On the Rim of the World to Big Bear Lake
WE were now on the beginning of that famed American scenic drive known as 101 Miles on the Rim of the World. It is one of the three routes into Big Bear Valley, as well as one of the most difficult. For 101 miles the trail angles along on the every backbone of the towering mountain range, through forests of virgin pine, past beautiful mountain lakes, uphill and down, along water courses, and past mountain torrents that make the eyes of the trout fisherman bulge with anticipation at the thought of the thousands of finny gamesters that inhabit the sheltered pools beneath the rocks. For much of the distance the desert, as well as the fertile lowland valleys, is in full view, but the road finally growling and roaring on upgrade, between great rocky crags that seemed to tower into the very heavens.
For eleven miles our road went up and up. Sometimes we caught glimpses of the fertile valley we had quitted thousands of feet below as we wound around curves where we turned completely around in the length of the machine. Several times we toured along directly above the road that we had traversed only a moment before, and we even encountered the dust that we had stirred from the road below as it was borne up the mountainside by the wind. We stopped several times to rest and let the motor cool as well as to quench our thirst from an icy torrent that roared down from crag to crag. The air became colder as we climbed higher, and gradually the palms of the valley shaded into scrub oaks and thorn buck, and finally into gigantic pines.
On one particularly stony and tortuous grade where our sidecar wheel hung on the edge of a thousand-foot precipice we met a big touring car coming down. There was not room to pass. The car was driven by a big portly moon-faced man with bronzed cheeks, a broad permanent smile, and the tang of the mountains all over him. He was the sole occupant of the vehicle. “Hold on a moment,” cried the man, as he slid his rear wheels to a stop, and we began backing down the hill toward the next turn-out. “You’re loaded heavier than I am,” he said, “let me do the backing up.”
An Advocate of the Golden Rule
WITH the remark he had his machine in reverse, and was on his way. He had to back fully a thousand feet up a hair-raising grade, and around a dozen dangerous turns before we finally came to a niche in the wall where we were able to squeeze by. We thanked the man for his kindness. “Don’t mention it,” he answered, “I’m an advocate of the Golden Rule.” And with that he was on his way again down the mountain.
After passing the touring car we had a climb on less than four miles before coming to the top of the mountain range, where the view that greeted us simply beggared all description. We stood in the midst of a cluster of gigantic pines with a dozen or more varieties of wild flowers growing all about. On one side was the fertile valley, nestled far below the great banks of fleecy white clouds that floated up the mountainside. Behind us was the Mojave Desert, stretching away apparently into infinity, appalling in its silence, its cloudless sky and its blaze of purple and lavender coloring. A robin warbled forth his cheery carol from a pine tree overhead, and down over the canyon by which we had ascended an eagle wheeled and circled on motionless wings. The point on which
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It was nine o’clock when we reached Thousand Pines, and although we traveled at a leisurely pace—sometimes in high gear, sometimes in low, with stops for photographs and admiration of the scenery we arrived at Squirrel Inn at noon. This, according to a check of our speedometer and maps, put us thirty-eight miles over the Rim of the World, and one hundred and eight miles from home.
As we pulled up in front of the inn an old negro mammy, whose burden of fat was about as much as she could bear, began pounding a gong that hung on a tree trunk in front of the building. The gong met with instant response in the form of a dozen or so rusty-looking hillbillies and girls on horseback who came scurrying up out of the woods.
“Forty cents, an’ good eatin’s, too,” responded the old negress in reply to our query as to the price of a meal. We agreed that we couldn’t go very far wrong for forty cents for a meal in these war times, so decided to lunch at the inn rather than stop to make camp and cook our own food. It was a good bet, too, for the meal proved to be an excellent four-course dinner. The old negress, we learned, was the cook. We are still wondering how it is possible to serve such a meal in such an isolated region at a figure apparently below cost.
This Two-Week Trip Cost $30; Read On and See If You Can Think of a Finer Investment for the Money.
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