202 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 24, 1904. 
To Broder's Cabin 
The Red Gods called in the summer solstice, and an 
impaired constitution- — the legacy of a two years' ramble 
.in tropical America — cried for relief to the mountains, 
the tamaracks, and the balsam firs. The cattleman, Smith, 
' companion of last year's outing to Klamath and Crater 
. lakes, delicately hinted that a similar excursion would 
nicely fill out his programme for the present year, and 
Police Judge Edgar had intimated that a month spent in 
aboriginal simplicity with two or three boon companions 
in the heart of the Sierras would be the most satisfactory 
substitute for musty court rooms and harassing criminal 
problems of anything within, the range of possibilities. 
In short, the pressure from different quarters became_ so 
strong that the writer succumbed, and after adjusting 
every business obstacle, nothing remained but to decide 
the route. 
To the north the big trout of Klamath offered a strong 
temptation ; but the lovely mountain meadows, the higher 
altitudes, and the incomparably grander scenery of the 
Kaweah and Kern River country appealed to our 
memories with irresistible power, and the morning of 
July 6 found us at the Santa Fe depot in Berkeley, on the 
way to Visalia. Arriving at our destination, we found 
Mr. Huntley, our host of two years ago, awaiting us 
with a carriage, and we were rapidly driven to his resi- 
dence, two'tniles out on the Mineral King road. As we 
entered the fan-palm shaded driveway that leads to the 
mansion, we saw Mrs. Huntley standing in the doorway, 
who welcomed us with a gracious hospitality that placed 
us at once as much at our ease as if we had just arrived 
home, and after a hasty toilet we were ushered into the 
dining room, where we did ample justice to a bountiful 
repast. 
The high summer temperature of this section had been 
duly considered when the mansion was built; great trees 
shaded its roof and broad verandahs encircled both lower 
and upper stories, our beds for the night being spread in 
the rear end of the latter to give us the full benefit of the 
little air that was stirring. 
It was a glorious, view that greeted our vision as we 
lay on our couches and looked toward the east. Sixty 
miles away, sharply defined against the clear, blue sky by 
the rising sun, the great range culminated in a series of, 
peaks that represent the highest points in our country 
outside of Alaska. Saw Tooth Peak, over 13,000 feet, was 
plainly in view, but so lofty were many of the adjacent 
summits that we could only identify it by its singular 
shape. 
Early in the day we drove to town for the necessary 
supplies for the trip, while the two lusty Huntley' boys, 
Wilfred and Chester, the former of. whom had decided to 
go with us, overhauled and repaired the kiacks. 
Between Visalia and Lemon Cove there is 18 miles of 
valley road, the last half being through the dreaded "hog- 
wallow land," destitute of shade and blistering in the 
sun, while the next twelve miles to Three Rivers over low 
foothills are but little better. Two years ago Dexter and 
the writer had plodded over this on foot leading a pack- 
horse, sweltering in the heat and choking with dust and 
thirst; it was not a pleasant memory, and we determined 
to avoid it if possible. Arrangements were therefore 
made by which we were to- be taken that night in a 
wagon to. Three Rivers, where the boys were to meet us . 
with the pack animals. This plan worked to perfection; 
we reached the citrus groves and little hamlet of Lemon 
Cove about 10 P ; M., but all its inhabitants seemed to be 
in bed; not a light was visible even in the big brick hotel 
where Dexter and I had vainly endeavored to woo the 
drowsy god with the assistance of all the cooling drinks 
the place afforded, and at 12 130 we unhitched in Britten's 
corral at Three Rivers and spread our blankets beneath 
an oak tree, where we slept soundly until broad daylight. 
. Soon after sunrise the boys — who had traveled nearly 
all night — came in with a horse and three burros ; two of 
the latter were heavily packed, and the others under sad- 
dle. It is thirty miles from Three Rivers to the Giant 
Forest, most of which is a stiff upward grade, but every 
mile of it took us into a cooler, more invigorating at- 
mosphere, with colder and purer streams, and the last 
ten were in the tall timber of the Sierras, which we were 
longing for as the hunted deer longs for the water brooks. 
We made a two days' trek of it, stopping the interven- 
ing night just within the park at a water trough where 
we had camped two years ago; the grade at this point 
ran for several miles along a steep side hill covered with 
chaparral ; this made good browse for the burros, and 
we bought hay and grain for the horse from a freighter 
encamped there. 
The next day we reached the Broder & Hoppin camp 
in the forest, and the ensuing three days were spent in 
this delightful retreat visiting the big trees, washing our 
clothes, and resting generally. The Park guards this 
season are a regiment of colored cavalry, the same who 
did such gallant service at San Juan Hill. Some of the 
officers were white, and some colored, and the command- 
ing officer, Captain Hamilton, was said to be a son-in-law 
of General Chaffee. 
On my previous visit to the Park I had been puzzled to 
account for the scarcity of deer there, in a region well 
adapted to their wants and rigidly protected. Later I 
heard it asserted by several individuals that while the 
soldiers allowed no civilians to shoot there, which was 
perfectly proper, they never neglected to kill them them- 
selves at every opportunity, something v. Inch I think the 
Government did not contemplate; one man stating that 
seventy-five dry hides were sent out from one camp. So 
much for hearsay, now for facts. When we were there 
two years ago, we did not see a deer in the Park or hear 
of one being seen. This year they can be seen almost 
every day within sight of the tents of the Broder camp, 
which speaks well for the fidelity of the colored troopers. 
The Government has completed a wagon road into the 
forest as far as Moro Rock that necessitated heavy blast- 
ing in many places, and short ladders have been placed 
upon the rock itself to facilitate the ascent. A substantial 
picket fence has been erected around the General Sher- 
man sequoia, and several new trails made. Parties were 
coming and going every day, and Broder had more than 
thirty pack mules out with tourists. 
We had intended to go from here to the King's River 
Canon, but the late rains, so essential to the growth of the 
summer grasses, having failed to materialize this year, 
feed was reported to be very scarce in that section, and 
on the 14th we started for Alta Meadows, nine miles dis- 
tant and 3,000 feet higher than the forest. We arrived 
there early in the day, and how glad I was to see them 
once again. There they lay before us in all their pris- 
tine loveliness, with their wonderful profusion and 
. . variety of flowers, the fairyland home of the butterfly, 
hummingbird, and water ousel. Here around the camp- 
fire of two years ago' had gathered that galaxy of bril- 
liant men — Merriam, Muir, Wittell, and Keith; here 
Dexter and the writer had sought to renew their youth 
by a snowball game just above on the summit of Alta 
Peak. 
There is a sharp descent on either side of the Alta 
range; our packs were still quite heavy, and the climb 
had been so severe on the burros that we decided to re- 
lieve them somewhat by taking the horse, a gentle, power- 
ful animal, although rather too large and clumsy for 
mountain trails. Beautiful as Alta was, it was lacking 
in some of the attractions we were seeking ; there was no 
fishing there, and,, being within the Park, no hunting was 
permitted. Starting early the next morning, we soon 
reached the Park line, where a squad of cavalry were 
encamped, who broke the seals to our guns, and the 
Judge started out ahead to look for deer. The trail now 
took down the Buck Canon, one of the steepest and most 
difficult in that section. The horse, unused to the pack, 
made poor headway, and finally slipping from the nar- 
row path fell, rolled over a couple of-iimes, and brought 
up against a large fallen tree about fifty feet below, with 
the pack under him and his feet helplessly in the air. 
Fortunately he escaped with a few slight bruises, and 
after removing the pack we soon had him again on the 
trail, but in the fracas the writer was thrown violently 
to the ground, and striking his knee against a rock, was 
so badly crippled that he was obliged to take to the sad- 
dle, and the accident ultimately changed the programme 
of the trip. 
We had now reached the haunts of the blue grouse and 
mountain. quail ; in the high pines and firs we found the 
former fairly abundant, and every meadow had its colony 
of quail, while along the trail a few deer tracks indicated 
that some of these had ventured beyond the confines of 
the- Park.- But a few deer tracks do not always assure 
venison, and after dropping down over 3,000 feet we made 
camp in a clump of sequoias at the edge of a little wet 
meadow. The Judge came in hungry and tired, having 
hunted faithfully all day without seeing a hoof. For 
several years past the most of the deer in this country 
have for some unknown reason forsaken the higher alti- 
tudes for an elevation of 4,000 or 5,000 feet, and are 
much more abundant in the vicinity of the Kaweah 
power house than they are in the more remote and higher 
sections, where there would seem to be more security. 
Our next camp was at Cliff Creek, a fine, clear, rapid 
stream, well stocked with trout and environed by magnifi- 
cent timber and bare, rocky cliffs many hundreds of feet 
high. Its only drawback was a dearth of feed, and for 
that reason we stayed but one night. 
The next day we climbed up through the forest that 
abounded with blue grouse to the top of Timber Gap, 
and looked down upon the cabins of Mineral King, 2,000 
feet below us. As we descended we passed the ruins of 
the quartz mill that first brought this district into promi- 
nence, and from which it received its name. The rise and 
fall of the Mineral King mining district, with all 
its skyrocket effects, has had many duplicates, both 
here and in Nevada, but there were some features con- 
nected with it that merit at least a passing notice. The 
district came into prominence in 1878, when a number 
_of well to do men, few if any, however, being experienced 
miners, had built a road in from the valley and erected 
a ten-stamp quartz mill. The rock assayed well, and 
seemed to be in unlimited quantities; there was plenty of 
water and timber, and although the elevation was 8,000 
feet, a town sprang up almost in a night in true mining 
camp syle, with one long street up the canon, three hotels, 
saloons, etc., and about 1,500 inhabitants. The mine itself 
was nearly a thousand feet higher and had a kind of a 
double wire trolley arrangement by which the ore was 
conveyed to the mill, the weight of the descending loaded 
buckets pulling up the empties. 
Everything went on swimmingly until after a couple of 
months' run a batch of the supposed bullion was taken 
down for assay, when it was found that all the precious 
metal it contained could be put into a small baking pow- 
der can, the antimony and arsenic in the ore having so 
sickened the quicksilver used in amalgamating that it 
destroyed its separating qualities, and nothing had been . 
saved. 
The result was that the people got out of there even 
faster than they, had gone in; winter was approaching, 
with its snowfall of from ten to twenty feet, and a kind 
of the-devil-take-the-hindmost stampede ensued, only five 
or six deciding to hibernate there until spring.. This 
prompt action doubtless saved many lives, for during the 
winter a snow-slide swept the mill, all of the hotels, and 
most of the other buildings, into the bottom of the canon, 
100 feet below, practically wiping out the whole town. 
All this took place twenty-five years ago, but as we . 
passed the ruins of the mill it was interesting to note the 
terrible havoc wrought by the avalanche. The 50 horse- 
power engine, protected by the overhanging wall of the 
ledge, out of which a portion of the mill site had been 
blasted, had escaped with the loss of most of its lighter 
attachments; but everything else had been swept away. 
The 4-inch wrought iron cam shaft was bent into an ox- 
bow ; the great mortar blocks five feet square, twelve 
feet long, and bolted down with 2-inch iron rods, had 
been torn out and carried many rods down the hill. Of 
the pulleys, nothing remained but the hubs, and the amal- 
gamating pans, six feet in diameter, of heavy boiler-plate, 
were twisted out of all recognition, and some of them 
had been carried to the creek bed, 400 yards away. 
We did not stay long at Mineral King, of which more 
anon, but pushed on over the divide to the headwaters of 
the Little Kern, and early in the afternoon of July 21 
we drew up our T animals in front of the Broder cabin. As 
we crossed Farewell Gap we found the same huge snow- 
drift, or one just like it, that we had traveled over two 
years ago, and below it the flower beds of lupins, Marir 
posa lilies, columbines, etc., that were there then, except 
that they were a little less gorgeous this time, either be- 
cause we were two weeks earlier or from the failure of 
the usual late spring rains. Up to this time the weather 
in the mountains had been delightful, not even a shower 
to discommode those traveling without tents; but clouds 
had began to gather away in the direction of. Mt. Whit- 
ney, and we could hear the low muttering of distant thun- 
der as we lifted the kiacks from the burros and placed 
them beneath the friendly roof. 
Two years' wear and tear with no repairs had made 
some changes for the worse in the interior of the Broder 
cabin; the bunk we had used by night and the table at 
which we eat had both been partially dismantled, and 
probably used- for fire-wood by some storm-bound tourists 
or hunters,, and some of the chinking blocks had gone the 
same way; but the roof was in a good state of preserva- 
tion, and the fireplace still serviceable. 
Our first care was to cut enough boughs for our 
couches from the silver firs that grew everywhere about 
us, and then the rods were jointed for a cast in the 
waters of the Little Kern, a stream which, small though 
it was at this point, always had an inexhaustible supply 
of _ trout. It was here that the piscatorial talents of 
Wilfred, the boy of the party, blazed forth with most 
effulgent ray; all the rest of us were easily distanced in 
the contest, and in a couple of hours we secured over 30 
fine trout, as many as we had any present use for. My 
unfortunate knee had not healed as rapidly as I had hoped 
for, and climbing among the rocks of the creek became 
so painful that I was obliged to give up fishing for the 
remainder of the trip ; the loss, however, was only that 
of my own sport, as one man could easily supply our 
camp from this prolific stream. 
The next day we had our first thunder storm. They 
began about two weeks earlier than usual, and occurred 
nearly every day during the remainder of our stay in the 
mountains. There was no day during which there was 
not more or less sunshine, but the storm sometimes lasted 
several hours, with a heavy precipitation that seriously 
impaired the fishing. 
Eighteen miles east of the Broder cabin by a direct 
but very steep trail, or thirty-five by a circuitous but 
much easier one, there is a body of water about a mile 
long and one-quarter as wide ; it is called Kern Lake, and 
was created about twenty-five years ago by a landslide 
that dammed the Kern River. It abounds in large trout 
that lurk among the sunburned logs and stumps that 
furnish them with admirable retreats and destroy the 
angler's tackle at the same time. There is good fishing 
from its banks, but several parties have packed in canvas 
boats, and there is an old dugout there that can, by indus- 
trious bailing, still be kept afloat. 
It had been our intention to visit this lake and cast for 
some of the lunkers known to be there, but the unex- 
pected early rains, coupled with my own crippled condi- 
tion, and the fact that we had no tent, was sure to make 
the trip over the now slippery trails one of discomfort 
and possible danger; there was plenty of trout where we 
were; not so large, perhaps, but equally palatable, and 
coming, as we did, solely for health and pleasure, we did 
not care to include in the trip any more disagreeable fea- 
tures than were necessary, and as none of the party would 
consent to go and leave me behind, it was decided to turn 
back and spend the balance of our vacation at Mineral 
King. Fate had again decreed that the Broder cabin 
should be the limit of our wanderings, and on the morn- 
ing of the 24th we brought in the burros and started up 
toward the Gap. The brush was still wet with the last 
shower, but the sun was shining gloriously, woodchucks 
were sunning themselves on the rocks that overhung 
their burrows, and mother quail sounded an alarm note 
to their half-grown broods as we climbed the steep ascent, 
but long before we reached the summit the clouds were 
again pouring down upon us a cold, pitiless deluge of 
rain and hail that chilled to the bone both man and 
beast. Farewell Gap, however, is a barrier that the earlier 
rains seldom cross, and once well down on the other side, 
we rode out of the storm into the sunshine again, and 
this, the most unpleasant experience of the whole trip, be- 
came only a memory. 
We made camp at Mineral King that night in a 
tamarack grove that sloped gently down to the bank of 
the stream. It was an ideal spot, and the surroundings 
were so agreeable that we determined to stop a week 
there. The trees were not so thick but that the 
grasses, flowers, and strawberry plants grew like a car- 
pet among them; hummingbirds and butterflies were flit- 
ting constantly from flower to flower; several of the lit- 
tle rodents locally known as tamarack squirrels were our 
nearest reliable neighbors. The stream was a favorite 
haunt of the water ousel, and although it was unmerci- 
fully whipped by the constant stream of tourists and 
summer residents, a few fine trout could always be taken 
by the skillful caster that were larger and of a more 
delicate flavor than were those of the Little Kern. All 
about us were hundreds of acres of pasturage, 
guarded on the sides and upper end by ranges thousands 
of feet high, and at the lower end where the road came in 
by a gateway and a short line of fence that spanned a 
narrow space in the canon ; stock could be turned loose 
without rope or hobble; and to our horse who, bred in 
the valley, detested mountains, or the burros who never 
voluntarily ascended any place over fifty feet' high, it was 
as secure as the valley of Sinbad. 
To the east, giant Saw Tooth reared its mighty peak 
5,000 feet above our heads; its summit was probably 
nearly four miles away as the crow flies, but it seemed 
to overshadow the camp. While it is much more difficult 
■to climb than Mt Whitney, it has often been successfully 
ascended from Mineral King. Zerah and the Judge made 
a gallant attempt to scale it, but failed after they had 
reached the tooth, 1,000 feet from the summit, which is 
almost perpendicular. At an elevation of 11,000 feet they 
found two small sheets of water known as the Monarch 
lakes, in one of which many large trout could be seen. 
Two precious hours were wasted in a cave where they 
had sought refuge from a shower, and the sun had set 
when they turned their reluctant steps downward. 
It was a lotus-eatihg life we lived that week in the 
tamarack grove. There was nothing of the bustle about 
camp that characterized our nomadic days. More than 
once old Sol peeped over th« crest of Sw Tooth and 
