J. Smeaton Chase was an English-born American author and traveler. He has become an integral part of California literature: revered for his poignant descriptions of landscapes. He died in 1923. In 1910 he rode from the Mexican border to Oregon, then penned a delightful book called California Coast Trails, published in 1913, which recorded his impressions of the pristine beauty observed during that ocean-front ride. California Desert Trails, chronically his next epic journey, was first published six years later in 1916.
