Page:Motoring Magazine and Motor Life January 1915.djvu/10

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route, m addition to being five miles shorter than by the Santa Rosa-Guerneville road, is in every way a better road, had no grade as steep as the longer way and that the road is nearly all the way back to Sausalito smoother and better than the other.

The road alongside of Tomales Bay is one of the most beautiful drives imaginable, and this, combined with the fact that the driving is over a highway that is in every way splendid makes this route to Monte Rio and Fort Ross an ideal one for automobilists.

There are few grades and good roads practically all the way. The road from this city via Santa Rosa and Guerneville grade to Monte Rio is a very much longer route, while the road is poor, steep in a great many places, and dangerous.

With the proposed San Gabriel route to the Antelope Valley in the course of survey, as the result of action taken by the Board of Supervisors at a meeting held some time ago, representatives of the various chambers of commerce that have worked unremittingly for this notable addition to the scenic roadways of Southern California are encouraged to plan other equally important things for the country represented by the eastern part of San Gabriel Valley.

The Azusa Chamber of Commerce was the first body to consider the building of this road, and has since been seconded by the Chambers of Commerce of Whittier, Lordsburg, Claremont, San Dimas, Covina, Baldwin Park, Pomona, Puente, Glendora, Monrovia and Arcadia. For the purpose of pushing this and other important projects these bodies have organized into what is known as the Associated Chambers of Commerce of the San Gabriel Valley, representing over $300,000,000 worth of property, and meeting once a month at the different cities represented.

Covering approximately seventy miles along a route unparalleled for the magnitude of its beauty, "the road follows the San Gabriel River from Azusa to the mouth of Susanna Canyon, for the first twelve miles, and here crosses the San Gabriel river on a 300 foot bridge emerging from the Susanna Canyon into Graveyard Canyon, gradually reaching an elevation of 2,850 feet. Sloping gradually to lower levels, the road leads through the eastern part of Robert's Canyon, following the west slope of San Gabriel Canyon to Laurel Gulch. Continuing the next five miles, the road rises to Iron Fork&mdash;reaching a height of 3,300 feet. It is at this point that the most complicated part of the construction will occur, owing to the many sharp ridges that prevail, and it is suggested that a bridge crossing Iron Fork 1,000 feet above its mouth be built, thereby eliminating a long and circuitous trip through the canyon.

Continuing from a point north of the junction of Fish Fork and the San Gabriel river, the road continues along the east side of the San Gabriel until the crossing of Prairie Fork is reached. Here another bridge must be constructed, and the road would follow the east and north slopes of Vincent Gulch until the summit northeast of North Baldy Peak is reached, at an elevation of 6,600 feet. Here the road traverses the divide from San Gabriel Canyon to the Big Rock region, following the north side of the river until Big