It being Columbus Day, Ron Gould and I decided to Discover America, at least, that part of it comprising Sawtooth Ridge, which divides the main North Fork American on the south, from the North Fork of the North Fork (NFNFAR), on the north. The crest of this ridge ripples high and low in a succession of peaks and passes. On some old maps it is named Texas Ridge, and I.T. Coffin, a Dutch Flat gold miner and photographer who once live at Burnett Canyon and Texas Hill, calls it the "Camel Humpbacked Ridge" in his 1863 diary. Also living at Burnett Canyon at that time was one E.B. "Tex" Smithwick and his wife; I have suspected, never knowing for sure, that Tex Smithwick himself might have lent his nickname to Texas Hill, Texas Diggings, and Texas Ridge.
Howsoever, Sawtooth Ridge trends roughly east and west, running higher on the east, the summits verging upon 5500', and lower on the west, the very last knoll just clearing 4000' in elevation. The slopes on the North Fork side are south-facing and sunny, much more rocky and open and given to brush and Canyon Live Oak, while on the north-facing, north side of the ridge, there is more in the way of coniferous forest. In the olden days a trail led along the ridge crest, avoiding the very summits where possible, and just nicking the passes. Several trails dropped away from this main trail south into the vastness of the North Fork canyon--to Mumford Bar, Italian Bar, and Humbug Bar--, and others dropped away north into the narrower confines of the North Fork of the North Fork, to China Bar and the Rawhide Mine.
Only the Mumford Bar and Rawhide trails show on our modern USGS 7.5 minute Westville quadrangle.
A Tahoe National Forest lookout tower once stood at Helester Point, 4930', midway along the length of the ridge. Gradually roads penetrated west along Sawtooth Ridge, probably reaching Helester Point by the early 1900s. From there, a jeep trail of likely more recent vintage continues west down the ridge. The checkerboard pattern of land ownership, dating back to President Lincoln's land grants to the Central Pacific Railroad, are much in force in that area. Around 1985 a corporate takeover attempt scared Southern Pacific (the successor of the CPRR) into selling its vast land holdings in Tahoe National Forest. A lumber company, Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI), ended up with the most of these lands.
The steep north slopes of Sawtooth, then, already networked by logging roads and skid trails to the utter obliteration of the China Bar Trail, have in recent years been the target of SPI clearcuts. Some of these are highly visible from the scenic overlook called Iron Point, or from the line of the railroad near Blue Canyon, and from many places. They are on extremely steep slopes. SPI used herbicides to kill the natural groves of Kelloggs Black Oak and Canyon Live Oak interspersed with the Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir timber on these slopes, and replanted to a pure coniferous stand. I don't like this industrial approach to timber "management." I believe that Tahoe National Forest ought to be trying to purchase these SPI lands on Sawtooth Ridge, along with the Siller Brothers property at Lost Camp, and other SPI lands along the Lost Camp Ridge.
Whether it is clearcutting or ordinary, selective-harvest tractor-logging, old foot trails tend to be obliterated by timber harvests. Again and again I see every vestige of some historic trail erased, hidden forever under a welter of skid trails and log decks. Nobody looks out after these trails, which once comprised a vast network. One might well think that in this day and age, Tahoe National Forest and CDF would declare, "Enough is enough! More than half of the old trails are ruined, but no more! Harvest your timber, yes, but leave the trails intact!" One would be wrong.
But I digress.
Ron and I drove up I-80 to Emigrant Gap and caught Forest Road 19 out to Texas Hill, continuing east up Burnett Canyon, past the old Towle sawmill site, past the tiny thread of I.T. Coffin's old mining ditch, first below, then above the road, until almost insensibly we reached Sawtooth Ridge, and the road curved to the west, around the head of Burnett Canyon.
We passed the obliterated beginning of the Burnett Canyon Trail, and swung around the headwaters of Wilmont Ravine, where I.T. Coffin's oft-drunken partner, Tommy Williams, once washed a 20-ounce gold nugget out of the creek. We reached one of Sawtooth's passes near here, where old maps show a trail descending to Italian Bar, almost, as it were, the direct continuation of the Burnett Canyon Trail. I.T. Coffin used this Italian Bar trail from time to time. The top has been erased by logging, but Ron and I picked it up within a couple hundred yards of the pass, and followed it down into a mixed grove of large Ponderosa Pine and Kelloggs Black Oak, where the slopes eased a bit. We saw no very clear continuation, and since we were really more concerned with the trail down to Humbug Bar, another "lost" trail, we climbed back up to the pass and drove west.
Within a maze of logging roads on very steep slopes, where the roadcuts sometimes rise thirty feet high--apparently we can afford to just throw away topsoil and subsoil alike, in order to harvest timber--we bumped along in Ron's trusty old Toyota 4WD pickup, looking for one certain left turn which would put us on the old jeep trail west of Helester Point. We took a guess and found ourselves bucking up and over high waterbars within one of the major SPI clearcuts in Section 35, T16N R11E. Then we plunged down into a swale, and although still within SPI land, we had reached an area so lightly timbered that it had suffered relatively little.
At a certain point a large oak blocked the narrow road, but we managed to pull it aside, and continued west to one of the most pronounced passes on Sawtooth Ridge. We were now on TNF land, in the very northeast part of Section 3, T15N R11E; it was so nice to see an unlogged part of the ridge. Here the ~1900 Colfax Folio topographic map shows a trail dropping down to the North Fork at Humbug Bar, where a bridge once spanned the river. We parked and Ron immediately spotted old blazes on some oaks, and then another on a large pine just above us. The oak blazes were just where the Humbug Trail (I also call it the Sawbug Trail, because it runs from Sawtooth Ridge down to Humbug Bar) forks away from the equally-old Sawtooth Ridge Trail. Further explorations showed that we had stumbled upon a section of the original Sawtooth Trail which is now distinct from the road--for this old road, or jeep trail, had been, in many areas, cut directly into the line of the original trail.
Tom Molloy and I had found the upper end of the Sawbug Trail last fall, but had lost the line of the thing as it dropped away south and west into the steeps of the North Fork canyon. Ron and I worked hard on clearing fallen Knobcone Pine trunks and other obstacles from the well-defined uppermost section of the trail. These Knobcones are fire-adapted pines, members of the Closed-Cone group of the genus Pinus. The gigantic Volcano Fire of ~1960 had swept across the Foresthill Divide, down through Humbug Canyon, and right across the North Fork and up onto Sawtooth Ridge. These pines had seeded in thickly after the fire, and fought one another for sun, and those which lost the battle had died and fallen across the trail, in dozens. So Ron and I had our work cut out for us.
Eventually, we left the snarled mass of dead Knobcones for a more open forest of scattered large Ponderosa Pines, Kelloggs Black Oak, and Canyon Live Oak. A deep layer of leaves and pine needles covered the ground. Bears and other game had often used the old human trail above us, but here, on gentle slopes, in an open forest, the paths of animals were not tightly constrained, and soon we had really nothing to go by--not a blaze, not a suspiciously well-defined game trail, not anything.
We zigged and zagged down past some old prospect pits, with chunks of quartz lying about. The gold-bearing quartz veins here are allied to those worked so heavily down below us in the North Fork canyon, as for instance at the Dorer Mine, the Central Mine, the American Eagle Mine, the Gem Mine, etc. etc. A trail appeared, and we followed it west to one of the larger prospect pits, where it seems to end.
Once again a variety of factors conspired to make it seem more reasonable to search out the line of the Sawbug from Humbug Bar going up, rather than from Sawtooth down. The slopes where the trail disappeared were steep, and only getting steeper, below us. Then again, this last portion of "the trail" might well have had only to do with the mining prospects, not the Sawbug itself. The Sawbug itself may have dropped away into the great canyon a smidgin to the east, and then passed to the west far below us.
So, we retreated up to the truck and explored the vicinity of the pass. I followed the faint trace of the Sawtooth Trail up moderately steep slopes to the west, and had the satisfaction of finding another ancient blaze, on a huge Sugar Pine, and just above, a well-defined section of the trail itself. I eventually rejoined the road, and saw a large oak down.
Regrouping, we drove west, but were soon stopped by the large fallen oak. There was no pulling this aside. So we walked another half-mile along the meandering little road, and found some more very old blazes along the way, showing that here at least the road had been cut right into the line of the original trail.
The sun was lowering, and we retreated to the truck and started back out.
Sawtooth Ridge is interesting from the standpoint of geomorphology, and the evolution of the landscape of the North Fork. Its geology is part of this story.
Especially here in the Northern Sierra, the major canyons are young, freshly-incised, and steep-walled. A long series of volcanic eruptions, commencing around thirty million years ago, had buried the Ancestral Sierra beneath a plateau composed of rhyolite ash below, and andesitic mudflows above. Finally, and apparently very locally, basaltic lavas flowed down minor valleys eroded into this plateau. These youngest of the volcanics date from as much as seven to as little as three million years in age, and we may place the beginning of the incision of the North Fork canyon to the time of these youngest flows. One tiny remnant of basalt caps one of the knolls along Sawtooth Ridge, just east of Helester Point. Suppose it is "five million years old." Then the North Fork canyon is also five million years old, and here it has cut down nearly three thousand feet in that five million years.
The idea here is that the basalt atop Sawtooth was following the lowest, deepest valley available at the time, say, five million years ago. Which is as much as to say that the North Fork canyon did not exist at that time. The Sawtooth basalt followed and filled some minor valley in the plateau.
The generalized volcanic plateau sloped to the southwest. It was thickest near the crest, and thinned westward. The Sierra began to tilt up en masse several million years ago and this uplift increased the gradient of the plateau, sloping down to the southwest. Almost simultaneously the climate cooled and a long series of glaciations began. The steepened gradient and the glaciations combined to make for rapid downward incision of the new canyons. As they deepened, they widened. And we are at just that stage in the deepening and widening, which continues to this day, in which the main ridges between the canyons still hold remnants of the volcanic plateau.
Hence the flat-topped ridges of the middle elevations of the Northern Sierra.
But Sawtooth Ridge is not flat-topped. It does have some few tiny vestiges of the volcanic plateau on some of its knolls. Other knolls are "bedrock" of the Subjacent Series, here, metasediments of the Shoo Fly Complex, all the way to the top, for instance, Helester Point is a bedrock knoll.
We can ascribe this peak-and-pass topography to the near proximity of two canyons, the main North Fork and the North Fork of the North Fork. In their deepening and widening they have managed to erode intervening Sawtooth Ridge below the level of the plateau. In a sense Sawtooth offers a preview of what the more common flat-topped ridges will look like in another million years or so.
However, the extent to which glaciation may have figured into all this is not well known. It is clear that the very last "Tioga" ice extended well down Fulda Canyon, down the main North Fork of the North Fork, down the East Fork of the North Fork of the North Fork, and down the North Fork itself. But exactly how far? This remains to be established. My own guess is that the Tioga-age North Fork glacier, which melted back up the canyon some 12,000 years ago, came down at least to Mumford Bar. And I guess that Fulda and NFNFAR ice came down at least to the Gorge of Many Gorges, just upstream from the China Bar Trail.
On Sawtooth Ridge itself, right up along the crest, are minor bodies of much older glacial till. These till bodies--the largest being just west of Helester Point--show that during one of the earlier episodes of glaciation, perhaps Tahoe I or Tahoe II (ca. 130,000 and 65,000 years before the present, respectively), ice in both the main North Fork and in the NFNFAR came up at least as high as Sawtooth's low passes, and likely right over the top of everything, all peaks, all knolls. In fact, the passes are places where, as the ice began to recede and its surface lowered in elevation, ice probably flowed right through, probably from the main North Fork into the NFNFAR.
I have found patches of old till almost all the way down Sawtooth Ridge, to a point directly above Humbug Bar, and all of 2000' above the North Fork. It is almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that glacial ice reached down the North Fork to Euchre Bar and perhaps even Green Valley itself, these places being a scant two to three miles down the canyon from the last till on Sawtooth's crest.
On the other hand, temperate-latitude glaciers such as these are well known to have steeply-plunging termini. It is within the range of possibility that the ice never reached Euchre Bar itself. This is another open question which begs serious study.
Together with these visibly old till bodies on Sawtooth--visibly-old, because of the redness of the fine silts, and the punky rottenness of some of the boulders--there are other signs of glaciation along the ridge crest: planed-off patches of Shoo Fly slates, not bearing any striae, but on the other hand, such flat surfaces are not to be expected in this region of near-vertical strata of rather friable, easily-splitting rock.
As we drove back out, we took the higher, older road, much the nicer route by the way, and no longer blocked by a huge pine log, as Terry Davis and I had found it several years ago. Ron and I stopped at Helester Point and enjoyed the views, up to Snow Mountain, Tinkers Knob, Lyon and Needle peaks, and Little Bald Mountain. Some rocky crags on the verge of the North Fork canyon, just east of Tadpole Canyon, caught our eye; they look like they would offer some especially fine views. They are near, but above, the eastern terminus of the old Iowa Hill Canal, the line of which we could see, faintly, up near the Beacroft Trail.
We could also see more to the north, to Bowman Mountain, Grouse Ridge, and the Black Buttes.
All along Sawtooth Ridge one is treated to views into either the North Fork or the NFNFAR, and we would sometimes stop and scan the terrain with binoculars and sort out which canyon was which: there lies Fulda; there is where the NFNFAR drops in waterfalls into the Gorge of Many Gorges; there is Texas Canyon; there are the cliffs of the Railroad Tracks in Space Mine; and so on.
After reaching Texas Hill, we drove out past some rather major hard-rock diggings with large piles of angular quartz, presumably unprocessed ore, in search of still other hard-rock workings, where I.T. Coffin had one of his two cabins, and where he would use the blacksmith shop to "put steel" into crowbars and other mining tools. However, I misremembered the roads, and we missed these other diggings, and found ourselves instead on a road which drops into lower Burnett Canyon. So we gave it up and hit the homeward trail.
Such was a day in a wild and beautiful area, much scarred by logging, and most notoriously and terribly scarred by recent clearcuts. I would like to see this area treated much more gently; I would like to see We the People purchase the private inholdings; I would like to see timber harvests done in the snow, so that the land underneath is left untouched, not churned up into a miasma of sickening skid trails and roads. I would like to see the NFNFAR get Wild & Scenic River designation. There are limits, or there should be limits, on which areas are suitable for timber harvests. To my way of thinking these limits have already long been exceeded on much of Sawtooth Ridge and, for that matter, over across the NFNFAR on the Lost Camp Ridge.
There are limits, or there should be limits, on the proliferation of roads. To my way of thinking there are already far too many roads.
So, looking towards the future, I can imagine a Sawtooth Ridge in which much less timber is harvested, and many roads are closed. Let Helester Point be the most-westerly part of the ridge open to vehicular use, and let the jeep trail to the west lapse back into a foot trail. Not an OHV trail, a foot trail, a foot and equestrian and mountain bike trail, let's say. Let the timber harvests continue in selected areas on the higher parts of the north side of Sawtooth, but none at all on the south, North Fork side. But for God's sake, let the timber harvests take place only in the snow, or using such methods as do not tear up the slopes. And have a care for the old trails.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Wednesday, October 8, 2003
Historical Notes
It will sometimes happen that an eye-witness account of events in 1867 sheds precious light upon the history of Dutch Flat and the Tahoe Sierra. I speak of a time when the railroad had not yet passed the summit of the Sierra, Andrew Johnson was President, and a whole new world was rising from the ashes of the Civil War.
Ah, history. How exciting the good old days, how dull our modern sphere.
*******
CHAPTER I
It was toward the close of a bright October day. The last rays of the
setting sun were reflected from one of those sylvan lakes peculiar to the
Sierras of California. On the right the curling smoke of an Indian village
rose between the columns of the lofty pines, while to the left the log
cottage of Judge Tompkins, embowered in buckeyes, completed the enchanting
picture.
Although the exterior of the cottage was humble and unpretentious, and in
keeping with the wildness of the landscape, its interior gave evidence of
the cultivation and refinement of its inmates. An aquarium, containing
goldfishes, stood on a marble centre-table at one end of the apartment,
while a magnificent grand piano occupied the other. The door was covered
with a yielding tapestry carpet, and the walls were adorned with paintings
from the pencils of Van Dyke, Rubens, Tintoretto, Michael Angelo, and the
productions of the more modem Turner, Kensett, Church, and Bierstadt.
Although Judge Tompkins had chosen the frontiers of civilization as his
home, it was impossible for him to entirely forego the habits and tastes of
his former life. He was seated in a luxurious armchair, writing at a
mahogany escritoire, while his daughter, a lovely young girl of seventeen
summers, plied her crotchet-needle on an ottoman beside him. A bright fire
of pine logs flickered and flamed on the ample hearth.
Genevra Octavia Tompkins was Judge Tompkins's only child. Her mother had
long since died on the Plains. Reared in affluence, no pains had been spared
with the daughter's education. She was a graduate of one of the principal
seminaries, and spoke French with a perfect Benicia accent. Peerlessly
beautiful, she was dressed in a white moirŽ antique robe trimmed with tulle.
That simple rosebud, with which most heroines exclusively decorate their
hair, was all she wore in her raven locks.
The Judge was the first to break the silence.
"Genevra, the logs which compose yonder fire seem to have been incautiously
chosen. The sibilation produced by the sap, which exudes copiously
therefrom, is not conducive to composition."
"True, father, but I thought it would be preferable to the constant
crepitation which is apt to attend the combustion of more seasoned ligneous
fragments."
The Judge looked admiringly at the intellectual features of the graceful
girl, and half forgot the slight annoyances of the green wood in the musical
accents of his daughter. He was smoothing her hair tenderly, when the shadow
of a tall figure, which suddenly darkened the doorway, caused him to look
up.
CHAPTER II
It needed but a glance at the new-comer to detect at once the form and
features of the haughty aborigine, -- the untaught and untrammeled son of
the forest. Over one shoulder a blanket, negligently but gracefully thrown,
disclosed a bare and powerful breast, decorated with a quantity of
three-cent postage-stamps which he had despoiled from an Overland Mail stage
a few weeks previous. A cast-off beaver of Judge Tompkins's, adorned by a
simple feather, covered his erect head, from beneath which his straight
locks descended. His right hand hung lightly by his side, while his left was
engaged in holding on a pair of pantaloons, which the lawless grace and
freedom of his lower limbs evidently could not brook.
"Why," said the Indian, in a low sweet tone, -- "why does the Pale Face
still follow the track of the Red Man? Why does he pursue him, even as O-kee-chow,
the wild cat, chases Ka-ka, the skunk? Why are the feet of Sorrel-top,
the white chief, among the acorns of Muck-a-Muck, the mountain forest? Why,"
he repeated, quietly but firmly abstracting a silver spoon from the table,
-- "why do you seek to drive him from the wigwams of his fathers? His
brothers are already gone to the happy hunting-grounds. Will the Pale Face
seek him there?" And, averting his face from the Judge, he hastily slipped a
silver cake-basket beneath his blanket, to conceal his emotion.
"Muck-a-Muck has spoken," said Genevra softly. "Let him now listen. Are the
acorns of the mountain sweeter than the esculent and nutritious bean of the
Pale Face miner? Does my brother prize the edible qualities of the snail
above that of the crisp and oleaginous bacon? Delicious are the grasshoppers
that sport on the hillside, -- are they better than the dried apples of the
Pale Faces? Pleasant is the gurgle of the torrent, Kish-Kish, but is it
better than the cluck-cluck of old Bourbon from the old stone bottle?"
"Ugh!" said the Indian, -- "ugh! good. The White Rabbit is wise. Her words
fall as the snow on Tootoonolo, and the rocky heart of Muck-a-Muck is
hidden. What says my brother the Gray Gopher of Dutch Flat?"
"She has spoken, Muck-a-Muck," said the Judge, gazing fondly on his
daughter. "It is well. Our treaty is concluded. No, thank you, -- you need
not dance the Dance of Snow-shoes, or the Moccasin Dance, the Dance of Green
Corn, or the Treaty Dance. I would be alone. A strange sadness overpowers
me."
"I go," said the Indian. "Tell your great chief in Washington, the Sachem
Andy, that the Red Man is retiring before the footsteps of the adventurous
pioneer. Inform him, if you please, that westward the star of empire takes
its way, that the chiefs of the Pi-Ute nation are for Reconstruction to a
man, and that Klamath will poll a heavy Republican vote in the fall."
And folding his blanket more tightly around him, Muck-a-Muck withdrew.
CHAPTER III
Genevra Tompkins stood at the door of the log-cabin, looking after the
retreating Overland Mail stage which conveyed her father to Virginia City.
"He may never return again," sighed the young girl, as she glanced at the
frightfully rolling vehicle and wildly careering horses, -- "at least, with
unbroken bones. Should he meet with an accident! I mind me now a fearful
legend, familiar to my childhood. Can it be that the drivers on this line
are privately instructed to dispatch all passengers maimed by accident, to
prevent tedious litigation? No, no. But why this weight upon my heart?"
She seated herself at the piano and lightly passed her hand over the keys.
Then, in a clear mezzo-soprano voice, she sang the first verse of one of the
most popular Irish ballads:--
"O Arrah ma dheelish, the distant dudheen
Lies soft in the moonlight, ma bouchal vourneen:
The springing gossoons on the heather are still,
And the caubeens and colleens are heard on the hill."
But as the ravishing notes of her sweet voice died upon the air, her hands
sank listlessly to her side. Music could not chase away the mysterious
shadow from her heart. Again she rose. Putting on a white crape bonnet, and
carefully drawing a pair of lemon-colored gloves over her taper fingers, she
seized her parasol and plunged into the depths of the pine forest.
CHAPTER IV
Genevra had not proceeded many miles before a weariness seized upon her
fragile limbs, and she would fain seat herself upon the trunk of a prostrate
pine, which she previously dusted with her handkerchief. The sun was just
sinking below the horizon, and the scene was one of gorgeous and sylvan
beauty. "How beautiful is nature!" murmured the innocent girl, as, reclining
gracefully against the root of the tree, she gathered up her skirts and tied
a handkerchief around her throat. But a low growl interrupted her
meditation. Starting to her feet, her eyes met a sight which froze her blood
with terror.
The only outlet to the forest was the narrow path, barely wide enough for a
single person, hemmed in by trees and rocks, which she had just traversed.
Down this path, in Indian file, came a monstrous grizzly, closely followed
by a Californian lion, a wild cat, and a buffalo, the rear being brought up
by a wild Spanish bull. The mouths of the three first animals were distended
with frightful significance, the horns of the last were lowered as
ominously. As Genevra was preparing to faint, she heard a low voice behind
her.
"Eternally dog-gone my skin ef this ain't the puttiest chance yet!"
At the same moment, a long, shining barrel dropped lightly from behind her,
and rested over her shoulder.
Genevra shuddered.
"Dern ye -- don't move!"
Genevra became motionless.
The crack of a rifle rang through the woods. Three frightful yells were
heard, and two sullen roars. Five animals bounded into the air and five
lifeless bodies lay upon the plain. The well-aimed bullet had done its work.
Entering the open throat of the grizzly it had traversed his body only to
enter the throat of the California lion, and in like manner the catamount,
until it passed through into the respective foreheads of the bull and the
buffalo, and finally fell flattened from the rocky hillside.
Genevra turned quickly. "My preserver!" she shrieked, and fell into the arms
of Natty Bumpo, the celebrated Pike Ranger of Donner Lake.
CHAPTER V
The moon rose cheerfully above Donner Lake. On its placid bosom a dug-out
canoe glided rapidly, containing Natty Bumpo and Genevra Tompkins.
Both were silent. The same thought possessed each, and perhaps there was
sweet companionship even in the unbroken quiet. Genevra bit the handle of
her parasol, and blushed. Natty Bumpo took a fresh chew of tobacco. At
length Genevra said, as if in half-spoken reverie:--
"The soft shining of the moon and the peaceful ripple of the waves seem to
say to us various things of an instructive and moral tendency."
"You may bet yer pile on that, miss," said her companion gravely. "It's all
the preachin' and psalm-singin' I've heern since I was a boy."
"Noble being!" said Miss Tompkins to herself, glancing at the stately Pike
as he bent over his paddle to conceal his emotion. "Reared in this wild
seclusion, yet he has become penetrated with visible consciousness of a
Great First Cause," Then, collecting herself, she said aloud: "Me-thinks 't
were pleasant to glide ever thus down the stream of life, hand in hand with
the one being whom the soul claims as its affinity. But what am I saying?"
-- and the delicate-minded girl hid her face in her hands.
A long silence ensued, which was at length broken by her companion.
"Ef you mean you're on the marry," he said thoughtfully, "I ain't in no wise
partikler."
"My husband!" faltered the blushing girl; and she fell into his arms.
In ten minutes more the loving couple had landed at Judge Tompkins's.
CHAPTER VI
A year has passed away. Natty Bumpo was returning from Gold Hill, where he
had been to purchase provisions. On his way to Donner Lake rumors of an
Indian uprising met his ears. "Dern their pesky skins, ef they dare to touch
my Jenny," he muttered between his clenched teeth.
It was dark when he reached the borders of the lake. Around a glittering
fire he dimly discerned dusky figures dancing. They were in war paint.
Conspicuous among them was the renowned Muck-a-Muck. But why did the fingers
of Natty Bumpo tighten convulsively around his rifle?
The chief held in his hand long tufts of raven hair. The heart of the
pioneer sickened as he recognized the clustering curls of Genevra. In a
moment his rifle was at his shoulder, and with a sharp "ping" Muck-a-Muck
leaped into the air a corpse. To knock out the brains of the remaining
savages, tear the tresses from the stiffening hand of Muck-a-Muck, and dash
rapidly forward to the cottage of Judge Tompkins, was the work of a moment.
He burst open the door. Why did he stand transfixed with open mouth and
distended eyeballs? Was the sight too horrible to be borne? On the contrary,
before him, in her peerless beauty, stood Genevra Tompkins, leaning on her
father's arm.
"Ye'r not scalped, then!" gasped her lover.
"No. I have no hesitation in saying that I am not; but why this abruptness?"
responded Genevra.
Bumpo could not speak, but frantically produced the silken tresses. Genevra
turned her face aside.
"Why, that's her waterfall!" said the Judge.
Bumpo sank fainting to the door.
The famous Pike chieftain never recovered from the deceit, and refused to
marry Genevra, who died, twenty years afterwards, of a broken heart. Judge
Tompkins lost his fortune in Wild Cat. The stage passes twice a week the
deserted cottage at Donner Lake. Thus was the death of Muck-a-Muck avenged.
*******
Cheers,
Russell Towle
P.S. Oh, wait.
I just found out, the above is one of Bret Harte's Condensed Novels.
Sorry for the confusion,
R.T.
Ah, history. How exciting the good old days, how dull our modern sphere.
*******
CHAPTER I
It was toward the close of a bright October day. The last rays of the
setting sun were reflected from one of those sylvan lakes peculiar to the
Sierras of California. On the right the curling smoke of an Indian village
rose between the columns of the lofty pines, while to the left the log
cottage of Judge Tompkins, embowered in buckeyes, completed the enchanting
picture.
Although the exterior of the cottage was humble and unpretentious, and in
keeping with the wildness of the landscape, its interior gave evidence of
the cultivation and refinement of its inmates. An aquarium, containing
goldfishes, stood on a marble centre-table at one end of the apartment,
while a magnificent grand piano occupied the other. The door was covered
with a yielding tapestry carpet, and the walls were adorned with paintings
from the pencils of Van Dyke, Rubens, Tintoretto, Michael Angelo, and the
productions of the more modem Turner, Kensett, Church, and Bierstadt.
Although Judge Tompkins had chosen the frontiers of civilization as his
home, it was impossible for him to entirely forego the habits and tastes of
his former life. He was seated in a luxurious armchair, writing at a
mahogany escritoire, while his daughter, a lovely young girl of seventeen
summers, plied her crotchet-needle on an ottoman beside him. A bright fire
of pine logs flickered and flamed on the ample hearth.
Genevra Octavia Tompkins was Judge Tompkins's only child. Her mother had
long since died on the Plains. Reared in affluence, no pains had been spared
with the daughter's education. She was a graduate of one of the principal
seminaries, and spoke French with a perfect Benicia accent. Peerlessly
beautiful, she was dressed in a white moirŽ antique robe trimmed with tulle.
That simple rosebud, with which most heroines exclusively decorate their
hair, was all she wore in her raven locks.
The Judge was the first to break the silence.
"Genevra, the logs which compose yonder fire seem to have been incautiously
chosen. The sibilation produced by the sap, which exudes copiously
therefrom, is not conducive to composition."
"True, father, but I thought it would be preferable to the constant
crepitation which is apt to attend the combustion of more seasoned ligneous
fragments."
The Judge looked admiringly at the intellectual features of the graceful
girl, and half forgot the slight annoyances of the green wood in the musical
accents of his daughter. He was smoothing her hair tenderly, when the shadow
of a tall figure, which suddenly darkened the doorway, caused him to look
up.
CHAPTER II
It needed but a glance at the new-comer to detect at once the form and
features of the haughty aborigine, -- the untaught and untrammeled son of
the forest. Over one shoulder a blanket, negligently but gracefully thrown,
disclosed a bare and powerful breast, decorated with a quantity of
three-cent postage-stamps which he had despoiled from an Overland Mail stage
a few weeks previous. A cast-off beaver of Judge Tompkins's, adorned by a
simple feather, covered his erect head, from beneath which his straight
locks descended. His right hand hung lightly by his side, while his left was
engaged in holding on a pair of pantaloons, which the lawless grace and
freedom of his lower limbs evidently could not brook.
"Why," said the Indian, in a low sweet tone, -- "why does the Pale Face
still follow the track of the Red Man? Why does he pursue him, even as O-kee-chow,
the wild cat, chases Ka-ka, the skunk? Why are the feet of Sorrel-top,
the white chief, among the acorns of Muck-a-Muck, the mountain forest? Why,"
he repeated, quietly but firmly abstracting a silver spoon from the table,
-- "why do you seek to drive him from the wigwams of his fathers? His
brothers are already gone to the happy hunting-grounds. Will the Pale Face
seek him there?" And, averting his face from the Judge, he hastily slipped a
silver cake-basket beneath his blanket, to conceal his emotion.
"Muck-a-Muck has spoken," said Genevra softly. "Let him now listen. Are the
acorns of the mountain sweeter than the esculent and nutritious bean of the
Pale Face miner? Does my brother prize the edible qualities of the snail
above that of the crisp and oleaginous bacon? Delicious are the grasshoppers
that sport on the hillside, -- are they better than the dried apples of the
Pale Faces? Pleasant is the gurgle of the torrent, Kish-Kish, but is it
better than the cluck-cluck of old Bourbon from the old stone bottle?"
"Ugh!" said the Indian, -- "ugh! good. The White Rabbit is wise. Her words
fall as the snow on Tootoonolo, and the rocky heart of Muck-a-Muck is
hidden. What says my brother the Gray Gopher of Dutch Flat?"
"She has spoken, Muck-a-Muck," said the Judge, gazing fondly on his
daughter. "It is well. Our treaty is concluded. No, thank you, -- you need
not dance the Dance of Snow-shoes, or the Moccasin Dance, the Dance of Green
Corn, or the Treaty Dance. I would be alone. A strange sadness overpowers
me."
"I go," said the Indian. "Tell your great chief in Washington, the Sachem
Andy, that the Red Man is retiring before the footsteps of the adventurous
pioneer. Inform him, if you please, that westward the star of empire takes
its way, that the chiefs of the Pi-Ute nation are for Reconstruction to a
man, and that Klamath will poll a heavy Republican vote in the fall."
And folding his blanket more tightly around him, Muck-a-Muck withdrew.
CHAPTER III
Genevra Tompkins stood at the door of the log-cabin, looking after the
retreating Overland Mail stage which conveyed her father to Virginia City.
"He may never return again," sighed the young girl, as she glanced at the
frightfully rolling vehicle and wildly careering horses, -- "at least, with
unbroken bones. Should he meet with an accident! I mind me now a fearful
legend, familiar to my childhood. Can it be that the drivers on this line
are privately instructed to dispatch all passengers maimed by accident, to
prevent tedious litigation? No, no. But why this weight upon my heart?"
She seated herself at the piano and lightly passed her hand over the keys.
Then, in a clear mezzo-soprano voice, she sang the first verse of one of the
most popular Irish ballads:--
"O Arrah ma dheelish, the distant dudheen
Lies soft in the moonlight, ma bouchal vourneen:
The springing gossoons on the heather are still,
And the caubeens and colleens are heard on the hill."
But as the ravishing notes of her sweet voice died upon the air, her hands
sank listlessly to her side. Music could not chase away the mysterious
shadow from her heart. Again she rose. Putting on a white crape bonnet, and
carefully drawing a pair of lemon-colored gloves over her taper fingers, she
seized her parasol and plunged into the depths of the pine forest.
CHAPTER IV
Genevra had not proceeded many miles before a weariness seized upon her
fragile limbs, and she would fain seat herself upon the trunk of a prostrate
pine, which she previously dusted with her handkerchief. The sun was just
sinking below the horizon, and the scene was one of gorgeous and sylvan
beauty. "How beautiful is nature!" murmured the innocent girl, as, reclining
gracefully against the root of the tree, she gathered up her skirts and tied
a handkerchief around her throat. But a low growl interrupted her
meditation. Starting to her feet, her eyes met a sight which froze her blood
with terror.
The only outlet to the forest was the narrow path, barely wide enough for a
single person, hemmed in by trees and rocks, which she had just traversed.
Down this path, in Indian file, came a monstrous grizzly, closely followed
by a Californian lion, a wild cat, and a buffalo, the rear being brought up
by a wild Spanish bull. The mouths of the three first animals were distended
with frightful significance, the horns of the last were lowered as
ominously. As Genevra was preparing to faint, she heard a low voice behind
her.
"Eternally dog-gone my skin ef this ain't the puttiest chance yet!"
At the same moment, a long, shining barrel dropped lightly from behind her,
and rested over her shoulder.
Genevra shuddered.
"Dern ye -- don't move!"
Genevra became motionless.
The crack of a rifle rang through the woods. Three frightful yells were
heard, and two sullen roars. Five animals bounded into the air and five
lifeless bodies lay upon the plain. The well-aimed bullet had done its work.
Entering the open throat of the grizzly it had traversed his body only to
enter the throat of the California lion, and in like manner the catamount,
until it passed through into the respective foreheads of the bull and the
buffalo, and finally fell flattened from the rocky hillside.
Genevra turned quickly. "My preserver!" she shrieked, and fell into the arms
of Natty Bumpo, the celebrated Pike Ranger of Donner Lake.
CHAPTER V
The moon rose cheerfully above Donner Lake. On its placid bosom a dug-out
canoe glided rapidly, containing Natty Bumpo and Genevra Tompkins.
Both were silent. The same thought possessed each, and perhaps there was
sweet companionship even in the unbroken quiet. Genevra bit the handle of
her parasol, and blushed. Natty Bumpo took a fresh chew of tobacco. At
length Genevra said, as if in half-spoken reverie:--
"The soft shining of the moon and the peaceful ripple of the waves seem to
say to us various things of an instructive and moral tendency."
"You may bet yer pile on that, miss," said her companion gravely. "It's all
the preachin' and psalm-singin' I've heern since I was a boy."
"Noble being!" said Miss Tompkins to herself, glancing at the stately Pike
as he bent over his paddle to conceal his emotion. "Reared in this wild
seclusion, yet he has become penetrated with visible consciousness of a
Great First Cause," Then, collecting herself, she said aloud: "Me-thinks 't
were pleasant to glide ever thus down the stream of life, hand in hand with
the one being whom the soul claims as its affinity. But what am I saying?"
-- and the delicate-minded girl hid her face in her hands.
A long silence ensued, which was at length broken by her companion.
"Ef you mean you're on the marry," he said thoughtfully, "I ain't in no wise
partikler."
"My husband!" faltered the blushing girl; and she fell into his arms.
In ten minutes more the loving couple had landed at Judge Tompkins's.
CHAPTER VI
A year has passed away. Natty Bumpo was returning from Gold Hill, where he
had been to purchase provisions. On his way to Donner Lake rumors of an
Indian uprising met his ears. "Dern their pesky skins, ef they dare to touch
my Jenny," he muttered between his clenched teeth.
It was dark when he reached the borders of the lake. Around a glittering
fire he dimly discerned dusky figures dancing. They were in war paint.
Conspicuous among them was the renowned Muck-a-Muck. But why did the fingers
of Natty Bumpo tighten convulsively around his rifle?
The chief held in his hand long tufts of raven hair. The heart of the
pioneer sickened as he recognized the clustering curls of Genevra. In a
moment his rifle was at his shoulder, and with a sharp "ping" Muck-a-Muck
leaped into the air a corpse. To knock out the brains of the remaining
savages, tear the tresses from the stiffening hand of Muck-a-Muck, and dash
rapidly forward to the cottage of Judge Tompkins, was the work of a moment.
He burst open the door. Why did he stand transfixed with open mouth and
distended eyeballs? Was the sight too horrible to be borne? On the contrary,
before him, in her peerless beauty, stood Genevra Tompkins, leaning on her
father's arm.
"Ye'r not scalped, then!" gasped her lover.
"No. I have no hesitation in saying that I am not; but why this abruptness?"
responded Genevra.
Bumpo could not speak, but frantically produced the silken tresses. Genevra
turned her face aside.
"Why, that's her waterfall!" said the Judge.
Bumpo sank fainting to the door.
The famous Pike chieftain never recovered from the deceit, and refused to
marry Genevra, who died, twenty years afterwards, of a broken heart. Judge
Tompkins lost his fortune in Wild Cat. The stage passes twice a week the
deserted cottage at Donner Lake. Thus was the death of Muck-a-Muck avenged.
*******
Cheers,
Russell Towle
P.S. Oh, wait.
I just found out, the above is one of Bret Harte's Condensed Novels.
Sorry for the confusion,
R.T.
Tuesday, October 7, 2003
Visit to Meadow Lake
On Monday Ron Gould and I made a visit to Meadow Lake, the site of a gold-mining boom town of the middle 1860s. This lake stands high on the divide between the South and Middle Yuba at nearly 7000' elevation. A low dam of dressed granite was made late in the 1850s to impound water for hydraulic mining, and the lake trends nearly north and south, draining south to Fordyce Creek, a major tributary of the South Yuba.
Nothing is left of the town, with its many buildings, saloons, hotels, stores and houses. Several wagon roads led to Meadow Lake, one from near what would be known as Cisco. The story of this town makes a fascinating chapter in local history. The gold is found in heavily mineralized areas which to my eye seem unusual, since they do not seem to be dominated by quartz. The gold proved too difficult to refine away from its binding mineral matrix, the boom ended abruptly, dozens of claims and thousands of stock certificates became instantly worthless, a fire swept off most of the buildings, and now, nothing. Just high rocky ridges, and high forested ridges, and sloping dry meadows, and a top-of-the-world feeling, with the granite massif of Old Man Mountain rising to the southwest.
Driving up Highway 80 eastbound, one gains several fine views of this same Old Man Mountain, a sort of grey half-dome-looking-thing. A glimpse near Nyack is followed by more sustained and closer views at Yuba Gap and just beyond. Like Red Mountain, Grouse Ridge, Black Buttes, Snow Mountain, and Black Mountain, Old Man Mountain is a "bedrock high," a topographically high part of the old, ancestral, pre-volcanic Sierra. Now that the glaciers have ripped up and torn away so much of the great plateau of andesitic mudflow and rhyolite ash, these old mountains have been redefined and reexposed. They are found in a rough line parallel to the Sierra crest, about five to ten miles southwest. Some stood too high to ever have been buried by the young volcanics, others were so buried, but only shallowly.
At any rate, Ron and I drove up to Highway 20, dodged a few miles down towards Nevada City, and picked up the Pacific Turnpike, one of the old wagon roads to Virginia City. One branch of this road began in Dutch Flat, another, in Nevada City. It crossed the Sierra at Henness Pass. We drove north across the South Yuba and, passing the side roads to Grouse Ridge etc., paused a minute at Windy Point, above a major tributary of the South Yuba called Canyon Creek. Here a trail drops away into the heavily-glaciated canyon and proceeds down towards the Yuba, near the town of Washington. We scouted around for the trailhead, and saw something which looked probable, tho unsigned and unmarked in any way. This trails runs along the base of the canyon for maybe seven miles before climbing to Windy Point.
Just east we passed Bowman Lake, an old hydraulic mining reservoir revamped by PG&E. This was once a huge meadow. In a few miles we turned south onto a road which climbs past Tollhouse Lake to finally reach Meadow Lake. Here some signs inform one of the town's history. One is a polished rock slab placed by the Clampers, a joking take-off on fraternal organizations like the Masons and Odd Fellows, dating nearly to the Gold Rush.
We had two main objectives: to find and explore a trail leading north from Meadow Lake down into the headwaters basin of the Middle Yuba, near Moscove Meadow; and to visit some petroglyphs just southwest of Meadow Lake.
Ron had seen this trail on several old maps. It is not shown on modern maps. By correlating the old maps to one another and then to the modern topographic map, we felt we had a good sense of its course. We had visions of some fine old path winding through ancient forest with ancient blazes cut into the trunks of the gigantic trees.
At the north end of Meadow Lake the dividing ridge separating the South and Middle Yuba has been torn down by the glaciers into a low pass. It looks much as though ice from the Fordyce basin, to the south, spilled north through the pass into the Middle Yuba. Here a topographic low in the pre-volcanic topography had accumulated especially thick sequences of andesitic mudflows, on the order of 1000' or more. All of the ridges nearby, and the pass itself, were carved from these mudflows or lahars.
As we approached the probably trailhead, in the very axis of the pass, we saw a road leading north into the Middle Yuba. We parked and scouted widely for blazes or any sign whatever of our trail; I went east, Ron west. We found nothing certain, except skid trails, stumps, log decks, roads, and OHV tracks.
Undaunted, we descended a couple hundred feet to a lower level. The nearly flat-lying strata of volcanics often find topographic expression in broad terraces. Again we scouted high and low and every which way. Rich forests of Red Fir, Western White Pine, and occasional Lodgepole Pine were interspersed with sloping dry meadows, with a precious few late-season wildflowers still gleaming with color here and there. I saw some asters and some Mustang Mint in bloom. Troops of birds threaded through the forest. Once again we found nothing of our old trail.
A still lower terrace level seemed to express the presence of a layer of welded rhyolite ash, probably the same "pink welded tuff" one sees exposed at many places in the upper North Fork American.
Eventually, we drove on down the road to Moscove Meadow, explored various side roads, and returned back up to the pass. We were struck by the almost universal extent of timber harvests in the area. Often many large trees remained, to the point one might well expect vestiges of a trail to persist; but the logging had been done with bulldozers swarming everywhere, plowing up the forest floor into grooves and ridges, and despite our best efforts, we never found even one blaze, or one scant inch of the trail itself. By constantly comparing our maps with the topography, we at last concluded that there was a good chance the main road had been cut directly into the line of the old trail. We had to leave it at that.
Returning to Meadow Lake, we parked near the southwest corner and followed an old trail through the woods, past several mining prospect pits, to an exposure of glaciated fine-grained granitoid rock threaded through with a million tiny dikes and veins of lighter rock, perhaps aplite. A small woodland pond nestled nearby, and Hartley Butte reared up darkly to the east. On this expanse of polished and striated rock are the petroglyphs. Here and there patches of a dark, almost black "varnish" had developed somehow on the smooth surfaces, and many of the petroglyphs were cut into these dark areas.
There were a wide variety of designs spread across a broad area. I was struck by the seeming absence of the "bear footprint" motif, and yet in general, the petroglyphs looked distinctly akin to those found elsewhere in the upper Yuba and American basins, a style which has been called "Sierran Abstract." These carvings are thought to date back before the advent of the bow and arrow, to between 1500 and 4500 years ago.
The Meadow Lake site is one of the largest, in terms of number of designs and areal extent. One projecting boss of rock was covered with circles and concentric circles. At other places, strict geometric patterns of triangles or ladder-like objects are found, or closely-spaced sets of curving lines, or star motifs. There is one design which looks as tho it was meant to depict a rattlesnake.
We spent a couple of hours wandering around the site, and resting on the sun-warmed rocks, until the sun lowered and the breezes began to bite shrewdly cold. We left via a road leading east and then north, to Webber Lake and a paved road breaking east to Highway 89. We had rejoined the line of the Pacific Turnpike. It had been a very nice day in the local high country. A longish drive took us to Truckee and I-80 which we followed west across the Sierra to our homes.
Nothing is left of the town, with its many buildings, saloons, hotels, stores and houses. Several wagon roads led to Meadow Lake, one from near what would be known as Cisco. The story of this town makes a fascinating chapter in local history. The gold is found in heavily mineralized areas which to my eye seem unusual, since they do not seem to be dominated by quartz. The gold proved too difficult to refine away from its binding mineral matrix, the boom ended abruptly, dozens of claims and thousands of stock certificates became instantly worthless, a fire swept off most of the buildings, and now, nothing. Just high rocky ridges, and high forested ridges, and sloping dry meadows, and a top-of-the-world feeling, with the granite massif of Old Man Mountain rising to the southwest.
Driving up Highway 80 eastbound, one gains several fine views of this same Old Man Mountain, a sort of grey half-dome-looking-thing. A glimpse near Nyack is followed by more sustained and closer views at Yuba Gap and just beyond. Like Red Mountain, Grouse Ridge, Black Buttes, Snow Mountain, and Black Mountain, Old Man Mountain is a "bedrock high," a topographically high part of the old, ancestral, pre-volcanic Sierra. Now that the glaciers have ripped up and torn away so much of the great plateau of andesitic mudflow and rhyolite ash, these old mountains have been redefined and reexposed. They are found in a rough line parallel to the Sierra crest, about five to ten miles southwest. Some stood too high to ever have been buried by the young volcanics, others were so buried, but only shallowly.
At any rate, Ron and I drove up to Highway 20, dodged a few miles down towards Nevada City, and picked up the Pacific Turnpike, one of the old wagon roads to Virginia City. One branch of this road began in Dutch Flat, another, in Nevada City. It crossed the Sierra at Henness Pass. We drove north across the South Yuba and, passing the side roads to Grouse Ridge etc., paused a minute at Windy Point, above a major tributary of the South Yuba called Canyon Creek. Here a trail drops away into the heavily-glaciated canyon and proceeds down towards the Yuba, near the town of Washington. We scouted around for the trailhead, and saw something which looked probable, tho unsigned and unmarked in any way. This trails runs along the base of the canyon for maybe seven miles before climbing to Windy Point.
Just east we passed Bowman Lake, an old hydraulic mining reservoir revamped by PG&E. This was once a huge meadow. In a few miles we turned south onto a road which climbs past Tollhouse Lake to finally reach Meadow Lake. Here some signs inform one of the town's history. One is a polished rock slab placed by the Clampers, a joking take-off on fraternal organizations like the Masons and Odd Fellows, dating nearly to the Gold Rush.
We had two main objectives: to find and explore a trail leading north from Meadow Lake down into the headwaters basin of the Middle Yuba, near Moscove Meadow; and to visit some petroglyphs just southwest of Meadow Lake.
Ron had seen this trail on several old maps. It is not shown on modern maps. By correlating the old maps to one another and then to the modern topographic map, we felt we had a good sense of its course. We had visions of some fine old path winding through ancient forest with ancient blazes cut into the trunks of the gigantic trees.
At the north end of Meadow Lake the dividing ridge separating the South and Middle Yuba has been torn down by the glaciers into a low pass. It looks much as though ice from the Fordyce basin, to the south, spilled north through the pass into the Middle Yuba. Here a topographic low in the pre-volcanic topography had accumulated especially thick sequences of andesitic mudflows, on the order of 1000' or more. All of the ridges nearby, and the pass itself, were carved from these mudflows or lahars.
As we approached the probably trailhead, in the very axis of the pass, we saw a road leading north into the Middle Yuba. We parked and scouted widely for blazes or any sign whatever of our trail; I went east, Ron west. We found nothing certain, except skid trails, stumps, log decks, roads, and OHV tracks.
Undaunted, we descended a couple hundred feet to a lower level. The nearly flat-lying strata of volcanics often find topographic expression in broad terraces. Again we scouted high and low and every which way. Rich forests of Red Fir, Western White Pine, and occasional Lodgepole Pine were interspersed with sloping dry meadows, with a precious few late-season wildflowers still gleaming with color here and there. I saw some asters and some Mustang Mint in bloom. Troops of birds threaded through the forest. Once again we found nothing of our old trail.
A still lower terrace level seemed to express the presence of a layer of welded rhyolite ash, probably the same "pink welded tuff" one sees exposed at many places in the upper North Fork American.
Eventually, we drove on down the road to Moscove Meadow, explored various side roads, and returned back up to the pass. We were struck by the almost universal extent of timber harvests in the area. Often many large trees remained, to the point one might well expect vestiges of a trail to persist; but the logging had been done with bulldozers swarming everywhere, plowing up the forest floor into grooves and ridges, and despite our best efforts, we never found even one blaze, or one scant inch of the trail itself. By constantly comparing our maps with the topography, we at last concluded that there was a good chance the main road had been cut directly into the line of the old trail. We had to leave it at that.
Returning to Meadow Lake, we parked near the southwest corner and followed an old trail through the woods, past several mining prospect pits, to an exposure of glaciated fine-grained granitoid rock threaded through with a million tiny dikes and veins of lighter rock, perhaps aplite. A small woodland pond nestled nearby, and Hartley Butte reared up darkly to the east. On this expanse of polished and striated rock are the petroglyphs. Here and there patches of a dark, almost black "varnish" had developed somehow on the smooth surfaces, and many of the petroglyphs were cut into these dark areas.
There were a wide variety of designs spread across a broad area. I was struck by the seeming absence of the "bear footprint" motif, and yet in general, the petroglyphs looked distinctly akin to those found elsewhere in the upper Yuba and American basins, a style which has been called "Sierran Abstract." These carvings are thought to date back before the advent of the bow and arrow, to between 1500 and 4500 years ago.
The Meadow Lake site is one of the largest, in terms of number of designs and areal extent. One projecting boss of rock was covered with circles and concentric circles. At other places, strict geometric patterns of triangles or ladder-like objects are found, or closely-spaced sets of curving lines, or star motifs. There is one design which looks as tho it was meant to depict a rattlesnake.
We spent a couple of hours wandering around the site, and resting on the sun-warmed rocks, until the sun lowered and the breezes began to bite shrewdly cold. We left via a road leading east and then north, to Webber Lake and a paved road breaking east to Highway 89. We had rejoined the line of the Pacific Turnpike. It had been a very nice day in the local high country. A longish drive took us to Truckee and I-80 which we followed west across the Sierra to our homes.
Saturday, September 27, 2003
Visit to Humbug Canyon
One of the most popular trails in Tahoe National Forest is the Euchre Bar Trail, which drops something less than 2000 feet to the North Fork American. A drive of a few miles leads from the Alta exit on I-80 to the trailhead. At the base of the trail, a suspension bridge spans the river across opposing cliffs, and large trout can be seen swimming the deep pool hemmed within that little gorge.
Euchre Bar has a body of glacial outwash sediments clinging to the canyon wall. This was attacked by a variety of methods, and gold was wrested from the ponderous masses of boulders, cobbles, sand and silt. It was a mining camp in its own right, and in the early newspapers of Placer County one can read the election returns for many such camps, including Euchre Bar. Most are now deserted.
From the bridge a trail continues up the North Fork two or three miles to Humbug Canyon. This short tributary of the North Fork has its own complex of outwash deposits, and was worked quite intensively in the early 1850s. Like Green Valley it counted as a town, for a few years anyway. In 1862 it was regarded as "worked out," the "music of the saw and the hammer" was no longer heard, no one was left. Yet, as seems often the case, that "no one" was an inexact and relative term, and the Humbug Canyon of 1862 had a store, and sixty men worked the mines in the summer, and twenty remained working through the winter.
Later an era of hard-rock mining began, for many are the gold-bearing quartz veins which lace the Shoo Fly Complex rocks in that area. The Pioneer Mine, the American Eagle, the Dorer Mine, the Blackhawk, the Southern Cross, and many many more, are scattered across the steep slopes.
The Dorer family arrived in Humbug Canyon at least as early as 1864, and to this day own the Dorer Ranch, near the base of the canyon in a sunny meadow with an Indian grinding rock, on a glacial outwash terrace. A house and some outbuildings still stand there, and a road switches back and forth all the way down to the ranch, from Elliot Ranch Road, up on the canyon rim.
The easiest approach to Humbug Canyon from civilization is along the Foresthill Divide. Yet the Divide runs to near 5000' in elevation on the approach to Humbug, so snow lies deep in the winter. Hence from the earliest times supplies came, during the winter, on mule trains from Dutch Flat and Towle (near Alta). These pack trains continued into the 20th century.
Saturday Gay Wiseman and I joined Steve Hunter, and Alan and Jay Shuttleworth, for a visit to Humbug Canyon. Steve is a good friend of Bob Dorer and has a key to the gate. I was quite interested in trying to find an old trail from Sawtooth Ridge down to Humbug Bar, where a bridge once crossed the North Fork. Last fall Tom Molloy and I had found the upper end of this trail, but had been unable to follow it very far. It seemed to disappear. Here was an opportunity to follow the same old trail--call it the SawBug Trail--from the river, up. Waldemar Lindgren's ca. 1900 geologic map shows this trail crossing the Dorer Mine quartz lode on the climb to the summit of Sawtooth.
The ca. 1960 "Volcano Fire" burned a vast area between the Middle and North Forks of the American. We drove through the old burn for miles, up on top of the Divide, where plantations of young trees seem to be thriving. As we approached Humbug Canyon, more and more patches of larger, older trees appeared, which had survived the fire. The descent into Humbug was through forests of Black and Canyon Live Oak, alternating with coniferous forests dominated by Douglas Fir and Ponderosa Pine. Around springs there were masses of dogwoods and maples and alders and ferns.
We stopped for a time at the Dorer Ranch, and met Bob Dorer and the ranch caretaker, Danny. Then we walked to the North Fork, a scant couple hundred yards away.
The rest of the party, led by Steve, hiked up to the American Eagle Mine, and then crossed to the north bank of the North Fork to visit other mining areas, including a gigantic cavern with railroad tracks leading into it. I, however, hopped across the river at the confluence of Humbug Creek, found the old bridge site, and struck out upriver on the old north-side trail.
This upriver trail shows on various old maps, but not on our modern Westville 7.5 quadrangle. I was a little surprised to find it changing into a wagon road, complete with large dry-laid stone walls, and in places, blasted out of the very cliffs.
With loppers at maximum power I made swift progress in the midday heat. I sensed that I had likely passed the Dorer Mine, but had seen no sign of it, and the old road was so easy, that it seemed best just to follow along. Without realizing it, I walked nearly a mile, and entered a forested flat, with the remains of an old wood stove, and other artifacts of human occupation and mining.
Could this be the Dorer Mine? Scouting around, I found a couple of wagon roads leading up the canyon wall, and began following the most likely, the most user-friendly, of the two. Difficulties arose. Ten thousand small Douglas Fir trees blocked my way at first, and then my "wagon road" seemed to melt into a squirrel trail, and that led into a knot-hole, and I was done.
Done? No! I thrashed around on the steep slopes, up, west, east, and then, saw another trail, which insensibly widened, and widened, and my wagon road was reborn!
I followed it higher and higher as the day grew warmer and warmer. Could this be the pesky SawBug Trail? No; I was too far east; or was the old map in error, as old maps are wont to be, so that maybe I was *not* "too far east'' but rather, exactly the right farness east? These serious questions occupied me as I lopped hundreds of branches and watched my wagon road shrink and swell and admired its dry-laid stone walls and the places where even it was blasted from the very rocks ... .
But wait; why would the SawBug be blasted? How could one justify that much work on a mere trail? Surely this wagon road led to some obscure gold mine: a hole in the ground, masses of dirty quartz lying everywhere. And soon enough I found just that. A tunnel, partially collapsed, followed a quartz vein into the sun-kissed mass of Sawtooth Ridge, and, peering past a disturbed bat, I saw light within the gloomy room, and realized that a shaft opened to the surface, somewhere above.
My wagon road seemed to end right there. Yet, climbing to examine the shaft, I caught a glimpse of a trail continuing, climbing up Sawtooth Ridge, and bearing east. So I struck out on that, and lopped many many more branches and small Douglas Fir trees, and the trail shrank, and widened, and had dry-laid stone retaining walls, or had none, and once again I began to think, This is It! This is the long-sought-after, the legendary, the one-and-only SawBug Trail!
But then a nasty notion darkened my mind's eye: perhaps this fine old trail only led to yet another hole-in-the-ground-with-quartz-all-around.
And so it did. In fact, it led to a very deep hole, a strange rectangular shaft plunging at the least a hundred feet down, only two by four feet in cross-section. And near this shaft, some signs of a collapsed tunnel. And once again, the trail seemed to utterly end. I scouted higher and to the east, I followed a bear trail to a bear bed, and I found strange masses of white quartz sand sown across the steeps, and did some involuntary skiing on these sharp little shards. And so I knew that more mine workings were somewhere above.
I was over five hundred feet above the North Fork and was drenched in sweat. One member of our party needed to get back to Colfax by some ungodly early hour, so my explorations must stop. It was nearly two p.m.
So, I lopped along back down the trail, back down the high wagon road, to the main wagon road at Wood Stove Flat, and heard voices. I lopped along the main wagon road east and found the rest of the party near a pile of old narrow-gauge track and iron strapping, such as were used for ore carts. They had just visited a most amazing cavern, and reproached me for missing out. I in turn reproached *them* for missing out. Silly aficionados of mining history who laugh at my loppers!
Then we marched on back to Humbug Canyon and swam in the lovely pool near the bridge site and ate lunch and talked with Bob Dorer and Danny, the Caretaker. After a time we dragged ourselves up the short trail to our cars.
On the way back, I took Elliot Ranch Road and passed the long and lovely meadow at the ranch site. Skirting along the rim of the North Fork canyon, I passed the head of the Green Valley Trail and met with Giant Gap Road and at last was on pavement again at Iowa Hill Road.
In another hour I was home.
Such was a visit to Humbug Canyon.
Euchre Bar has a body of glacial outwash sediments clinging to the canyon wall. This was attacked by a variety of methods, and gold was wrested from the ponderous masses of boulders, cobbles, sand and silt. It was a mining camp in its own right, and in the early newspapers of Placer County one can read the election returns for many such camps, including Euchre Bar. Most are now deserted.
From the bridge a trail continues up the North Fork two or three miles to Humbug Canyon. This short tributary of the North Fork has its own complex of outwash deposits, and was worked quite intensively in the early 1850s. Like Green Valley it counted as a town, for a few years anyway. In 1862 it was regarded as "worked out," the "music of the saw and the hammer" was no longer heard, no one was left. Yet, as seems often the case, that "no one" was an inexact and relative term, and the Humbug Canyon of 1862 had a store, and sixty men worked the mines in the summer, and twenty remained working through the winter.
Later an era of hard-rock mining began, for many are the gold-bearing quartz veins which lace the Shoo Fly Complex rocks in that area. The Pioneer Mine, the American Eagle, the Dorer Mine, the Blackhawk, the Southern Cross, and many many more, are scattered across the steep slopes.
The Dorer family arrived in Humbug Canyon at least as early as 1864, and to this day own the Dorer Ranch, near the base of the canyon in a sunny meadow with an Indian grinding rock, on a glacial outwash terrace. A house and some outbuildings still stand there, and a road switches back and forth all the way down to the ranch, from Elliot Ranch Road, up on the canyon rim.
The easiest approach to Humbug Canyon from civilization is along the Foresthill Divide. Yet the Divide runs to near 5000' in elevation on the approach to Humbug, so snow lies deep in the winter. Hence from the earliest times supplies came, during the winter, on mule trains from Dutch Flat and Towle (near Alta). These pack trains continued into the 20th century.
Saturday Gay Wiseman and I joined Steve Hunter, and Alan and Jay Shuttleworth, for a visit to Humbug Canyon. Steve is a good friend of Bob Dorer and has a key to the gate. I was quite interested in trying to find an old trail from Sawtooth Ridge down to Humbug Bar, where a bridge once crossed the North Fork. Last fall Tom Molloy and I had found the upper end of this trail, but had been unable to follow it very far. It seemed to disappear. Here was an opportunity to follow the same old trail--call it the SawBug Trail--from the river, up. Waldemar Lindgren's ca. 1900 geologic map shows this trail crossing the Dorer Mine quartz lode on the climb to the summit of Sawtooth.
The ca. 1960 "Volcano Fire" burned a vast area between the Middle and North Forks of the American. We drove through the old burn for miles, up on top of the Divide, where plantations of young trees seem to be thriving. As we approached Humbug Canyon, more and more patches of larger, older trees appeared, which had survived the fire. The descent into Humbug was through forests of Black and Canyon Live Oak, alternating with coniferous forests dominated by Douglas Fir and Ponderosa Pine. Around springs there were masses of dogwoods and maples and alders and ferns.
We stopped for a time at the Dorer Ranch, and met Bob Dorer and the ranch caretaker, Danny. Then we walked to the North Fork, a scant couple hundred yards away.
The rest of the party, led by Steve, hiked up to the American Eagle Mine, and then crossed to the north bank of the North Fork to visit other mining areas, including a gigantic cavern with railroad tracks leading into it. I, however, hopped across the river at the confluence of Humbug Creek, found the old bridge site, and struck out upriver on the old north-side trail.
This upriver trail shows on various old maps, but not on our modern Westville 7.5 quadrangle. I was a little surprised to find it changing into a wagon road, complete with large dry-laid stone walls, and in places, blasted out of the very cliffs.
With loppers at maximum power I made swift progress in the midday heat. I sensed that I had likely passed the Dorer Mine, but had seen no sign of it, and the old road was so easy, that it seemed best just to follow along. Without realizing it, I walked nearly a mile, and entered a forested flat, with the remains of an old wood stove, and other artifacts of human occupation and mining.
Could this be the Dorer Mine? Scouting around, I found a couple of wagon roads leading up the canyon wall, and began following the most likely, the most user-friendly, of the two. Difficulties arose. Ten thousand small Douglas Fir trees blocked my way at first, and then my "wagon road" seemed to melt into a squirrel trail, and that led into a knot-hole, and I was done.
Done? No! I thrashed around on the steep slopes, up, west, east, and then, saw another trail, which insensibly widened, and widened, and my wagon road was reborn!
I followed it higher and higher as the day grew warmer and warmer. Could this be the pesky SawBug Trail? No; I was too far east; or was the old map in error, as old maps are wont to be, so that maybe I was *not* "too far east'' but rather, exactly the right farness east? These serious questions occupied me as I lopped hundreds of branches and watched my wagon road shrink and swell and admired its dry-laid stone walls and the places where even it was blasted from the very rocks ... .
But wait; why would the SawBug be blasted? How could one justify that much work on a mere trail? Surely this wagon road led to some obscure gold mine: a hole in the ground, masses of dirty quartz lying everywhere. And soon enough I found just that. A tunnel, partially collapsed, followed a quartz vein into the sun-kissed mass of Sawtooth Ridge, and, peering past a disturbed bat, I saw light within the gloomy room, and realized that a shaft opened to the surface, somewhere above.
My wagon road seemed to end right there. Yet, climbing to examine the shaft, I caught a glimpse of a trail continuing, climbing up Sawtooth Ridge, and bearing east. So I struck out on that, and lopped many many more branches and small Douglas Fir trees, and the trail shrank, and widened, and had dry-laid stone retaining walls, or had none, and once again I began to think, This is It! This is the long-sought-after, the legendary, the one-and-only SawBug Trail!
But then a nasty notion darkened my mind's eye: perhaps this fine old trail only led to yet another hole-in-the-ground-with-quartz-all-around.
And so it did. In fact, it led to a very deep hole, a strange rectangular shaft plunging at the least a hundred feet down, only two by four feet in cross-section. And near this shaft, some signs of a collapsed tunnel. And once again, the trail seemed to utterly end. I scouted higher and to the east, I followed a bear trail to a bear bed, and I found strange masses of white quartz sand sown across the steeps, and did some involuntary skiing on these sharp little shards. And so I knew that more mine workings were somewhere above.
I was over five hundred feet above the North Fork and was drenched in sweat. One member of our party needed to get back to Colfax by some ungodly early hour, so my explorations must stop. It was nearly two p.m.
So, I lopped along back down the trail, back down the high wagon road, to the main wagon road at Wood Stove Flat, and heard voices. I lopped along the main wagon road east and found the rest of the party near a pile of old narrow-gauge track and iron strapping, such as were used for ore carts. They had just visited a most amazing cavern, and reproached me for missing out. I in turn reproached *them* for missing out. Silly aficionados of mining history who laugh at my loppers!
Then we marched on back to Humbug Canyon and swam in the lovely pool near the bridge site and ate lunch and talked with Bob Dorer and Danny, the Caretaker. After a time we dragged ourselves up the short trail to our cars.
On the way back, I took Elliot Ranch Road and passed the long and lovely meadow at the ranch site. Skirting along the rim of the North Fork canyon, I passed the head of the Green Valley Trail and met with Giant Gap Road and at last was on pavement again at Iowa Hill Road.
In another hour I was home.
Such was a visit to Humbug Canyon.
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Meadow Vista Trails Association
Last night I gve a talk to the Meadow Vista Trails Association (MVTA), in the back room of Mountain Mike's pizzeria. The largely equestrian audience was interested to hear about the old trails in the Placer high country, and the gradual loss of these trails to logging, subdivisions, gates, and so on. They were very well informed, and most seemed to know of the 1953 Placer County Board of Supervisors' ordinance, in which sixty-odd historic trails were declared to be "County roads" so as to secure continued public access.
It all went off well, though if I had a video projector to show pictures and maps it would have been even better.
I learned that some members of MVTA have been GPS-ing trails in that area and supplying maps to Placer County, so that, possibly, in the course of future land subdivision and issuance of building permits, the County will be in a position to protect such-and-such trail. For who can really blame the County when it allows an old trail to be blocked, if the County never knew it existed?
We of the NFARA have discussed doing this same thing. It is such a good idea, to develop a database of mapped trails, and provide the information to Placer County, Tahoe National Forest, and the BLM. I have supplied Placer County with GPSed maps of the Canyon Creek and Green Valley trails, but so much more could be done!
Ron Gould and I have been making minute examinations of various old maps, and correlating the old trails depicted therein with the modern USGS 7.5-minute topographic maps. The old maps are full of errors, large and small. Somewhat strangely, our modern USGS maps have plenty of errors too; for instance, some of the trails shown down in Green Valley on the Dutch Flat quadrangle never existed.
Ron recently discovered 1928 and 1939 Tahoe National Forest maps showing quite a few trails which no longer appear on modern maps. The trail from Gold Run to Iowa Hill by way of Fords Bar crossed the North Fork on a bridge, labeled "Warner Bridge" on the 1939 map. Ron asked me what I knew of that. Yesterday, while leafing through my own "Dutch Flat Chronicles," I found the very legal notice, published in the "Dutch Flat Forum" newspaper in 1875(?), in which one J.E. Warner applied to the Placer County BOS for permission to operate a toll bridge at Fords Bar.
Hence Warner Bridge on the 1939 TNF map! The bridge is long gone. Curiously, this map shows the Blue Wing Trail, on the Iowa Hill side of the North Fork at Warner Bridge, as a road! 'Twas never.
Unfortunately, the Gold Run terminus of this historic trail has a brand-new subdivision plunked right atop it, and public access there has ended.
It all went off well, though if I had a video projector to show pictures and maps it would have been even better.
I learned that some members of MVTA have been GPS-ing trails in that area and supplying maps to Placer County, so that, possibly, in the course of future land subdivision and issuance of building permits, the County will be in a position to protect such-and-such trail. For who can really blame the County when it allows an old trail to be blocked, if the County never knew it existed?
We of the NFARA have discussed doing this same thing. It is such a good idea, to develop a database of mapped trails, and provide the information to Placer County, Tahoe National Forest, and the BLM. I have supplied Placer County with GPSed maps of the Canyon Creek and Green Valley trails, but so much more could be done!
Ron Gould and I have been making minute examinations of various old maps, and correlating the old trails depicted therein with the modern USGS 7.5-minute topographic maps. The old maps are full of errors, large and small. Somewhat strangely, our modern USGS maps have plenty of errors too; for instance, some of the trails shown down in Green Valley on the Dutch Flat quadrangle never existed.
Ron recently discovered 1928 and 1939 Tahoe National Forest maps showing quite a few trails which no longer appear on modern maps. The trail from Gold Run to Iowa Hill by way of Fords Bar crossed the North Fork on a bridge, labeled "Warner Bridge" on the 1939 map. Ron asked me what I knew of that. Yesterday, while leafing through my own "Dutch Flat Chronicles," I found the very legal notice, published in the "Dutch Flat Forum" newspaper in 1875(?), in which one J.E. Warner applied to the Placer County BOS for permission to operate a toll bridge at Fords Bar.
Hence Warner Bridge on the 1939 TNF map! The bridge is long gone. Curiously, this map shows the Blue Wing Trail, on the Iowa Hill side of the North Fork at Warner Bridge, as a road! 'Twas never.
Unfortunately, the Gold Run terminus of this historic trail has a brand-new subdivision plunked right atop it, and public access there has ended.
Gold Run and the North Fork American W&SR
For years I have been wondering why the BLM allows mining claims on its lands in the Gold Run Diggings. Recently I have tried once again to discover the basis for this BLM policy. For, there is a special northward extension of the North Fork American W&SR corridor; and lands within the W&SR corridor ought to be closed to mineral entry.
In 1978 Congress added the North Fork American River to our national Wild & Scenic River system. The relevant part of this legislation reads as follows:
*******
(21) AMERICAN, CALIFORNIA. -- The North Fork from a point 0.3 mile above Heath Springs downstream to a point approximately 1,000 feet upstream of the Colfax-Iowa Hill Bridge, including the Gold Run Addition Area, as generally depicted on the map entitled, "Proposed Boundary Maps" contained in Appendix I of the document dated January 1978 and entitled, "A Proposal: North Fork American Wild and Scenic River" published by the United States Forest Service, Department of Agriculture; to be designated as a wild river and to be administered by agencies of the Departments of Interior and Agriculture as agreed upon by the Secretaries of such Departments or as directed by the President.
*******
Why did Congress create the special Addition? Because the Diggings are wild, they are beautiful, they are historic, and there are two trails--the Canyon Creek and Pickering Bar trails-- which give access to the North Fork American itself. Congress recognized that the Gold Run Diggings constitute a kind of "portal" to the North Fork American.
Now, it happens that in the more southern part of the Gold Run Diggings, there is very much BLM land. These BLM lands are just those which lie within the so-called "Gold Run Addition" as mentioned in the legislation, above. Yet the Folsom BLM has, over all the time it has managed the lands at Gold Run, and in particular, since 1978, considered that these BLM lands within the Addition are open to "mineral entry," i.e., to mining claims.
A careful examination of the "big" Tahoe National Forest map will reveal that all these BLM lands in the Diggings are marked as within the W&SR corridor. Ordinarily, the W&SR corridor is considered to extend only one-quarter mile from the center of the river. Yet Congress wanted to extend the corridor to the north at Gold Run, and created the special Addition.
Ordinarily, all public lands within any river's W&SR corridor are immediately "withdrawn from mineral entry," that is, closed to any further mining claims. I believe it is also typical for there to be an off-highway-vehicle (OHV) closure on all public lands within the W&SR corridor. This a natural consequence of managing a river to be a Wild & Scenic River.
Yet at Gold Run, BLM lands remain open to mineral entry and to OHVs.
This has led to significant adverse impacts upon BLM lands at Gold Run. For instance, one claimant, apparently, used his key to the BLM gate at the end of Garrett Road to bring a backhoe and dump truck into the Diggings and remove large quantitites of petrified wood. The pieces weighed in the 200-300 pound range, but included the very last petrified log of any size exposed at the surface, around fifteen feet long and two to three feet in diameter. This happened just a few years ago.
These impacts include blading out roads wider with a bulldozer, creating new roads, and making many "test pits" to justify the existence of a valid mining claim. In fact, so far as I have been able to discover, it was these mining claimants who placed the gate at the end of Garrett Road. They, the claimants, actually made the very policy which excludes the rest of us from driving in to the head of the Pickering Bar Trail.
Now, in this last case, I reluctantly go along with the adverse impact. The gate reduces vehicular access to a wild and beautiful area I like to hike in. That makes it nicer for hiking. Also, there had been problems with squatters down that road, before the gate went in.
Nevertheless, I oppose leaving these lands within the special Gold Run Addition open to mining claims. And I still do not understand the basis for this BLM policy. I am told that the "master plats" or master maps upon which the BLM relies do not show the Addition as within the W&SR corridor. Why not?
For, after all, Congress itself wrote
"... including the Gold Run Addition Area, as generally depicted on the map entitled, 'Proposed Boundary Maps' contained in Appendix I of the document dated January 1978 and entitled, 'A Proposal: North Fork American Wild and Scenic River' published by the United States Forest Service ... ."
The TNF map reflects the extended corridor as depicted in the 1978 "Proposed Boundary Maps." The BLM master plats do not. Why? I still do not understand.
Everything within the Gold Run Addition ought to be closed to mineral entry and closed to OHV use.
Deane Swickard, Area Manager of Folsom BLM, tells me that in 2004 a new management plan will be developed for the entire Folsom Resource Area. There will be opportunity for public comment. Perhaps at that time we can exert influence to exclude the BLM lands at Gold Run from mineral entry and OHV use.
In 1978 Congress added the North Fork American River to our national Wild & Scenic River system. The relevant part of this legislation reads as follows:
*******
(21) AMERICAN, CALIFORNIA. -- The North Fork from a point 0.3 mile above Heath Springs downstream to a point approximately 1,000 feet upstream of the Colfax-Iowa Hill Bridge, including the Gold Run Addition Area, as generally depicted on the map entitled, "Proposed Boundary Maps" contained in Appendix I of the document dated January 1978 and entitled, "A Proposal: North Fork American Wild and Scenic River" published by the United States Forest Service, Department of Agriculture; to be designated as a wild river and to be administered by agencies of the Departments of Interior and Agriculture as agreed upon by the Secretaries of such Departments or as directed by the President.
*******
Why did Congress create the special Addition? Because the Diggings are wild, they are beautiful, they are historic, and there are two trails--the Canyon Creek and Pickering Bar trails-- which give access to the North Fork American itself. Congress recognized that the Gold Run Diggings constitute a kind of "portal" to the North Fork American.
Now, it happens that in the more southern part of the Gold Run Diggings, there is very much BLM land. These BLM lands are just those which lie within the so-called "Gold Run Addition" as mentioned in the legislation, above. Yet the Folsom BLM has, over all the time it has managed the lands at Gold Run, and in particular, since 1978, considered that these BLM lands within the Addition are open to "mineral entry," i.e., to mining claims.
A careful examination of the "big" Tahoe National Forest map will reveal that all these BLM lands in the Diggings are marked as within the W&SR corridor. Ordinarily, the W&SR corridor is considered to extend only one-quarter mile from the center of the river. Yet Congress wanted to extend the corridor to the north at Gold Run, and created the special Addition.
Ordinarily, all public lands within any river's W&SR corridor are immediately "withdrawn from mineral entry," that is, closed to any further mining claims. I believe it is also typical for there to be an off-highway-vehicle (OHV) closure on all public lands within the W&SR corridor. This a natural consequence of managing a river to be a Wild & Scenic River.
Yet at Gold Run, BLM lands remain open to mineral entry and to OHVs.
This has led to significant adverse impacts upon BLM lands at Gold Run. For instance, one claimant, apparently, used his key to the BLM gate at the end of Garrett Road to bring a backhoe and dump truck into the Diggings and remove large quantitites of petrified wood. The pieces weighed in the 200-300 pound range, but included the very last petrified log of any size exposed at the surface, around fifteen feet long and two to three feet in diameter. This happened just a few years ago.
These impacts include blading out roads wider with a bulldozer, creating new roads, and making many "test pits" to justify the existence of a valid mining claim. In fact, so far as I have been able to discover, it was these mining claimants who placed the gate at the end of Garrett Road. They, the claimants, actually made the very policy which excludes the rest of us from driving in to the head of the Pickering Bar Trail.
Now, in this last case, I reluctantly go along with the adverse impact. The gate reduces vehicular access to a wild and beautiful area I like to hike in. That makes it nicer for hiking. Also, there had been problems with squatters down that road, before the gate went in.
Nevertheless, I oppose leaving these lands within the special Gold Run Addition open to mining claims. And I still do not understand the basis for this BLM policy. I am told that the "master plats" or master maps upon which the BLM relies do not show the Addition as within the W&SR corridor. Why not?
For, after all, Congress itself wrote
"... including the Gold Run Addition Area, as generally depicted on the map entitled, 'Proposed Boundary Maps' contained in Appendix I of the document dated January 1978 and entitled, 'A Proposal: North Fork American Wild and Scenic River' published by the United States Forest Service ... ."
The TNF map reflects the extended corridor as depicted in the 1978 "Proposed Boundary Maps." The BLM master plats do not. Why? I still do not understand.
Everything within the Gold Run Addition ought to be closed to mineral entry and closed to OHV use.
Deane Swickard, Area Manager of Folsom BLM, tells me that in 2004 a new management plan will be developed for the entire Folsom Resource Area. There will be opportunity for public comment. Perhaps at that time we can exert influence to exclude the BLM lands at Gold Run from mineral entry and OHV use.
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Footnote on N.B. Willey
While leafing through my "Dutch Flat Chronicles" today I found one more reference to N.B. Willey, Superintendent of the Red Rock Mine. The reason my text search didn't turn it up yesterday is that his name is misspelled "Wiley" instead of "Willey."
The item below was contributed by Willey himself to the Colfax Sentinel, in 1896. We see that Willey was mining in Green Valley, on the North Fork American near Dutch Flat, in the 1850s. I have always thought it would be quite interesting to go down to Sacramento and find the court records for this case.
At any rate, we find that ex-Governor Willey was an old resident of Placer County.
*******
Colfax Sentinel
April 17, 1896
Chinese Arrested in Green Valley
Dutch Flat, April 13, 1896
Editor of the Sentinel:-The public interest in the recent arrest of Chinamen in this section for hydraulic mining contrary to law is noteworthy. It is said to be the first instance when malefactors of this sort have been taken "red-handed." Now, I hardly think the Chinamen are entitled to much sympathy. They ought not to be permitted to prosecute an unlawful act when other people are prohibited. But, the circumstances ought to be considered. I know something of this particular piece of mining ground. I worked on it in the 1850's. I sold it to Chinamen 21 years ago, and I am informed it has been worked continuously by them ever since. I examined it again about ten days before the owners were arrested. It is obvious to me and to anyone acquainted with mining that the quantity of earth washed away in all that time is not as much as would be moved by a single monitor in the Dutch Flat, You Bet, or Nevada City districts in a single week.
The bench is a mass of rocks from top to bottom. It is forty or fifty feet high. It is conveniently situated for work at a little distance above the river so that the great mass of rocks issuing from the flumes is deposited before it reaches the water; and even if they were dropped in the middle of the river the current is insufficient to move them away. The sand and gravel is so insignificant that they did not use to be and are not now sufficient even so much as to discolor the river for a half mile. The water used in these mines comes from springs and small ravines on the mountain side. It is saved in reservoirs and at best is barely sufficient for a head of about 200 inches of water for an hour and a half twice a day. How can 500 inches of water pass through a 3-inch nozzle with a fall of no more than 60 or 70 feet?
There are many gravel claims working in this county by the ground-sluicing process, keeping strictly within the law as regards place of deposit, percentage of sediment in the water, and all other details, each one of which discharges into streams so much more earth than the one in question that the latter is not to be thought about for a moment. And, indeed, it does not appear that the mining in itself can do any harm or is objectionable, but only the manner of it. That formidable 3-inch nozzle is liable to "overwhelm" somebody. I scarcely need refer to the alleged effort of the Valley spies some weeks ago to blackmail these Chinamen and their inability or unwillingness to pay $200 to secure immunity. This has no bearing upon the argument.
N.B. Wiley
*******
The item below was contributed by Willey himself to the Colfax Sentinel, in 1896. We see that Willey was mining in Green Valley, on the North Fork American near Dutch Flat, in the 1850s. I have always thought it would be quite interesting to go down to Sacramento and find the court records for this case.
At any rate, we find that ex-Governor Willey was an old resident of Placer County.
*******
Colfax Sentinel
April 17, 1896
Chinese Arrested in Green Valley
Dutch Flat, April 13, 1896
Editor of the Sentinel:-The public interest in the recent arrest of Chinamen in this section for hydraulic mining contrary to law is noteworthy. It is said to be the first instance when malefactors of this sort have been taken "red-handed." Now, I hardly think the Chinamen are entitled to much sympathy. They ought not to be permitted to prosecute an unlawful act when other people are prohibited. But, the circumstances ought to be considered. I know something of this particular piece of mining ground. I worked on it in the 1850's. I sold it to Chinamen 21 years ago, and I am informed it has been worked continuously by them ever since. I examined it again about ten days before the owners were arrested. It is obvious to me and to anyone acquainted with mining that the quantity of earth washed away in all that time is not as much as would be moved by a single monitor in the Dutch Flat, You Bet, or Nevada City districts in a single week.
The bench is a mass of rocks from top to bottom. It is forty or fifty feet high. It is conveniently situated for work at a little distance above the river so that the great mass of rocks issuing from the flumes is deposited before it reaches the water; and even if they were dropped in the middle of the river the current is insufficient to move them away. The sand and gravel is so insignificant that they did not use to be and are not now sufficient even so much as to discolor the river for a half mile. The water used in these mines comes from springs and small ravines on the mountain side. It is saved in reservoirs and at best is barely sufficient for a head of about 200 inches of water for an hour and a half twice a day. How can 500 inches of water pass through a 3-inch nozzle with a fall of no more than 60 or 70 feet?
There are many gravel claims working in this county by the ground-sluicing process, keeping strictly within the law as regards place of deposit, percentage of sediment in the water, and all other details, each one of which discharges into streams so much more earth than the one in question that the latter is not to be thought about for a moment. And, indeed, it does not appear that the mining in itself can do any harm or is objectionable, but only the manner of it. That formidable 3-inch nozzle is liable to "overwhelm" somebody. I scarcely need refer to the alleged effort of the Valley spies some weeks ago to blackmail these Chinamen and their inability or unwillingness to pay $200 to secure immunity. This has no bearing upon the argument.
N.B. Wiley
*******
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