One of the most exquisitely beautiful sights ever witnessed is when a low fog covers the San Gabriel Valley. This fog never rises above a level of about 2,700 to 3,000 feet, and when one is on Echo Mountain, 3,500 feet in elevation, the upper surface of this fog is spread out "like a phantom sea" below. The "cities of the plain" are covered with this snow-white or creamy pall. Underneath is partial gloom and dampness. Above, the sun shines upon a silent sea, whose waves are tossing and lifting, swaying and waving, until finally—generally between 8.30 and 9.30 in the morning—the heat, in dissipating the glowing white ocean, builds fantastic and mysterious forms on its surface, and draws them upwards to rapidly swallow them up and make them disappear in its warm embrace. Such a sight stirs the soul to its greatest depths, and suggests thoughts sublime and soul-uplifting.

The sea is made of the exhalations from the Pacific ocean and covers the whole valley with its white, misty veil on certain mornings. It is 1,500 to 2,000 feet deep, and never reaches the summit of Echo Mountain. As seen from the great hotel it looks like a vast expanse of hummocky ice, as is often noticed in winter off the Atlantic Coast.