C. K. Shepherd

“ One more turn, and a great valley lay at my feet. It was green with grass and the mountain sides were clothed in pine trees. Pine trees! How beautiful they looked! It was surely a dream, a vision, a trick of the imagination. There was a long, winding gradient down into the valley. I shut the engine off and we coasted down the smooth concrete without even a whisper or a jar of any kind. It was like a sudden entry into heaven—and almost as silent.
There were now seventy miles of concrete leading between avenues of eucalyptus and groves of orange trees into Los Angeles. ”

“ Are we never going to reach the summit? We must [Pg 218] have climbed nearly a mile high already, I argued with myself, when, of a sudden, the twisting, rocky trail ceased to exist. It vanished like magic, and instead there was before us a magnificent, broad highway of smooth, flat concrete that made me yell with delight. It was wonderful. I laughed and sang with childish glee to think that after 4,000 miles of mud and sand and soil and rock and rut and unspeakable goat-track, I was at last on a concrete road once again, with a surface like a billiard table. ”

“ But in New Mexico I have seen huge ranges that one could truthfully call nothing else but "wicked." They seem to gaze and glower with a cruel, terrifying gleam upon the wanderer who defies their hateful solitude. The hours of travel that followed were hours of weary monotony. A brief lapse every thirty miles or so when a tiny Mexican village on the Rio Grande was passed, and once more the two white ruts came into view, the stones and cactus, and again the evil mountains.
Later, the sand turned to rocks. The trail began to climb the mountains, and the sun sank low in the sky. ”

“ I left the Grand Canyon with regret. Everything was so wonderful and I just seemed to have begun to make friends with it. At first it all seemed so great, so awful, so grotesque as to give one the impression of anything but friendliness. I had begun to overcome that feeling, as everyone does in time. The truth is that it takes a long acquaintanceship with the giant wonders of the world to form anything approaching a true idea of them.
Mud there was in plenty on the way back. In the forest going was bad and slow, for the sun had not had its due quota of time to play upon the damp earth. ”

“ At every five or ten miles a stop is made to drink water from the bag on the handlebar. One has a glorious thirst in these parts.
Mile after mile goes by, and hour after hour. The sun grows higher in the heavens, its rays pour down upon my back with unrelenting fury. When shall we get to anywhere? The inner man grows weary of fasting in this infernal heat. A massive rock, lying all alone in the vast plain on the right, asks: "Why will ye not repent?" Oh, the irony of it! The man who painted that rock was a fanatic, but he knew what he was about.
Kingman at last! Kingman meant breakfast. ”

“ Although I believe the two-meal-a-day system to be an excellent one, one sure gets a roaring appetite for breakfast at the end of a hundred-mile ride. So if I had not a moral excuse for a little real speed work I at least had a physical one. The road surface now changed from red brick to dazzling white concrete as in the far distance the Alleghany Mountains, that inexpressibly beautiful range that stretches parallel with the Atlantic coastline from Maine to Georgia, loomed gradually higher on the horizon, its varying tints growing deeper and deeper as mile after mile flew by. ”

“ Ten miles out the trail crossed a river. It must have been the Canadian River, a tributary of the Arkansas, which it joins several hundred miles to the east. The surrounding country was desolation and solitude itself. Half prairie, half waste, almost desert, it was a country of new sensations. Just to the west, from horizon to horizon, stretched the gaunt and rugged Sangre de Cristo range, dark and threatening always in their aspect. Not a living thing was in sight, not even a suggestion of life. ”

“ From Canyon City to the Royal Gorge has been built a wonderful piece of road, winding and climbing into the very heart of Colorado's rugged bosom. The gradient in places is terrific. Every ounce of power was sometimes necessary to surmount certain stretches, and blind S-bends carved from the solid face of the rocks made travelling a danger as well as a test of skill. At every bend and every turn some new panorama would spring to view and farther and farther away would fade the distant horizon of the east. ”

“ The strange cactus trees and desert plants gathered round once more. Rougher and rougher the road became. The sand gave place to sharp loose grit interspersed with rocks and jutting boulders. As it did so, gradually the luxurious vegetation of the desert grew thinner and the dull miserable sage-brush took its place. The trail divided up into two deep and solitary ruts and in between them lay loose shale and grit that absolutely defied progress. The wheels would sink in freely and churn the road up aimlessly. ”

“ This would be an extinct volcanic cone and the colours would be reflected from the loose cinders that formed its whole. Then amongst the lofty pine trees the traveller would see—as a last remnant of the grotesque—vast fields of lava, great beds of solid cinder, thrown up into monstrous shapes with strange, sinister outlines. And onwards, ever onwards, ever nearer to Flagstaff we went, the wheels gliding noiselessly over the smooth lava-track that wound its way in and out of the pine trees and up and over the foothills and valleys towards the West. ”

“ As we gaze there is another surprise in store. Like a tiny plaything, a train emerges from a bend in the cliffs and with little infantile puffs of smoke crawls along the rails which one now sees running along the narrow river bank. Clinging close to every twist and turn the train proceeds. There is scarcely sufficient space between the rugged walls and the surging river for the single track. At one point the width of the ledge is but 10 yards and the track has been built out over the water. The river dashes madly through; the engine sways from side to side as it drags its heavy load onward. ”

“ There is none around anywhere—not as far as the horizon. I must push on quickly.... The rut suddenly breaks and swerves away.... Crash!... Up again, lose no time. On once more; what matter if the footbrake doesn't work? A motor-cycle is made to go, not to stop!
In front, to the left, rise pinnacles of purple granite. They stick up sharply into the sky like the teeth of a great monster grinning over its prey. They are the "Needles," and they fringe the Colorado River. What a glorious sight it will be to see a river again, with water flowing in it. ”

“ In a way, the presence of that track was comforting, particularly when some new noise or rattle emanated from my thrice-weary steed. On the other hand it is distinctly humiliating to be astride a 10 h.p. motor-cycle de luxe, jogging along side-saddle (to ease the growing soreness!) at fifteen or twenty miles per hour on three crotchety cylinders, when a tram-load of disinterested Americans flies past with a shriek at forty or fifty. Generally the driver realized the position and sounded a piercing whistle with a supercilious air, as if to say: "Make way for the fast traffic, please!" ”

“ It is a sight to enjoy in silence, with reverence and with fear. Once seen, it is never to be forgotten, that first glimpse of the greatest of all natural wonders—the Grand Canyon of the Colorado.
The trail made a sudden swerve to the left and followed close to its brink. There were some wooden railings; beyond, a varying strip of broken, rocky moorland; and then, space. Leaving Lizzie, I clambered down a narrow pathway carved in the rocks that led to a jutting prominence known as "Grand View Point." ”

“ The face of the country, where it remains uncultivated and unirrigated, is an eternal brown. At first this brings a sense of disappointment to the traveller who has heard so much of California's meadows of wonderful green mingled with the hues of countless kinds of wild flowers. In summer-time there are none. But in spring-time, when the sun has not started to blaze and the rain has worked its miracles, the charm of the country must be beyond description. ”

“ Arizona and New Mexico, you are the pearls of great price that no human being has ever yet valued at your true worth. When the day shall come that man can say of you, "I have seen you in all your moods and have discovered all your secrets," then this old earth will be a lifeless, soulless, aimless globe, its purpose fulfilled, its course completed.
A five mile descent through the scented pine-trees brought me to Raton, another half-Mexican, half-American town, small but modern and well-arranged. ”

“ I had now to traverse some difficult country, as the great desert of Arizona was approached. There were more mountains to climb, but when the summit was reached there was little or no decline on the opposite side, the altitude grew higher and higher, and as it did so, strange as it may seem, the earth grew flatter and flatter.
There is but one ridge ahead to climb. The rocky trail bends and twists as it slowly swallows up the gradient that connects us to the horizon. ”

“ You have always thought of deserts as devoid of every sign of vegetation? It is not so in the great deserts of America. Life abounds but, as if in recompense for the privilege of living, it has to take strange forms. Yet, if they are strange, it is only in comparison with the vegetation to which in temperate climes we are accustomed. The unnumbered varieties of cactus plants and trees are in reality beautiful and strange beyond description. They are always green, always fresh and always beautiful. ”

“ My first impression of a Mexican village was one of amazement. To think that several hundred people can live together in those single-storied mud huts in peace and comfort, with ne'er a sheet of glass in the windows and seldom a door within the door-posts—well, it was absurd! But my second impression absorbed the first entirely, and was one of appreciation for the primitive beauty of these native dwellings. It is a beauty that lingers in one's memory, a beauty that lies in natural flowing forms, defying the unrelenting sharp corners of modern architecture. ”

“ As usual the good surface of the highway stopped and the roads through the town turned from the perfect concrete to an infernal hotch-potch of holes, gullies, ruts and mounds. Ironical notice boards warned the traveller that he must reduce his speed to fifteen miles per hour. It was purgatory even to go at four! To plunge into a seething mass of soil-waves at speed is disconcerting. It annoys you. But it is a custom that grows on you in Eastern America. You flounder about from side to side; you take a hop, skip and a jump here, there and everywhere; your very bones are shaken in their sockets ”

“ The ascent of the Raton Mountains by the Raton Pass is made amongst some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable. The trail is only visible a few yards ahead and is lost in sudden twists and turns as gradually the mountain slopes are devoured. On the right, almost behind, are still to be seen the famous Spanish Peaks towering like twins in solitude above the rest of the Sangre de Cristo range, some forty miles away. Soon we shall be leaving Colorado State behind us—Colorado the Glorious, the Beautiful, the Great. ”

“ It is too immense, too sublime, too unearthly for mere words to convey one iota of its might and majesty. One struggles with the futility of mere expression by words where such a spectacle is concerned and finds that all the known phrases and well-used artifices of speech are useless to convey to another the sense of infinite grandeur that only sight can appreciate—and that so feebly!
The Canyon is a titanic rift in the earth, over 200 miles in length. The Colorado River, hardly ever seen from its brinks, lies 6,000 feet below the surface of the plain through which it has cut. ”

“ Before me lay a land of mystery and romance, a land of health for body and soul; a land of desert and sage-bush, of cactus and strange vegetation; a land of antiquity unparalleled by any other in the world. Here at my feet lay New Mexico and beyond, Arizona, the two States that at the same time are the oldest and the youngest in America. ”

“ I wondered what strange animals lurked in them and whether I should make the acquaintance of any mountain lions, bears, wolves, wild cats and other animals that still are plentiful in the mountain regions of California. Occasionally a car passed, the glare of its headlights transforming the sombre surroundings into a still stranger world of silver and gold. The road for a few moments changed to a path of glistening white leading to the unknown. And then, when the car dashed by, everything plunged instantaneously into a sea of blackness so intense that it could almost be felt. ”

“ Long before one actually draws near to one's destination, if that destination be a town, it is discernible sometimes twenty and even thirty miles away by the tufts and clouds of smoke that hang over it. The sight is as that of a huge Atlantic liner no more than a fraction above the horizon. One cannot discern its hidden size or form, but the smoke from its funnels threads upwards into the heavens like a sentinel in the engulfing vastness of the sea. ”

“ The remaining twenty miles into Los Angeles were endured and accomplished under our own power at about eight miles an hour. The attention I attracted was considerable. Hundreds upon hundreds of cars, buses, and motor-cycles passed, hurrying here and there, their tyres making a continuous low hum on the concrete road. Luxury, wealth, and happiness abounded on every hand. No greater antithesis to the aching void of the desert back behind the mountains could be imagined. ”

“ It was a good home for the tough guys of the West, where towns spring up in a night, prosper awhile and then fade into insignificance.
After Seligman, another twenty miles further on, the trail showed signs of nervous prostration. It led into a great canyon whose grey walls towered high on either side. Then it seemed to say to the traveller, "See here, Boss, you can go on if you like, I'm staying right here; had enough of this." It had already dwindled down to a couple of ruts in the sandy bed of the canyon and now it was besieged on all sides with dense growths of grey scrub, like sage-brush. ”

“ One moves one's gaze and scans the rugged boulders that lie heaped and stacked and strewn about as if but a push would suffice to send them hurtling down into the chasm below. Here and there are stunted growths of sage, cactus and prickly pear, or a giant fir-tree springs from a grassy cleft in the rocks.
Retracing the trail, we find ourselves soon descending the precipitous winds and turns that lead back to Canyon City. On the left we pass "The Famous Sky-line Drive," which announces itself by placards here and there as "The greatest scenic highway wonder of the world." ”

“ We are now in the Salinas Valley, in proportion like a long, narrow groove 100 miles long cut in the face of the country. Through it runs the Salinas River, winding and bending with great sweeps through its sandy bed. At midsummer it is dried up completely, and, from the long wooden bridges that cross and re-cross it, looks like a sandy sea-beach, with fences across from one bank to the other to stop the cattle straying!
Along this valley blows a constant cool wind from the sea in the north. All day long it blows, week in, week out. ”

“ After precisely half an hour I found myself just three miles advanced, and in the midst of a hopeless chaos of sun-dried emaciated mud. I had "explored every avenue" of the road, but found none possible of negotiation. Bit by bit I dragged Lizzie back and returned to the level-crossing. Come what may I would try the track. Even if the sleepers shook my very bones to powder it would be better than eternally forging through the mud of New Mexico. ”

“ Be that as it may, there is a network of beautiful, straight, concrete roads leading from the city down to the coast in all directions. Dozens of small residential towns are springing up amid this network of roads—towns that some day will be suburbs of Los Angeles. At least that is the way to think of them. And the roads themselves? On Saturday afternoons and Sundays they are like great living arteries along which flows an endless stream of motor-cars. ”