NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE 



Edited by William E. Colby 



SOUTHERN SECTION NOTES 

 From Pine Trees to Palm Groves 



[An account of a four-day trip of the Sierra Club, Southern Section, through the 

 San Jacinto Mountains to the Colorado Desert.] 



There is no finer alpine region in Southern California than the San Ja- 

 cinto Mountains with their extensive meadows. Rising abruptly from 

 the western border of the Colorado Desert, at places below sea level, 

 Mount San Jacinto reaches an altitude of 10,805 feet. The new and at- 

 tractive Government "Recreation Map" of the Cleveland National For- 

 est mentions this peak as among the most rugged of our State. Last 

 spring, from the heights of Catalina Island, members of the Sierra Club 

 viewed this snow-crowned peak with his brothers, San Gorgonio and 

 San Bernardino, nearly one hundred and fifty miles away, and they were 

 eager for the ascent. 



A delighted party of forty left Los Angeles the latter part of August, 

 191 7, on a "Sierra Club Special Electric" for San Bernardino, sixty 

 miles distant. Here they transferred to two powerful auto stages which 

 carried them via Hemet to about a mile above the mountain resort at 

 Idyllwild. In Strawberry Valley, amidst a friendly group of pines and 

 incense cedars, the first night's camp was made. The party soon dis- 

 persed into prearranged commissary groups of five to seven persons 

 each and the evening meal was prepared. At the camp-fire the interest 

 centered about the legends of Tahquitz. This wicked Indian chief so 

 enraged his people that they put him to death by fire, but his evil spirit 

 escaped, and even until today it is said the Saboba Indians approach 

 these mountains only with fear and trembling because of the mysterious 

 rumblings around Tahquitz Peak. These rumblings were experienced 

 by our party, but the thunder clouds overhanging the desert were held 

 in suspicion. 



Next morning breakfast was prepared at daybreak, limches put in 

 knapsacks, and dunnage bags left for the packers. By noon the party 

 had ascended to Tahquitz Peak, 8826 feet in elevation. This granite 

 mountain of vertical cleavage and rugged piles of weather-worn boul- 

 ders affords a view of Hemet Lake, with the extensive areas of pros- 

 perous citrus and deciduous groves below. The trail now descends to 

 Tahquitz Valley, with its fine forest of yellow, Jeffrey and sugar pines, 

 also incense cedar and white fir. Wild fuschias (Zauschneria Calif or- 

 nica), scarlet penstemon, purple aster and goldenrod lent color to the 

 scene, while on the drier desert slope below were fields of that fascinat- 

 ing member of the mint family. Desert Ramona, growing in clumps of 



