266 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Sept. 28, 1895. 



THE OUTING OF SIX.— V. 



Point Sublime-The Grand Canyon— Homeward. 



There are some scenes in the presence of which the 

 most sublime emotions are lost in the awful sense of the 

 infinite, where the grandest form of expression is abso- 

 lute silence. A Church may reproduce in some degree 

 Niagara; a Gifford catch some glowing tints from the sun- 

 set sky; a Kingsley or a Hearn find language to portray 

 the varying phases of a West Indian day, but brush and 

 pen are powerless as one stands on the edge of Point 

 Sublime. The very heart-beat is stilled and the overpow- 

 ering realization of the relationship between insignificant 

 creature and omnipotent Creator makes the boldest man 

 veil his face and exclaim with the psalmiBt of old, "What 

 is man, that Thou art mindful of him?" * 



As I sat in the shade at Kanab and read aloud Capt. 

 Dutton's inimitable chapter on "Point Sublime," it seemed 

 to us all a beautiful bit of fanciful wood painting — ex- 

 aggerated and overdrawn. And now, looking back at 

 that never-to-be-forgotten morning, I wonder at the bold- 

 ness of the man, for language is powerless to express the 

 emotions of the soul, and the half cannot be told. Those 

 who are privileged to look into the abyss and see the 

 massive forms and ever-changing tints that mortals can- 

 not imitate nor words describe can but faintly grasp and 

 vaguely conceive that which their sight presents to them, 

 while for those who depend upon the writer or the artist 

 for their knowledge even an imagination of the chasm 

 of the Kaibah is as impossible as a definite conception of 

 an orthodox paradise. 



******* 



The pointers had passed their second quadrant, and as 

 I looked at them through the trees I saw that the night 

 was more than half gone. There was just the suspicion 

 of a breeze in the tops of the balsams and spruces that 

 were noiselessly nid-nodding beneath the starlit sky. 

 From the native meadow down the creek came the tinkle 

 of the horse-bell. Nature was asleep. There was no 

 sound of bird or bug or rustling branch; even the mur- 

 mur of the brook was hushed. I arose, and the air, laden 

 with life-giving fragrance, made me feel like another 

 being. In a few minutes I had a fire blazing and the 

 coffee-pot on. Then I wrangled the saddle horses and, 

 looking at my watch, aroused the dreaming camp with 

 the call: 



"Boys, it's 3 o'clock. AH aboard for sunrise at Point 

 Sublime." 



As the flush of early dawn crept through the tree tops 

 we started out. There were eight of us, Mr. Stewart being 

 accompanied by his son, and we had three of the horses 

 saddled so that we were able to take turns in riding. Our 

 guide said that Milk Springs was but three miles from the 

 point, but when we returned he acknowledged his mis- 

 take, for it was a long eight. We went down the creek 

 for perhaps a quarter of a mile and then turned abruptly 

 toward the mighty river of the West; climbing a low ridge 

 whose farther side was the outer bank of the canon itself. 

 When we reached the level summit it was broad daylight. 

 Under our feet was a carpet of mosses and flowers. 

 Spruces and firs had disappeared and great pines blended 

 their branches in a living canopy above our heads. The 

 silence was profound. There was no song of bird; no 

 murmurs from the swaying boughs. Nature herself was 

 mute before her masterpiece. The forest ends. The moss 

 carpet overhangs the brink of a wall that drops a sheer 

 thousand feet. Is it the canon? No, but one of those vast 

 lateral amphitheaters into which Manhattan Island might 

 be dropped, and its grandest buildings, loftiest spires seem 

 but anthills at the bottom of the abyss. Far down it we 

 peer until the transept loses itself in the blackness of the 

 profound chasm. Even as we look a change, magical, 

 brilliant, instantaneous, comes across the picture. Far to 

 the east, over the plateau of the Paria, rises the sun. His 

 rays touch the tops of the farther cliffs. These spring into 

 life. Rainbow tints reflect from them up to the very 

 zenith, down into the dark nooks and alcoves, wrapped 

 but a moment before in the slumbers of night. And as 

 the sun climbs higher the daylight descends, until from a 

 mile below into the ethereal blue above there is one glorious 

 expanse of scintillating diamonds, rubies and sapphires 

 that, reflected and refracted by the violet veil, clear as 

 crystal yet tinting all, make the south one kaleidoscopic 

 mass of ever-changing arches, spires, crystals. Human 

 eye cannot grasp nor human mind conceive the splendor 

 there displayed, and yet this was not the Grand Canon, 

 simply a side chapel in the vast cathedral. 



Then our path withdraws, and once more we tread the 

 forest mazes. Suddenly from the right comes the crack 

 of a rifle, followed by a desultory fusillade. An unin- 

 jured buck gallops proudly out of sight. This episode 

 past we hasten on, too eager to note the dusky grouse that 

 fly from the boughs above or the flowers that fleck the 

 moss below. Ahead, jutting far to the southwest, is a 

 promontory. It is not timbered, as is the country 

 through which we have passed, but is covered with sage- 

 brush and lies as bare as the desert under the rays of the 

 rapidly rising sun. It is that which we have come hun- 

 dreds of miles to see— Point Sublime. No longer is the 

 moss beneath our feet. Behind is the wall of pine; be- 

 fore, clear in the dry, transparent atmosphere, are the 

 snow-crowned ranges of central Arizona. We brush our 

 way through clumps of rare and magnifiient cacti with 

 all their gorgeous splendor of purple, crimson, scarlet and 

 gold; through stalks of giant yuccas, whose creamy bells, 

 nodding a dozen feet above our heads, had long since 

 chimed the matins of approaching day. Rising above 

 these is a solitary cedar. To it we hasten. Suddenly— as 

 suddenly as the lightning's flash— the earth opens at our 

 very feet. The eye sees below, around, the grandest 

 panorama of earth — seen, but the mind cannot perceive, 

 for with that glance the heart fails, the very senses be- 

 come powerless; time, space, personality itself is lost in 

 the contemplation of Infinity. 



For hours we stayed there. The transcendent beauty 

 of the morning glided into the sleeping majesty of noon, the 

 crystal veil enhancing every change of form and color. The 

 longer we dwelt upon the picture the more supernatural, 

 the more indescribable did it become. If there should be 

 but one grand scene of all those I have visited that I 

 could again behold it would be the Grand Canon of the 

 Colorado as I saw it on that perfect June morning. From 



Greenland Point on the east, over Powell's Plateau to the 

 lofty peaks of Logan and Trumbull and the more distant 

 terraces of the Ninkaret on the west, every detail was 

 impressed as with a stylus on the tablets of memory, and 

 as I look back I see the glorious picture, old as man him- 

 self, and yet eternally new as plainly as I saw it then. 



The return to camp was made in the noontide heat, but 

 our path was shady and we had time to observe the more 

 quiet beauties of nature, that relieved the mental strain 

 to which we had been subjected. Up the trees scampered 

 the graceful white-tailed squirrel. About us were the 

 birds of a new clime. Up hill and down we went— from 

 semi-tropic heat up to the realm of sub-Alpine flowers. 

 On that homeward walk we obtained Corallorhiza multi- 

 flora, Clematis dotiglasii, Fritillaria pudica, and, mirabile 

 dictu, a single specimen of Calypso borealis, as shy and 

 beautiful as in the woods of Maine or of the Adiron- 

 dacks. 



By 5 o'clock we had finished dinner and turned our 

 faces homeward, stopping for the night with the "V. T." 

 outfit in De Motte Park. Early Tuesday morning we bade 

 adieu to Mr. Stewart, who returned to his sheep. We 

 headed for Kanab, via Jacob's Lake, at which point we 

 had the misfortune to lose our way and get on the Lee's 

 Ferry trail. So after traveling all night on the desert 

 without food or water, at 10 o'clock on Tuesday morning 

 we drove once more to Mr. Robinson's door and were re- 

 ceived, hungry,' tired and dirty as we were, witlrgenuine 

 Utah hospitality. On all our trip we saw neither snake, 

 scorpion nor tarantula. The following is a list of theavi- 

 f aunal species that we noted : 



Dendragapus obscums. Say.— Dusky grouse 



Columbigallina passerina, Linn.— Ground dove. 



Caihartes aura, Linn. — Turkey vulture. 



Buteo borealis calurus, Cass.— Western redtail. 



B. abbreviatus. Cab. — Zone-tailed hawk. 



Archibuteo ferrugineus, Licht. — Ferruginous rougbleg. 



Heli&'etus leucephalus, Linn. — Bald eagle. 



Megascops asis trichopsis, Wagl.— Mexican screech owl. 



Myriarchus cinerasceus, Lawr.— Ash-throated flycatcher. 



Cyanocitta stelleri macrolopha, Baird —Long-crested jay. 



Corvus corax sinuatus, Wasl. — Mexican raven. 



Icterus cucullatus nelsoni, Ridgw, — Arizona hooded oriole. 



Spinus psaltria arizonoe, Coues— Arizona goldfinch. 



Amphispiza bilineata, Cass— Black-throated sparrow. 



Pipilo fusctcs mesoleucus, Baird— CaHon towhee. 



Colaptes cnfer, Gmel.— Red-shafted flicker. 



Vireo vicinior, Coues. — Gray vireo. 



Helminthophila lucim, Coop.— Lucy's warbler. 



Dendroica grades, Coues.— Grace's warbler. 



Horporhynchus bendirei, C jues. — Bendire's thrasher. 



Sitta carolinensis aculeata, Cass. — Slender-billed nuthatch. 



8, pygmcaa, Vig.— Pygmy nuthatch. 



Parus inornaius griseus, Ridg.— Gray titmouse. 



P. gambeli, Ridgw.— Mountain chickadee. 



Psaltriparus plumbeus, Baird.— Lead-colored bushtit. 



Tiirdus aonalaschkre audubonim, Baird. — Audubon's hermit thrush 



We also saw a great number of humming birds, but 

 owing to lack of fine shot were unable to secure any. I 

 mention the dusky grouse not on account of his rarity, 

 but on account of the latitude. The bald eagle was seen 

 drinking at Jacob's Lake. 



On Thursday morning our little party disbanded. Four 

 of the party went to Panguitch Lake to enjoy another 

 month of hunting and fishing, while Andrew and I re- 

 turned home to tell our triumphs and study the material 

 we had collected. Ten days later I arrived in Provo, and 

 the vacation of 1895 was at an end. Shoshone. 



AN OUTING IN THE SIERRAS. — III. 



Lake Tahoe and Vicinity. 



At about 8 A. M. on Aug. 4 I was one of nineteen 

 uncomfortable persons who four on a seat crowded the 

 stage for Lake Tahoe, and started from Truckee for that 

 place. The drive was over a lumpy dusty road, the day 

 was very hot, and the sixteen miles, which should have 

 given us all great pleasure, gave U3 more suffering, all 

 because those concerned fail to furnish adequate trans- 

 portation from Truckee to the lake. 



Why a railroad is not substituted to make of the trip a 

 pleasure is hard to understand. The travel would support 

 it, and it would so increase travel that the lake's resources 

 would be greatly increased. At about 11 A. M. eighteen 

 hot, disgruntled, disgusted, dust-covered people gladly 

 got off the stage at Tahne City. The nineteenth was the 

 driver, he was used to such treatment. Even the bride 

 and groom of the victims, both affectionate on the start, 

 had long ago subsided into sulky gloom. Tahoe City is 

 located on the western shore of Lake Tahoe. As a city it 

 is not very important; there are possibly more, but all of 

 the houses that I remember numbered X think three: one 

 the unpretentious hotel at which the stage stopped, one a 

 restaurant on one of the wharves, and one a boat-house. 

 Not long ago I was told there had been a very good hotel, 

 but it had burned. 



We all hurried through the hotel, down the bank on to 

 the wharf and boarded, according to which of the two 

 agents had succeeded in catching us first, one of the two 

 small steamers which for $3 the round trip carry passen- 

 gers around the lake, stopping at all places. These are 

 the Meteor, "the fastest boat on the lake," carrying mail 

 and express matter, owned and run by the Bliss Lumber 

 Co. at Glenbrook, and the Tallac, owned and run by the 

 Tallac Hotel Co. The Tallac man caught me first, and on 

 her I started for the Tallac House, due south and about 

 twenty five miles away, and stopped en route at a num- 

 ber of very pleasant looking places, viz.: Sunnyside, Idle- 

 wild, McKinneys; then up Emerald Bay— a beautiful 

 long (three miles) narrow (one-half mile) canon, filled with 

 deep blue water, with a summer boarding house at its 

 head, as there were at the other places mentioned quite 

 a number of cottages; and finally at about 1 P. M. we ran 

 alongside of the wharf at Tallac, by far the most devel- 

 oped summer resort on the lake. The ride had been a 

 delightful one, and almost made up for the stage ride; 

 but the Meteor, starting at the same time, soon justified 

 her reputation and showed us her stern. Both boats were 

 well filled, for in addition to the people on an outing 

 there were parties from Truckee, Boca, etc, , spending and 

 enjoying their Sunday by a trip in their own land con- 

 veyances to the lake and on the boat around it, with din- 

 ner at a selected point. 



Lake Tahoe is beyond question a most beautiful and 

 pleasant summer resort, surrounded as it is by moun- 

 tains, more or less (generally less) forest-covered, 

 with snow-flecked faces. One of them, Mount Tal- 

 lac, is over 9,700tt. high, but it don't show its alti- 

 tude, for there are many other high ones, some nearer, 

 and the level of the lake is over 6,000ft. On the face of 

 Mt. Tallac there is a cross-shaped gulch; and in it, long 



after the snow has left the most of the mountain, there 

 remains, generally through the year, a beautiful crop of 

 snow. The principal beauty of the lake is due to its mag- 

 nitude (twenty -five miles long, over twelve miles wide) 

 and its sea-like blue water in the deep parts and green 

 along the encircling bench of shore water. This is char- 

 acteristic of all these mountain lakes, and in regard to 

 one of the little ones, Falling Leaf, a young lady de- 

 scribed it to me as "a sapphire set in emerald." But so 

 far as I have seen them there is not a lake in the Sierras 

 that compares in beauty with several in the Adirondacks. 

 Raquette, Forked, Blue Mountain, Piseco, are all superior, 

 for all have islands to break up the expanse of water. 

 Lake Tahoe has but one, I think, that's all I saw, and it 

 is at the extreme head of Emerald Bay. 



The Tallac House became my home for several days, or 

 rather one of its cottages, of which there are a number; 

 mine was on the inner end of the wharf, two stories, with 

 verandas on all sides. Its situation over the water made 

 it cool and pleasant on a hot day, but during the cool 

 nights it was not a choice place for a person subject to 

 rheumatism. A lamp would have increased the comfort 

 of my room, but the risk of fire accidents has made it a 

 rule of the house that the candle alone can be used. 



I enjoyed my visit — there was a full house, and of the 

 guests many were very pleasant companions. They 

 come from Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Jose and 

 other towns of Southern California. The hotel is pleas- 

 antly located, the table good and the proprietor courteous 

 and obliging. There are many pleasant drives, and the 

 hotel furnishes good teams and vehicles, and it has an 

 outfit of boats and boatmen. This part of the resources is 

 open to criticism. Five dollars per day is a high price to 

 pay for even what they advertise— good boat, boatman, 

 outfit and bait (minnows). My boat the first day was 

 very poorly outfitted and the boatman was incompetent. 

 This, however, didn't occur again. The outfit consists of 

 a pair of large spinners, with lines, a landing net and 

 minnows. The "party" is supposed to furnish anything 

 else he may want, and most of us did depend upon our 

 own rods, flies, spoons and spinners of other sizes and 

 patterns, and our own kit of tools to repair damages. 



In the deep water — where the larger fish generally are 

 found— the Tahoe gear does the best work, but in some of 

 the smaller lakes and on the shoals and after dusk other 

 gear is desirable. 



The Tahoe spinner and rig is different from anything I 

 have ever seen elsewhere. It is 4£in. long and 2in. broad 

 at wide end. To this is attached by swivels at wide end, 

 with a gimp snell about 18in. long, and a large single 

 long-shanked hook, generally Limerick or Sproat, on 

 which a 4in. minnow can be threaded. The spinner is of 

 copper, silvered on one side; the line, at least 100ft. long, 

 is composed of seven strands of fine copper wire, twisted. 



Using one of these, I was on one occasion in company 

 with a friend using an abalone spoon of smaller size. He 

 had many more strikes than I did and caught many more 

 fish, and after dusk small luminous spoons were useful. 

 I used for trolling the Orvis bass fly rod (split-bamboo), 

 made for me by him in 1881 — fished with by me in sea 

 and fresh water in Europe, West Indies, Alaska, St. Law- 

 rence River, Adirondacks and Rangeley, proving true on 

 everything from a minnow to a small shark, and always in 

 order. It carried its weight of line, spoon and some good 

 trout several times on Lake Tahoe, and is good as new. 

 I stayed five days at Tahoe, but did comparatively little 

 fishing. We were having a hot wave; thermometer up 

 to 90°, and fish were hard to find. Between 5 o'clock and 

 sunset we had fair luck, but Tahoe Lake is like Webber 

 Lake, encircled with a shoal, which goes off quite abruptly 

 into deep blue water, and the fish had gone off also. This 

 encircling shelf carries green water to its edge, but so 

 clear that at 12 or 15ft. the fish could be seen. My largest 

 on Tahoe was a rainbow weighing a little over 61bs. I 

 had spent a very hot Saturday on the veranda, simply 

 loafing— reading, smoking and helping the ladies trim 

 balsam (known as "fir" here) for pillows, and congratu- 

 lating myself upon my wisdom, as boat after boat came 

 back with the stereotyped report, "Not a strike." 



By invitation of Dr. Brigham I was to dine and spend 

 Sunday with him, so at 5 P. M., having discarded all idea 

 of fishing, I took boat for the Doctor's place, about two 

 miles to the northward. We rowed along the edge of the 

 green water. At about midway of the route there was, I 

 knew, a "pit hole" in the reef, a few hundred feet in 

 diameter. I had theorized that, as the hot weather had 

 driven all of the fish off the shoals into the deep water, 

 these holes, of which there are very few, might have har- 

 bored some of the refugees. So I told the boatman to fit 

 up his spinner, and as we approached the hole to slow 

 down, which he did; and with my line almost perpendic- 

 ular, my hook a hundred feet below, I very quickly had 

 hold of a good trout, and I saved him. And a lucky thing 

 it was that I did. for on arrival at the Doctor's I found 

 that after exhausing all resources not a trout had been 

 procurable, and the dinner would have been minus the 

 fish course. My six-pounder filled the deficiency, and an 

 hour after he was in the lake he was on the table; and 

 whether due to the speed of this transformation, superior 

 cooking or quality of fish, I can't Bay; but he was not only 

 simply delicious, but far superior to the big Eastern trout 

 (4llbs.) that I caught in Lake of the Woods. 



I am now about to express an opinion upon a much- 

 argued question, as to the relative qualities, game and edi- 

 ble, of Eastern and Western trout, not artificially bred. 



I place in both capacities as No. 1 the Eastern brook 

 trout— salvelinus, charr, or by any other name — when 

 naturally bred in streams or lakes in the Eastern States. 

 No. 2, the rainbow trout. No. 3, the McCloud River. No. 

 4, the Eastern brook trout caught in small California 

 lakes. 



Only one angler had at Lake Tahoe luck which might 

 be considered remarkable. This was Dr. Hall; his was 

 very astonishing. The second day of my visit I was one 

 of a party of six that made an excursion to Falling Leaf 

 Lake, a four-mile delightful drive through the woods. 

 Then we took possession of three of the four boats on the 

 lake and trolled along the shore till, in three hours, we 

 reached the inlet at the upper end. We did not get a 

 strike. We did not see another boat on the lake, which 

 is a small one. We landed and lunched under the trees 

 near the inlet. While lunching a gentleman came to us 

 to borrow a corkscrew and we loaned him one. He was 

 Dr. Hall; he said he had caught fifty-six trout that fore- 

 noon. 



Mr. Ayers went down to his boat to look at them. Sure 

 enough the tank was crowded, but every fish was dead 



