Sunday morning Tom Molloy, Catherine O'Riley and I drove up to Emigrant Gap, out Forest Road 19 to Texas Hill, and then on up Burnett Canyon to Sawtooth Ridge. We drove the Sawtooth Road down the ridge to the southwest, the North Fork to our left, the North Fork of the North Fork to our right. We passed the steep SPI clearcuts in Section 35, just west of Helester Point, and at last reached the False Pass, a deep notch below the 3800-foot contour, climbing onto the minor knoll or tooth to the west, and parking at the True Pass, at about 4000' elevation.
It took about two hours to reach the True Pass from Dutch Flat. Immediately west of the True Pass is Tooth 4210, as may be seen on the USGS 7.5 minute Westville quadrangle.
We were determined to close the gap on the historic Sawbug Trail. It only remained to stroll merrily down the wide trail, bolstered by dry-laid stone walls, to, presumably, the Bear Bed Mine, where Ron and Catherine and I had lost the Sawbug last Wednesday. The task seemed so insignificant we were concerned to imagine what we would do with the rest of our day; drive out to Big Valley Bluff? Visit Burnett Canyon?
We gradually became ready, as the noon hour neared, and the sky was blue, the temperature, warming to hot, and as if in presage of what would befall us, I immediately seized upon a faint trail line leading through heavy brush from the road, and declared it to be The Trail; so we fought our way through it, and found it was actually not at all The Trail.
It was at least near. A short scramble put us on track, and there were the dry-laid stone walls, there was the wide trail bed we had walked so little of last Wednesday. So now, down to the Bear Bed! We lopped through the usual types of obstructions met on the upper Sawbug, mainly Canyon Live Oak branches, and some few spiky Torreya branches; an occasional Deerbrush, and one patch of manzanita. The trail began to make switchbacks, but its overall trend was down and to the west--perfect. We found some remarkable views all the way up the North Fork to Snow Mountain and even Tinkers Knob, on the crest. There was little to no doubt as to the line of the trail.
A long descending traverse west led us to a terrace fronting a collapsed tunnel. Immediately below, another terrace held some heavy bits of equipment of some sort. We were hot and sweaty after much lopping, and rested in the shade on the Upper Terrace. We would later call it the Upper Mine, for, as it transpired, there was a series of tunnels leading almost straight down the canyon wall, bearing only slightly to the east, and we developed names for each tunnel in turn.
Let us say there were five tunnels. From top to bottom, then, we had Upper Mine, then the Winch Terrace (not a tunnel site--a fragmented gigantic winch with hundreds of feet of cable embedded amidst various and sundry massive chunks of iron, axles, wheels, many spilled down the steep slopes, etc. etc.)--and then the Big Oak Mine, where the broad opening of the tunnel was framed by a truly ancient and enormous Canyon Live Oak, and an unusually massive wheelbarrow, all of dark iron, lay nearby; then what I thought of as Shaft and Stope, a tunnel which led quickly to a shaft opening just below the Big Oak Mine--but I believe we also called this the Fallen Tree Tunnel--then another tunnel, perhaps we never gave it a name--and then at last the Bear Bed Mine.
So. Almost right away we established that the Bear Bed was about 300 feet in elevation below the Upper Mine, and slightly to the east. I had dropped down slightly west from the Upper Mine, hit the Sawbug west and below the Bear Bed, and followed it up to that tunnel.
So, it only remained to connect the Bear Bed to the Upper Mine with a trail.
We scouted high and low and side to side. We dropped down to the Bear Bed, followed the Sawbug down and west to a certain spur ridge, and looked high and low for a switchback which may have carried the Sawbug higher onto the spur. Numerous game trails confused the issue, as usual, but we satisfied ourselves that the Sawbug did indeed make straight for the Bear Bed.
We followed the most proper continuation of the line of the Sawbug, up and to the east, past the Bear Bed, just as Ron and Catherine and I had, last Wednesday, and found a plausible trail line which, however, soon leveled out and then even dropped, only to essentially end in a clump of close-set Torreya.
Torreya californica is a conifer in the Yew family, a naked-seed gymnosperm, and rather than having cones bearing many naked seeds, it has single seeds, which resemble large green olives. Many of these somewhat scrubby and stunted Torreya, which have stump-sprouted again and again following wildfires, were carrying heavy crops of these giant green seeds.
Several times we ended up back at the Upper Mine, resting in the shade of the terrace, and discussing the problem. We were so darn close, a few hundred feet on a horizontal, and a couple few hundred in elevation. The miners must have had their own trail linking the many tunnels. Find the miners' trail, and let it count as the True Sawbug.
So. We had already often followed a certain switchback just below the Upper Mine, using it to gain the Winch Terrace, which trail, all in all, was the most plausible continuation of the Upper Sawbug. We spent quite a bit more time on this trail, and did discover its possible continuation, in a series of switchbacks which wore off roughly half of the elevation down to the Bear Bed.
But we never could connect it through.
Smoke had filtered into the canyon. Had one of the Calaveras fires flared up strongly? They had filled the North Fork with smoke two days before. We began to smell the smoke. The day was now hot, quite hot, and I for one had had quite enough of these steep slopes, with their slippery Canyon Live Oak leaves, and the constant slipping and stumbling which could attend even a very short climb.
We made our way up to the Upper Mine, frustrated, disconsolate; it was almost impossible, given how throughly we had scouted the length and the breadth and the very depth of these ragged slopes, impossible to have missed the trail. The most rational explanation I could find was that, since the Sawbug pre-dated the mines by several decades (the Sawbug was in use at least as early as 1863, as evidenced by the Diary of Isaac Tibbetts Coffin, of Dutch Flat; and the mines looked to date from as late as the 1920s, probably no earlier than 1900)--since the Sawbug was older, the debris from the mines may have slid down the steep slopes, and completely buried the line of the trail.
This seemed reasonable enough.
However, the uncertainty of it all weighed heavily. Could the Sawbug have leveled out past the Bear Bed Mine, which I GPSed at about 3600' elevation, and made for the False Pass, at 3720+ feet? So that the False Pass is in fact the True Pass, and the well-defined trail dropping in switchbacks to the Upper Mine, was a trail to the mine and nothing more? It cannot be entirely discounted.
So. The mystery continues.
We found the going rather tough, going back up to the Sawtooth Road and the Land Rover, but to was nice to drive along with the windows down, and gradually recover from our exertions. I was streaked with blood as usual, wet with sweat, little branches and leaves caught in clothes and hair. We all lamented our failure and kept on going over the same ground, in our minds, and in conversation, that we had criss-crossed on foot for hours.
I spotted a chunk of plastic trim on the road, and we snagged it, speculating it may have been stripped from Ron's truck, a few weeks ago.
Climbing east out of the False Pass Which Still Could Maybe Be the True Pass, we suddenly met Ron himself, who had on the spur of the moment decided to drive out there to see for himself. The piece of plastic was indeed from his rear bumper. After a brief chat--we learned that the smoke was from a fire near the Stevens Trail, down by Colfax--we went our separate ways.
By the way, the Sawtooth Road can absolutely eat a vehicle. The brush will scratch your paint. I can't recommend it to anyone, not much west of Helester Point, anyway.
It could be that Ron found the trail, where we failed to find it; he has an almost mystical sense for old trails.
I would like the benefit of cool weather, the next time I have a go at the old Sawbug.
Maybe the eighth time is the charm!
Showing posts with label Humbug Bar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Humbug Bar. Show all posts
Monday, August 9, 2004
Thursday, August 5, 2004
The Mystery of the Sawbug, VI
Sawbug VII now looms on the horizon, as the Sixth Expedition failed to discover the line of the old trail from Humbug Bar to the crest of Sawtooth Ridge. The unusually cool August weather inspired Ron and Catherine and I to meet at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, to drive to Iron Point and the Euchre Bar Trail, pausing to leave one vehicle down at the gate on the rough road to the Rawhide Mine.
For we would follow the Sawbug up to the ridge crest, or failing that, just bushwhack up to the crest, and then walk the Sawtooth Road west to the Rawhide Mine Trail, drop down to the mine, and then, crossing the North Fork of the North Fork and Blue Canyon on the bridges there, climb up the Rawhide road to the aforementioned gate.
It would make a loop of about ten miles, with total elevation gain of about 3000 feet.
We started down the Euchre Bar Trail at 9:00 a.m. sharp, and reached the bridge at 9:30. After a rest, the long march up to Humbug Canyon was followed by an immediate ford of the river, and the short climb to the bridge site at Humbug Bar. Another rest, with the same biting quasi-horse-flies pestering us, for the passage across the canyon to the south-facing north slopes had bumped up the temperature instantly, and the siren song of sweat brought the hungry flies from near and far. It was nearing 11:00 a.m. when we shouldered our packs and started up the Sawbug.
There was the crucial switchback we had missed, two weeks ago; there, and there, the nasty patches of half-dead deerbrush and manzanita and fallen pines which so effectively hid the trail, but then, fairly soon and low on the line of the old trail, we were above the worst of it, on shadier slopes with much less brush, and the long climbing traverse to the northeast began.
Following The Plan we did little lopping, saving our strength for the unexplored upper half of the trail. Although occasionally this part of the Sawbug degenerates to the appearance of a game trail, it is punctuated by impressive dry-laid retaining walls, some all of six feet high, defining a trailbed four feet wide. Both Ron and I had our GPS units turned on for the duration, but mine often went into my pocket to free my hands for lopping, and when I returned home and transferred the track record to my digital version of the Westville 7.5 minute quadrangle, my track record proved to be fragmentary, made of many short tracks, interrupted by gaps where satellite coverage had been lost.
We crossed the main ravine along the line of the trail, and soon thereafter entered Terra Incognita, as we climbed around a spur ridge which springs away south from the knoll marked 4210 on the crest of Sawtooth, now somewhat less then a thousand feet above us.
The trail was marked in many places by old machete cuts, but as I recall, once we passed the spur ridge, there was not much in the way of dry-laid stone walls to reassure us as to the "true" course of the trail. We maintained a continuous climbing traverse, and after a time, reached an old gold mine, a tunnel driven into the solid rock. This was interesting in that it contained the single largest bear bed I have ever seen, where masses of Canyon Live Oak leaves had spilled into the tunnel from the slopes above, and been hollowed deeply by the bear, making a large bowl.
GPS put us at about 3500' elevation.
From the mine, the trail seemed somewhat fainter, and yet offered a climbing traverse of the same sort as we had seen all the way along. I saw more machete cuts. But after a time we felt we had lost the darn thing, and scouted across the steep slopes. I interpreted a certain ridge, dimly seen to the east, as the spur falling from the far side of The Pass, that certain low spot on the Sawtooth Crest, below the 3800' contour, where the Sawbug had been found and explored from the top, down, twice, in 2002 and 2003, seeming to end at yet another hard-rock mining prospect.
Since the USGS topographic map of 1900 shows a sweeping switchback almost directly below The Pass, and since we were well up towards 3700' in elevation, I was drawn to the east, towards the dimly-seen spur ridge. Ron and Catherine scouted a little farther west, out of sight and often out of hearing as well. The steep slopes were quite difficult to traverse. Occasional game trails led us here or there, but then, again and again, we were forced into scrambles directly up the steeps. I veered back west to Join Ron and Catherine. We were huffing and puffing and sweating like mad. GPS put us nearing 4000' in elevation; above the level of The Pass. But if that were so--then we must be well west of The Pass--we rested and thought it over.
In a few minutes we were ready to go. We had lost the line of the Sawbug, were too high, and too tired to retreat west and south and down, and the slopes to steep and nasty to contour east. The only sensible course was to scramble on up to the Sawtooth Road wherever gaps in the brush might permit. A few steps brought a beguiling terrace into view, above me. I pointed it out to Catherine. Ron had ranged farther east, and we heard indistinct exclamations, and as I climbed to the terrace, so did Ron, a hundred feet away, and we simultaneously realized we had found the good old Sawbug.
Having found it, we could scarcely believe we had ever lost it. For it was broad and well-defined and was often bolstered by dry-laid stone walls. However we had lost the line of the Sawbug--a switchback had been passed, perhaps--it had, somehow, climbed more steeply than we had.
There was no question of following it back *down*, we were too far gone for that. I recorded a waypoint, noting that we were near to 4000' in elevation, and we followed the Sawbug *up*. Almost immediately, it fed us onto the Sawtooth Road, but, far west of The Pass. I recorded another waypoint, and we hung a sharp left and started walking west towards the Rawhide Trail.
The upshot of all this is that the Sawbug does not climb to the pass-below-the-3800'-contour, but to the next pass west, between Knoll 4210 on the west, and a smaller knoll about a quarter-mile to the east, a little above 4120' in elevation.
A fine breeze stirred along the Sawtooth crest, and a mile and a half brought us to the top of the Rawhide. It was around 5:00 p.m. when we started down, through the dense tangle of manzanita Ron and I had lopped through a few weeks ago, and onto the easier north slopes of Sawtooth.
We had noted minor inconsistencies between the line of the Rawhide Trail, on the map, and the actual line of the trail, on the ground, while exploring it a few weeks ago. But now, as we followed it down, we realized that it departed rather drastically from the map, a long series of switchbacks taking the place of a direct descending traverse. The loppers came back into play, although we had already passed the more sensible limits of exertion. We passed an upper tunnel, and then dropped all the way below the main mine portal (not on the trail itself) without realizing it. We were too tired to climb back up and visit the interesting portal area, and just followed the trail on down to the mine road, and the road, down to the river, at about 2150' elevation.
Another rest, and then it was over the gate, over the bridges--the caretaker was not in residence--and past the houses, and up and up and up the rough road to the gate, and Ron's truck, at about 2900' elevation. It was around 6:30 p.m. Another great day in the great canyon.
It looks as tho Sawbug Seven will require a drive out to Sawtooth Ridge from Emigrant Gap, to the New Pass. From there the trail could be followed down, and we should need to go no farther than the Bear Bed Mine to finish the job of discovering the line of one of the North Fork canyon's historic trails.
For we would follow the Sawbug up to the ridge crest, or failing that, just bushwhack up to the crest, and then walk the Sawtooth Road west to the Rawhide Mine Trail, drop down to the mine, and then, crossing the North Fork of the North Fork and Blue Canyon on the bridges there, climb up the Rawhide road to the aforementioned gate.
It would make a loop of about ten miles, with total elevation gain of about 3000 feet.
We started down the Euchre Bar Trail at 9:00 a.m. sharp, and reached the bridge at 9:30. After a rest, the long march up to Humbug Canyon was followed by an immediate ford of the river, and the short climb to the bridge site at Humbug Bar. Another rest, with the same biting quasi-horse-flies pestering us, for the passage across the canyon to the south-facing north slopes had bumped up the temperature instantly, and the siren song of sweat brought the hungry flies from near and far. It was nearing 11:00 a.m. when we shouldered our packs and started up the Sawbug.
There was the crucial switchback we had missed, two weeks ago; there, and there, the nasty patches of half-dead deerbrush and manzanita and fallen pines which so effectively hid the trail, but then, fairly soon and low on the line of the old trail, we were above the worst of it, on shadier slopes with much less brush, and the long climbing traverse to the northeast began.
Following The Plan we did little lopping, saving our strength for the unexplored upper half of the trail. Although occasionally this part of the Sawbug degenerates to the appearance of a game trail, it is punctuated by impressive dry-laid retaining walls, some all of six feet high, defining a trailbed four feet wide. Both Ron and I had our GPS units turned on for the duration, but mine often went into my pocket to free my hands for lopping, and when I returned home and transferred the track record to my digital version of the Westville 7.5 minute quadrangle, my track record proved to be fragmentary, made of many short tracks, interrupted by gaps where satellite coverage had been lost.
We crossed the main ravine along the line of the trail, and soon thereafter entered Terra Incognita, as we climbed around a spur ridge which springs away south from the knoll marked 4210 on the crest of Sawtooth, now somewhat less then a thousand feet above us.
The trail was marked in many places by old machete cuts, but as I recall, once we passed the spur ridge, there was not much in the way of dry-laid stone walls to reassure us as to the "true" course of the trail. We maintained a continuous climbing traverse, and after a time, reached an old gold mine, a tunnel driven into the solid rock. This was interesting in that it contained the single largest bear bed I have ever seen, where masses of Canyon Live Oak leaves had spilled into the tunnel from the slopes above, and been hollowed deeply by the bear, making a large bowl.
GPS put us at about 3500' elevation.
From the mine, the trail seemed somewhat fainter, and yet offered a climbing traverse of the same sort as we had seen all the way along. I saw more machete cuts. But after a time we felt we had lost the darn thing, and scouted across the steep slopes. I interpreted a certain ridge, dimly seen to the east, as the spur falling from the far side of The Pass, that certain low spot on the Sawtooth Crest, below the 3800' contour, where the Sawbug had been found and explored from the top, down, twice, in 2002 and 2003, seeming to end at yet another hard-rock mining prospect.
Since the USGS topographic map of 1900 shows a sweeping switchback almost directly below The Pass, and since we were well up towards 3700' in elevation, I was drawn to the east, towards the dimly-seen spur ridge. Ron and Catherine scouted a little farther west, out of sight and often out of hearing as well. The steep slopes were quite difficult to traverse. Occasional game trails led us here or there, but then, again and again, we were forced into scrambles directly up the steeps. I veered back west to Join Ron and Catherine. We were huffing and puffing and sweating like mad. GPS put us nearing 4000' in elevation; above the level of The Pass. But if that were so--then we must be well west of The Pass--we rested and thought it over.
In a few minutes we were ready to go. We had lost the line of the Sawbug, were too high, and too tired to retreat west and south and down, and the slopes to steep and nasty to contour east. The only sensible course was to scramble on up to the Sawtooth Road wherever gaps in the brush might permit. A few steps brought a beguiling terrace into view, above me. I pointed it out to Catherine. Ron had ranged farther east, and we heard indistinct exclamations, and as I climbed to the terrace, so did Ron, a hundred feet away, and we simultaneously realized we had found the good old Sawbug.
Having found it, we could scarcely believe we had ever lost it. For it was broad and well-defined and was often bolstered by dry-laid stone walls. However we had lost the line of the Sawbug--a switchback had been passed, perhaps--it had, somehow, climbed more steeply than we had.
There was no question of following it back *down*, we were too far gone for that. I recorded a waypoint, noting that we were near to 4000' in elevation, and we followed the Sawbug *up*. Almost immediately, it fed us onto the Sawtooth Road, but, far west of The Pass. I recorded another waypoint, and we hung a sharp left and started walking west towards the Rawhide Trail.
The upshot of all this is that the Sawbug does not climb to the pass-below-the-3800'-contour, but to the next pass west, between Knoll 4210 on the west, and a smaller knoll about a quarter-mile to the east, a little above 4120' in elevation.
A fine breeze stirred along the Sawtooth crest, and a mile and a half brought us to the top of the Rawhide. It was around 5:00 p.m. when we started down, through the dense tangle of manzanita Ron and I had lopped through a few weeks ago, and onto the easier north slopes of Sawtooth.
We had noted minor inconsistencies between the line of the Rawhide Trail, on the map, and the actual line of the trail, on the ground, while exploring it a few weeks ago. But now, as we followed it down, we realized that it departed rather drastically from the map, a long series of switchbacks taking the place of a direct descending traverse. The loppers came back into play, although we had already passed the more sensible limits of exertion. We passed an upper tunnel, and then dropped all the way below the main mine portal (not on the trail itself) without realizing it. We were too tired to climb back up and visit the interesting portal area, and just followed the trail on down to the mine road, and the road, down to the river, at about 2150' elevation.
Another rest, and then it was over the gate, over the bridges--the caretaker was not in residence--and past the houses, and up and up and up the rough road to the gate, and Ron's truck, at about 2900' elevation. It was around 6:30 p.m. Another great day in the great canyon.
It looks as tho Sawbug Seven will require a drive out to Sawtooth Ridge from Emigrant Gap, to the New Pass. From there the trail could be followed down, and we should need to go no farther than the Bear Bed Mine to finish the job of discovering the line of one of the North Fork canyon's historic trails.
Thursday, July 22, 2004
In Search of the Sawbug
There are some really great trails in the North Fork canyon, many quite old. Some are abandoned and no longer appear on modern maps, not Tahoe National Forest maps, nor on the USGS 7.5 minute topographic maps, which are the most detailed maps readily available.
Old maps often show these now-abandoned trails, and for many years I have pored over these antique maps, studying them inch by inch with a magnifying glass, and transferring the lines of trails to our modern 7.5 minute quads. I have also visited map archives at the USGS headquarters in Sacramento, and studied the surveyor's notes which accompany some of them.
For instance, in 1866, in the Dutch Flat area, the government surveys focused upon laying out the section lines, dividing each "township" into a grid of thirty-six sections, each section a mile square. This was the primary goal, and the positions of roads and trails were often only partially recorded, where they happened to cross some section line. The surveyor's notes often contain more information about these roads and trails.
One of the more interesting of the old maps is the USGS Colfax Folio (from the "Geological Atlas of the United States", ca. 1900), the first good topographic map published of this general area. Contours are at an interval of 100 feet, with bold contours every 500 feet, of elevation. This map is notable, among other things, for showing trails from Sawtooth Ridge down to the North Fork, which do not appear on any other map I have seen. East of Helester Point, a trail is shown dropping away south from a pass on Sawtooth, to Italian Bar. West of Helester Point, another trail is shown dropping from a pass, south and west to Humbug Bar, where a bridge existed. Since this trail connects Sawtooth Ridge to Humbug Bar, I've dubbed it the "Sawbug" trail.
From the pass, the trail can be followed for a little ways, before a maze of game trails obscures its course. If one just forges ahead in what should be the right direction, a human trail reappears, which leads to a hard-rock prospect on one of the many quartz veins in the area. From there, the trail again fades away. I searched that area a couple of years ago with Tom Molloy, and then again last year with Ron Gould.
The upper part of the Sawbug had disappeared so completely that it seemed the next step must be to go to Humbug Bar and try to follow it up from there. Last year I joined Steve Hunter and others for a visit to Humbug Canyon, and while they visited old mines, I tried and failed to locate the Sawbug, beginning at the bridge site, finding instead an old wagon road on the north side of the river, and another wagon road which climbed up the canyon wall, in much the direction one would want to see on the Sawbug, but, sadly, too far east.
Yesterday Jerry Rein, Ron Gould, Catherine O'Riley and I met Steve Hunter and friends in Colfax for another visit to Humbug Canyon. Steve knows one of the owners of the Dorer Ranch, near the base of Humbug Canyon, and obtained a key to the gate, up high on the canyon rim off Elliott Ranch Road. We drove out there and down the road, pausing at the ranch to greet the caretaker, Danny, and his friend, Grant. The ranch is located on a meadowy terrace of glacial outwash sediments. It is an amazing, albeit somewhat ramshackle, place. After a time we made our way down to the river, a short distance away. A lovely deep pool is just downstream from the confluence of Humbug Creek, and we all swam, for the day was waxing hot, hotter, hottest.
The river was a comfortable 64 degrees, as a fisherman among us determined, and we jumped and dove from the polished bosses of rock beside the pool.
Soon, tho, our sub-group packed up, forded the river, and climbed to the bridge site, in search of the Sawbug.
Our search lacked a little in method. Howsoever, some widespread wandering up and down and back and forth eventually revealed a human trail, winding through a dense thicket of young Douglas Fir. I lopped a line through, where bears had often stomped, but soon enough we lost the thing, and wandered east, up the canyon, some scouting high, others low.
I found a plausible human trail amidst a regular maze of very well-trodden game trails, and called the others up. We followed along well enough for a ways, and then our trail again blended into the generality of game trails, in a forest of Canyon Live Oak, Ponderosa Pine, and Douglas Fir. I scouted high while the others took shelter beneath some trees, and found yet another supposed human trail, and, walking back west, and then east, and then up and down and every which way, established that a certain combination of the most heavily-trodden game trails, which combination might be interpreted as lightly-used human trails from long ago, led to a hard rock prospect with some terraces bolstered by dry-laid stone walls, littered with chunks of quartz.
I went back and retrieved the others, and we walked to this "prospect terrace." As we neared it, Ron split away and scouted higher, thank goodness, for soon he called down to us that he had found an even broader trail, and I hurried up to see.
Ron had found "it." The Sawbug. Finally, another piece of the puzzle.
It was past noon and sweltering, blazing hot. A climb of perhaps 100 feet brought me to Ron's trail, where a gigantic Canyon Live Oak and Douglas Fir were clasped in a strange embrace. The trail was broader than most we had explored that day, and was in just the right position, following just the right course, ascending to the east and north, to be the Sawbug.
We followed it up and east, passing some springs, and began to see dry-laid stone walls bolstering the trail. In a sunny, grassy opening, we could look across the North Fork canyon into Humbug Canyon and see the meadow and Dorer Ranch. We were perhaps 400 feet or so above the river.
Retreating down and west, we followed the Sawbug past the Trees of the Embrace, and became if possible even more convinced that this was indeed IT, the one and only Sawbug. Its course was gentle but inexorably down and to the west, drawing a bead on Humbug Bar. However, upon entering an especially brushy, overgrown area, we lost it, and, already scratched, tired, dripping with sweat, we set the problem aside for another day, and made our way back to Jerry and Catherine.
From there, a blundering descent was made to the northside wagon road, which we followed up towards the Cavern Mine, where the Steve Hunter party might be found. This mine is one of many in the area, has a stamp mill near the portal, and a slightly flooded tunnel, with ore-cart track still in place, leading perhaps a hundred yards into the cool depths of Sawtooth Ridge, to a sort of narrow cavern with side tunnels branching away, and a great, indefinitely high, stoped-out area above, with some relict timbering spanning a narrow kind of chasm. The mine was probably one of fifteen claims (the Adeline, I find, from old maps) owned and worked by the American Eagle Mine.
We met Steve Hunter et. al. on the wagon road; they were on their way back to Humbug Bar. We continued east to the mine, explored the cavern, and then swam in a great, great, deep pool below the mine.
As shadows began to lengthen we picked our way downstream along the river, over water-polished masses of almost-vertical Shoo Fly Complex strata, with unusual laminations, intercalations of limy sediments bordering upon being outright limestone. These were in close association with the ubiquitous quartz veins, and probably account for the white dripstone deposits within the Cavern.
After a time we were able to make a short climb to the American Eagle Trail on the south side of the river, and followed it back to Humbug Canyon, where another round of swimming cooled us in preparation for the final short sharp ascent to Catherine's trusty Land Rover. We left the Dorer Ranch at about 7:00 p.m., and made it back to Colfax a little after nine.
Such was another great day on the North Fork. It was especially notable on these two counts:
1. We found the long-lost Sawbug Trail.
2. Catherine O'Riley actually went swimming in the North Fork!
Old maps often show these now-abandoned trails, and for many years I have pored over these antique maps, studying them inch by inch with a magnifying glass, and transferring the lines of trails to our modern 7.5 minute quads. I have also visited map archives at the USGS headquarters in Sacramento, and studied the surveyor's notes which accompany some of them.
For instance, in 1866, in the Dutch Flat area, the government surveys focused upon laying out the section lines, dividing each "township" into a grid of thirty-six sections, each section a mile square. This was the primary goal, and the positions of roads and trails were often only partially recorded, where they happened to cross some section line. The surveyor's notes often contain more information about these roads and trails.
One of the more interesting of the old maps is the USGS Colfax Folio (from the "Geological Atlas of the United States", ca. 1900), the first good topographic map published of this general area. Contours are at an interval of 100 feet, with bold contours every 500 feet, of elevation. This map is notable, among other things, for showing trails from Sawtooth Ridge down to the North Fork, which do not appear on any other map I have seen. East of Helester Point, a trail is shown dropping away south from a pass on Sawtooth, to Italian Bar. West of Helester Point, another trail is shown dropping from a pass, south and west to Humbug Bar, where a bridge existed. Since this trail connects Sawtooth Ridge to Humbug Bar, I've dubbed it the "Sawbug" trail.
From the pass, the trail can be followed for a little ways, before a maze of game trails obscures its course. If one just forges ahead in what should be the right direction, a human trail reappears, which leads to a hard-rock prospect on one of the many quartz veins in the area. From there, the trail again fades away. I searched that area a couple of years ago with Tom Molloy, and then again last year with Ron Gould.
The upper part of the Sawbug had disappeared so completely that it seemed the next step must be to go to Humbug Bar and try to follow it up from there. Last year I joined Steve Hunter and others for a visit to Humbug Canyon, and while they visited old mines, I tried and failed to locate the Sawbug, beginning at the bridge site, finding instead an old wagon road on the north side of the river, and another wagon road which climbed up the canyon wall, in much the direction one would want to see on the Sawbug, but, sadly, too far east.
Yesterday Jerry Rein, Ron Gould, Catherine O'Riley and I met Steve Hunter and friends in Colfax for another visit to Humbug Canyon. Steve knows one of the owners of the Dorer Ranch, near the base of Humbug Canyon, and obtained a key to the gate, up high on the canyon rim off Elliott Ranch Road. We drove out there and down the road, pausing at the ranch to greet the caretaker, Danny, and his friend, Grant. The ranch is located on a meadowy terrace of glacial outwash sediments. It is an amazing, albeit somewhat ramshackle, place. After a time we made our way down to the river, a short distance away. A lovely deep pool is just downstream from the confluence of Humbug Creek, and we all swam, for the day was waxing hot, hotter, hottest.
The river was a comfortable 64 degrees, as a fisherman among us determined, and we jumped and dove from the polished bosses of rock beside the pool.
Soon, tho, our sub-group packed up, forded the river, and climbed to the bridge site, in search of the Sawbug.
Our search lacked a little in method. Howsoever, some widespread wandering up and down and back and forth eventually revealed a human trail, winding through a dense thicket of young Douglas Fir. I lopped a line through, where bears had often stomped, but soon enough we lost the thing, and wandered east, up the canyon, some scouting high, others low.
I found a plausible human trail amidst a regular maze of very well-trodden game trails, and called the others up. We followed along well enough for a ways, and then our trail again blended into the generality of game trails, in a forest of Canyon Live Oak, Ponderosa Pine, and Douglas Fir. I scouted high while the others took shelter beneath some trees, and found yet another supposed human trail, and, walking back west, and then east, and then up and down and every which way, established that a certain combination of the most heavily-trodden game trails, which combination might be interpreted as lightly-used human trails from long ago, led to a hard rock prospect with some terraces bolstered by dry-laid stone walls, littered with chunks of quartz.
I went back and retrieved the others, and we walked to this "prospect terrace." As we neared it, Ron split away and scouted higher, thank goodness, for soon he called down to us that he had found an even broader trail, and I hurried up to see.
Ron had found "it." The Sawbug. Finally, another piece of the puzzle.
It was past noon and sweltering, blazing hot. A climb of perhaps 100 feet brought me to Ron's trail, where a gigantic Canyon Live Oak and Douglas Fir were clasped in a strange embrace. The trail was broader than most we had explored that day, and was in just the right position, following just the right course, ascending to the east and north, to be the Sawbug.
We followed it up and east, passing some springs, and began to see dry-laid stone walls bolstering the trail. In a sunny, grassy opening, we could look across the North Fork canyon into Humbug Canyon and see the meadow and Dorer Ranch. We were perhaps 400 feet or so above the river.
Retreating down and west, we followed the Sawbug past the Trees of the Embrace, and became if possible even more convinced that this was indeed IT, the one and only Sawbug. Its course was gentle but inexorably down and to the west, drawing a bead on Humbug Bar. However, upon entering an especially brushy, overgrown area, we lost it, and, already scratched, tired, dripping with sweat, we set the problem aside for another day, and made our way back to Jerry and Catherine.
From there, a blundering descent was made to the northside wagon road, which we followed up towards the Cavern Mine, where the Steve Hunter party might be found. This mine is one of many in the area, has a stamp mill near the portal, and a slightly flooded tunnel, with ore-cart track still in place, leading perhaps a hundred yards into the cool depths of Sawtooth Ridge, to a sort of narrow cavern with side tunnels branching away, and a great, indefinitely high, stoped-out area above, with some relict timbering spanning a narrow kind of chasm. The mine was probably one of fifteen claims (the Adeline, I find, from old maps) owned and worked by the American Eagle Mine.
We met Steve Hunter et. al. on the wagon road; they were on their way back to Humbug Bar. We continued east to the mine, explored the cavern, and then swam in a great, great, deep pool below the mine.
As shadows began to lengthen we picked our way downstream along the river, over water-polished masses of almost-vertical Shoo Fly Complex strata, with unusual laminations, intercalations of limy sediments bordering upon being outright limestone. These were in close association with the ubiquitous quartz veins, and probably account for the white dripstone deposits within the Cavern.
After a time we were able to make a short climb to the American Eagle Trail on the south side of the river, and followed it back to Humbug Canyon, where another round of swimming cooled us in preparation for the final short sharp ascent to Catherine's trusty Land Rover. We left the Dorer Ranch at about 7:00 p.m., and made it back to Colfax a little after nine.
Such was another great day on the North Fork. It was especially notable on these two counts:
1. We found the long-lost Sawbug Trail.
2. Catherine O'Riley actually went swimming in the North Fork!
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