Chaparral 127 
places, wound around the precipitous moun- 
tainside, appearing at times to be directly 
over the stream whose course was indicated 
far below by alders and sycamores now put- 
ting out their leaves. If a part of the trail 
was missing, as sometimes happened, my 
cow pony scrambled over the shaly bank 
above and slid into the path again as a matter 
of course. 
This upper region is a jungle of grease- 
wood, punctuated here and there by the 
paler dome-shaped masses of the large-berried 
manzanita. Between the base and summit of 
the mountains there is not so marked a dif- 
ference in the flora as in the East—in the 
Catskills and Adirondacks for instance; or 
perhaps it were more exact to say that the 
difference is not so perceptible at a given 
altitude. Four thousand feet involves far 
less change than on the Atlantic coast. 
The summit reached, there opened at my 
feet a panorama of innumerable ranges and 
cafions—the Santa Inez, Mono, and Blue 
Cafions and countless barrancas—the low 
spurs blending in the distance like strata and 
culminating in the San Rafael range, snow-cov- 
ered from end to end. Impressions afforded 
by a mountain chain, thus seen for the first 
