Still farther north, a considerable number of comparatively low passes
occur, some of which are accessible to wheeled vehicles, and through
these rugged defiles during the exciting years of the gold period long
emigrant-trains with foot-sore cattle wearily toiled. After the
toil-worn adventurers had escaped a thousand dangers and had crawled
thousands of miles across the plains the snowy Sierra at last loomed in
sight, the eastern wall of the land of gold. And as with shaded eyes
they gazed through the tremulous haze of the desert, with what joy must
they have descried the pass through which they were to enter the better
land of their hopes and dreams!
Between the Sonora Pass and the southern extremity of the High Sierra, a
distance of nearly 160 miles, there are only five passes through which
trails conduct from one side of the range to the other. These are barely
practicable for animals; a pass in these regions meaning simply any
notch or canon through which one may, by the exercise of unlimited
patience, make out to lead a mule, or a sure-footed mustang; animals
that can slide or jump as well as walk. Only three of the five passes
may be said to be in use, viz.
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