The Glen Alpine Springs tourist resort seems to me one of the most delightful places in all the famous Tahoe region.  From no other valley, as far as I know, may excursions be made in a single day to so many peaks, wild gardens, glacier lakes, glacier meadows, and Alpine groves, cascades, etc.

The drive from Tallac around Fallen Leaf Lake under trees whose boles form arch or portal, framing pictures of the sunny lake, is a memorable experience; then on past Glen Alpine Falls, Lily Lake, and Modjeska Falls, up the deep mountain glen, where the road ends at the hospitable cottages, log-houses and spacious tents of Glen Alpine.

[Illustration:  Mount Tallac, Rubicon Peaks, etc., from Long Wharf at Al Tahoe, Lake Tahoe]

[Illustration:  Al Tahoe Inn and Cottages, on Lake Tahoe]

[Illustration:  Murphey Cottage, Al Tahoe, on Lake Tahoe]

[Illustration:  Porterfield Cottage, Al Tahoe, on Lake Tahoe]

Here is the world-famous spring, discovered in the ’fifties by Nathan Gilmore (for whom Gilmore Lake is named).  Mr. Gilmore was born in Ohio, but, when a mere youth, instead of attending college and graduating in law as his parents had arranged for and expected, he yielded to the lure of the California gold excitement, came West, and in 1850 found himself in Placerville.  In due time he married, and to the sickness of his daughter Evelyn, now Mrs. John L. Ramsay, of Freewater, Ore., is owing his discovery of Glen Alpine.  The doctor ordered him to bring the child up into the mountains.  Accompanied by an old friend, Barton Richardson, of the James Barton Key family of Philadelphia, he came up to Tallac, with the ailing child and its mother.  Being of active temperament he and Mr. Richardson scaled Mt.  Tallac, and in returning were much entranced by Fallen Leaf Lake.  Later Mr. Gilmore came to Fallen Leaf alone, wandering over its moraines and lingering by its shores to drink in its impressive and growingly-overpowering beauty.  In those days there was no road at the southern end of Fallen Leaf and the interested explorer was perforce led to follow the trails of bear, deer and other wild animals.  Rambling through the woods, some two miles above the lake he came to a willow-surrounded swampy place, where the logs and fallen trees were clearly worn by the footprints of many generations of wild animals.  Prompted by curiosity he followed the hidden trail, saw where a small stream of mineral-stained water was flowing, observed where the deer, etc., had licked the stones, and finally came to the source in what he afterwards called Glen Alpine Springs.  Scientific observation afterwards showed that the water had an almost uniform temperature, even in the hottest days of summer, of 39.6 degrees Fahr., and that there was free carbonic acid gas to the extent of 138.36 cubic inches.  The analysis revealed that each U.S. gallon contained grains as follows: