Garner Valley — the broad, green, five-thousand-foot mountain valley the road runs through: horse ranches, oak-dotted grassland, and the long shoulder of Thomas Mountain, a startling stretch of pastoral high country hidden above the desert.
The mountains have opened their hands and set you down in Garner Valley — and after all that climbing through rock and pinyon, this comes as a lovely surprise. You're rolling through a broad, high mountain valley better than a mile above the sea: open green meadows, scattered oaks, split-rail fences, horse ranches, and cattle grazing under the pines, with the long wooded ridge of Thomas Mountain rising on your left. It looks like somebody lifted a piece of ranch country out of the mountains of Wyoming and tucked it up here above the desert.
It's hard to believe, isn't it — that an hour ago you were down among the palm trees in the baking desert, and now you're driving past hayfields and horse pastures in cool mountain air. That's the magic of this road. Garner Valley has been ranch country for well over a century; the meadows hold their green well into the summer because water collects up here in this high basin. Keep an eye out for horses and riders along the road, and for deer coming out of the oaks at the edges of the meadows, especially toward evening. Enjoy this gentle green stretch while it lasts — the road's about to gather itself for the run up to Idyllwild. And down below this valley, off to the west, lies the town of Hemet, and a story Boone's been wanting to tell you.
Photo: en:user:Geographer · CC BY 1.0
