Thanks to the automobile, we take for granted our ability to tour in comfort through California's backcountry. But back in 1911 when Englishman J. Smeaton Chase wanted to explore Big Sur country, he had to buy a horse.

Starting in El Monte, Chase rode his companion Anton along the California Coast clear to the Oregon border. He recorded his impressions in California Coast Trails, a classic of California travel writing and a volume rich with powerful descriptions of our coastal regions. Here, J. Smeaton Chase guides Anton along a trail somewhere in the Santa Lucias south of Big Sur, a region whose natural beauty still retains the power to astonish.

Higher still, and near the crest, I came into a region of magnificent yellow-pines and redwoods. It was sundown, and the view was a remarkable one. The sun shone level, and with a strange bronze hue, through a translucent veil of fog. Below the fog the surface of the ocean was clear, and was flooded with gorgeous purple by the sunset. On the high crest where I stood, a clear, warm glory bathed the golden slopes of grass and lighted the noble trees as if for some great pageant. There was a solemnity in the splendor, an unearthly quality in the whole scene; that kept me spellbound and bareheaded until, fatefully, imperceptibly, the sun had set.

Chase wrote two other California travel books, Yosemite Trails and California Desert Trails.

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