We may admit that it was with considerable misgiving that we left Grants Pass in the early morning for Crescent City on the sea. We had been discouraged in the attempt by the best posted road authorities in San Francisco, who declared that the trip was too difficult to be worth while, and the pleasant young lady who was all there was in sight when we called at the Portland Automobile Club was even more emphatic in her efforts to dissuade us. “Don’t try it,” she said. “The road by the way of Crescent City and Eureka is a rough mountain trail, with grades as high as thirty-eight per cent and the rains are likely to catch you at any time from now on,”—all of which, we may remark parenthetically, proved true enough.
Over against this was the assurance of a veteran motorist whom we met at Crater Lake Lodge and who had just come from San Francisco over this route, that there was nothing to give the driver of a Pierce Forty-eight a moment’s uneasiness; though the road was very185 heavy and rough, a staunch, powerful car would have no difficulty. We were also reassured by the garage owner at Grants Pass, who declared that the natives thought little of the run to Crescent City and that a motor stage made the trip nearly every day in the year, though sometimes in bad weather, he admitted, the nearly obsolete but always reliable horse had to give them a lift.
We learned enough, however, to feel sure that considerably heavier work in mountaineering than we had as yet done awaited us, and this naturally caused us some uneasiness. At times when such feelings seized us concerning roads traveled by some one almost daily, we tried to realize the sensations of the pioneers, who confronted these awful solitudes without road or chart and at best with only treacherous savages to guide them over well-nigh impassable trails through mountain and forest. Such reflections made our misgivings about roads and routes seem little short of cowardly, and perhaps at times rather coerced our better judgment.
We covered forty miles out of Grants Pass with little hint of the road terrors we expected to encounter before the close of the day. The road, fair to excellent, ran at first through cultivated fields and apple-laden orchards; then it entered rounded hills, where the forests, fragrant with balsam pine, were interspersed with lovely186 green valleys dotted with numerous well-improved ranches. There were signs of considerable activity in lumbering and we passed two large sawmills along the way.
At Waldo, a tiny village forty miles from Grants Pass, we recalled that the famous Oregon caves were only twelve miles eastward and regretted that our schedule did not permit a day’s delay to visit them. From here a picturesque trail leads to these so-called Marble Halls of Oregon, deep in the heart of the rugged mountains. These strange caves were discovered some fifty years ago by a hunter who pursued a wounded bear into a cavern in the mountain. The caves have not yet been fully explored, but there is known to be a series of lofty vaulted chambers rivaling those of the Mammoth Cave and hundreds of smaller apartments, with walls, ceilings, and pillars in old ivory and lighter colorings, all as delicately sculptured as though designed and executed by master artists. The roar of subterranean rivers is heard, seemingly overhead, and again beneath one’s feet, echoing from mysterious caverns as yet unentered even by the adventurous guides.
Beyond Waldo our real mountaineering began, and an incident occurred that caused us no small perturbation nor, looking back, can we feel that our uneasiness was unwarranted. Here187 a stranger walking along the road hailed us and as we paused in response to his signal, asked us to give him a lift to the next town. As he looked fairly reputable and carried no baggage, our first thought was that he might be a ranchman of the vicinity, and as there were four unoccupied seats in the big car, it seemed churlish to refuse, despite whatever distrust we might have of a stranger in such a lonely wilderness. So we bade him climb in beside the driver and began the ascent of the stupendous grade leading over the first great range of the Cascades. For nearly ten miles we followed the rough, stony road which flung its narrow loops around canyon and headland, often with a deep valley alongside. The steep slopes above and below us were clad with mighty pines and through these we caught occasional glimpses of an ever widening prospect. It was only when we reached the summit of the range that the full magnificence of the scene broke upon our astonished vision. A vast panorama of rugged peaks—“a sea of wood in wild, unmeasured miles,” to quote the poet of the Sierras—stretched way inimitably in the thin, clear atmosphere until it was lost in a violet-blue haze.
Our enjoyment of the wonderful scene was not unmixed, however, for by this time it had become clear to us that our self-invited passenger188 was a lunatic. He had talked much wild and silly chatter about a wonderful invention of his and a great fortune awaiting him in San Francisco, and given evidence by other unmistakable signs that he was more or less demented. It did not seem practicable to attempt to get rid of him at the time and we began the descent with increasing uneasiness as he continued to harass the driver with his wild talk. And if ever a driver needed to keep his head clear it was during this same descent; the road, a mere shelf in the rock, crawls along the precipitous mountainside while a vast abyss yawns below with a mad, boulder-vexed stream at the bottom. It was made far more trying to the nerves by the absence of trees or shrubbery to screen the precipice—a bare foot or two lay between our wheels and a sheer drop of say half a mile.
Our guest noted our perturbation and, turning to the lady, who had shrunk into the smallest possible space in the end of the capacious seat and was studiously refusing to even look at the road, he said,
“Gets on your nerves, doesn’t it? Looks mighty scaly, for a fact!”
It was not made the easier by the knowledge that a lunatic sat beside the driver, harmless, maybe, but we had no way of knowing that he was. In any event, when he wasn’t looking I189 slipped the Colt automatic, which had been our almost forgotten companion since we started, beneath our car robe, with the resolve that if he should attempt to lay hands on our driver on these appalling roads, there would be something doing. Fortunately, except for his incessant chatter, he was quite inoffensive and we looked forward anxiously to the next station on the road, where we determined to drop him, willy nilly.
It was a long, slow crawl to Patrick’s Creek, to which an occasional signboard directed us, for our cautious driver averaged only seven or eight miles per hour, and, however anxious we were to get rid of our passenger, it was quite enough. The scenery was inspiring and picturesque but the road was more or less nerve-racking every mile of the way. Passing-places were only occasional, but, fortunately, we met no one after leaving Waldo.
Patrick’s Creek Hotel proved a small ranch house close by the road where meals are served and auto supplies sold to tourists. As usual, we had our lunch, but were glad to supplement it with one of the landlady’s home-made pies, which proved excellent indeed. For once we regretted having brought our lunch, since they told us that it was their practice to fry one of the numerous young chickens running about the190 place, “while you wait.” Here we had the peculiar sensation that comes from paying fifty cents per gallon for gasoline—our top notch, I believe, except in Longwy, France, some years before.
“I get it by parcel post in sealed five-gallon cans,” said the innkeeper, who is also forest ranger in this district, “which is the only way the stage people will accept it for shipment.”
“Do you get much patronage here besides meals?” we asked.
“In the hunting season we do,” he replied, “It’s a famous hunting ground. We could go up on yonder mountainside and start a dozen deer in an hour.”
“You ought to have plenty of venison at your hotel,” we ventured.
“Not a bit of it,” he replied in disgust. “The game law forbids serving it for pay and you are not even allowed to have any portion of a deer’s carcase on hand longer than ten days; you can’t sell it or ship it out of the county—there isn’t much sport in killing the poor brutes under such conditions. Still, hunters come here and kill the limit of three bucks, but most of the venison goes to waste.”
When we resumed our journey our passenger, with considerable rambling talk, expressed his willingness to continue with us to San Francisco191 and even intimated that we might get a slice of the great fortune he had in prospect there; he evidently did not object to the car or the company and was quite willing to become a permanent member of our party. We succeeded in making him understand that we were not running a stage and that we felt we had done our share in the thirty-five-mile lift we had given him. We offered him a little financial assistance, if needed, but it was indignantly declined. He would soon have wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. And so we bade him a glad farewell, with the mental resolve that we would pick up no more unknown pedestrians. We were afterwards hailed by one or two knights of the road who, no doubt, thought us stingy snobs as we sailed past them in sublime indifference—but we had had our lesson. We saw added reason for such a course when we read later in a San Francisco paper that an autoist had been held up and robbed in the mountains by two foot pads whom he had generously given a ride.
Leaving the inn, we followed the yellow road which we could see far ahead, zigzagging up the rough mountainside before us. It led to another seemingly endless climb over steep, stony grades along the edge of precipitous slopes. A short distance from the hotel we saw a doe eyeing us curiously from the chaparral a few192 yards from the roadside. She seemed to realize that a lady deer is safe in California, even in the hunting season, for she showed little signs of fear. Had she been legitimate game we might probably have killed her with the Colt.
The climb over a stony road—enough to try every rivet in any car—continued for several miles. On coming to the summit, we did not immediately descend, but continued for many miles, with slight ups and downs, along the crest of the Cascades—or is it the Coast Sierras?—the ranger said the point is still in dispute as to where one ceases and the other begins. It was a narrow, precarious trail that we followed, with only thin shrubbery to screen the forbidding slopes at its side—but what a magnificent and inspiring vista it opened to our delighted vision! Beneath us lay a vast, wooded canyon, thousands of feet in depth, and beyond it stretched an infinite array of pine-clad summits, seemingly without end, for the day was clear as crystal and only a thin haze hid the distance. They are building a new highway that will supersede this mountain trail and future tourists will gladly miss the thrills of the precarious road, but they will also miss much of the grandeur and beauty; to see the mountains one must climb the mountains to their very crests. We shall always be glad that we saw the wild and inspiring vistas193 from many of these old-time roads which will pass into disuse when the improved highway comes.
Again we angled slowly down into a vast valley and climbed two more ranges before the cool, fresh ocean air struck our faces. To tell of the beauty and charm of the scenes that presented themselves to our eyes would be continual repetition; they were much like those we had encountered ever since entering the mighty hill ranges.
We were conscious of a sudden and overpowering change when we came within a dozen miles of the destination of our day’s run. Here we entered the Del Norte redwoods and many were the exclamations of wonder excited by the majesty and loveliness of these virgin forests. Glorious individual trees, ten to twenty feet in diameter, towering two to three hundred feet above us, crowded up to the roadside, standing so thickly that it was impossible to see ahead for any considerable distance. But most wonderful was the rank—almost tropical—appearance of the undergrowth. The ground was green with velvet moss, and huge ferns with fronds several feet in length, intermingled with the metallic green of the huckleberry bushes. Many other shrubs and plants unknown to us joined to make up this marvelous tangle of greenery, the like of194 which we had never before seen. Occasionally we came upon a fallen tree cast down by storms of perhaps a century ago, but the dead giant had become the abode of riotous life, for every foot of his great trunk was covered with a rank growth of fern and shrub. We even saw good-sized trees springing out of these long-dead redwoods. We had seen the redwoods of Tuolumne, Santa Cruz, and Mariposa, larger trees but utterly lacking the beauty of the riotous greenery of the groves of Del Norte.
A clear, green river spanned by a high iron bridge served to enhance the charm of the scene. We paused to drink of the ice-cold waters of a little roadside waterfall and to felicitate ourselves that we had not been dissuaded from the Crescent City road. It is a rough, steep, and dangerous road, we may admit, but this glorious forest repays one a thousand times. The accumulation of leaves and pine needles deposited through the centuries had made the soil beneath the trees a deep, soft mould, and to make the road passable it had been “corduroyed” for several miles with redwood slabs, which slowed the car down to a snail’s pace. This was no hardship, however—surely one who does not expect to pass over the road again would never wish to hasten through such delightful scenery.
 
THROUGH THE DEL NORTE REDWOODS
From painting by Martella Lane
195 It was still four miles to Crescent City when we came out of the great forest and for this distance we ran through rather poorly improved farm lands. The ocean, which flashed into view as we approached the town, was indeed a welcome sight after our long exile in the hills. For many miles as we approached the town the trees at frequent intervals had borne signs calling attention to the merits of the Bay View Annex, with the constant reiteration of “hot and cold water” as the chief attraction. So we sought the Bay View, a rambling, wooden building looking out on the harbor and were forthwith assigned to rooms in the “Annex” at the rear. While our quarters were far from elaborate, they were clean and comfortable, though the much-vaunted hot and cold water proved principally cold.
We had leisure to look about the town before supper and while there was little in the plain, straggling, wooden village to excite our interest, we learned that Crescent City has big ambitions and high hopes for the future.
“We have one of the best harbors on the whole western coast, about equally distant from San Francisco and Portland,” said a shopkeeper from whom we made a few purchases. “It is deep enough for ocean-going vessels, so that little dredging will be necessary, and only needs protection of a sea wall to offer safe shelter for196 a whole fleet of ships. Congress has been interested in the project and only last year a committee of several of the leading members came here to investigate. All agreed that the government could well afford to spend five million dollars to improve the harbor and that the resources of the country about here warrant an appropriation. If this is done and the railroad carried through from Grants Pass, Crescent City will become a city, indeed. There are two hundred billion feet of standing timber within a radius of two hundred miles from Crescent City, most of which would be converted into lumber and find an outlet through Crescent City Harbor. The rich Rogue River Valley, now at the mercy of the Southern Pacific Railroad, will gladly seek a cheaper outlet for its products and though it may not be apparent to a stranger, the agricultural products of Del Norte County are very considerable. Our butter, for instance, is considered the finest in the country and the Palace Hotel at San Francisco will not serve any other. Its excellence is due to the splendid grazing lands watered by an annual rainfall of sixty-eight inches. This also gives you the secret of the wonderful greenness of the great redwood forest which you so admired when coming to our city. Salmon and other fishing and packing are already very extensive and can be increased indefinitely.197 There are immense deposits of copper and iron ore between here and Grants Pass—particularly in the neighborhood of Waldo. Marble and other building stone are to be found within easy shipping distance. We have the finest summer climate on the Pacific Coast and splendid beaches, so that Crescent City is bound to become more and more of a summer resort—in fact, a great many people come here now in the summer time. Do you think our hopes for Crescent City’s future are ill-founded? Isn’t it reasonable to believe that when this harbor is improved and a railroad completed to both Grants Pass and Eureka that we may fairly expect a city of fifty thousand people or more?”
We did not take issue with our enthusiastic informant, though, indeed, it was hard to imagine a teeming city on the site of the lonely little village; but perhaps the same thing might have been said of Portland or Seattle fifty years ago. A start has really been made toward improving the harbor, for an initial appropriation of three hundred and ninety thousand dollars has been made by the War Department, to which Del Norte County has added the proceeds of a one-hundred-thousand-dollar bond issue. The chief industry of the town at present is lumbering, one company employing five hundred men,198 but the output is limited by the indifferent shipping facilities.
Crescent City has another ambition which is well worthy of realization—to have a large section of the magnificent forests near the town set aside as a national park. It would, indeed, be a calamity to our whole people to have all of this great grove wiped out by ax and fire, as has occurred near Eureka. The redwood groves already reserved do not and can not match the Del Norte forests in beauty and suitability as a natural playground. Here one can camp under the giants trees and live near to nature indeed, nor will he be troubled by such pests as flies, mosquitoes, scorpions, rattlesnakes, and the like, for they are almost unknown in this section. From our own observation we can heartily second the declaration of a local writer to the effect that—
“The importance of this proposed Redwood Park to Humboldt and Del Norte Counties, the State of California, and to the whole of North America, even to the whole world, can scarcely be estimated. Within comparatively a few generations the giant redwood forests of California will be a thing of the past; the woodsman’s ax and the ravenous sawmills will have swept them away, even as the great pine and hardwood forests of Michigan and Wisconsin have been wiped out of existence.
199 “A billion or more feet of these giant forests preserved and protected for all time from destruction will form a priceless heritage for future generations—one of the greatest attractions California will then have, for it will bring pilgrims from all over the world. It will not be many generations before all the virgin forests on the North American Continent, save those protected in national and other forest reserves will be wiped out of existence.”
It would be hard to express the chagrin which we felt on looking from the window of the Bay View Annex on the morning following our arrival to find a heavy fog, almost bordering on a drizzle, enveloping everything and even shrouding the near-by ocean from view. We were told that such fogs often lasted a week or more, so it did not seem worth while to wait another day at the Bay View in hope of clear weather. We set out with the forlorn hope that the fog might clear away as th............