Climate of Souhtern California 363 



a fair sample of the " California big story," and consid- 

 ered a figment of the imagination pure and simple. 



The Pasadena Board of Trade several years later 

 took the matter up and decided to show the world that 

 it was not only a very simple thing to accomplish, but 

 the tourist, sportsman or invalid could find in one day 

 any altitude and climate from sea. level to six thousand 

 or even ten thousand feet ; semitropic summer, and all 

 the grades of climate and climatic variants up to snow- 

 banks, and winter, drear and desolate. 



The extreme altitude mentioned was on San Antonio 

 and San Jacinto Mountains, snow-covered in winter, and 

 reached from Los Angeles or Pasadena in a few hours; 

 but the Board of Trade devoted itself to Pasadena. 

 They appointed a committee of well-known citizens, 

 and, with a photographer to illustrate their experiences, 

 started one day in February, or mid-winter, to prove 

 the story. The town or city of Pasadena lies at the 

 base of the Sierra Madre, which here rises abruptly to- 

 an altitude of six thousand feet, and at this time the 

 peaks were white with snow down to the four thousand- 

 foot level. 



Extending up this mountain range in Rubio Cafton 

 was a cable road, the Mount Lowe Railroad, that in a 

 few moments carried the passengers from the base to 

 the thirty-five-hundred-foot point, and while the com- 

 mittee was not dependent upon this mode of trans- 

 portation, there being horse trails, they proposed to 

 utilise it, and laid out an itinerary which covered every 



