On the Trail with the Sierra Club. 59 



Neighboring points of interest invited excursions. Dr. 

 J. K. McLean, whose large knowledge of the California 

 mountains enables him to speak from a comparative point 

 of view, thus describes the immediate environment : " The 

 place is deeply cafioned. Tower Rock, a granite group, 

 rises just opposite the camp, two thousand feet perpen- 

 dicularly out of the river. As Sentinel Rocks in Yosemite 

 are backed by Sentinel Dome, so is Tower Rock by Kern 

 Dome, two thousand feet higher than itself. This on one 

 side : on the other stand ramparts less imposing, but still 

 lofty, in a deep cleft of which Coyote Creek and nearby 

 Laurel Creek vainly do their best to emulate Bridal Veil 

 and Illilouette. . . . The place is a genuine — though, 

 so far as the walls are concerned, reduced — Yosemite." 

 Upstream the grand cafion extended for sixteen miles. 

 A mile or two below the camp were the Kern Lakes; 

 the upper shows evidence of having been formed by a 

 comparatively recent landslide which obstructed the 

 course of the river. They were full of big lake trout and 

 enormous shoals of despised suckers. Scarcely an even- 

 ing passed when the gleam of a camp-fire and merry 

 voices on the shore did not tell of fisherman's luck brown- 

 ing in the pan. The lava bridge and the falls of Volcano 

 Creek, the fishing at Funston Meadows, the ten-thousand- 

 foot outlook from Kern Dome, the falls of Coyote Creek, 

 — these and many other opportunities for diversion were 

 among the assets of our camp in the pinery. To it we 

 returned after a day's pilgrimage to some sylvan or 

 riparian shrine, feeling that even weariness was a luxury. 

 Who shall describe the splendor of those crystalline 

 nights when, bedded on a fragrant carpet of pine-needles, 

 we watched the full moon climb slowly over the battle- 



