system which af-
feet so many jewellers in the impure air of
towns and cities both disappear there.
If sky-climbing, but easily accessible
range like the Sierra Nevada, existed in
Great Britain, thousands of men in early
and middle life would go snow-shoeing in
such mountains every winter. But here
such exercise and exploration are utterly
unknown. A few friends with my sons
and myself have for fifteen years had the
range to ourselves, as visitors on snow
shoes. No money would repay us for the