resting in chains upon
enormous granite steps; the whole gleaming like chased silver in the
noon sun; a magical land of a thousand Matterhorns, whose trails lead
from temple to temple, so mighty of size and noble of design that no
mind less than the Creator's could ever have conceived them.

The High Sierra has been celebrated for many years in the fast-growing
brotherhood of American mountain climbers, east as well as west, many of
whom proclaim its marked superiority to all parts of the Swiss Alps
except the amazing neighborhood of Mont Blanc. With the multiplication
of trails and the building of shelters for the comfort of the
inexperienced, the veriest amateur of city business life will find in
these mountains of perpetual sunshine a satisfaction which is only for
the seasoned mountaineer abroad.

The zone adjoining the High Sierra upon its west is one of far wider
range of pleasure. Subsiding rapidly in elevation, it becomes a knobbed
and bouldered land which includes timber-line and the thin forests of
wind-twisted pines which contend with the granite for foothold. It is
crossed westward by many lesser ranges buttressing the High Sierra; from
these cross ranges many loftier peaks arise, and between them roar the
rivers whose thousands of contributing streams drain the snow-fields and
the glaciers of the white heights.

Finally, paralleling the western boundary, is the narrow zone in which
this region meets and merges with the greater forests and the meadows
beyond the boundary. Here, in the southwestern corner, is the marvellous
warm forest in which trees of many kinds attain their maximum of size
and proportion, and which encloses a million sequoia trees, including
the greatest and oldest embodiments of the principle of life. This
extraordinary forest was reserved in 1890 under the title of the Sequoia
National Park. At the same time was created the General Grant National
Park, a reservation of four square miles of similar forest, virtually a
part of it, but separated because of an intervening area of privately
owned lands.

Thus does this region run the gamut of supremacy from the High Sierra
upon its east, to the Giant Forest upon its west.

Of no less distinction are its waters. Innumerable lakelets of the High
Sierra, born of the snows, overflow in tiny streams which combine into
roaring, frothing creeks. These in turn, augmented by the drainage of
the lofty tumbled divides, combine into powerful little