Charming View from the Park ~ SD Union, November 23, 1902

SAN DIEGO UNION
November 23, 1902, 5:1

CHARMING VIEW FROM THE PARK

Many a Journey Is Made Across the Sea to Find Something Less Pretty

Some Description of the Extensive View of Mountain and Valley and Ocean and Bay

The most experienced traveler would have difficulty to recall natural effects in other lands equal to these November days at home, when the earth seems to be re-created with new beauty. Many a journey is made across seas with no greater reward in the way of impressive and beautiful scenery than may be enjoyed in San Diego this morning. The great panorama spread out in all directions from the park mesa is intensified by the wonderfully clear atmosphere. Encircling mountains to north and east and south seem to have moved in in friendly fashion during these days of northeasterly winds. The eastward mountains, twenty or thirty miles away, appear like boundaries to the park itself in their apparent nearness. Their seamed slopes stand out clearly, bare and brown in the bright sunshine. The canyons plainly marked by their deep shadows. The very colors of soil and rocks are distinctly visible. Mount Cuyamaca, sixty miles away, towers with snow-covered head and shoulders above ridges which wear their summer covering. Other faraway summits in the broken and irregular ridges to the north stand out white and wintry, and away to the northeast, close against the horizon, the long, level crest of the San Jacinto range extends like a wintry cloud. At times, yesterday, looking across the intervening country bathed in warm sunshine, distant peaks faded from sight in local snowstorms. Table Mountain and other heights in Mexico gave no sign of winter, and to westward the bay and ocean glimmer no less brightly than in mid-summer. A hundred miles from east to west, and as great a distance from north to south, are in clear view.

Close at hand, the tiny white blossoms of saxifraga grayll give the first promise of a host of wild flowers soon to follow. The silver-back fern is making new colonies of plants in moist and sheltered nooks, where bright green patches of mosses are also beginning to give new character to the brown summer surface. Some new shoots of sagebrush, delicate silvery gray, are pleasantly fragrant. One of the two sorts of sumac found on the mesa, Rhus laurinifolia, has new terminal shoots, the bright young bark and fresh leaves in pleasant contrast to the older portions of these shrubs. The other sumac, Rhus interifolia, shows signs of flowering soon. Pink-white clusters of wild buckwheat are keeping up the continuous bloom of this familiar shrub, and spears of grass are forming themselves into green patches on the moist and warm slopes. A good way to enjoy the park of the future in its greater variety, interest and beauty, is to become intimately acquainted with the area in its natural state. The best time to observe the native plants is from the beginning of the rainy season throughout the winter, when they can be followed in their succession of flowering.

M. B. C.


Return to Samuel Parsons and Balboa Park.