s, Richardsons, Ralston, and the Angora Peaks, Mount Tallac,
Mosquito Pass, and Lakes Olney, LeConte, Heather, Susie, Grass,
Lucile, Margery, and Summit with Lake of the Woods and others in
Desolation Valley, Gilmore, Half Moon, Alta, Morris, Lily, Tamarack,
Rainbow, Grouse, and the Upper and Lower Echo. Desolation Valley and
all its surroundings is also within close reach. This is some four
miles westward of Glen Alpine Springs, and is reached by way of easy
mountain trails under sweet-scented pines and gnarled old junipers;
besides singing streams; across crystal lakes, through a cliff-guarded
glade where snowbanks linger until midsummer, ever renewing the
carpet of green, decking it with heather and myriad exquisite mountain
blossoms. On, over a granite embankment, and lo! your feet are stayed
and your heart is stilled as your eyes behold marvelous Desolation
Valley. Greeting you on its southern boundary stands majestic Pyramid
Peak, with its eternal snows. Lofty companions circling to your very
feet make the walls forming the granite cradle of Olney, the Lake of
Mazes. The waters are blue as the skies above them, and pure as the
melting snows from Pyramid which form them. He who has not looked
upon this, the most remarkable of all the wonder pictures in the Tahoe
region, has missed that for which there is no substitute.

The whole Glen Alpine basin,--which practically extends from the
Tallac range on the north, from Heather Lake Pass (the outlet from
Desolation Valley) and Cracked Crag on the west and southwest, Ralston
Peak and range to the south and the Angora Peaks on the east,--is one
mass of glacial scoriations. Within a few stone-throws of the spring,
on a little-used trail to Grass Lake, there are several beautiful
and interesting markings. One of these is a finely defined curve or
groove, extending for 100 feet or more, above which, about 11/2 feet, is
another groove, some two to four feet wide. These run rudely parallel
for some distance, then unite and continue as one. Coming back to the
trail--a hundred or so feet away,--on the left hand side returning to
the spring, is a gigantic sloping granite block, perfectly polished
with glacial action, and black as though its surface had been coated
in the process. Near here the trail _ducks_ or markers are placed
in a deep grooving or trough three or four feet wide, and of equal
depth, while to the right are two other similar troughs working their
winding and tort