Get lost in the Milky Way
With less than 400 full time residents, Palomar Mountain is remote and rural and the perfect location for stargazing. Palomar provide amateur and professional stargazers alike with an impressive view of the night sky. Unique in Southern California, CalTech chose Palomar Mountain for the site of what was once the largest telescope in the world and dubbed the road up ‘Highway to the Stars’. The 12 story iconic Dome with its 200 inch Hale Telescope grandly sits at the mountain’s 5,598 peak and is clearly visible across the valley from Bailey’s.
Take a night hike over to the Sunday School Flat open meadows or have a seat at the Pavilion and look up for a glimpse of the night sky painted with stars, planets, and passing meteors.
There is a road from the Mack place down through the edge of Chimney Flat to Sunday School Flat. Midway there is a level place on top of the ridge. At one time there was a schoolhouse here, but when I first passed that way the building was gone, but some benches, etc., were still left. If I remember rightly, one of the school benches still remaining had been made from cedar nicely smoothed and hand-carved.
Excerpted from My Palomar by Robert Asher
