Arthur M. Hill, Photo.

Mt. Tallac and Rubicon Range in midwinter, from the steamer deck, Lake Tahoe.

after a trip of only two days and a half from the insufferable heat of a Chicagoan July and August.

own

The San Franciscan leaves his home in the evening, and after a single night spent in a luxurious Pullman car, and a delightful trip across the lake from Tahoe, of two hours, arrives at the most delightful resort in the country-Tallac Hotel-without experiencing the slightest discomfort.

Tallac, with its cottages, hotel (the dining room of which overlooks meadow, pines and lake), its Casino, with its 20x200 foot verandah; its billiard, bowling and ball-rooms; its cafe and grill, boasts every convenience that pleasureseeker and sporting man could desire.

Resting on the porch of the Casino, listening to the strains of the orchestra; with the gleaming lake in front, the pinetrees, standing in in lonely meditation, rank on rank, on three sides, and towering back and above it all, the mighty Sierras, with their covering of eternal snow, you can easily imagine yourself in a delicious dream, and the white-gowned women flitting to and fro near by are dream-figures.

For the strenuous one, he or she who is never contented unless "on the go" from morning until night, there are many delightful little trips to be taken from Tallac-the horse-back ride to the top of Mt. Tallac, where the view rivals that of any mountainous country in the new or old world, and from whose summit the thirteen small lakes tributary to Tahoe, shine out like priceless gems, that the grim old mountains, in a frivolous moment, have bedecked themselves with; a tramp to one of these same small lakes, where you can cast your fly and be rewarded with specimens of Eastern brook, rainbow, Lock Laven and German brown trout (in the deep waters these trout average as much as 25 pounds each, or in the shallow places, the dainty little speckled beauties tip the scales at half a pound.)

Here is Echo Lake, 12 miles from Tallac, which " abounds in Eastern brook trout as well as the native cut-throat variety of this region. The trip takes you over the summit of the Sierra Nevadas at the highest point of the old Pioneer stage coach road, over which Hank

Monk gave Horace Greeley his celebrated stage ride. This is the highest lake in the Sierras accessible by carriage." Here is Castle Lake, which is on the trail of Mount Tallac, and a short distance before reaching this lake can be found the unique Floating Island lake. Both these lakes are stocked with Eastern brook

trout.

And again, Eagle and Granite Lakes, which lie in a small valley above Emerald Bay, surrounded by abrupt mountains. Eagle Lake is a source of supply to Eagle Falls, one of the most beautiful cascades in the State.

Granite Lake lies to the East of this, the banner fly-fishing lake of the whole. region.

Fallen Leaf Lake! The name in itself is beautiful, and it is no misnomer. This lovely body of water is four miles long, one and one-half miles wide, two hundred feet above Lake Tahoe and two and onehalf miles from the hotel. This is conceded by fishermen to have the best trout fishing on the Pacific Coast, and has been heavily stocked the past ten years with Eastern brook, rainbow, Scotch Brown, Mackinaw, Lock Laven and Salmo My

cas.

There are wide roads around the edge of Fallen Leaf, and its gleaming waters glimpse between the stately pines bordering the drive-way like slabs of lapis lazuli.

Fallen Leaf Lake! It brings to the mental vision soft, hazy autumn days (days that hold a hint of Spring in their fragrant breath); red and yellow leaves, tossed about by gentle, lazy winds, old memories, old dreams.

Going still further, one can reach Desolation Valley, that huge cleft between the hills, where in centuries agone some slowly-moving ice river "blazed" its trail.

There is a grandeur of height and bigness in this valley that compares favorably with Yosemite itself; but we miss our brothers, the trees, and its barren beauty does not satisfy.

And so we turn for comfort and companionship to one of the rippling fernbanked streams, in whose sun-dappled pools the speckled trout hide and sulk or rise expectant to your fly, and into which the trees regretfully drop sun-tinted

Steamer Tahoe approaching pier on Lake Tahoe.

Arthur M. Hill, Photo.

jewels, that whirl down the brook into the still depths of the lake near-by.

There is a trip to Camp Agassiz, at Glen Alpine, a famous glacier gorge in the Sierras, six miles southwest of Tallac, in the Lake Tahoe Forest Reserve, and a half mile below Glen Alpine Springs; the aim of this camp is to "enjoy the mountains and all that is in them, to protect the forests and the game, to explore and make accessible for others the wild places." Surely a praiseworthy purpose in life!

This Glen Alpine is well named, for in height of mountain cliffs, and pinnacles, it rivals any of the glacial glens in the Alps of Switzerland. "The Glen is some five miles long and a mile wide, the ancient bed of an immense glacier, now covered in part with forests of fir, pine and hemlock, but showing everywhere sculptured walls, great rounded boulders, and polished rock masses, the work of the ice giant of old.

"Round about the Glen on every side are mountains, cliffs, pinnacles, some rising to ten thousand feet. Over these crags dash waterfalls, filling the Glen with an every-varying murmur."

Can one imagine a more weird, fascinating and beautiful spot in the world?

Many wealthy San Franciscans have discovered Lake Tahoe and vicinity to be about as ideal a spot as can be found on this old earth, as attest the palatial stone cottage which Mrs. Kohl, owner of the Kohl building, is erecting; the beautiful home of I. W. Hellman, of the Nevada Bank; the lately completed house of Mr. W. A. Bissell, of the Santa Fe route, and the numerous other picturesque homes which have been built for some years along the shores of the lake; these, with the pretty little resorts that line its sides, create the comforting human touch which is indispensable to some people's happiness, whose souls cower a little before the immensity of mountain solitudes.

Mt. Tallac and Pyramid Peak, south from beach at Lake Tahoe.

Arthur M. Hill, Photo,