The upper end is surrounded, amphitheater fashion, by majestic mountains, rising to a height of upwards of 9000 feet.

Clothed with sage-brush at the lower end and rich grass further up, even to the very base of the mountains, it is, in some respects, the prettiest valley in the whole of this part of the Sierra Nevadas.
The upper meadows are full of milk cows, quietly grazing or lying down and chewing their cuds, while just beyond the great dairy buildings is the unpretentious cottage of the Forest Ranger.

Remnants of old log chutes remind one of the logging activities that used to be carried on here.
One of the most observable features of Squaw Valley is its level character.

This is discussed in the chapter on glacial action.
On the right the vein of quartz which out-crops at Knoxville is visible in several places and the various dump-piles show how many claimants worked on their locations in the hope of finding profitable ore.
Half way up the valley is an Iron Spring, the oxydization from which has gathered together a large amount of red which the Indians still prize highly and use for face paint.
How these suggestions excite the imagination--old logging chutes, mining-claims and Indians.

Once this valley rang with the clang of chains on driven oxen, the sharp stroke of the ax as it bit into the heart of the tree, the crash of the giant trees as they fell, the rude snarl of the saw as it cut them up into logs, the shout of the driver as he drove his horses alongside the chute and hurried the logs down to the river, the quick blast of the imprisoned powder, the falling of shattered rocks, the emptying of the ore or waste-bucket upon the dump--all these sounds once echoed to and from these hillsides and mountain slopes.
Now everything is as quiet and placid as a New England pastoral scene, and only the towering mountains, snow-clad even as late as this in the fall, suggest that we are in the far-away wilds of the great West.
But Squaw Valley had another epoch, which it was hoped would materially and forever destroy its quiet and pastoral character.