46 The Mountaineer 
THE SIERRA CLUB OUTING TO THE KINGS RIVER 
CANYON. 
By Marton RANDALL PARSONS. 
At half past two on the morning of July first our special 
train drew up at Lemon Cove, a fruit growing community on 
the eastern border of the San Joaquin Valley. Out of the 
Pullmans we tumbled, but half awake and only hastily shaken 
into the unfamiliar camp garb, some of us still fumbling with 
neckties and belt fastenings as we ran. We stumbled through 
the darkness to store our suiteases in the baggage room, found 
places in the waiting stages, and then we were off and the 
outing had fairly begun. 
The drive through the valley by moonlight was delightful. 
Dawn found us climbing among parched brown hills where 
oaks and sycamores were sparsely scattered and where the 
few streams ran sluggish and warm. Higher and higher we 
climbed, among hot, chaparral-clad hills till towards noon the 
pines began to appear. We stopped for lunch at Juanita 
Ranch, a well-kept farmstead lying in broad meadows where 
some superb oaks grew; and then it was forward again, still 
climbing. Now we were in the true pine belt of the Sierra. 
Giant yellow and sugar pines were mingled with silver firs 
and libocedrus, and underneath grew a thick carpet of bear 
clover whose pungent odor, mingled with the aromatic breath 
of the sun-heated pines, brought many a former forest day 
vividly to mind. Here a few belated flowers were blooming— 
pink gilias, godetia, prettily called “Farewell to Spring,” and 
long-stemmed, delicate Mariposa tulips growing in wonderful 
profusion in the grassy open spaces. 
Then as the afternoon waned we entered the sequoia forest. 
Walking ahead of the toiling stages and their accompanying 
cloud of dust, one could sense the wonderful silence and peace 
and serene calm of these ancient trees, oldest of living things 
on our globe, that were standing here in the full glory of their 
prime when Pan was still worshipped on earth. The after- 
noon winds that stir the grasses and flowers to sudden merry 
