I4 g Life in the Open 



hundreds of acres of titanic rocks stand bare facing the 

 sun, with here and there trees fighting for life in the 

 crevices. Higher yet comes the summit, 5000 or 6000 

 or 7000 feet above the sea. From Mount Wilson, 

 which forms one side of the San Gabriel Cafion, one 

 may, on a clear day, look on all the lofty peaks 

 of Southern California. Yonder is Grizzly Peak, in 

 the San Bernardino range, 11,725 feet high; nearer, 

 Gleason's, 6493; Cucamonga, 8529; Mount Conejo, 

 3311; Argus, 6333 ; Brown's Peak, also in San Ber- 

 nardino County, 5392. White with snow, and with snow 

 clouds flying about its summit in winter, Mount San 

 Antonio rises 10,120 feet into the empyrean, while Pilot 

 Knob, far beyond, boasts of 5525 feet. Other sentinels 

 to the east are Mount San Bernardino, 10,100 feet high, 

 San Gabriel Peak, 6232, and there are countless others, 

 indeed Southern California is an alpine country by the 

 sea ; its valleys and level slopes are easier to enumerate 

 than its ranges. The Southern California mountains 

 have no Marathon to look down upon, but they have the 

 sea, and from anywhere the blue Pacific with its outline 

 of white surf gleams brightly in the sunlight. 



Climbing up the mountains by the trails the scene is 

 one of constant change. I have stood on the south 

 flank of the Sierra Madre, four thousand feet above the 

 Pacific, and looked down upon the San Gabriel Valley, 

 one of the garden spots of the world. I saw its groves 

 of orange, olive, and lemon, its palms and gardens 

 stretching away for miles at my feet, resting in the green 



