LANDSCAPE OF BEAUTY AND MEANING 



35 



Vierras Knoll plateau. The close-standing type is best seen along the high- 

 way from Rat Hill south. The north-sloping forest area is most typical in 

 the bowl-hke slope surrounding Bluefish Cove, although there it is thin 

 and too full of dead and sickly trees to be at its best esthetically Also 

 here is a very heavy new crop of seedlings growing up that is likely not 

 only to smother the outlook but to obscure the rather fine effect of the 

 bowl-hke ground form, and this will certainly result in another crop of 

 trees too tall and too weak. On the northeast side of Whalers Knoll is a 

 variation of this type, of long standing, containing some sizable timber, 

 living and dead, and perhaps representing the least tampered-with piece 

 of pine woods in the Reserve. Here are to be found numerous squirrels and 

 birds busily seeking food and shelter. This area contains some fine pan- 

 oramic views, particularly interesting because they look out over and be- 

 tween the cypress-covered and pine-covered knolls along the north shore 

 Big Dome is a very striking picture when framed by these trees. 



With pine forests and cypress forests, with hi'lls and meadows and 

 chaparral, with a sea front of spectacular aspect, Point Lobos Reserve pre- 

 sents indeed a wide variety of types of landscape beautv. Unique in some 

 of its features, it remains typical of the finest reaches of the central Cali- 

 fornia coast as once it was. Infinitely diverse, rich in color, dramatic in 

 significance, Point Lobos is an abiding inspiration for lovers of the 

 American scene. 



Monterey cypress is, as a species, the most dramatic witness of past 

 changes on the western shoreline 



Wj^-^>=«^ 



■15' . 



