The Lake of the Sky Part 30

The long cones found in abundance about Tahoe Tavern are those of the sugar pine.

_Yellow Pine and Jeffrey Pine_. These are practically one and the same, though the latter is generally regarded as a variety and the former the type. Mr. Leiberg says:

The two forms differ chiefly in the size of the cones, in the tint and odor of the foliage, and in the color and thickness of the bark, differences which are insufficient to const.i.tute specific characters. The most conspicuous of the above differences is that in the size of the cones, which may seemingly hold good if only a few hundred trees are examined.

But when one comes to deal with thousands of individuals the distinction vanishes. It is common to find trees of the Jeffrey type as to foliage and bark that bear the big cones, and the characteristic smaller cones of the typical yellow pine, both at the same time and on the same individual, while old cones strewn about on the ground indicate that in some seasons trees of the Jeffrey type produce only small-sized cones. The odor and the color of leaves and bark are more or less dependent on soil conditions and the inherent vitality of the individual tree, and the same characters are found in specimens belonging to the yellow and Jeffrey pine. It is noticeable that the big-cone variety preferably grows at considerable elevation and on rocky sterile ground, while the typical form of the yellow pine prevails throughout the lower regions and on tracts with a more generous soil.

The yellow pine has a wider range than any other of the Tahoe conifers, though on the high, rocky areas, south and west of Rubicon Springs it is lacking. It crosses from the western slopes to the eastern sides of the Sierras and down into the Tahoe basin over the heads of Miller and McKinney Creeks, in both places as a thin line, or rather as scattering trees mixed with Shasta fir and white pine.

It grows from sixty to two hundred and twenty-five feet high with trunk two to nine feet in diameter. The limbs in mature trees are horizontal or even drooping. The bark of typical trees is tawny yellow or yellow-brown, divided by fissures into large smoothish or scaly-surfaced plates which are often one to four feet long and one-half to one and a quarter feet wide. The needles are in threes, five to ten inches long; the cones reddish brown.

It must be noted, too, that "the bark is exceedingly variable, black-barked or brown-barked trees, roughly or narrowly fissured, are very common and in their extreme forms very different in trunk appearance from the typical or most-abundant 'turtle-back' form with broad, yellow or light brown plates."--_Jepson_.

_Lodge Pole Pine_. The range of this tree is almost identical with that of the Shasta fir, though here and there it is found at as low an alt.i.tude as 4500 feet. It loves the margins of creeks, glades and lakes situated at alt.i.tudes of 6000 feet and upward, where it usually forms a fringe of nearly pure growth in the wet and swampy portions of the ground. In the Tahoe region it is invariably called a tamarack or tamarack pine. It is a symmetrical tree commonly reaching as high as fifty to eighty feet, but occasionally one hundred and twenty-five feet. When stunted, however, it is only a few feet. The bark is remarkably thin, rarely more than one quarter inch thick, light gray in color, very smooth but flaking into small thin scales.

There are only two needles to a bunch, in a sheath, one and a half to two and three quarters inches long. The cones are chestnut brown, one to one and three quarters inches long.

It is when sleeping under the lodge pole pines that you begin to appreciate their perfect charm and beauty. You unroll your blankets at the foot of a stately tree at night, unconscious and careless as to what tree it is. During the night, when the moon is at the full, you awaken and look up into a glory of shimmering light. The fine tapering shape, the delicate fairy-like beauty, instantly appeal to the sensitive soul and he feels he is in a veritable temple of beauty.

They are very sensitive trees. In many places a mere gra.s.s fire, quick and very fierce for a short time, has destroyed quite a number.

_White Fir_. This follows closely the range of the incense cedar, though in some places it is found as high as 8700 feet. It is one of the most perfect trees in the Sierras. Ranging from sixty to one hundred and fifty and even two hundred feet high, with a narrow crown composed of flat sprays and a trunk naked for one-third to one-half its height and from one to six feet in diameter, with a smooth bark, silvery or whitish in young trees, becoming thick and heavily fissured into rounded ridges on old trunks, and gray or drab-brown in color, it is readily distinguishable, with its companion, the red fir, by the regularity of construction of trunk, branch and branchlet. As Smeaton Chase expresses it, "The fine smooth arms, set in regular formation, divide and redivide again and again _ad infinitum_, weaving at last into a maze of exquisitely symmetrical twigs and branchlets."

_Red Fir_. The range of the red fir is irregular. It occurs on the Rubicon River and some of the headwaters of the west-flowing streams, reaching a general height of 6000 feet, though it is occasionally found as high as 7000 feet. In some parts of California this is known as Douglas Spruce, and Jepson, in his _Silva of California_ definitely states:

The name "fir" as applied to the species is so well established among woodsmen that for the sake of intelligibility the combination Douglas Fir, which prevents confusion with the true firs and has been adopted by the Pacific Coast Lumberman's a.s.sociation, is here accepted, notwithstanding that the name used by botanists, "Douglas Spruce" is actually more fitting on account of the greater number of spruce-like characteristics. It is neither true spruce, fir, nor hemlock, but a marked type of a distinct genus, namely, _pseudotsuga_.

It must not be confounded with the red silver fir (_Abies Magnifica_) so eloquently described as the chief delight of the Yosemite region by Smeaton Chase. It grows from seventy to two hundred and fifty or possibly three hundred and fifty feet high, and is the most important lumber tree of the country, considering the quality of its timber, the size and length of its logs, and the great amount of heavy wood and freedom from knots, shakes or defects. On young trees the bark is smooth, gray or mottled, sometimes alder-like; on old trunks one to six and a half inches thick, soft or putty-like, dark brown, fissured into broad heavy furrows. The young rapid growth in the open woods produces "red fir", the older slower growth in denser woods is "yellow fir". Every tree to a greater or lesser extent exhibits successively these two phases, which are dependent upon situation and exposure.

The chief difference between the white and red fir is in the _spiculae_ or leaves. Those of the red fir are shorter, stubbier and stiffer than those of the white. The bark, however, is pretty nearly alike in young trees and shows a marked difference when they get to be forty to fifty years old.

_The Alpine Spruce_ (_Hesperopeuce Pattoniana_ Lemmon) is found only in the highest elevations. Common in Alaska it is limited in the Tahoe region to the upper points of forests that creep up along glacier beds and volcanic ravines, close to perpetual ice. It disappears at 10,000 feet alt.i.tude on Mt. Whitney and is found nowhere south of this point. On Tallac, Mt. Rose and all the higher peaks of the Tahoe region it is common, giving constant delight with its slender shaft, eighty to a hundred feet high, and with a diameter at its base of from six to twelve feet. It is only in the lower portions of the belt where it occurs. Higher it is reduced to low conical ma.s.ses of foliage or prostrate creeping shrubs.

By many it is regarded as a hemlock, but it is not strictly so. It was first discovered in 1852 by John Jeffrey, who followed David Douglas in his explorations of the forests of the American Northwest.

In favorable situations, the lower limbs are retained and become long, out-reaching, and spreading over the mountain slope for many feet; the upper limbs are irregularly disposed, not whorled; they strike downward from the start (so that it is almost impossible to climb one of the trees for want of foothold), then curving outward to the outline of the tree, they are terminated by short, hairy branchlets that decline gracefully, and are decorated with pendant cones which are glaucous purple until maturity, then leather brown, with reflexed scales.

The main stem sends out strong ascending shoots, the leading one terminating so slenderly as to bend from side to side with its many purple pendants before the wind, and shimmering in the sunlight with rare beauty.--_Lemmon_.

On the slopes of Mt. Rose near timber line, which ranges from 9700 to 10,000 feet according to exposures, while still a tree of considerable size, it loses its symmetrical appearance. Professor Kennedy says:

Buffeted by the fierce winter winds and snows, the branches on the west side of the tree are either entirely wanting or very short and gnarled, and the bark is commonly denuded. Unlike its a.s.sociate, _Pinus Albicaulis_, which is abundant as a prostrate shrub far above timber line, the spruce is rarely encountered above timber line at this place, but here and there a hardy individual may be found lurking among the pines.

The greatest elevation at which it was noticed is 10,500 feet.

To me this is one of the most beautiful of Sierran trees. Its delicate silvery hue, and the rarely exquisite shading from the old growth to the new, its gracefulness, the quaint and fascinating tilt of its tip which waveringly bends over in obedience to whichever breeze is blowing makes it the most alluringly feminine of all the trees of the Sierra Nevada.

It is interesting to note the differences in the cones, and in the way they grow; singly, in cl.u.s.ters, at the end of branches, on the stems, large, medium-sized, small, short and stubby, long and slender, conical, etc. Then, too, while the pines generally have cones every year, the firs seem to miss a year, and to bear only alternate years.

The gray squirrels are often great reapers of the cones, before they are ripe. They cut them down and then eat off the tips of the scales so that they present a pathetically stripped appearance.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE BIRDS AND ANIMALS OF THE TAHOE REGION

_Birds_. The bird life of the Tahoe region does not seem particularly interesting or impressive to the casual observer. At first sight there are not many birds, and those that do appear have neither so vivid plumage nor sweet song as their feathered relatives of the east, south and west. Nevertheless there are several interesting species, and while this chapter makes no pretense to completeness it suggests what one untrained observer without birds particularly on his mind has witnessed in the course of his several trips to the Tahoe region.

It soon becomes evident that alt.i.tude has much to do with bird life, some, as the meadow-lark and blackbird never being found higher than the Lake sh.o.r.e, others at the intermediate elevations where the Alpine hemlock thrives, while still others, such as the rosy finch and the rock-wren, are found only on the highest and most craggy peaks.

While water birds are not numerous in the summer, observant visitors at Lake Tahoe for the first time are generally surprised to find numbers of sea gulls. They fly back and forth, however, to and from their native haunts by the sea. They never raise their young here, generally making their return flight to the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific in September, October and at latest November, to come back in March and April. While out on the mountain in these months, fifty or more miles west of Lake Tahoe I have seen them, high in the air, flying straight to the place they desired.

The blue heron in its solitary and stately watchfulness is occasionally seen, and again etches itself like a j.a.panese picture against the pure blue of the sky. The American bittern is also seen rarely.

Kingfishers are found, both on the lakes and streams. It is fascinating to watch them un.o.bserved, perched on a twig, as motionless as if petrified, until, suddenly, their prey is within grasp, and with a sudden splash is seized.

On several of the lakes, occasionally on bays of Tahoe itself, and often in the marshy lands and sloughs of the Upper Truckee, near Tallac, ducks, mallard and teal are found. Mud chickens in abundance are also found pretty nearly everywhere all through the year.

The weird cry of the loon is not infrequently heard on some of the lakes, and one of these latter is named Loon Lake from the fact that several were found there for a number of years.

Flocks of white pelicans are sometimes seen. Blackbirds of two or three kinds are found in the marshes, also killdeer, jacksnipe and the ever active and interesting spotted sandpipers. A few meadow-larks now and again are heard singing their exquisite song, reminding one of Browning's wise thrush which "sings each song twice over, lest you should think he cannot recapture that first fine careless rapture."

Doves are not common, but now and again one may hear their sweet melancholy song, telling us in Joaquin Miller's poetic and exquisite interpretation:

There are many to-morrows, my love, my love, But only one to-day.

In the summer robins are frequently seen. Especially do they revel on the lawns at Tahoe Tavern, their red-b.r.e.a.s.t.s and their peculiar "smithing" or "c.o.keing" just as alluring and interesting as the plumage and voices of the richer feathered and finer songsters of the bird family.

Mountain quails are quite common, and one sometimes sees a dozen flocks in a day. Grouse are fairly plentiful. One day just on the other side of Granite Chief Peak a fine specimen sailed up and out from the trail at our very feet, soared for quite a distance, as straight as a bullet to its billet for a cl.u.s.ter of pine trees, and there hid in the branches. My guide walked down, gun in hand, ready to shoot, and as he came nearer, two others dashed up in disconcerting suddenness and flew, one to the right, the other to the left. We never got a sight of any of them again.

At another time I was coming over by Split Crag from the Lake of the Woods, with Mr. Price, of Fallen Leaf Lodge, when two beautiful grouse arose from the trail and soared away in their characteristic style.

At one time sage-hens were not infrequent on the Nevada side of the Lake, and as far west as Brockways. Indeed it used to be a common thing for hunters, in the early days, to come from Truckee, through Martis Valley, to the Hot Springs (as Brockways was then named) and shoot sage-hens all along the way. A few miles north of Truckee, Sage Hen Creek still preserves, in the name, the fact that the sage-hen was well known there.

Bald-headed and golden eagles are often seen in easy and circular flight above the highest peaks. In the fall and winter they pa.s.s over into the wild country near the almost inaccessible peaks above the American River and there raise their young. One year Mr. Price observed a pair of golden eagles which nested on Mt. Tallac. He and I were seated at lunch one day in September, 1913, on the very summit of Pyramid Peak, when, suddenly, as a bolt out of a clear sky, startling us with its wild rush, an eagle shot obliquely at us from the upper air. The speed with which it fell made a noise as of a "rushing mighty wind." Down! down, it fell, and then with the utmost grace imaginable, swept up, still going at terrific speed, circled about, and was soon lost to sight.

Almost as fond of the wind-tossed pines high up on the slopes of the mountain as is the eagle of the most rugged peaks, is Clark's crow, a grayish white bird, with black wings, and a harsh, rasping call, somewhat between that of a crow and the jay.

Of an entirely different nature, seldom seen except on the topmost peaks, is the rosy-headed finch. While on the summit of Pyramid Peak, we saw two of them, and one of them favored us with his (or her) sweet, gentle song.

Hawks are quite common; among those generally seen are the long tailed grouse-hawk, the sparrow hawk, and the sharp-shinned hawk. Night-hawks are quite conspicuous, if one walks about after sunset. They are dusky with a white throat and band on the wing. They sail through the air without any effort, wings outspread and beak wide open, and thus glean their harvest of winged insects as they skim along. Oftentimes their sudden swoop will startle you as they rush by.

Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs are numerous, and two or three species may be seen almost anywhere in a day's walk through one of the wooded sections. Many are the trees which bear evidence of their industry, skill and providence.

The huge crow-like pileolated woodp.e.c.k.e.r with its scarlet crest, the red-shafted flicker, the Sierra creeper, the red-breasted sap-sucker, Williamson's sap-sucker, the white-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.r, Cabanis's woodp.e.c.k.e.r with spotted wings and gray breast, the most common of woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, and Lewis's woodp.e.c.k.e.r, a large heavy bird, glossy black above, with a white collar and a rich red underpart, have all been seen for many years in succession.

The red-breasted sap-sucker and Williamson's sap-sucker are found most frequently among the aspens and willows along the lake sh.o.r.e, while the red-shafted flicker, Cabanis's woodp.e.c.k.e.r, and the white-head favor the woods. One observer says the slender-billed nut-hatch is much more common than the red-breasted, and that his nasal laugh resounded at all times through the pines.

High up in the hemlock forests is the interesting Alpine three-toed woodp.e.c.k.e.r. It looks very much like Cabanis's, only it has three toes in place of four, and a yellow crown instead of a black and red one.