Clouds Rest, the grim, helmeted Captain of the immediate Sierra, sloping gradually from its base at the bed of Te-na-ya Creek, to its summit six thousand feet above the floor of the Valley, is one of the most majestic of all the beautiful peaks of the region.
From its lofty summit one's view of the surrounding country is only limited by the range of one's vision. From here one may look out over a chaotic massing of noble mountains, over cone-shaped and castle-shaped peaks of every shade of blue and gray and purple, and down enormous gorges that are fiery green in the sun at the top and black as black velvet in the dark at the bottom, with here and there a streak of foamy white showing to mark the course of some stream on its way to the sea. Far off to the northeast can be seen the water of Te-na-ya Lake, lessened by distance and gleaming like turquoise in its setting of emerald forest and gray granite, while