Friday dawned cold, and high cirrus clouds filtered the sun for several hours, so that warming was slow. NFARA's own Secretary, Catherine O'Riley, suffered a broken clavicle last summer, a break which excited many remarks from her doctors, such as "I've never seen one that bad," etc. etc. (horrors!), and after five months of recuperation, she at last felt ready to take on her beloved Canyon Creek Trail. At ten in the morning I met her at the Monte Vista, and we snuck into the Gold Run Diggings, and parked at the trailhead.
We found that the miners' garbage from the Tunnel area had indeed been removed entirely. Many thanks to Julie, and to Tom Faust for taking that on! Catherine and I spent ten minutes cleaning up more garbage from around the Tunnel Terrace, where the steam engine once chugged away, compressing air for the drilling machine which bored the gigantic hole. The thing--the Tunnel--is fully twelve feet wide and nine feet high, for the last 400 feet before it breaks out above Canyon Creek. Made in 1873, by the Gold Run Ditch & Mining Co., this tunnel allowed the hydraulic mines to continue working down through the gravels, all the way to the bedrock floor of the ancient river channel.
The clouds thinned, the day warmed, and soon we were swinging along right smartly, down past the First Big Waterfall, Spike Point, the Inner Gorge and the Rockslide, and took the Upper Terraces Trail to where the California Milkmaids are already in bloom, in that sweet spot of microclimate around the Terraces. I have seen this species of the Mustard Family in bloom there as early as January 6th.
The Terraces seem to have been constructed for camping and cooking in support of sluice box operations in Canyon Creek. The last two miles of the creek was fitted with multiple giant sluice boxes over the two decades or less of the peak of hydraulic mining. These needed constant attendance, repair, and guarding. Work was done in two twelve-hour shifts. Mercury by the ton was thrown in to catch the fine gold, and special sluice boxes called "undercurrents" were set up in many places.
We dawdled around on the tiny lawns of the Terraces, enjoying bright sunshine that finally felt really warm, and admiring the flowers. Waterfalls crashed and hissed unseen below us. After a good break, we hit the HOUT, the High Old Upriver Trail, and followed it east on its strangely level line about a mile towards Giant Gap. The great cliffs and pinnacles drew nearer and nearer; winding in and out of ravines on the HOUT, the view constantly changed.
We stopped at Bogus Gully, although I skipped ahead just a couple hundred yards, as Ron Gould and I, while on the Diving Board, a week ago, had been scanning those very slopes rather closely with binoculars, and had been surprised that so little of the HOUT could be seen. However, the sun angle at that time was as if calculated to hide the HOUT. While on one of the best-defined level benches east of Bogus Gully, exactly where we had tried and failed to pick the thing out, I saw that there is an absolutely unobstructed view back to the Diving Board. So, it was the lighting. Had we been on the Board soon after dawn, the HOUT would have been easily seen. In the early afternoon, with the sun behind is, no shadows were visible to help eke out the trail.
Catherine had chores in town, so we wandered slowly up and out, taking the side trail to the Blasted Digger Overlook, and reaching her truck around four o'clock.
It was another wonderful day in Canyon Creek and the North Fork. Of course, we were trespassing nearly every step of the way, which should remind us that somehow, some way, we must find the money for the BLM to just buy the Gold Run Diggings.
It won't be easy.
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Sunday, January 4, 2004
Diving Board Ridge
South of the town of Gold Run the Diggings stretch a mile to the edge of the North Fork canyon; paralleling the old hydraulic mining area on the west is Garrett Road, on the east, Canyon Creek. A ridge divides the Diggings from Canyon Creek, here and there broken by small ravines which predate mining. Towards the south this ridge is known as Indiana Hill. It is truncated abruptly by the North Fork canyon, but then emerges anew as a spur ridge jutting well into the canyon, dividing Canyon Creek from Indiana Ravine. I call this spur Diving Board Ridge, though Ski Jump Ridge better fits its shape.
In any case it is a remarkable place, at first plunging steeply, then leveling out, the flat part occupying an almost perfectly central place in the great canyon, with views to the east through Giant Gap to Sawtooth Ridge and Monumental Ridge--the latter, rising to 7000', deeply cloaked in snow--and to the west, a long series of interwoven, forested spurs, with Pickering Bar almost immediately below.
On Sunday I joined geologist Dave Lawler of Grass Valley, and masseuse Cindy Goldman of Dutch Flat, for a visit to the Diving Board. We drove south on Garrett Road, often icy, with a thin coating of snow on the adjacent hillsides, and parked above the BLM gate at the end of the road.
Actually, it is not the end; the road, clearly marked on my 1866 General Land Office map, continues almost another mile to the Secret World, or Indiana Hill Pit, a lost little mining pit on the very edge of the canyon, with a charming little stone cabin hidden away at its center. The road has been gated closed for scarcely ten years, if that, and one can no longer drive to the Pickering Bar Trail or to the Secret World.
We set off marching over thin crunchy snow that had melted ever so slightly on Saturday, and then frozen hard during the night. We all three had loppers and soon enough were hard at work, for the snow had pressed the manzanita down into the road. Snarls of fallen Knobcone Pines also blocked the road in several places.
The day was sunny and bright and cool to cold. Passing the Pickering Bar Trail, we descended slopes facing east, and the early afternoon sun hid away from us, stranding us in a mess of snow-laden manzanita; hundreds of branches needed lopping, and often a shower of snow and ice would shake down over us and sneak, somehow, inside our clothes. I was in the lead and was letting out little screams almost constantly.
We finally reached the edge of the Secret World and worked on re-opening a trail I had cleared seven or eight years ago, but which had become infested with the worst snow-flattened wall of manzanita and buckbrush imaginable. It took twenty minutes to clear a hundred yards or less. Finally we could cross Indiana Ravine to the stone cabin.
This cabin has been vandalized in recent years, portions of the walls battered down, and unless we do something to repair it now, it is not long for this world, and will soon pass beyond that bourne, etc. etc. It was built in the 1930s by one Byron Emrick, a miner and all-around eccentric. Somewhere he stole--well, who knows just how he got it--some heavy-duty corrugated iron roofing, which has stood the test of these last three-score and ten years very well, and is a deep dark rusty red in color, almost black, really. I took some photographs and we cautiously climbed across a vast snowy mass of boulders fifteen feet high and a hundred long, stacked up by the Chinese under Tia Sing, lo these one hundred and twenty years ago.
For, at first this area, exactly where gold was first discovered at Gold Run, was drift-mined, tunnels driven in horizontally a thousand feet along the bedrock floor of the ancient river, and the bottom five feet of cemented gravel stoped out and brought back in thousand-pound ore-cart loads, to a stamp mill on the edge of the canyon. Later, after this rich stratum was worked out, the ground was leased to Tia Sing, and he and his fellows hydrauliced out the pit, and worked the exposed bedrock over with fine-tooth combs. To do this, thousands upon thousands of boulders must needs be shifted to one side and then another.
So, it is an interesting place. We crossed to the east side and climbed the wall of the pit at a low spot, then crossed the snowy Diggings on a secret trail which really could be thought of as the actual beginning of the Diving Board Trail; for it leaves the Diggings through a low pass, and hits the Indiana Hill Ditch just exactly, not one foot to either side, where the trail to the Diving Board plunges down the canyon wall.
We tromped right on down. Over the past couple of years Catherine O'Riley and I have been working on this old old trail, lopping the branches back, and it is almost easy to follow now. Today we had the loppers hard at work, for if you let up on the endless supply of buckbrush and manzanita and silk-tassel and mountain mahogany and live oak, it will rather quickly overwhelm and obliterate a trail.
Pretty much all snow was left behind as soon as we dropped below the Indiana Hill Ditch, and views of the great canyon began to excite us; the North Fork could be heard roaring far below, and Canyon Creek's Big Waterfall, some 120' high, made its voice heard, louder and closer. The sun began to be felt more strongly--so welcome!--and Dave had me get my camera out and take pictures, as the Diving Board, the Big Waterfall, Giant Gap, and other points of great interest and beauty hove into view.
This ridge had been used as a lumber slide in the olden days, when sluice boxes, giant sluice boxes, were fitted into Canyon Creek and Indiana Ravine, and perforce much sawed lumber was needed in these remote, cliff-bound ravines and gorges. For lumber would only tolerate the great rushing streaming mass of mine tailings for a few months at best, even when armored with boulders and fitted with protective layers of railroad track. A constant supply of sawed lumber was required, and the Diving Board Ridge was the main route for delivery. A sometimes deep scar, from dragging bundles of planks and beams a thousand pounds at a time or more, is etched down the crest of the ridge.
The trail wanders back and forth nearby, following a gentler line. Eventually, the ridge narrows to a narrow blade of solid rock, and the slide was forced off the crest. They (and who were "they"?) built a massive dry-laid stone retaining wall along the west side to accomodate the lumber slide.
Just below this area, the ridge flattens, and soon we were on the perfectly level portion, with its tremendous views of the Big Waterfall, the Terraces, the Canyon Creek Trail, Giant Gap, Pickering Bar, etc. etc. We honored and admired the view east but moved rather quickly to the sunny west side, and lounged on the rocks in the warm sun, something which seemed impossible an hour before. Gnats, of all things, were floating in the little sunshine-ignited thermals near the dark-foliaged Canyon Live Oaks. I have often seen this, but after such cold nights!--it seemed, well, odd.
After a good long break we slogged up and out and broke away north into the Diggings, taking the round-about Diggings Road route, rather than the shady manzanita snow cloister we had walked on our way in. We crunched through the thin snow and climbed the long hills and, soon enough, were passing the spot where the largest petrified log in the Diggings was stolen not long ago, and where the one remaining large fragment of that log was stolen, by someone on an OHV, in 2003. Here we began to see many footprints, and the track of a plastic sled, coming in, and going back out, and we saw that there was not quite--almost, but not quite--enough of The Beautiful for sledding, and that the gang had walked in and walked right back out, and we followed their many footprints back up and out to the BLM gate and our cars.
It was a wonderful day, and a strenuous day, clear and fresh and full of fine views. Giant Gap's north-facing south wall was especially notable, with its heavy frosting of snow over the upper 1000 feet--only the most radical cliffs and protrusions standing out dark and unadorned and free of the icy crystals, such as the Pinnacles, and the Eminence.
In any case it is a remarkable place, at first plunging steeply, then leveling out, the flat part occupying an almost perfectly central place in the great canyon, with views to the east through Giant Gap to Sawtooth Ridge and Monumental Ridge--the latter, rising to 7000', deeply cloaked in snow--and to the west, a long series of interwoven, forested spurs, with Pickering Bar almost immediately below.
On Sunday I joined geologist Dave Lawler of Grass Valley, and masseuse Cindy Goldman of Dutch Flat, for a visit to the Diving Board. We drove south on Garrett Road, often icy, with a thin coating of snow on the adjacent hillsides, and parked above the BLM gate at the end of the road.
Actually, it is not the end; the road, clearly marked on my 1866 General Land Office map, continues almost another mile to the Secret World, or Indiana Hill Pit, a lost little mining pit on the very edge of the canyon, with a charming little stone cabin hidden away at its center. The road has been gated closed for scarcely ten years, if that, and one can no longer drive to the Pickering Bar Trail or to the Secret World.
We set off marching over thin crunchy snow that had melted ever so slightly on Saturday, and then frozen hard during the night. We all three had loppers and soon enough were hard at work, for the snow had pressed the manzanita down into the road. Snarls of fallen Knobcone Pines also blocked the road in several places.
The day was sunny and bright and cool to cold. Passing the Pickering Bar Trail, we descended slopes facing east, and the early afternoon sun hid away from us, stranding us in a mess of snow-laden manzanita; hundreds of branches needed lopping, and often a shower of snow and ice would shake down over us and sneak, somehow, inside our clothes. I was in the lead and was letting out little screams almost constantly.
We finally reached the edge of the Secret World and worked on re-opening a trail I had cleared seven or eight years ago, but which had become infested with the worst snow-flattened wall of manzanita and buckbrush imaginable. It took twenty minutes to clear a hundred yards or less. Finally we could cross Indiana Ravine to the stone cabin.
This cabin has been vandalized in recent years, portions of the walls battered down, and unless we do something to repair it now, it is not long for this world, and will soon pass beyond that bourne, etc. etc. It was built in the 1930s by one Byron Emrick, a miner and all-around eccentric. Somewhere he stole--well, who knows just how he got it--some heavy-duty corrugated iron roofing, which has stood the test of these last three-score and ten years very well, and is a deep dark rusty red in color, almost black, really. I took some photographs and we cautiously climbed across a vast snowy mass of boulders fifteen feet high and a hundred long, stacked up by the Chinese under Tia Sing, lo these one hundred and twenty years ago.
For, at first this area, exactly where gold was first discovered at Gold Run, was drift-mined, tunnels driven in horizontally a thousand feet along the bedrock floor of the ancient river, and the bottom five feet of cemented gravel stoped out and brought back in thousand-pound ore-cart loads, to a stamp mill on the edge of the canyon. Later, after this rich stratum was worked out, the ground was leased to Tia Sing, and he and his fellows hydrauliced out the pit, and worked the exposed bedrock over with fine-tooth combs. To do this, thousands upon thousands of boulders must needs be shifted to one side and then another.
So, it is an interesting place. We crossed to the east side and climbed the wall of the pit at a low spot, then crossed the snowy Diggings on a secret trail which really could be thought of as the actual beginning of the Diving Board Trail; for it leaves the Diggings through a low pass, and hits the Indiana Hill Ditch just exactly, not one foot to either side, where the trail to the Diving Board plunges down the canyon wall.
We tromped right on down. Over the past couple of years Catherine O'Riley and I have been working on this old old trail, lopping the branches back, and it is almost easy to follow now. Today we had the loppers hard at work, for if you let up on the endless supply of buckbrush and manzanita and silk-tassel and mountain mahogany and live oak, it will rather quickly overwhelm and obliterate a trail.
Pretty much all snow was left behind as soon as we dropped below the Indiana Hill Ditch, and views of the great canyon began to excite us; the North Fork could be heard roaring far below, and Canyon Creek's Big Waterfall, some 120' high, made its voice heard, louder and closer. The sun began to be felt more strongly--so welcome!--and Dave had me get my camera out and take pictures, as the Diving Board, the Big Waterfall, Giant Gap, and other points of great interest and beauty hove into view.
This ridge had been used as a lumber slide in the olden days, when sluice boxes, giant sluice boxes, were fitted into Canyon Creek and Indiana Ravine, and perforce much sawed lumber was needed in these remote, cliff-bound ravines and gorges. For lumber would only tolerate the great rushing streaming mass of mine tailings for a few months at best, even when armored with boulders and fitted with protective layers of railroad track. A constant supply of sawed lumber was required, and the Diving Board Ridge was the main route for delivery. A sometimes deep scar, from dragging bundles of planks and beams a thousand pounds at a time or more, is etched down the crest of the ridge.
The trail wanders back and forth nearby, following a gentler line. Eventually, the ridge narrows to a narrow blade of solid rock, and the slide was forced off the crest. They (and who were "they"?) built a massive dry-laid stone retaining wall along the west side to accomodate the lumber slide.
Just below this area, the ridge flattens, and soon we were on the perfectly level portion, with its tremendous views of the Big Waterfall, the Terraces, the Canyon Creek Trail, Giant Gap, Pickering Bar, etc. etc. We honored and admired the view east but moved rather quickly to the sunny west side, and lounged on the rocks in the warm sun, something which seemed impossible an hour before. Gnats, of all things, were floating in the little sunshine-ignited thermals near the dark-foliaged Canyon Live Oaks. I have often seen this, but after such cold nights!--it seemed, well, odd.
After a good long break we slogged up and out and broke away north into the Diggings, taking the round-about Diggings Road route, rather than the shady manzanita snow cloister we had walked on our way in. We crunched through the thin snow and climbed the long hills and, soon enough, were passing the spot where the largest petrified log in the Diggings was stolen not long ago, and where the one remaining large fragment of that log was stolen, by someone on an OHV, in 2003. Here we began to see many footprints, and the track of a plastic sled, coming in, and going back out, and we saw that there was not quite--almost, but not quite--enough of The Beautiful for sledding, and that the gang had walked in and walked right back out, and we followed their many footprints back up and out to the BLM gate and our cars.
It was a wonderful day, and a strenuous day, clear and fresh and full of fine views. Giant Gap's north-facing south wall was especially notable, with its heavy frosting of snow over the upper 1000 feet--only the most radical cliffs and protrusions standing out dark and unadorned and free of the icy crystals, such as the Pinnacles, and the Eminence.
Thursday, January 1, 2004
Visit To Canyon Creek
On New Year's Eve I met Ron Gould and his friend Dale at the Monte Vista Inn, whence we snuck into the Gold Run Diggings and drove to the head of the Canyon Creek Trail (CCT).
This trail leads from the Diggings down to the North Fork American, and probably went through several different alignments, beginning in the Gold Rush, until its present route became fixed, perhaps in the 1860s. In 1849 a trading post was established at Cold Springs, up on Cold Springs Hill, which rises above the Diggings on the west; and CCT would have left Canyon Creek by way of Potato Ravine, climbing the north wall of the ravine west to Cold Springs, the trading post, and the trail to Sacramento.
In the 1870s, Potato Ravine itself was mined away, where it crossed the Diggings. Thus the upper part of the CCT became empty space. New paths were forged across the Diggings to restore access to the old trail, and these in part comprise the combination of road and trail I call the Paleobotanist Trail.
The CCT itself now begins in Potato Ravine just east of the Diggings, near some old old house or cabin sites. It drops east a short distance before crossing the ravine to the Indiana Hill Ditch. Here one passes from the private-property-now-for-sale, the 800 acres belong to Gold Run Properties (GRP), into public BLM lands. The trail follows the line of this smallish 1852 ditch for perhaps three hundred yards, and then drops away left to Canyon Creek. There it re-enters the GRP lands now for sale, and remains on private property the rest of the way to the North Fork.
The day was overcast, alternately threatening rain and promising sun, and a thin layer of sloppy-wet, rained-on snow covered the ground. However, as we dropped south through the Diggings, we left the snow above and behind us. We parked at the trailhead. Ominously, a beer can had been left atop a small cedar, marking the trail. We set off, soon reaching the Old Wagon Road and then approaching the great bedrock drain tunnel, nine feet high and twelve feet wide, of the Gold Run Ditch & Mining Company. Near the tunnel a small flat held a steam engine, back in 1873, when the tunnel was made, and twice in the last year or so a would-be miner made a terrible mess of the flat, requiring many backpack loads of garbage to be hauled up and out. The sharp eyes of Ron Gould spotted another cache of garbage above the tunnel, half-hidden in the trees, from the last miner's camp. We dragged it down to the trail and left it for another day. Two backpack loads ought to do it.
On down the trail, the main North Fork canyon hove into view, fog and cloud clinging to the canyon rim, where snow still covered the ground, and some few snatches of fog remaining within the canyon. As the first large waterfall on Canyon Creek was approached, we saw that the creek was high enough to make the Leaper, a small waterfall to the side of the main fall, which plunges down a polished chute to a half-pothole and is flung out and up, making a nice arching water-rise, water-fall.
A hawk circled and soared above us as we entered upon the steeps of the trail, passing the remarkable Inner Gorge and the Big Waterfall, which speaks loudly but is never seen. Well below the Rockslide we took the faint trail right to the Big Waterfall and the Terraces, paying a visit to each in turn, before using the Lower Terraces Trail to return to the CCT proper. A few more minutes brought us down to the river, and a perch beside the last big waterfall on Canyon Creek, where we ate lunch, and bundled up a bit, as rain began to fall.
After lunch we ventured east on the Low Old Upriver Trail or LOUT, although hesitant to follow it past the rather dangerous section on a cliff. All day we had noticed how very slippery the rocks were, with no sun to dry them after recent storms. However, we girded our loins or whatever it is one does when facing such a hazard and were soon safely past, the main concern actually being our several dogs, two of which verged upon decrepitude. The other was a well-built youngster who had a happy habit of just knocking you out of her way, if she was in a hurry, on the trail.
The LOUT is rather faint in places and splits into multiple tracks, but we managed to hold the main trail at each split and eventually, after pitching up and down and up and down, with many fine views of the river, flowing high and clear and cold, below us, we reached the vicinity of Bogus Gully and began a zig-zag course right up the hillside, and after a climb of two hundred feet, reached the large bouldery area beside the gully, where a cache of mining tools exists. After a little break to recover our breath, we climbed the last hundred feet up to the High Old Upriver Trail, the HOUT, and followed it east to a very fine viewpoint.
Here one sees the North Fork, below, to the east and to the west, and the cliff I call The Eminence, or Sunset Point, right across the canyon. To the east, Giant Gap, flanked by Lovers Leap on the left, and the Pinnacle Ridge on the right, with Big West Spur hiding the lower part of the Gap, the heart of the Gap, where cliffs plunge almost vertically down to the river and its deep pools. We took a nice break and then walked the easy mile back to the CCT on the HOUT, which has an almost perfectly level course, as it originated not in the Gold Rush, like the LOUT, but in the 1890s, an artifact of the Giant Gap Survey. The Survey was a scheme to carry away the waters of the North Fork American, in a ditch and pipeline, to San Francisco. To demonstrate the feasibility of the project, men were hired on to not only survey the line of the canal through Giant Gap, but even blast out a tiny bench cut into the cliffs.
The net result is an almost-level trail, about three hundred feet above the river. One can follow it all the way past Big West Spur into the very heart of Giant Gap, with more and more outright rock-climbing required, and eventually, great tunnels appear in gigantic blades of rock, and a rather complicated route can be picked out, used by the Survey men themselves, which connects together the various level sections, where benches and tunnels were blasted from the cliffs, with sharp descents from and ascents over some very steep terrain.
Ron and I went all the way through, from Canyon Creek to Green Valley, in July. Towards Green Valley the disconnected vestiges of the Survey become even harder to follow and connect by side trails, and it works out well to hop along the bouldery banks of the river itself, until the Green Valley Trail (West) is reached.
Ron and Dale and I made the long slow trudge up and out, with occasional rain showers so light we were scarcely even dampened, but the CCT is only about a mile and a half long, so, soon enough we were at the truck, and, well, it was a fine day and a fine way to ring out the late great year, 2003.
This trail leads from the Diggings down to the North Fork American, and probably went through several different alignments, beginning in the Gold Rush, until its present route became fixed, perhaps in the 1860s. In 1849 a trading post was established at Cold Springs, up on Cold Springs Hill, which rises above the Diggings on the west; and CCT would have left Canyon Creek by way of Potato Ravine, climbing the north wall of the ravine west to Cold Springs, the trading post, and the trail to Sacramento.
In the 1870s, Potato Ravine itself was mined away, where it crossed the Diggings. Thus the upper part of the CCT became empty space. New paths were forged across the Diggings to restore access to the old trail, and these in part comprise the combination of road and trail I call the Paleobotanist Trail.
The CCT itself now begins in Potato Ravine just east of the Diggings, near some old old house or cabin sites. It drops east a short distance before crossing the ravine to the Indiana Hill Ditch. Here one passes from the private-property-now-for-sale, the 800 acres belong to Gold Run Properties (GRP), into public BLM lands. The trail follows the line of this smallish 1852 ditch for perhaps three hundred yards, and then drops away left to Canyon Creek. There it re-enters the GRP lands now for sale, and remains on private property the rest of the way to the North Fork.
The day was overcast, alternately threatening rain and promising sun, and a thin layer of sloppy-wet, rained-on snow covered the ground. However, as we dropped south through the Diggings, we left the snow above and behind us. We parked at the trailhead. Ominously, a beer can had been left atop a small cedar, marking the trail. We set off, soon reaching the Old Wagon Road and then approaching the great bedrock drain tunnel, nine feet high and twelve feet wide, of the Gold Run Ditch & Mining Company. Near the tunnel a small flat held a steam engine, back in 1873, when the tunnel was made, and twice in the last year or so a would-be miner made a terrible mess of the flat, requiring many backpack loads of garbage to be hauled up and out. The sharp eyes of Ron Gould spotted another cache of garbage above the tunnel, half-hidden in the trees, from the last miner's camp. We dragged it down to the trail and left it for another day. Two backpack loads ought to do it.
On down the trail, the main North Fork canyon hove into view, fog and cloud clinging to the canyon rim, where snow still covered the ground, and some few snatches of fog remaining within the canyon. As the first large waterfall on Canyon Creek was approached, we saw that the creek was high enough to make the Leaper, a small waterfall to the side of the main fall, which plunges down a polished chute to a half-pothole and is flung out and up, making a nice arching water-rise, water-fall.
A hawk circled and soared above us as we entered upon the steeps of the trail, passing the remarkable Inner Gorge and the Big Waterfall, which speaks loudly but is never seen. Well below the Rockslide we took the faint trail right to the Big Waterfall and the Terraces, paying a visit to each in turn, before using the Lower Terraces Trail to return to the CCT proper. A few more minutes brought us down to the river, and a perch beside the last big waterfall on Canyon Creek, where we ate lunch, and bundled up a bit, as rain began to fall.
After lunch we ventured east on the Low Old Upriver Trail or LOUT, although hesitant to follow it past the rather dangerous section on a cliff. All day we had noticed how very slippery the rocks were, with no sun to dry them after recent storms. However, we girded our loins or whatever it is one does when facing such a hazard and were soon safely past, the main concern actually being our several dogs, two of which verged upon decrepitude. The other was a well-built youngster who had a happy habit of just knocking you out of her way, if she was in a hurry, on the trail.
The LOUT is rather faint in places and splits into multiple tracks, but we managed to hold the main trail at each split and eventually, after pitching up and down and up and down, with many fine views of the river, flowing high and clear and cold, below us, we reached the vicinity of Bogus Gully and began a zig-zag course right up the hillside, and after a climb of two hundred feet, reached the large bouldery area beside the gully, where a cache of mining tools exists. After a little break to recover our breath, we climbed the last hundred feet up to the High Old Upriver Trail, the HOUT, and followed it east to a very fine viewpoint.
Here one sees the North Fork, below, to the east and to the west, and the cliff I call The Eminence, or Sunset Point, right across the canyon. To the east, Giant Gap, flanked by Lovers Leap on the left, and the Pinnacle Ridge on the right, with Big West Spur hiding the lower part of the Gap, the heart of the Gap, where cliffs plunge almost vertically down to the river and its deep pools. We took a nice break and then walked the easy mile back to the CCT on the HOUT, which has an almost perfectly level course, as it originated not in the Gold Rush, like the LOUT, but in the 1890s, an artifact of the Giant Gap Survey. The Survey was a scheme to carry away the waters of the North Fork American, in a ditch and pipeline, to San Francisco. To demonstrate the feasibility of the project, men were hired on to not only survey the line of the canal through Giant Gap, but even blast out a tiny bench cut into the cliffs.
The net result is an almost-level trail, about three hundred feet above the river. One can follow it all the way past Big West Spur into the very heart of Giant Gap, with more and more outright rock-climbing required, and eventually, great tunnels appear in gigantic blades of rock, and a rather complicated route can be picked out, used by the Survey men themselves, which connects together the various level sections, where benches and tunnels were blasted from the cliffs, with sharp descents from and ascents over some very steep terrain.
Ron and I went all the way through, from Canyon Creek to Green Valley, in July. Towards Green Valley the disconnected vestiges of the Survey become even harder to follow and connect by side trails, and it works out well to hop along the bouldery banks of the river itself, until the Green Valley Trail (West) is reached.
Ron and Dale and I made the long slow trudge up and out, with occasional rain showers so light we were scarcely even dampened, but the CCT is only about a mile and a half long, so, soon enough we were at the truck, and, well, it was a fine day and a fine way to ring out the late great year, 2003.
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Motorcycles on Stevens Trail
Mike Powell sent this about motorcycles on the Stevens Trail:
Hi Russell,
Please pass this on to the keepers of the Stevens Trail as you see
fit...
Last Saturday I decided to solo hike for a few hours mid afternoon on
the Stevens trail. (Note the parking lot had two cars parked when I
arrived. The weather was a bit rainy.)
As I approached the section of the trail which connects to the multiple
use roads, I encounter two guys riding their dirt bikes up the
non-motorized section of the trail toward the trail head.
I stood in the middle of the trail and motioned them to stop which they
did. I proceeded politely explain that they were on a posted
non-motorized historic trail and provide additional detail about the
section of trail which crosses BLM multiple use area. I also told them
the trail section which leaves the road and drops down to the river is
non-motorized as well. They were polite as well and claimed to have
missed the trail signs which clearly state the trail is designated for
non-motorized use. They turned around and took off and I assumed they
understood...
As I left the road section and started down the train toward the river,
I noticed that someone has removed the signage which depicts the trail
for non-motorized use and I also noticed two sets of fresh motorcycle
tracks heading down the trail...as I approached the fork in the trail
which splits to an upper and lower trail across the creek, I noticed the
tracks led down the trail recommended for bicycles and then back out
where the motorcyclist then took the upper trail. I decided to walk the
upper trail in hopes of having another discussion about their use of
motorcycles on a trail which is clearly marked at the fork. Already
small dirt sections of the trail were being chewed up by spinning
tires...
As I was not carrying my pistol this trip and before the second
confrontation, I took out my cell phone turned it on and checked and
verified cell coverage incase a call to 911 was needed. I also took out
my collapsible hike poles and extended both poles to full length...
Before long I heard the distinct sounds of 2cycle engines revving and
getting closer. The dirt bikers had reached the steep section of steps
on the upper trail and had turned back.
Again I stood my ground in the middle of the trail and decided my verbal
and physical demeanor would be that of crazed and red-faced bulging-eyed
Maori drill sergeant. The exchanges started to get a little heated but
at some point they must have figured that not only was I right but I was
really crazy so they piped down said they were sorry...I stepped aside
and let them pass and continued with my walk...
Since I used to ride a dirt bike years ago I can fully understand how
you can miss a trail sign when you are going 20-40 MPM in an area where
you are not familiar or have taken the time to know where OHV uses is
permitted or not. I believe the Stevens trail signs with the
non-motorized indicators are at best minimal and could be improved. I am
a welder and will be happy volunteer material and time to create some
heavy-duty steel and destruction-resistant signs that could be used to
clearly designate the trail as non-motorized.
Regards,
Mike Powell
Well, this list includes the BLM people at Folsom. Better signage sounds like a good thing. And more Maori drill sergeants.
Thanks Mike!
Hi Russell,
Please pass this on to the keepers of the Stevens Trail as you see
fit...
Last Saturday I decided to solo hike for a few hours mid afternoon on
the Stevens trail. (Note the parking lot had two cars parked when I
arrived. The weather was a bit rainy.)
As I approached the section of the trail which connects to the multiple
use roads, I encounter two guys riding their dirt bikes up the
non-motorized section of the trail toward the trail head.
I stood in the middle of the trail and motioned them to stop which they
did. I proceeded politely explain that they were on a posted
non-motorized historic trail and provide additional detail about the
section of trail which crosses BLM multiple use area. I also told them
the trail section which leaves the road and drops down to the river is
non-motorized as well. They were polite as well and claimed to have
missed the trail signs which clearly state the trail is designated for
non-motorized use. They turned around and took off and I assumed they
understood...
As I left the road section and started down the train toward the river,
I noticed that someone has removed the signage which depicts the trail
for non-motorized use and I also noticed two sets of fresh motorcycle
tracks heading down the trail...as I approached the fork in the trail
which splits to an upper and lower trail across the creek, I noticed the
tracks led down the trail recommended for bicycles and then back out
where the motorcyclist then took the upper trail. I decided to walk the
upper trail in hopes of having another discussion about their use of
motorcycles on a trail which is clearly marked at the fork. Already
small dirt sections of the trail were being chewed up by spinning
tires...
As I was not carrying my pistol this trip and before the second
confrontation, I took out my cell phone turned it on and checked and
verified cell coverage incase a call to 911 was needed. I also took out
my collapsible hike poles and extended both poles to full length...
Before long I heard the distinct sounds of 2cycle engines revving and
getting closer. The dirt bikers had reached the steep section of steps
on the upper trail and had turned back.
Again I stood my ground in the middle of the trail and decided my verbal
and physical demeanor would be that of crazed and red-faced bulging-eyed
Maori drill sergeant. The exchanges started to get a little heated but
at some point they must have figured that not only was I right but I was
really crazy so they piped down said they were sorry...I stepped aside
and let them pass and continued with my walk...
Since I used to ride a dirt bike years ago I can fully understand how
you can miss a trail sign when you are going 20-40 MPM in an area where
you are not familiar or have taken the time to know where OHV uses is
permitted or not. I believe the Stevens trail signs with the
non-motorized indicators are at best minimal and could be improved. I am
a welder and will be happy volunteer material and time to create some
heavy-duty steel and destruction-resistant signs that could be used to
clearly designate the trail as non-motorized.
Regards,
Mike Powell
Well, this list includes the BLM people at Folsom. Better signage sounds like a good thing. And more Maori drill sergeants.
Thanks Mike!
Friday, December 5, 2003
The Stevens Trail
Some remarks about the Stevens Trail, where complaints by an adjacent property owner, Mike Viscia, have led the BLM to consider closing the existing parking area. Apparently Mr. Viscia's complaints have centered upon overflow parking along the road itself, where he has placed many "no trespassing" and "no parking" signs.
The Stevens Trail was constructed, as I recall, in the 1870s, and connected Colfax to Iowa Hill, crossing the North Fork American on a suspension bridge near the confluence of Secret Ravine. It is not depicted on the current USGS 7.5 minute Colfax Quadrangle, but is depicted on many older maps. It is one of the sixty-odd Placer County trails declared to be public trails in the famous 1953 BOS ordinance.
It has become one of the BLM's most popular and heavily-used trails. After winding gently in and out and up and down, it drops a mite more steeply just below Cape Horn itself, crosses Robbers Ravine, and soon thereafter flattens to an almost level grade, and parallels the river a couple hundred feet above, over the last mile and some to Secret Ravine.
Access to the trail is had on the frontage road southeast of I-80. In something like half a mile from the Colfax overpass, one reaches the end of the road, with the parking area on the left--the freeway side--and the Viscia driveway bending right. The parking area is almost 150 feet long, about 50 feet wide, is graveled, and is supplied with garbage cans. It is neatly kept. Signs indicate the trailhead, and inform one that overflow parking is available along the freeway side of the road.
That overflow parking could ever be necessary testifies to the high level of use of this trail. This morning, at 8:00 a.m., in a light rain, nobody was there. Mr. Viscia had, I was told, blocked one of the two accesses to the parking area with a berm. I was just photographing the berm, made from several dump-truck loads of boulders and dirt, when a car approached the Viscia driveway, and stopped as if to investigate me. I pointed my camera at the car and it left, entering the driveway.
On my 1900-era topographic map of this area, a road is shown leading from Colfax to the trail. At that time, both the Central Pacific and the Nevada County Narrow Gauge tracks used the same low pass to exit Colfax, and this Stevens Trail Road shared that pass, at first closely paralleling the narrow-gauge railroad. The road then dropped a little more steeply into the headwaters of Slaughter Ravine, diverging from the tracks, and ended almost due west from another little pass, which the trail crosses into the Burnt Flat area.
Now the old road is used as the trail, and is posted with a sign, denying use to motor vehicles.
It would be quite difficult, but not quite impossible, to expand the parking area.
After obtaining GPS coordinates, and taking a look around the parking area, and the first portion of the trail, and the overflow parking area, and gazing out into the fog-shrouded canyon, I left and drove across the overpass into Colfax, taking Highway 174 north, but passing the turn left to Grass Valley, continuing on what is called Rollins Lake Road, but which is in fact old Highway 40.
Shortly thereafter Norton Grade forks right. This is the old wagon road to Dutch Flat. I followed Norton Grade for perhaps two tenths of a mile, and turned right again on Carpenter Road. This crosses the railroad tracks immediately, and in something like one-quarter mile, passes beneath I-80, and a sign then reads "End County Maintained Road." Just beyond a paved fork right leads around some curves and down to the de facto Shooting Range.
The pavement ends here and a large heavy-duty gate stands open. Perhaps the gate marks the BLM property boundary. The shooting area was as usual littered with garbage. It is a large bulldozed flat below the railroad, and is almost paved with bullet shells. Television sets and computer monitors and all kinds of appliances are bought there for the joy of pumping bullets into them. Beer bottles are shot by the dozen. It is a bit of a nightmare. The road actually continues, and with a high-clearance vehicle, one can drive south to where the Stevens Trail comes in, and then to the east, right over the little pass and down to Burnt Flat.
The BLM, due to the complaints of Mr. Viscia, is considering re-locating the Stevens Trail parking area to the Shooting Range, and (of course) closing the area to use of firearms. I find that, as the crow flies, it is a marginally shorter distance from the Shooting Area to the intersection of the road-south and the Stevens Trail, than from the existing parking area, to that same point.
I obtained GPS coordinates for the shooting range, and left. Norton Grade, Carpenter Road, the road to the Shooting Range, and that road continuation south, and then across the pass into Burnt Flat, are all depicted on the USGS Colfax Quadrangle.
Such, then, is some information bearing upon the Stevens Trail parking problem.
I can send a cropped portion of the Colfax Quadrangle, as a JPEG file 388K in size, to whomever may be interested, with the trail roughly drawn in, and the parking area and Shooting Range labeled. I also have a cropped portion of my old 1900-era map (128K) showing the old Stevens Trail Road and the trail itself, if anyone would like to see it.
The Stevens Trail was constructed, as I recall, in the 1870s, and connected Colfax to Iowa Hill, crossing the North Fork American on a suspension bridge near the confluence of Secret Ravine. It is not depicted on the current USGS 7.5 minute Colfax Quadrangle, but is depicted on many older maps. It is one of the sixty-odd Placer County trails declared to be public trails in the famous 1953 BOS ordinance.
It has become one of the BLM's most popular and heavily-used trails. After winding gently in and out and up and down, it drops a mite more steeply just below Cape Horn itself, crosses Robbers Ravine, and soon thereafter flattens to an almost level grade, and parallels the river a couple hundred feet above, over the last mile and some to Secret Ravine.
Access to the trail is had on the frontage road southeast of I-80. In something like half a mile from the Colfax overpass, one reaches the end of the road, with the parking area on the left--the freeway side--and the Viscia driveway bending right. The parking area is almost 150 feet long, about 50 feet wide, is graveled, and is supplied with garbage cans. It is neatly kept. Signs indicate the trailhead, and inform one that overflow parking is available along the freeway side of the road.
That overflow parking could ever be necessary testifies to the high level of use of this trail. This morning, at 8:00 a.m., in a light rain, nobody was there. Mr. Viscia had, I was told, blocked one of the two accesses to the parking area with a berm. I was just photographing the berm, made from several dump-truck loads of boulders and dirt, when a car approached the Viscia driveway, and stopped as if to investigate me. I pointed my camera at the car and it left, entering the driveway.
On my 1900-era topographic map of this area, a road is shown leading from Colfax to the trail. At that time, both the Central Pacific and the Nevada County Narrow Gauge tracks used the same low pass to exit Colfax, and this Stevens Trail Road shared that pass, at first closely paralleling the narrow-gauge railroad. The road then dropped a little more steeply into the headwaters of Slaughter Ravine, diverging from the tracks, and ended almost due west from another little pass, which the trail crosses into the Burnt Flat area.
Now the old road is used as the trail, and is posted with a sign, denying use to motor vehicles.
It would be quite difficult, but not quite impossible, to expand the parking area.
After obtaining GPS coordinates, and taking a look around the parking area, and the first portion of the trail, and the overflow parking area, and gazing out into the fog-shrouded canyon, I left and drove across the overpass into Colfax, taking Highway 174 north, but passing the turn left to Grass Valley, continuing on what is called Rollins Lake Road, but which is in fact old Highway 40.
Shortly thereafter Norton Grade forks right. This is the old wagon road to Dutch Flat. I followed Norton Grade for perhaps two tenths of a mile, and turned right again on Carpenter Road. This crosses the railroad tracks immediately, and in something like one-quarter mile, passes beneath I-80, and a sign then reads "End County Maintained Road." Just beyond a paved fork right leads around some curves and down to the de facto Shooting Range.
The pavement ends here and a large heavy-duty gate stands open. Perhaps the gate marks the BLM property boundary. The shooting area was as usual littered with garbage. It is a large bulldozed flat below the railroad, and is almost paved with bullet shells. Television sets and computer monitors and all kinds of appliances are bought there for the joy of pumping bullets into them. Beer bottles are shot by the dozen. It is a bit of a nightmare. The road actually continues, and with a high-clearance vehicle, one can drive south to where the Stevens Trail comes in, and then to the east, right over the little pass and down to Burnt Flat.
The BLM, due to the complaints of Mr. Viscia, is considering re-locating the Stevens Trail parking area to the Shooting Range, and (of course) closing the area to use of firearms. I find that, as the crow flies, it is a marginally shorter distance from the Shooting Area to the intersection of the road-south and the Stevens Trail, than from the existing parking area, to that same point.
I obtained GPS coordinates for the shooting range, and left. Norton Grade, Carpenter Road, the road to the Shooting Range, and that road continuation south, and then across the pass into Burnt Flat, are all depicted on the USGS Colfax Quadrangle.
Such, then, is some information bearing upon the Stevens Trail parking problem.
I can send a cropped portion of the Colfax Quadrangle, as a JPEG file 388K in size, to whomever may be interested, with the trail roughly drawn in, and the parking area and Shooting Range labeled. I also have a cropped portion of my old 1900-era map (128K) showing the old Stevens Trail Road and the trail itself, if anyone would like to see it.
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Pickering Bar Trail
Yesterday I joined Ron Gould for a hike on the Pickering Bar Trail, near Gold Run. From the Gold Run exit on I-80, south side, we drove west on Magra Road and then almost immediately turned south on Garrett Road, which parallels the Diggings for a mile and some before reaching the rim of the North Fork Canyon. There it bears east and a large BLM gate blocks further travel, except by foot or OHV.
There are no signs indicating that this is public (BLM) land, nor that a trail to the river exists nearby. In fact, on the last stretch of the road before it bends east to the gate, on has the distinct sense that one is trespassing, for the road also gives access to private property, and one sign boldly proclaims "No River Access."
I had never obtained GPS coordinates for the Pickering Bar Trail. Until a few years ago, one could drive to the trailhead, but now the gate must stand for the head of the trail, so I switched my little Garmin unit on right there, and, in the open, manzanita-cloaked terrain, soon obtained excellent satellite coverage. Off we went, loppers in hand.
It was a cool but sunny morning, just a few wisps of cirrus cloud here and there, and, with the sun angle so low now, near the solstice, much of the great canyon was in shadow, and was a vast blue depth beside us, only half-seen through a screen of trees and bushes. The road is ancient, in California terms, already existing at the time of the 1866 General Land Office map, when the section lines were laid out. It is marked as "Road to the Mines" on that map, and is shown terminating at the Secret World, at the head of Indiana Ravine, which is the very site of the discovery of gold at Gold Run. This is where the road ends to this day. It is becoming badly blocked up with fallen Knobcone Pines, which seeded in thickly after the 1960 wildfire, and now die in their dozens and topple over in windstorms. The storms hit hard along the rim of the North Fork canyon.
There have been many fires in this area, many fires raging up the canyon wall, as evidenced by the gigantic expanses of manzanita (all the White Manzanita, Arctostaphylos viscida), the preponderance of Sugar Pine over Ponderosa Pine, and the high incidence of Knobcone Pine. The road winds in and out of various ravines all tributary to Sheldon Ravine, and in a quarter-mile one passes a road left into the Diggings, close, but screened from view by manzanita all along the way. After another turn in and out of a ravine, the road levels and a bad old bunch of hefty Knobcones bars the way. The OHV users have cut a side trail around the fallen trees, and in another fifty yards one reaches the trailhead, a large sunny flat becoming choked with a million young manzanita bushes, seeded after semi-recent bulldozer activity, by the looks of things. The trail leads away to the south, past two middling large pines, and over the first several hundred yards, follows a bulldozed fire trail right down the spine of a ridge. This would seem to have obliterated the original trail, which may have followed a gentler line, winding back and forth across the slope, rather than straight down the ridge-crest.
The Pickering Bar Trail not depicted on the USGS 7.5 minute Dutch Flat quadrangle. If you have that map, note the words "Sheldon Ravine," on the north side of the river, and west of Pickering Bar itself. The old trailhead on the road is near the southern end of the 3000-foot contour, and the trail drops away south right through the word "Sheldon."
At about 2750' elevation, just after leaving all traces of the bulldozed fire trail behind and entering upon the Pickering Bar Trail proper, one reaches a rocky outcrop of chert, laced with quartz veins. A truly marvelous view of the canyon is had from here. One might well hike the Pickering Bar Trail just to reach this one viewpoint. It might be called Chert Point. Quartz crystals sparkle in the sun. One can see from Iowa Hill on the west to and through Giant Gap on the east, and beyond to Sawtooth Ridge, and Monumental Ridge, with its snow.
Continuing down the very steep trail, at about the 2640' elevation, a faint trail leads away west. Others like it are in the area, but are blocked by brush; this side trail is open, and in a short distance one reaches Sheldon Ravine, a narrow slot cut in parallel to the strike of the vaguely slaty bedrock, which here I take to be part of the metasedimentary portion of the Calaveras Complex, a Paleozoic "terrane" accreted to North American long ago. The strata are near-vertical and strike south. A faint game trail which might just be a human trail continues west across the ravine; we did not explore it.
Sheldon Ravine might have had its own "tailings claims" once upon a time, with sluice boxes set to extract gold which escaped the sluice boxes of the hydraulic mines in the Diggings, above. We saw tailings lodged in the bed of the creek (now dry), which the signature rounded white quartz cobbles which betray their origin in the Eocene-age river gravels of the Ancestral Yuba, which flowed north here, from Iowa Hill to the south, through Gold Run to Dutch Flat, and then on to Little York and You Bet, etc. etc.
The trail is relentlessly steep and often hemmed in by heavy brush. We lopped hundreds and hundreds of branches. Around the 1800-foot contour, we saw still another faint trail leading away into Sheldon Ravine, and explored a little ways. There had been many such trails along the way, just barely too well-defined to pass as game trails. Ron then spotted a mining ditch below us, and he made for it directly, while I returned to the main trail to see if it cut the ditch-line. I had no memory of a ditch this high above the river. But, there it was, except, it seemed the ditch came from Sheldon Ravine and ended on the spine of the ridge, where it had been turned into some minor penstock of iron or canvas; a shallow gully went straight on down, and I recalled the last time I had hiked the trail, I had interpreted this shallow gully as the trace of a lumber slide, similar to the one over on Diving Board Ridge, across Indiana Ravine to the east.
The ditch was almost impossible to discern, from the trail itself, partly because rather large bushes nearly covered it. I forced a way through this snarl of Buckbrush and Toyon and Manzanita with my loppers and on the far side found a lovely broad terrace, winding away through the brushy forest, and mostly open and clear. It followed a much steeper line than most ditches, but was, unequivocally, a ditch. It had a bit of dry-laid stone wall bolstering it in many places, often all but hidden within masses of moss. I caught up with Ron and we slowly worked our way in to Sheldon Ravine. The last fifty yards were really beautiful; the ditch was formed a broad grassy terrace atop a cliff perhaps a hundred feet high, where quite a nice waterfall will form later in the winter. There was a faint suggestion of a trail continuing west across the ravine, but we did not explore it.
We returned to the main trail slowly, putting the finishing touches on our lopping job, and soon reached the place where the main trail bends sharply left, really more north than east, about 300 feet above the river, which hits the 1440' contour at Pickering Bar. Various trails lead away to the right, southwest, let us say, as one descends the main trail. I have followed a couple of these. One leads to the Flat of the Chinese Coin, as described by Mike Case recently here. Along this part of the trail, one suddenly begins to see the California Nutmeg, a strange conifer in the Yew family, with brash sharp needles about two inches long, and single seeds which resemble huge green olives. It might easily be mistaken for a fir.
The main trail becomes narrower and fainter and finally takes a drastic plunge right down to the river, where, just as we had seen high above in Sheldon Ravine, the river runs parallel to the strike of the bedrock. Some rather fantastically eroded sections of bedrock flank the river here, while across the river rises Pickering Bar, a large glacial outwash terrace. We were right across the river from the "B" in the words "Pickering Bar" on the Dutch Flat quadrangle.
After a lunch break, we lost our precious sun, but explored a bit before hitting the trail for the long slog out. Goodness gracious, that is a steep trail. It is probably not much more than a mile in length, from the old trailhead down to the river, but seems longer, and however long or short it may be, it is strenuous.
Reaching the top, we followed the old road for a ways, and then struck north into the Diggings, through one of the precious few gaps in the wall of manzanita. As soon as we entered the sacred precincts we heard voices, and after some wandering, caught glimpses of people over on the Bluffs, apparently hanging from ropes, and having a wonderful time, doing what, we had no idea.
We slowly approached. I wanted to show Ron the place where the last big log of petrified wood had been, before being stolen by a mining claimant, and as it happened, the rope-swinging cliff-climbing party had left their packs there. They were over on a sort of Macchu-Picchu-looking spire of sediments, near a secret trail up to Garrett Road. Ron and I turned to leave, and just then the distant cliff dwellers set up an even louder hue and cry, and we began to hear my name, "Russell Towle," and that hardly seemed likely. So we stopped and finally I shouted, "Who are you?" and it turned out to be my old friend Alex Henderson, now a fireman in Sacramento but for many years a resident of Dutch Flat. He had brought his children and a niece and nephew to the Diggings to explore and mess around on crumbling epic clifflets using ropes.
After a time they scrambled down into the Diggings and hiked over to us, and we had a pleasant chat before returning to the road and the trucks. Alex et. al. had actually ventured a little ways down the Pickering trail, earlier, and saw they were on my track by the lopped branches, but had been scared from following further when the trail steepened so badly, below Chert Point. So they entered the Diggings and swung around on ropes.
It had been a wonderfully sunny day, perfect hiking weather, great views, the river itself as beautiful as always--I got some nice photos of the sunny bluffs of Pickering Bar, reflected in the quiet low water of Fall. Water Ouzels and Canyon Wrens were much in evidence, down there.
And such was a great day in the great canyon. I especially liked finding the old mining ditch, now just a perfect terrace for resting and dreaming and taking the sun, and soon to be adorned with its own high waterfall.
There are no signs indicating that this is public (BLM) land, nor that a trail to the river exists nearby. In fact, on the last stretch of the road before it bends east to the gate, on has the distinct sense that one is trespassing, for the road also gives access to private property, and one sign boldly proclaims "No River Access."
I had never obtained GPS coordinates for the Pickering Bar Trail. Until a few years ago, one could drive to the trailhead, but now the gate must stand for the head of the trail, so I switched my little Garmin unit on right there, and, in the open, manzanita-cloaked terrain, soon obtained excellent satellite coverage. Off we went, loppers in hand.
It was a cool but sunny morning, just a few wisps of cirrus cloud here and there, and, with the sun angle so low now, near the solstice, much of the great canyon was in shadow, and was a vast blue depth beside us, only half-seen through a screen of trees and bushes. The road is ancient, in California terms, already existing at the time of the 1866 General Land Office map, when the section lines were laid out. It is marked as "Road to the Mines" on that map, and is shown terminating at the Secret World, at the head of Indiana Ravine, which is the very site of the discovery of gold at Gold Run. This is where the road ends to this day. It is becoming badly blocked up with fallen Knobcone Pines, which seeded in thickly after the 1960 wildfire, and now die in their dozens and topple over in windstorms. The storms hit hard along the rim of the North Fork canyon.
There have been many fires in this area, many fires raging up the canyon wall, as evidenced by the gigantic expanses of manzanita (all the White Manzanita, Arctostaphylos viscida), the preponderance of Sugar Pine over Ponderosa Pine, and the high incidence of Knobcone Pine. The road winds in and out of various ravines all tributary to Sheldon Ravine, and in a quarter-mile one passes a road left into the Diggings, close, but screened from view by manzanita all along the way. After another turn in and out of a ravine, the road levels and a bad old bunch of hefty Knobcones bars the way. The OHV users have cut a side trail around the fallen trees, and in another fifty yards one reaches the trailhead, a large sunny flat becoming choked with a million young manzanita bushes, seeded after semi-recent bulldozer activity, by the looks of things. The trail leads away to the south, past two middling large pines, and over the first several hundred yards, follows a bulldozed fire trail right down the spine of a ridge. This would seem to have obliterated the original trail, which may have followed a gentler line, winding back and forth across the slope, rather than straight down the ridge-crest.
The Pickering Bar Trail not depicted on the USGS 7.5 minute Dutch Flat quadrangle. If you have that map, note the words "Sheldon Ravine," on the north side of the river, and west of Pickering Bar itself. The old trailhead on the road is near the southern end of the 3000-foot contour, and the trail drops away south right through the word "Sheldon."
At about 2750' elevation, just after leaving all traces of the bulldozed fire trail behind and entering upon the Pickering Bar Trail proper, one reaches a rocky outcrop of chert, laced with quartz veins. A truly marvelous view of the canyon is had from here. One might well hike the Pickering Bar Trail just to reach this one viewpoint. It might be called Chert Point. Quartz crystals sparkle in the sun. One can see from Iowa Hill on the west to and through Giant Gap on the east, and beyond to Sawtooth Ridge, and Monumental Ridge, with its snow.
Continuing down the very steep trail, at about the 2640' elevation, a faint trail leads away west. Others like it are in the area, but are blocked by brush; this side trail is open, and in a short distance one reaches Sheldon Ravine, a narrow slot cut in parallel to the strike of the vaguely slaty bedrock, which here I take to be part of the metasedimentary portion of the Calaveras Complex, a Paleozoic "terrane" accreted to North American long ago. The strata are near-vertical and strike south. A faint game trail which might just be a human trail continues west across the ravine; we did not explore it.
Sheldon Ravine might have had its own "tailings claims" once upon a time, with sluice boxes set to extract gold which escaped the sluice boxes of the hydraulic mines in the Diggings, above. We saw tailings lodged in the bed of the creek (now dry), which the signature rounded white quartz cobbles which betray their origin in the Eocene-age river gravels of the Ancestral Yuba, which flowed north here, from Iowa Hill to the south, through Gold Run to Dutch Flat, and then on to Little York and You Bet, etc. etc.
The trail is relentlessly steep and often hemmed in by heavy brush. We lopped hundreds and hundreds of branches. Around the 1800-foot contour, we saw still another faint trail leading away into Sheldon Ravine, and explored a little ways. There had been many such trails along the way, just barely too well-defined to pass as game trails. Ron then spotted a mining ditch below us, and he made for it directly, while I returned to the main trail to see if it cut the ditch-line. I had no memory of a ditch this high above the river. But, there it was, except, it seemed the ditch came from Sheldon Ravine and ended on the spine of the ridge, where it had been turned into some minor penstock of iron or canvas; a shallow gully went straight on down, and I recalled the last time I had hiked the trail, I had interpreted this shallow gully as the trace of a lumber slide, similar to the one over on Diving Board Ridge, across Indiana Ravine to the east.
The ditch was almost impossible to discern, from the trail itself, partly because rather large bushes nearly covered it. I forced a way through this snarl of Buckbrush and Toyon and Manzanita with my loppers and on the far side found a lovely broad terrace, winding away through the brushy forest, and mostly open and clear. It followed a much steeper line than most ditches, but was, unequivocally, a ditch. It had a bit of dry-laid stone wall bolstering it in many places, often all but hidden within masses of moss. I caught up with Ron and we slowly worked our way in to Sheldon Ravine. The last fifty yards were really beautiful; the ditch was formed a broad grassy terrace atop a cliff perhaps a hundred feet high, where quite a nice waterfall will form later in the winter. There was a faint suggestion of a trail continuing west across the ravine, but we did not explore it.
We returned to the main trail slowly, putting the finishing touches on our lopping job, and soon reached the place where the main trail bends sharply left, really more north than east, about 300 feet above the river, which hits the 1440' contour at Pickering Bar. Various trails lead away to the right, southwest, let us say, as one descends the main trail. I have followed a couple of these. One leads to the Flat of the Chinese Coin, as described by Mike Case recently here. Along this part of the trail, one suddenly begins to see the California Nutmeg, a strange conifer in the Yew family, with brash sharp needles about two inches long, and single seeds which resemble huge green olives. It might easily be mistaken for a fir.
The main trail becomes narrower and fainter and finally takes a drastic plunge right down to the river, where, just as we had seen high above in Sheldon Ravine, the river runs parallel to the strike of the bedrock. Some rather fantastically eroded sections of bedrock flank the river here, while across the river rises Pickering Bar, a large glacial outwash terrace. We were right across the river from the "B" in the words "Pickering Bar" on the Dutch Flat quadrangle.
After a lunch break, we lost our precious sun, but explored a bit before hitting the trail for the long slog out. Goodness gracious, that is a steep trail. It is probably not much more than a mile in length, from the old trailhead down to the river, but seems longer, and however long or short it may be, it is strenuous.
Reaching the top, we followed the old road for a ways, and then struck north into the Diggings, through one of the precious few gaps in the wall of manzanita. As soon as we entered the sacred precincts we heard voices, and after some wandering, caught glimpses of people over on the Bluffs, apparently hanging from ropes, and having a wonderful time, doing what, we had no idea.
We slowly approached. I wanted to show Ron the place where the last big log of petrified wood had been, before being stolen by a mining claimant, and as it happened, the rope-swinging cliff-climbing party had left their packs there. They were over on a sort of Macchu-Picchu-looking spire of sediments, near a secret trail up to Garrett Road. Ron and I turned to leave, and just then the distant cliff dwellers set up an even louder hue and cry, and we began to hear my name, "Russell Towle," and that hardly seemed likely. So we stopped and finally I shouted, "Who are you?" and it turned out to be my old friend Alex Henderson, now a fireman in Sacramento but for many years a resident of Dutch Flat. He had brought his children and a niece and nephew to the Diggings to explore and mess around on crumbling epic clifflets using ropes.
After a time they scrambled down into the Diggings and hiked over to us, and we had a pleasant chat before returning to the road and the trucks. Alex et. al. had actually ventured a little ways down the Pickering trail, earlier, and saw they were on my track by the lopped branches, but had been scared from following further when the trail steepened so badly, below Chert Point. So they entered the Diggings and swung around on ropes.
It had been a wonderfully sunny day, perfect hiking weather, great views, the river itself as beautiful as always--I got some nice photos of the sunny bluffs of Pickering Bar, reflected in the quiet low water of Fall. Water Ouzels and Canyon Wrens were much in evidence, down there.
And such was a great day in the great canyon. I especially liked finding the old mining ditch, now just a perfect terrace for resting and dreaming and taking the sun, and soon to be adorned with its own high waterfall.
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Mike & Jason V
Part Five of the Adventures of Mike and Jason:
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In part 4 my son Jason and I had just spent a harrowing night hunkered down under an 8 x 10 plastic tarp on a sand bar at Pickering Bar, while the heavens opened up on us. We awoke to a soggy and foggy morning punctuated with torrential downpours about every half hour. Eventually moving up into Joe the Troll's old camp, we made the best of the day and attempted to dry out our gear.
August 23, 2002. Knowing that we had to dry out our wet soggy gear, we un-strung our rafts and used the line for a clothes line. There were plenty of trees and bushes close at hand for the clothes line, and camp looked a lot like a laundry center too cheap to use dryers! It took a long time for our bags to dry because of the lack of sunshine and dampness. It was noticeably cooler out too. We cooked a late breakfast under our tarp and enjoyed every last bite. All of Joe's trash was really getting to us, so we gathered it all up and piled it in one neat pile then covered it with some black plastic that was lying around. It looked much better and controlled the smell too. We found a lawn rake leaning up against a tree and raked down the camp, removing the last small bits of trash. Now it almost looked like a clean, comfortable camp. After our meal and cleaning up camp, we both began to feel the effects of the lack of sleep we had not got during the night. Sometime around 10 a.m. it quit raining and we used the opportunity to grab a much needed nap.
Waking up a couple hours later we were surprised to see the sun shining. With nothing else to do, we decided to go exploring around Pickering Bar. Grabbing our camera gear and prospecting bags, we explored the tailing piles. It was just amazing how much work went into moving all that stone! What wouldn't we have given to have slipped back in time for just an hour to see this place during its heyday! We found several places at the back of the tailing piles where the large rocks and boulders gave way to very small sized gravel, and we suspected bedrock wasn't far down. If only we'd have brought a shovel. We even found a couple areas where old cabins once stood, their locations given away by the profusion of old square nails lying around. Exploring further up river, we came to the north end of Pickering Bar and found an excellent trail leading up river in what we figured was a slight N.E. direction. It was quite evident that at one time the trail had been well used and maintained. Or maybe it was once a ditch bringing water to the miners of this bar, and had been converted to a trail later on. Following it a little ways above the tailing piles, we found a spur trail leading up hill, yet back down river. Pretty soon we came to a large flat area with scrub Oak growing around the edges. Someone had been cutting the large Manzinita bushes down, and we wondered why. Dozens of the beautiful bushes lay where someone had chopped them down. On the east edge of the clearing was a blue tarp tied up in a tree covering someone's camp. Again we had found an abandoned camp where someone had left quickly and left most their gear! Investigating, we found lots of trash under the tarp. Nearby was a large hole someone had went to a lot of effort to dig. It was probably 8 feet across and 6 feet deep, and it was evident it had once been much deeper. In the bottom lay old trash, so we took 10 minutes and packed all the trash from the abandoned camp and put it in this hole. While picking up the trash Jason found a bronze U.S. Marine corps emblem that had once adorned an officers hat. We wondered how a Marine could have went off and left such a mess! This flat area consisted of perhaps 2 acres and would sure have made a nice place for a home if properly manicured. We wondered how it came to be. Continuing up river a ways at that elevation without finding much new, we dropped back down to the trail and followed it back to the tailing piles. It was then that we noticed a man in a yellow inflatable canoe lining it down the river. He was having a terrible time standing on the slippery rocks and was making very slow time. We figured we would catch up to him later and say hello.
Dropping back down to the river, we found the place where we had spent an enjoyable afternoon last year sluicing for gold. We broke out our pans and sieve and started removing some larger stones, scraping off the surface dirt under them. Putting this through our sieves, we each panned about 10 pans. By then the afternoon sun was getting real warm, and we decided we were rich enough! We had got quite a little color, but it was all fine gold, and nothing bigger than a mustard seed. Last year the wind had come up very strong while we sluiced here, and when we had got back to our camp a couple hours later, we had found it blown over a 50 foot area! Now, arriving back at camp up in the tailing piles, everything was still intact. It was late afternoon now, and we were feeling pretty scraggily. So, gathering up our shaving kits, shampoo, and towels, we went down to the river and got cleaned up. It had been hot earlier exploring up river and we were pretty sweaty. While cleaning up in the river I notice a line of small blisters on my right arm. Poison Oak! Silently I prayed I had just brushed up against a bush somewhere, and it wasn't from my previous puncture wound when I had jabbed a Poison Oak stick into my leg in Green Valley. Arriving back in camp we changed into clean, dry clothes and it felt so good! We felt much better. All of our gear had dried quite nicely after the sun came out, and we set to work re-stowing everything in the water proof bags. Taking the line down from the trees, we re-strung our rafts and blew them up solid. We wanted to get as ready as possible to shove off down river the next day as early as we could.
It was getting to be late afternoon now, and we again decided to explore the tailing piles. There is just something about tailing piles that draws me, a sort of doorway or connection with the past, and I find it difficult to pass any of them up. Walking among them I feel welcomed by the old miners who made them, and more at home than in a big city. This time we were exploring along the edge of them, by the river. Almost directly across the river from camp there was a small flat area about 25 feet up the bank, and it looked suspicisiouly like a former cabin site. So, crossing the river we climbed up to it. Surely enough, there was still some sign of rock work on both sides, and several very old pieces of green colored glass. Scraping around on the ground with our feet, we soon found several old square nails. While scraping the ground for treasures, I suddenly un-covered a small round coin with a square hole cut into the center of it. I showed Jason and we both agreed it was probably an old Chinese coin. We were both on our hands and knees intently looking for more of them when Jason said, "Dad, do you feel that?" Suddenly a wave of cold air enveloped me. It was much colder than anything we'd experienced on the trip either this year or last year. It was almost like we had just stepped into a walk-in freezer. We could actually see our breaths! We looked at each other and both said at the same time, "lets get out of here!" Not wasting any time we both headed for the river! We hadn't gone 5 feet down the bank when we entered into normal temperatures once again. Continuing on up the bluff on "our" side of the river, we stopped and looked back at where we had just been, trying to figure out what had just happened. It was then that I remembered something that Joe had told us last year. He said that several times he had seen a person standing in a flat area across the river, wearing a long coat coming down to his knees, and a large pointed hat. Joe had shouted hello at this fellow each time he saw him, but never had received an answer back. Then he said that just as fast as this stranger had appeared, he would also be gone just as fast. Joe was sure he was a Chinese ghost. When I mentioned this to Jason, he too remembered Joe telling us the story. We both wondered if we had just encountered this fellow! Needless to say, we stayed on our own side of the river, and just for good measure I threw the coin I had found back across the river. I'm sure it landed very close to the flat area where I had found it, and we had no further encounters with the "cold", although both of us, I'm sure, slept with one eye open that night! Remembering the movie about the Blair witch, I was glad I had "given" the coin back!
It was getting dark now, and we cooked our supper of Mountain House freeze dried meals. The bats were flitting around as we went down to the river to pump us a couple bottles of water for the night to mix with Tang. We both kept a close eye on the flat area across the river just above us as we got our water, but all was calm and the air warm. Arriving back in camp, we both realized we were pretty beat, and didn't take too long in getting into our warm dry sleeping bags. The stars were out and we saw several good meteors, as well as the normal airplanes and satellites. No talking that night, just normal sleep with no rain, hail, thunder, lightning, or animals running over us.
August 24, 2003 . We were up early with the sun just coming over the canyon rim. We wasted no time in getting breakfast over with, and then started packing our gear down to the river. Loading our rafts and tying everything down, we shoved off with the morning mists hanging lightly over the river. Coming to the first bend, we found where the man was camping who was lining the canoe we had seen the day before. He heard us going by, and crawled out of his small tent and talked with us for about 15 minutes. He seemed nice enough, but we were very cramped for time now, and said a polite good bye and pushed on down river. One bend later we were surprised to see him again, and he passed us in his fast canoe. He was riding in it and scraping over quite a few rocks. Jason and I both hoped he had plenty of patch gear with him! And later we would find where indeed, he had to patch his canoe, by the discarded patch kit wrappers. We wished him good luck, and he was gone. I have since wondered if this man was a BLM employee patrolling the river. Last year we had heard that they patrol the river in kayaks, and this inflatable canoe was pretty close to a kayak. Laying half on our rafts and running with our feet, or "boogying" as Jason called it, we made good time. Before we knew it we were approaching the Truro mine. This year there were no miners working the bedrock just above there. Last year we had both punctured our rafts on the sharp pieces of bedrock they were dis-lodging and throwing into the river. Beaching our rafts, we climbed up the cliff to the Apple trees and gathered 20 or 30 of the better ones. Then we hiked up the trail and filled a couple bottles with black berries. Jason wanted to hike up the road a little ways to some strange trees we had encountered there last year. They had a strange green round fruit growing on them, about the size of oranges. They were hard, green, and didn't look at all appetizing. We never did find out what kind of tree they were, but this year Jason took several of the fruit with him, intending on trying to be successful in growing one. We took pictures of the giant Oak tree growing there and shoved off down the river once again. This time we swam through the deep pool there, towing our rafts as we went, then continued "boogying" down the river as fast as we could go. No time for fishing now, only photography. We were now in the realm of the bass anyway, as last year we didn't catch a trout down river from Pickering Bar, only those pesky bass.
Not far below Truro we stopped at a place where on the north side of the river at a sharp bend, there were ample tailing piles on the hill at several different elevations. While exploring them, we found the track of some large animal in the sand. These tracks were bigger than a Fox or Coyote, and I thought Wolf. Then we realized they were not dog tracks, they were cat! We had found where a mountain lion had prowled the night before! I got several good pictures of them with my shoe in the picture for comparison. We had encountered plenty of Bear sign on the trip also, especially in the meadow where Joe Steiner's grave was, as well as several other places, but this was the first mountain lion tracks we had ever seen. There are no mountain lions in Alaska, and I wasn't surprised it took me a while to recognize them.
On and on we went, around bend after bend, until we came to another very large tailing pile area. It was on a very sharp bend in the river, and there was a road coming down to the river at this point. Just down river about 200 yards there was also a cable strung across the river, still high in the air. It was here last year that we had discovered a mine leading through solid bedrock to an ancient channel. We wanted to explore it again, and beached our rafts. Grabbing our LED lamps, we went into the mine. At the back of this mine, we had discovered last year that it went straight up perhaps 20 feet to a second level where it branched left and right, and the remains of an old wooden ladder was still evident. There were also intact but rusted ore cart rails still visible. We made our way to the back of the mine, intent on somehow getting up into the second level where it branched left and right. But to our dismay we found the back of the mine had caved in since last year. We were very let down, but took several pictures in there anyway, including one of a friendly little bat hanging upside down. Jason had wanted to camp in this area last year, but I had had a very bad feeling about this area and we had pushed on. This year however we both really wanted to camp here, but as constrained for time as we were now, and it still being only early afternoon, we pushed on. A little ways down river we came to the gravel bar where Jason had pulled the nose ring out of his raft last year. We both were a lot more careful here this year! Soon we came to where we had camped last year, about a mile below the mine. We briefly stopped, silently saluted ourselves for being so vigilant even finishing the trip last year, and continued on down river. It was another one of those gorgeous days on the American river, and we were very thankful that we had seemingly left the thunder and lightning behind.
Eventually about sundown, we came to a large gravel bar on the east side of the river, and found a spot smooth enough to make camp for the night. The sun had just set and we were both pretty tired. On the edge of the gravel bar by the hillside, there was an old sign nailed to a pine tree stating that 20 or so years ago this had been someone's mining claim, and no one was to trespass. We leveled off a spot and threw out our tarp and bags, and then I set up my chair and plopped down. I cooked supper sitting there with my little Svea stove that I've carried with me for over 30 years now. It felt so good to sit! We had situated our sleeping bags by a large boulder about 4 feet in diameter, and after supper we laid down to watch the bats and stars. For some reason something told me to get me LED lamp and look around. Turning it on and looking around the base of the boulder, I was horrified to see an army of small ants! They were in a line about 1/4 inch wide, but stretched as far as we could see down the gravel bar! They were coming out from under the rock. Quickly we moved our bags well away from them, and hoped they would keep their distance. Just for good measure, we set an empty can of sardines near their hole, hoping to attract them to the can instead of us. It seemed to work, because they left us alone the rest of the night. Again, as we drifted off to sleep, we both wondered aloud what had really happened up at Pickering Bar at that old cabin site. Pretty soon sleep overtook us and we rested peacefully until morning.
August 25, 2003. We had overslept! Suddenly the sunshine was hitting our sleeping bags turning them into ovens. Quickly we were up and around, and discovered it had dewed out heavily during the night and our bags were wet. After breakfast we packed up our gear, and by that time our bags were dry. As we packed our gear to the rafts and tied it down, Jason found a rock about a foot around. He said it was called "Mariposite", and that it was valuable. To me it looked like multi colored marble. He really wanted to take it with him, but it must have weighed 40 lbs! Try as we might, we could not break a piece of it off, even though we tried very hard. It was so hard that it broke every rock that we threw it against. Reluctantly we had to leave it there.
Today we knew that we would have to travel through Secret Gorge, a part of the river that had gave us real problems last year. But we had new hope now, especially because Giant Gap had been so easy this year. Maybe Secret Gorge would be fun this year too. We started down river half riding, half pushing our rafts, enjoying the beautiful country side. We passed small tailing piles hidden in the brush at almost every bend, but just couldn't take the time out to explore them. We took many pictures this day, and saw some of the most beautiful places God ever made! Soon we came to an area of river that had a white sandy bottom, which made the crystal clear water even more beautiful. A couple more bends and we were at the big log jam just above Secret Gorge. Here we beached our rafts and climbed over the log jam and took pictures of each other on the giant logs. What a flood it must have been to pile these huge logs 30 feet above the river! While walking back to the rafts I spotted a tin can that hadn't been opened. The label was gone, and we both wondered what was in it. We both secretly hoped it was peaches, but it turned out to be stewed tomatoes that had gone sour. What a let down! Continuing on down river, we almost immediately came to the entrance of Secret Gorge. In "boogying" fashion, we entered it hoping for the best.
We hadn't remembered Secret Gorge being this beautiful. Last year we had entered it at around 3 p.m. and had a terrible time lining our water burdened rafts down the non-stop rapids. We hadn't found a camping place until almost dark, on a small gravel bar not 8 x 10 feet square. Now we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, savoring every bit of scenery we could. Where last year we tripped and slipped over what seemed like miles of boulders, now we were skimming over them holding onto our rafts, with our legs dangling as high in the water as possible behind them. Although we did wish for some kind of leg pads! We hit quite a few shallow boulders with our legs and wound up very bruised, but happy. Soon we came to the place where we had been forced to camp last year due to the lack of daylight. Now it seemed a cheerful place, but our gravel bar was completely gone. Good thing we hadn't planned on camping here this year! At this particular camp last year we were kept awake a good portion of the night by the sound of what we were sure was the old time miners. Just after we had laid down on our bags, we had heard what sounded like rocks rolling down a wooden plank. With our poor flash lights we had searched for the source of the sound, but hadn't found it. As the night wore on, more and more rocks rolled down this plank, accompanied by the sounds of metal clunking off rocks, and low mumblings of men talking. It didn't take us long to figure out that there must have been mining activity here in the past, and we were hearing the miners shoveling paydirt into their sluice boxes, keeping the larger rocks scurrying through them with their shovels. It continued until around 2 or 3 a.m. before all became silent.
Continuing on down the river, we marveled at the scenery. We came to the huge quartz vein crossing the canyon that we had seen last year, but hadn't had time to spend much time at because it was almost dark. Now we stopped and explored the area, and took quite a few pictures. I pried a small piece of the vein loose for my wife. When she had seen the pictures of this vein last year, she had asked that I get her a piece of it this year. Now that piece lies on her desk, nicely cut and polished. Soon we came to the end of the gorge, as we could tell the country was becoming wider. We came to a deep hole with 15 foot cliffs, and stopped for an hour and dove off the rocks. We got pictures of each other diving and swimming, and we had a blast acting like we were kids again. About 1/3 mile further we came to Secret Ravine, and stopped to explore a little. The Apple tree there didn't have apples this year, and we were glad we had picked plenty at Truro. We picked a few black berries, hiked up the Stevens trail a little ways, then explored the other side of the river. We found where the old suspension bridge used to cross and followed the trail a ways, but was surprised that it didn't continue down river, only up river. Jason found a nice large quartz crystal here, among the many quartz veins. I would like to find some information on Secret Ravine, as it seemed there had been plenty of past activity here.
Now it was about 3:30 p.m. and I was beginning to tire out. Jason wanted to explore more around Secret Ravine, but I wanted to get to the camp site that we had stayed in last year about a 1/2 mile down river. We had just met a man about 200 yards up river who hadn't seemed friendly, and I wanted to be away from him. He had this look in his eyes of contempt when he saw us, even though we had been friendly and said hello. So, continuing on down to the bottom of the pool that extends down river from Secret Ravine, we fought a head wind and arrived at our old camp site about sundown. It was on the south side of the river, up on an elevated gravel bar on bedrock about 15 feet above the river. A lone pine tree stood there, friendly and inviting. We made camp under it and I set up my chair and cooked supper, sitting under Gods special creation. This year no one was on the trail, and we felt alone and happy. This was also the first place where I could get cell phone coverage, and I called my wife in Alaska just to let her know we were alive and well. She was happy we were having such a good time, and wished us Godspeed on down the river. We tried a little fishing, but the bass here were very fat and large and definitely weren't the least bit interested in our lures. Last year at this camp we had been sitting on our bags cooking supper, when a skunk had approached me to within about 2 feet before realizing I was me, and made a hasty retreat. No skunks this year, thank heavens! The bats came out, then the stars, then sleep. This was another of those special camps where you experience it once, then dream about coming back. It was hard to believe I was actually here again. If only we could find a way to make time linger a little longer! Here, we knew we only had 1 more full day on the river left with each other, and was kind of sad. But we were still having fun and the time of our lives, and were determined not to let the end of the trip get us down pre-maturely.
August 26, 2003 The morning dawned bright and cheery. The sun rose directly up river and I got a fantastic shot of the sunrise over the river. This was our last full day on the river, and we knew we didn't have to hurry as much now. We could make it to the bridge in time without any difficulty now, and would take the time to enjoy the pleasures of the river today. Cooking breakfast sitting in my chair, we discovered how many hash brown potatoes come in one serving. Thinking that one serving would feed one person, I cooked two packages. Big mistake! We had enough hash brown potatoes to feed all the people coming down the Stevens trail! We tried feeding them to the bass but they wouldn't eat them. The only thing that kind of put a damper on my morning was that pesky poison oak on my arm; it was spreading fast! It had even spread to my right leg, and I knew I was in for a good bout with it. After camp was broke and the gear tied down on the rafts, I set up my camera on self timer and took a photo standing in the river with our rafts in front of us. It was a classic photo. Going down river to the first set of rapids, we beached the rafts and explored the area. We found a very old rusty centrifugal water pump, and an old steam engine lying in the water. Jason panned gold here for awhile, and I took pictures. Here the bedrock had changed to a jet black color, and was very smooth. In a lot of places you could see pyrite crystals in it. Here we also found an old mine shaft and took pictures looking into it. Leisurely continuing down river we enjoyed the day. We swam a lot, took a lot of pictures, explored a little, and watched the Stevens trail climb the hill higher and higher the farther down river we went. Finally it disappeared and we knew we were getting close to the bridge. Last year we encountered many people in the stretch of river 2 miles above the bridge, but this year there was none.
We found our old camping place about a 1/3 mile above the bridge again, and settled in about 3:30 p.m. The sun was still up and we lingered and swam in the river in front of camp. Several years ago Jason had found a nice gold nugget at this place, and we were swimming with our face masks trying to locate another one. The bass were friendly and we almost had to push them out of the way several times. We cooked supper after it had got dark, and really enjoyed our last night on the river. Before going to bed we brought the rafts up from the river and put them in camp, just for safe measure. After all, we were very near a public campground and who knew who was there. We were nestled down among giant Pine Trees, and felt very secure in our camp. We talked and talked before going to sleep, and watched the bats fly within a few feet of us with our LED lamps. Before we knew it we were asleep.
August 27, 2003 In un-believing horror I awoke to rain in the face! Not again!!! What's with California this year, I thought. Yelling at Jason, we quickly inverted the plastic tarp and once again crawled into a hot, steamy, damp environment. The rain lasted until daylight, when it quit and the wind started. It blew hard enough to really bend those giant Pine Trees towering over us, and lasted a couple hours. Finally we gave up and got up. Without getting breakfast we packed things into our bags like we had hiked down the Euchre Bar trail in. Instead of floating on down to the campground and then re-packing everything, we had started packing up the night before. Now the wind was gusting severely, and all of a sudden it picked up Jason's raft and flung it against a thorn bush even though it had almost 15 lbs. of rocks in it. Ofcourse, the raft promptly deflated, becoming the only casualty of the trip. Soon we were ready to start the hike to the campground, and started in that direction. Almost immediately we started sweating, and it got worse. The worse part of the river definitely has to be the rapids directly above Mineral Bar campground, a section called "the boils". Here we had to pick our way between and under house sized boulders for probably 500 feet. In some places we had to jump 6 feet down, and the trail completely disappeared. Soon though we made it to the campground, although very tired and sweaty and looking like a couple of bums I'm sure. As we walked through the campground with our 65 lb. packs, we got some pretty severe stares. Then we came to the camp hosts trailer and as we approached, the host and his girlfriend recognized us from last year and welcomed us with, "hello again strangers, long time no see". We had a good visit with them for a half hour, then excused ourselves and went down to the river and got cleaned up, shaved, and changed into nicer clothes for the flight home. Our ride was supposed to arrive about 1 p.m., but showed up at 12:45 p.m. They called their business "Foothills Flyer", and the driver, Nick, was very friendly. They pick up people all along interstate 80 and provide transportation to the Sacramento airport. We sadly looked back at the river as we crossed the bridge, and wondered if we'd ever make the trip again. We got to Sacramento an hour later, and another hour later I boarded my flight back to Alaska.
I don't know if I'll be able to do the trip again next year, due to my job schedule. Working 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, means I have to be away from my wife for 6 weeks in order to make this 2 week trip, because I work 300 miles away from home. Driving this distance is a real challenge every 2 weeks, especially in the winter. But Jason and I will figure out something to do. A trip that looks interesting is floating the south fork of the Yuba river from where it starts on upper interstate 80 down to the town of Washington. Jason and I drove through that beautiful little town in 1996 and sort of fell in love with it. Anyone have any information on that section of river? As a side note, after I arrived back in Alaska my poison oak became severe and I had to go to the doctor with it. The doctor agreed that it was probably the puncture would that started it, and said I was lucky because usually in cases like that people wind up in the hospital completely covered from head to toe with the stuff! An injection of prednizone cured it in less than a week. I wound up with over 500 excellent pictures of our journey this year, and coupled with what I took last year have almost 700 pictures of the river between Euchre Bar and Mineral Bar campground.
Jason and I had a very good time this year, and were thankful it was easier than last year. Again, after the trip was over we felt a good sense of accomplishment and pride, in that we had made it with so few problems. Aside from the weather, it was a perfect trip. But the trip last year was a bigger challenge, and somehow I don't think I'll ever be able to top it for learning about ourselves, and what we're capable of when the chips are down. God guided us through both trips with a heavy hand, and many answers to prayer. To Him I give the credit and praise. Where ever Jason and I go next year, I'll drop a note and let you know how it was.
Take care everyone, and God bless.
Mike Case
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In part 4 my son Jason and I had just spent a harrowing night hunkered down under an 8 x 10 plastic tarp on a sand bar at Pickering Bar, while the heavens opened up on us. We awoke to a soggy and foggy morning punctuated with torrential downpours about every half hour. Eventually moving up into Joe the Troll's old camp, we made the best of the day and attempted to dry out our gear.
August 23, 2002. Knowing that we had to dry out our wet soggy gear, we un-strung our rafts and used the line for a clothes line. There were plenty of trees and bushes close at hand for the clothes line, and camp looked a lot like a laundry center too cheap to use dryers! It took a long time for our bags to dry because of the lack of sunshine and dampness. It was noticeably cooler out too. We cooked a late breakfast under our tarp and enjoyed every last bite. All of Joe's trash was really getting to us, so we gathered it all up and piled it in one neat pile then covered it with some black plastic that was lying around. It looked much better and controlled the smell too. We found a lawn rake leaning up against a tree and raked down the camp, removing the last small bits of trash. Now it almost looked like a clean, comfortable camp. After our meal and cleaning up camp, we both began to feel the effects of the lack of sleep we had not got during the night. Sometime around 10 a.m. it quit raining and we used the opportunity to grab a much needed nap.
Waking up a couple hours later we were surprised to see the sun shining. With nothing else to do, we decided to go exploring around Pickering Bar. Grabbing our camera gear and prospecting bags, we explored the tailing piles. It was just amazing how much work went into moving all that stone! What wouldn't we have given to have slipped back in time for just an hour to see this place during its heyday! We found several places at the back of the tailing piles where the large rocks and boulders gave way to very small sized gravel, and we suspected bedrock wasn't far down. If only we'd have brought a shovel. We even found a couple areas where old cabins once stood, their locations given away by the profusion of old square nails lying around. Exploring further up river, we came to the north end of Pickering Bar and found an excellent trail leading up river in what we figured was a slight N.E. direction. It was quite evident that at one time the trail had been well used and maintained. Or maybe it was once a ditch bringing water to the miners of this bar, and had been converted to a trail later on. Following it a little ways above the tailing piles, we found a spur trail leading up hill, yet back down river. Pretty soon we came to a large flat area with scrub Oak growing around the edges. Someone had been cutting the large Manzinita bushes down, and we wondered why. Dozens of the beautiful bushes lay where someone had chopped them down. On the east edge of the clearing was a blue tarp tied up in a tree covering someone's camp. Again we had found an abandoned camp where someone had left quickly and left most their gear! Investigating, we found lots of trash under the tarp. Nearby was a large hole someone had went to a lot of effort to dig. It was probably 8 feet across and 6 feet deep, and it was evident it had once been much deeper. In the bottom lay old trash, so we took 10 minutes and packed all the trash from the abandoned camp and put it in this hole. While picking up the trash Jason found a bronze U.S. Marine corps emblem that had once adorned an officers hat. We wondered how a Marine could have went off and left such a mess! This flat area consisted of perhaps 2 acres and would sure have made a nice place for a home if properly manicured. We wondered how it came to be. Continuing up river a ways at that elevation without finding much new, we dropped back down to the trail and followed it back to the tailing piles. It was then that we noticed a man in a yellow inflatable canoe lining it down the river. He was having a terrible time standing on the slippery rocks and was making very slow time. We figured we would catch up to him later and say hello.
Dropping back down to the river, we found the place where we had spent an enjoyable afternoon last year sluicing for gold. We broke out our pans and sieve and started removing some larger stones, scraping off the surface dirt under them. Putting this through our sieves, we each panned about 10 pans. By then the afternoon sun was getting real warm, and we decided we were rich enough! We had got quite a little color, but it was all fine gold, and nothing bigger than a mustard seed. Last year the wind had come up very strong while we sluiced here, and when we had got back to our camp a couple hours later, we had found it blown over a 50 foot area! Now, arriving back at camp up in the tailing piles, everything was still intact. It was late afternoon now, and we were feeling pretty scraggily. So, gathering up our shaving kits, shampoo, and towels, we went down to the river and got cleaned up. It had been hot earlier exploring up river and we were pretty sweaty. While cleaning up in the river I notice a line of small blisters on my right arm. Poison Oak! Silently I prayed I had just brushed up against a bush somewhere, and it wasn't from my previous puncture wound when I had jabbed a Poison Oak stick into my leg in Green Valley. Arriving back in camp we changed into clean, dry clothes and it felt so good! We felt much better. All of our gear had dried quite nicely after the sun came out, and we set to work re-stowing everything in the water proof bags. Taking the line down from the trees, we re-strung our rafts and blew them up solid. We wanted to get as ready as possible to shove off down river the next day as early as we could.
It was getting to be late afternoon now, and we again decided to explore the tailing piles. There is just something about tailing piles that draws me, a sort of doorway or connection with the past, and I find it difficult to pass any of them up. Walking among them I feel welcomed by the old miners who made them, and more at home than in a big city. This time we were exploring along the edge of them, by the river. Almost directly across the river from camp there was a small flat area about 25 feet up the bank, and it looked suspicisiouly like a former cabin site. So, crossing the river we climbed up to it. Surely enough, there was still some sign of rock work on both sides, and several very old pieces of green colored glass. Scraping around on the ground with our feet, we soon found several old square nails. While scraping the ground for treasures, I suddenly un-covered a small round coin with a square hole cut into the center of it. I showed Jason and we both agreed it was probably an old Chinese coin. We were both on our hands and knees intently looking for more of them when Jason said, "Dad, do you feel that?" Suddenly a wave of cold air enveloped me. It was much colder than anything we'd experienced on the trip either this year or last year. It was almost like we had just stepped into a walk-in freezer. We could actually see our breaths! We looked at each other and both said at the same time, "lets get out of here!" Not wasting any time we both headed for the river! We hadn't gone 5 feet down the bank when we entered into normal temperatures once again. Continuing on up the bluff on "our" side of the river, we stopped and looked back at where we had just been, trying to figure out what had just happened. It was then that I remembered something that Joe had told us last year. He said that several times he had seen a person standing in a flat area across the river, wearing a long coat coming down to his knees, and a large pointed hat. Joe had shouted hello at this fellow each time he saw him, but never had received an answer back. Then he said that just as fast as this stranger had appeared, he would also be gone just as fast. Joe was sure he was a Chinese ghost. When I mentioned this to Jason, he too remembered Joe telling us the story. We both wondered if we had just encountered this fellow! Needless to say, we stayed on our own side of the river, and just for good measure I threw the coin I had found back across the river. I'm sure it landed very close to the flat area where I had found it, and we had no further encounters with the "cold", although both of us, I'm sure, slept with one eye open that night! Remembering the movie about the Blair witch, I was glad I had "given" the coin back!
It was getting dark now, and we cooked our supper of Mountain House freeze dried meals. The bats were flitting around as we went down to the river to pump us a couple bottles of water for the night to mix with Tang. We both kept a close eye on the flat area across the river just above us as we got our water, but all was calm and the air warm. Arriving back in camp, we both realized we were pretty beat, and didn't take too long in getting into our warm dry sleeping bags. The stars were out and we saw several good meteors, as well as the normal airplanes and satellites. No talking that night, just normal sleep with no rain, hail, thunder, lightning, or animals running over us.
August 24, 2003 . We were up early with the sun just coming over the canyon rim. We wasted no time in getting breakfast over with, and then started packing our gear down to the river. Loading our rafts and tying everything down, we shoved off with the morning mists hanging lightly over the river. Coming to the first bend, we found where the man was camping who was lining the canoe we had seen the day before. He heard us going by, and crawled out of his small tent and talked with us for about 15 minutes. He seemed nice enough, but we were very cramped for time now, and said a polite good bye and pushed on down river. One bend later we were surprised to see him again, and he passed us in his fast canoe. He was riding in it and scraping over quite a few rocks. Jason and I both hoped he had plenty of patch gear with him! And later we would find where indeed, he had to patch his canoe, by the discarded patch kit wrappers. We wished him good luck, and he was gone. I have since wondered if this man was a BLM employee patrolling the river. Last year we had heard that they patrol the river in kayaks, and this inflatable canoe was pretty close to a kayak. Laying half on our rafts and running with our feet, or "boogying" as Jason called it, we made good time. Before we knew it we were approaching the Truro mine. This year there were no miners working the bedrock just above there. Last year we had both punctured our rafts on the sharp pieces of bedrock they were dis-lodging and throwing into the river. Beaching our rafts, we climbed up the cliff to the Apple trees and gathered 20 or 30 of the better ones. Then we hiked up the trail and filled a couple bottles with black berries. Jason wanted to hike up the road a little ways to some strange trees we had encountered there last year. They had a strange green round fruit growing on them, about the size of oranges. They were hard, green, and didn't look at all appetizing. We never did find out what kind of tree they were, but this year Jason took several of the fruit with him, intending on trying to be successful in growing one. We took pictures of the giant Oak tree growing there and shoved off down the river once again. This time we swam through the deep pool there, towing our rafts as we went, then continued "boogying" down the river as fast as we could go. No time for fishing now, only photography. We were now in the realm of the bass anyway, as last year we didn't catch a trout down river from Pickering Bar, only those pesky bass.
Not far below Truro we stopped at a place where on the north side of the river at a sharp bend, there were ample tailing piles on the hill at several different elevations. While exploring them, we found the track of some large animal in the sand. These tracks were bigger than a Fox or Coyote, and I thought Wolf. Then we realized they were not dog tracks, they were cat! We had found where a mountain lion had prowled the night before! I got several good pictures of them with my shoe in the picture for comparison. We had encountered plenty of Bear sign on the trip also, especially in the meadow where Joe Steiner's grave was, as well as several other places, but this was the first mountain lion tracks we had ever seen. There are no mountain lions in Alaska, and I wasn't surprised it took me a while to recognize them.
On and on we went, around bend after bend, until we came to another very large tailing pile area. It was on a very sharp bend in the river, and there was a road coming down to the river at this point. Just down river about 200 yards there was also a cable strung across the river, still high in the air. It was here last year that we had discovered a mine leading through solid bedrock to an ancient channel. We wanted to explore it again, and beached our rafts. Grabbing our LED lamps, we went into the mine. At the back of this mine, we had discovered last year that it went straight up perhaps 20 feet to a second level where it branched left and right, and the remains of an old wooden ladder was still evident. There were also intact but rusted ore cart rails still visible. We made our way to the back of the mine, intent on somehow getting up into the second level where it branched left and right. But to our dismay we found the back of the mine had caved in since last year. We were very let down, but took several pictures in there anyway, including one of a friendly little bat hanging upside down. Jason had wanted to camp in this area last year, but I had had a very bad feeling about this area and we had pushed on. This year however we both really wanted to camp here, but as constrained for time as we were now, and it still being only early afternoon, we pushed on. A little ways down river we came to the gravel bar where Jason had pulled the nose ring out of his raft last year. We both were a lot more careful here this year! Soon we came to where we had camped last year, about a mile below the mine. We briefly stopped, silently saluted ourselves for being so vigilant even finishing the trip last year, and continued on down river. It was another one of those gorgeous days on the American river, and we were very thankful that we had seemingly left the thunder and lightning behind.
Eventually about sundown, we came to a large gravel bar on the east side of the river, and found a spot smooth enough to make camp for the night. The sun had just set and we were both pretty tired. On the edge of the gravel bar by the hillside, there was an old sign nailed to a pine tree stating that 20 or so years ago this had been someone's mining claim, and no one was to trespass. We leveled off a spot and threw out our tarp and bags, and then I set up my chair and plopped down. I cooked supper sitting there with my little Svea stove that I've carried with me for over 30 years now. It felt so good to sit! We had situated our sleeping bags by a large boulder about 4 feet in diameter, and after supper we laid down to watch the bats and stars. For some reason something told me to get me LED lamp and look around. Turning it on and looking around the base of the boulder, I was horrified to see an army of small ants! They were in a line about 1/4 inch wide, but stretched as far as we could see down the gravel bar! They were coming out from under the rock. Quickly we moved our bags well away from them, and hoped they would keep their distance. Just for good measure, we set an empty can of sardines near their hole, hoping to attract them to the can instead of us. It seemed to work, because they left us alone the rest of the night. Again, as we drifted off to sleep, we both wondered aloud what had really happened up at Pickering Bar at that old cabin site. Pretty soon sleep overtook us and we rested peacefully until morning.
August 25, 2003. We had overslept! Suddenly the sunshine was hitting our sleeping bags turning them into ovens. Quickly we were up and around, and discovered it had dewed out heavily during the night and our bags were wet. After breakfast we packed up our gear, and by that time our bags were dry. As we packed our gear to the rafts and tied it down, Jason found a rock about a foot around. He said it was called "Mariposite", and that it was valuable. To me it looked like multi colored marble. He really wanted to take it with him, but it must have weighed 40 lbs! Try as we might, we could not break a piece of it off, even though we tried very hard. It was so hard that it broke every rock that we threw it against. Reluctantly we had to leave it there.
Today we knew that we would have to travel through Secret Gorge, a part of the river that had gave us real problems last year. But we had new hope now, especially because Giant Gap had been so easy this year. Maybe Secret Gorge would be fun this year too. We started down river half riding, half pushing our rafts, enjoying the beautiful country side. We passed small tailing piles hidden in the brush at almost every bend, but just couldn't take the time out to explore them. We took many pictures this day, and saw some of the most beautiful places God ever made! Soon we came to an area of river that had a white sandy bottom, which made the crystal clear water even more beautiful. A couple more bends and we were at the big log jam just above Secret Gorge. Here we beached our rafts and climbed over the log jam and took pictures of each other on the giant logs. What a flood it must have been to pile these huge logs 30 feet above the river! While walking back to the rafts I spotted a tin can that hadn't been opened. The label was gone, and we both wondered what was in it. We both secretly hoped it was peaches, but it turned out to be stewed tomatoes that had gone sour. What a let down! Continuing on down river, we almost immediately came to the entrance of Secret Gorge. In "boogying" fashion, we entered it hoping for the best.
We hadn't remembered Secret Gorge being this beautiful. Last year we had entered it at around 3 p.m. and had a terrible time lining our water burdened rafts down the non-stop rapids. We hadn't found a camping place until almost dark, on a small gravel bar not 8 x 10 feet square. Now we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, savoring every bit of scenery we could. Where last year we tripped and slipped over what seemed like miles of boulders, now we were skimming over them holding onto our rafts, with our legs dangling as high in the water as possible behind them. Although we did wish for some kind of leg pads! We hit quite a few shallow boulders with our legs and wound up very bruised, but happy. Soon we came to the place where we had been forced to camp last year due to the lack of daylight. Now it seemed a cheerful place, but our gravel bar was completely gone. Good thing we hadn't planned on camping here this year! At this particular camp last year we were kept awake a good portion of the night by the sound of what we were sure was the old time miners. Just after we had laid down on our bags, we had heard what sounded like rocks rolling down a wooden plank. With our poor flash lights we had searched for the source of the sound, but hadn't found it. As the night wore on, more and more rocks rolled down this plank, accompanied by the sounds of metal clunking off rocks, and low mumblings of men talking. It didn't take us long to figure out that there must have been mining activity here in the past, and we were hearing the miners shoveling paydirt into their sluice boxes, keeping the larger rocks scurrying through them with their shovels. It continued until around 2 or 3 a.m. before all became silent.
Continuing on down the river, we marveled at the scenery. We came to the huge quartz vein crossing the canyon that we had seen last year, but hadn't had time to spend much time at because it was almost dark. Now we stopped and explored the area, and took quite a few pictures. I pried a small piece of the vein loose for my wife. When she had seen the pictures of this vein last year, she had asked that I get her a piece of it this year. Now that piece lies on her desk, nicely cut and polished. Soon we came to the end of the gorge, as we could tell the country was becoming wider. We came to a deep hole with 15 foot cliffs, and stopped for an hour and dove off the rocks. We got pictures of each other diving and swimming, and we had a blast acting like we were kids again. About 1/3 mile further we came to Secret Ravine, and stopped to explore a little. The Apple tree there didn't have apples this year, and we were glad we had picked plenty at Truro. We picked a few black berries, hiked up the Stevens trail a little ways, then explored the other side of the river. We found where the old suspension bridge used to cross and followed the trail a ways, but was surprised that it didn't continue down river, only up river. Jason found a nice large quartz crystal here, among the many quartz veins. I would like to find some information on Secret Ravine, as it seemed there had been plenty of past activity here.
Now it was about 3:30 p.m. and I was beginning to tire out. Jason wanted to explore more around Secret Ravine, but I wanted to get to the camp site that we had stayed in last year about a 1/2 mile down river. We had just met a man about 200 yards up river who hadn't seemed friendly, and I wanted to be away from him. He had this look in his eyes of contempt when he saw us, even though we had been friendly and said hello. So, continuing on down to the bottom of the pool that extends down river from Secret Ravine, we fought a head wind and arrived at our old camp site about sundown. It was on the south side of the river, up on an elevated gravel bar on bedrock about 15 feet above the river. A lone pine tree stood there, friendly and inviting. We made camp under it and I set up my chair and cooked supper, sitting under Gods special creation. This year no one was on the trail, and we felt alone and happy. This was also the first place where I could get cell phone coverage, and I called my wife in Alaska just to let her know we were alive and well. She was happy we were having such a good time, and wished us Godspeed on down the river. We tried a little fishing, but the bass here were very fat and large and definitely weren't the least bit interested in our lures. Last year at this camp we had been sitting on our bags cooking supper, when a skunk had approached me to within about 2 feet before realizing I was me, and made a hasty retreat. No skunks this year, thank heavens! The bats came out, then the stars, then sleep. This was another of those special camps where you experience it once, then dream about coming back. It was hard to believe I was actually here again. If only we could find a way to make time linger a little longer! Here, we knew we only had 1 more full day on the river left with each other, and was kind of sad. But we were still having fun and the time of our lives, and were determined not to let the end of the trip get us down pre-maturely.
August 26, 2003 The morning dawned bright and cheery. The sun rose directly up river and I got a fantastic shot of the sunrise over the river. This was our last full day on the river, and we knew we didn't have to hurry as much now. We could make it to the bridge in time without any difficulty now, and would take the time to enjoy the pleasures of the river today. Cooking breakfast sitting in my chair, we discovered how many hash brown potatoes come in one serving. Thinking that one serving would feed one person, I cooked two packages. Big mistake! We had enough hash brown potatoes to feed all the people coming down the Stevens trail! We tried feeding them to the bass but they wouldn't eat them. The only thing that kind of put a damper on my morning was that pesky poison oak on my arm; it was spreading fast! It had even spread to my right leg, and I knew I was in for a good bout with it. After camp was broke and the gear tied down on the rafts, I set up my camera on self timer and took a photo standing in the river with our rafts in front of us. It was a classic photo. Going down river to the first set of rapids, we beached the rafts and explored the area. We found a very old rusty centrifugal water pump, and an old steam engine lying in the water. Jason panned gold here for awhile, and I took pictures. Here the bedrock had changed to a jet black color, and was very smooth. In a lot of places you could see pyrite crystals in it. Here we also found an old mine shaft and took pictures looking into it. Leisurely continuing down river we enjoyed the day. We swam a lot, took a lot of pictures, explored a little, and watched the Stevens trail climb the hill higher and higher the farther down river we went. Finally it disappeared and we knew we were getting close to the bridge. Last year we encountered many people in the stretch of river 2 miles above the bridge, but this year there was none.
We found our old camping place about a 1/3 mile above the bridge again, and settled in about 3:30 p.m. The sun was still up and we lingered and swam in the river in front of camp. Several years ago Jason had found a nice gold nugget at this place, and we were swimming with our face masks trying to locate another one. The bass were friendly and we almost had to push them out of the way several times. We cooked supper after it had got dark, and really enjoyed our last night on the river. Before going to bed we brought the rafts up from the river and put them in camp, just for safe measure. After all, we were very near a public campground and who knew who was there. We were nestled down among giant Pine Trees, and felt very secure in our camp. We talked and talked before going to sleep, and watched the bats fly within a few feet of us with our LED lamps. Before we knew it we were asleep.
August 27, 2003 In un-believing horror I awoke to rain in the face! Not again!!! What's with California this year, I thought. Yelling at Jason, we quickly inverted the plastic tarp and once again crawled into a hot, steamy, damp environment. The rain lasted until daylight, when it quit and the wind started. It blew hard enough to really bend those giant Pine Trees towering over us, and lasted a couple hours. Finally we gave up and got up. Without getting breakfast we packed things into our bags like we had hiked down the Euchre Bar trail in. Instead of floating on down to the campground and then re-packing everything, we had started packing up the night before. Now the wind was gusting severely, and all of a sudden it picked up Jason's raft and flung it against a thorn bush even though it had almost 15 lbs. of rocks in it. Ofcourse, the raft promptly deflated, becoming the only casualty of the trip. Soon we were ready to start the hike to the campground, and started in that direction. Almost immediately we started sweating, and it got worse. The worse part of the river definitely has to be the rapids directly above Mineral Bar campground, a section called "the boils". Here we had to pick our way between and under house sized boulders for probably 500 feet. In some places we had to jump 6 feet down, and the trail completely disappeared. Soon though we made it to the campground, although very tired and sweaty and looking like a couple of bums I'm sure. As we walked through the campground with our 65 lb. packs, we got some pretty severe stares. Then we came to the camp hosts trailer and as we approached, the host and his girlfriend recognized us from last year and welcomed us with, "hello again strangers, long time no see". We had a good visit with them for a half hour, then excused ourselves and went down to the river and got cleaned up, shaved, and changed into nicer clothes for the flight home. Our ride was supposed to arrive about 1 p.m., but showed up at 12:45 p.m. They called their business "Foothills Flyer", and the driver, Nick, was very friendly. They pick up people all along interstate 80 and provide transportation to the Sacramento airport. We sadly looked back at the river as we crossed the bridge, and wondered if we'd ever make the trip again. We got to Sacramento an hour later, and another hour later I boarded my flight back to Alaska.
I don't know if I'll be able to do the trip again next year, due to my job schedule. Working 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, means I have to be away from my wife for 6 weeks in order to make this 2 week trip, because I work 300 miles away from home. Driving this distance is a real challenge every 2 weeks, especially in the winter. But Jason and I will figure out something to do. A trip that looks interesting is floating the south fork of the Yuba river from where it starts on upper interstate 80 down to the town of Washington. Jason and I drove through that beautiful little town in 1996 and sort of fell in love with it. Anyone have any information on that section of river? As a side note, after I arrived back in Alaska my poison oak became severe and I had to go to the doctor with it. The doctor agreed that it was probably the puncture would that started it, and said I was lucky because usually in cases like that people wind up in the hospital completely covered from head to toe with the stuff! An injection of prednizone cured it in less than a week. I wound up with over 500 excellent pictures of our journey this year, and coupled with what I took last year have almost 700 pictures of the river between Euchre Bar and Mineral Bar campground.
Jason and I had a very good time this year, and were thankful it was easier than last year. Again, after the trip was over we felt a good sense of accomplishment and pride, in that we had made it with so few problems. Aside from the weather, it was a perfect trip. But the trip last year was a bigger challenge, and somehow I don't think I'll ever be able to top it for learning about ourselves, and what we're capable of when the chips are down. God guided us through both trips with a heavy hand, and many answers to prayer. To Him I give the credit and praise. Where ever Jason and I go next year, I'll drop a note and let you know how it was.
Take care everyone, and God bless.
Mike Case
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