From there a line of stage-coaches proceeds north into Oregon, through the mass of mountains which separates the Sacramento Valley in California from the Willamette Valley in Oregon.

The stage-road passes through a very varied and picturesque country, one which few pleasure travelers see, and which yet is as well worth a visit as any part of the western coast.

The Sacramento River, which rises in a large spring near the base of Mount Shasta, has worn its way through the high mountains, and rushes down for nearly a hundred miles of its course an impetuous, roaring mountain stream, abounding in trout at all seasons, and in June, July, and August filled with salmon which have come up here through the Golden Gates from the ocean to spawn.

The stage-road follows almost to its source the devious course of the river, and you ride along sometimes nearly on a level with the stream, and again on a road-bed cut out of the steep mountain side a thousand or fifteen hundred feet above the river; through fine forests of sugar-pines and yellow pines many of which come almost up to the dimensions of the great sequoias.
The river and its upper tributaries abound in trout, and this region is famous among Californian sportsmen for deer and fish.

Many farm-houses along the road accommodate travelers who desire to stay to enjoy the fine scenery, and to hunt and fish; and a notable stopping-place is Fry's Soda Spring, fourteen hours by stage from Redding, kept by Isaac Fry and his excellent wife--a clean, comfortable little mountain inn, where you get good and well-cooked food, and where you will find what your stage ride will make welcome to you--a comfortable bath.