Deer-Hunting in the Southern Sierras 47 



San Gorgonio, San Bernardino, and others. At Bear 

 Valley there are long stretches of park-land and forest 

 five or six thousand feet above the sea, where the 

 country is more or less open and level, presenting an 

 inviting prospect to the deer hunter. 



No Eastern sportsman should go on a deer hunt on 

 the south side of a California range in summer without a 

 competent guide and a thorough understanding of the 

 country and the conditions. I have known men who had 

 hunted deer in the East for years to come to grief not 

 ten miles from Los Angeles. They became involved in 

 the hot, stifling chaparral, and were rescued on the slopes 

 of steep canons with difficulty. In all the towns which 

 stand on the foothills skilled deer hunters can be found, 

 and if sport is to be had they should be employed. 

 Again, the Sierra Madre are dangerous to inexperienced 

 men. They appear smiling and beautiful in the canons, 

 but they abound in steep precipices and are often cov. 

 ered with a mass of brush or chaparral that is most diffi- 

 cult to penetrate, wearing and deadly to the man who 

 is lost and confused. The entire range abounds in large 

 safe canons and trails, but the inexperienced sports- 

 man, the " tenderfoot " who attempts to cross the range 

 as he might the Adirondacks, or any Eastern range, by 

 going directly ahead, up and down, will soon come to 

 grief. The moral, then, is to go well equipped, with 

 some one familiar with the mountains, and if this is not 

 possible, keep to the big canon trails. 



