380 Adventures in Scenery 



channel. Thus the river for several miles flows through hard 

 granite rocks instead of following the floor of the valley. This 

 is what geologists call a "superimposed" river one let down 

 from above upon the lower hard rocks. After flowing five or 

 six miles through the hard granite the river returns to the flat 

 valley floor about three miles northeast of Santa Margarita. 



Paso Robles Canyon between Upper 

 and Lower Salinas Valleys 



At Templeton the highway turns north, following the 

 course of Salinas River as it crosses a range of hills through Paso 

 Robles Canyon to the lower or main Salinas Valley. Paso 

 Robles (Pass of the Oaks) is on the old highway (Camino Real) 

 which was the route of the Church Fathers to the missions be- 

 tween Mexico and San Francisco. The canyon cut by the river 

 is through the sandstones and conglomerates of the Paso Robles 

 (Tertiary) formation. Hot sulphur springs and mud springs 

 having a temperature of 95 to 140 occur at Paso Robles, 

 probably related to faults in the rock formations. 



The head of the main Salinas Valley is near San Miguel. 

 The valley extends northwest for nearly 100 miles, to Monterey 

 Bay. It is an outstanding example of a "structural valley" 

 (one formed by faulting of the earth's crust and down- throw 

 of the valley floor) . The slope northeast from the vicinity of 

 San Miguel suggests that it is a tilted block with a fault along 

 its northeast side. That a large fault occurs along the west side 

 of Salinas Valley is indicated by a line of springs, many of them 

 hot. 



San Miguel, 268 miles (El. 622 feet); Soledad, 331 miles 

 (El. 180 feet); Salinas, 357 miles (El. 41 feet); Watsonville, 

 375 miles (El. 21 feet) ; Coyote, 412 miles (El. 248 feet) ; San 

 Jose, 424 miles (El. 85 feet). 



The Santa Lucia Range bounds Salinas Valley on the south- 

 west. The range culminates in Santa Lucia Peak and Vaquero 

 Peak, west of San Lucas. On the northeast side of the valley 



