Near Gold Run, Canyon Creek turns to the south and enters the North Fork canyon in a long series of waterfalls. Sunday I met several friends for a walk down the Canyon Creek Trail (CCT). There were ten of us altogether. We left our cars at the Gold Run exit and sneaked through the defunct gas station to a road leading into the Diggings. A walk of half a mile or so brought us to the CCT trailhead in Potato Ravine.
A man named -- -- contacted me several years ago, seeking information about waterfalls in the North Fork. He was developing a website about waterfalls. I made the mistake of telling him about the CCT, for, despite my request that he not publicize it, he put up pictures and maps on his website. Then he went further, and put the pictures and maps on a major trails website. Suddenly large numbers of people were wandering around out on Garrett Road, trying to find the way to the CCT.
I do not know whether this led directly to the recent closure of the old road from Garrett to The Bluffs and the Paleobotanist Trail.
The CCT is fragile. It has not been adequately maintained for over a century. I absolutely believe in public access to this fine yet fragile trail. I myself have led many many people in there. I myself have a map of the trail on my website. But one has to worm one's way into my North Fork American web pages to find it. My idea was, only someone who actually cared about the North Fork would find it; and that kind of person is welcome, and needed.
I write about the CCT to this email list all the time. So, I'm not keeping any secrets. But I maintain the notion that the people on this email list care about the North Fork, and that some kind of positive action on some issue or another, Canyon Creek, for instance, could result.
For if we don't succeed in finding a way for the BLM to buy the private lands now for sale in the Gold Run Diggings, including about 90% of the CCT itself, well, history shows that our access could be lost, or at least, broken and restricted. As has just happened, by the blockage of the Paleobotanist Trail.
I have worked on the CCT for over twenty years. Most of my work has involved cutting brush from the trail. I built a bridge where the CCT crosses Canyon Creek, six years ago or so, and then rebuilt it, a couple years back. Many many parts of the trail need work. It cannot well tolerate much use. It will be damaged further. It has been damaged further, already, by the increased use since -- -- publicized it.
As our group filed down into the canyon, the young folks, ages 13 to 20, dashed ahead, running down the trail. Being young, they did not have the sense to keep their feet on the narrow path. The edge of the trail was broken down in places.
Now, I have carried a shovel in there many times, and have restored, with extreme care and delicacy, several hundred feet of the trail, where bushes once forced animals and humans alike downslope. I made a tiny bench cut in such places, in keeping with the overall narrowness of the trail, merely restoring its proper line. I tried to do it in such a way that no one would even realize the work had been done. But there are many many problem areas which remain.
After we reached the great drain tunnel of the Gold Run Ditch & Mining Co., 1873, where three to five thousand cubic yards of Diggings gravel per day once flowed through the giant sluice boxes into Canyon Creek and into the creek's own giant sluice boxes, a few of us old folk took the lead and left the youngsters behind.
I noted footprints less than two days old on the trail, Vibram-soled prints unlike those made by me and Catherine and Alex near a week ago. Here again, one problem area on the trail had been broken down further by a careless hiker. This will about force me to restore this segment of the trail.
Now, I actually like trail work. I wouldn't mind making a complete fix of the CCT. It's going to require backpacking quite a few 50-pound sacks of mortar and concrete all the way down to the rockslide below Gorge Point. Then the stone steps can be built which will fix this dangerous reach of the trail. And before that is done, the deep gaps near the tunnel should be fixed. In fact, I have nurtured a vague and pleasant fantasy that, once the BLM buys the CCT parcel, they will let me repair the trail. Not to make it a highway; just to fix the bad spots and prevent further damage from occurring. Some hundreds of hours of work would be needed. I already have done a hundred or so hours of work on the thing, not counting the lopping which I do on a routine basis.
Perhaps it is not strange that I have developed a proprietary attitude towards the CCT. I have hiked it since 1976. I have literally bloodied myself working on it. I carried the lumber for the bridge over a mile on my shoulder, both times. It took several trips.
Oh well.
Sunday was a blessing of a day, warm and sunny. We straggled down the trail and some of us made it all the way to the North Fork. We had worked up a sweat just going down the trail, and at the Last Waterfall, beside the river, butterflies of several species landed on our heads and hands, to delicately sip our sweat.
A Great Blue Heron suddenly winged past, heading down the river, and I said, "Just wait; some kayakers or rafters will not be far behind." For the kayaks scare up ducks and herons and hawks and eagles and the birds usually go down the river to escape. Sure enough, five kayaks soon appeared. They stopped at Canyon Creek for a break, on their way to Mineral Bar from Euchre Bar.
We made a nice slow climb up and out in the afternoon sun. At the bridge, a cute couple was met, hiking down the trail with backpacks. Well, the man, a tall young fellow, had a tall backpack. I did not recognize them and gently asked how they had learned about the trail.
"I found out about it on the internet, on a waterfalls website," the tall young man replied.
They looked like good people, and I have no fear that they will leave garbage along the trail. It is likely enough that they will damage the trail a little, just as our party had. It is a fragile trail.
When we reached our cars, around four or five in the afternoon, I-80 westbound was at a near standstill. Perhaps there had been a wreck on Three Mile Grade, a few miles west. The traffic was backed up all the way up to the Alta exit, a few miles east, and beyond. What a nightmare.
It was a lovely day on the Canyon Creek Trail.
Monday, March 7, 2005
A Remembrance of Times Past
The Inimitable Julie, a hiker par excellence who stands about five feet two inches tall, and somehow takes ten-foot strides, as near as I can tell, writes:
*******
My first experience with Canyon Creek was about 28 years ago. I spent quite
a bit of time at Pickering Bar with friends who had a mining camp there,
downriver on the north side where all those lovely ledges make a perfect
summer home. My friends were living in a tipi. ( Not Robert, the fellow who
lived in one at Green Valley years later.) Anyway exploring upriver led to
the discovery of an unbelievable sight. A creek that cascades down the side
of the canyon in a series of magnificent waterfalls, each one with it's own
deep clear pool, the rock is scoured clean like you expect to see on a big
waterway. We explored up the creek several layers of pools and lounged on
the large terraces of stone. Further up a huge waterfall pounded down
filling the air with a cold mist and rainbows. I don't think I'll ever
forget the first time I saw Canyon Creek. I visited the falls many times
over a two summer period. Then life changed, and different things were
happening. It seems I forgot about Canyon Creek for some years. I never knew
then that there was a trail. We were using Pickering Bar and Blue wing. I
have only learned about the trail from you, it was Larry who mentioned it.
He Was talking about a trail, with a creek, with many waterfalls, in the
vicinity of Gold Run. I had never heard anyone else mention Canyon Creek.
Thank you for telling us about the special trail. As time goes by we do see
more and more people in the canyon. Each person wants to show one or two
very special friends, and those friends tell their special friends. And so
it goes. There is no answer. It's just the nature of things.However I now
have a different appreciation of the trail and will be even that much more
careful. I visited there a week ago or so. I have never met anyone on the
trail! See you. Julie
*******
*******
My first experience with Canyon Creek was about 28 years ago. I spent quite
a bit of time at Pickering Bar with friends who had a mining camp there,
downriver on the north side where all those lovely ledges make a perfect
summer home. My friends were living in a tipi. ( Not Robert, the fellow who
lived in one at Green Valley years later.) Anyway exploring upriver led to
the discovery of an unbelievable sight. A creek that cascades down the side
of the canyon in a series of magnificent waterfalls, each one with it's own
deep clear pool, the rock is scoured clean like you expect to see on a big
waterway. We explored up the creek several layers of pools and lounged on
the large terraces of stone. Further up a huge waterfall pounded down
filling the air with a cold mist and rainbows. I don't think I'll ever
forget the first time I saw Canyon Creek. I visited the falls many times
over a two summer period. Then life changed, and different things were
happening. It seems I forgot about Canyon Creek for some years. I never knew
then that there was a trail. We were using Pickering Bar and Blue wing. I
have only learned about the trail from you, it was Larry who mentioned it.
He Was talking about a trail, with a creek, with many waterfalls, in the
vicinity of Gold Run. I had never heard anyone else mention Canyon Creek.
Thank you for telling us about the special trail. As time goes by we do see
more and more people in the canyon. Each person wants to show one or two
very special friends, and those friends tell their special friends. And so
it goes. There is no answer. It's just the nature of things.However I now
have a different appreciation of the trail and will be even that much more
careful. I visited there a week ago or so. I have never met anyone on the
trail! See you. Julie
*******
Thursday, March 3, 2005
Revisiting the HOUT
Wednesday dawned showery, after a night of sustained heavy rain, yet the morning news showed the storm passing rapidly east into Nevada, chased by clear skies to the west. I can't tell you how impressed I was by the views from Big West Spur, last week. It seemed only sensible to return and photograph the spectacle of Giant Gap emerging from its shrouds of storm-wrack and fog. An early start was demanded.
Driving my son to school at 8:00 a.m., a regular downpour of cats and dogs quelled my ardor. Sometimes these storms hang up in the Sierra for many hours, or even a day, after they have ended in lower elevations to the west. Who could say if this storm would stay or go?
Alex Henderson could. He called around 9:00, while light showers persisted here, to report sunshine there (Auburn), and proposed a hike. In a matter of minutes Catherine O'Riley was on board, and we all met at Gold Run, rather too late in the morning for Big West Spur and the good old post-storm Phantasmagoria of Fog, but at least the showers had ended.
We parked near Garrett and marched across the soggy Diggings to the Canyon Creek Trail. Little creeks one usually strides across without pausing had swelled into rushing rivers, within an ace of stopping us and forcing a ford. We were in the headwaters of Potato Ravine, not so labeled on modern maps. The waters of Potato were captured by the "Big Pit" of the Gold Run Ditch & Mining Co. in the 1870s, and since then have flowed into the more northern shaft and out to Canyon Creek in the huge drain tunnel.
At the head of Potato, west of Canyon Creek, stands Cold Springs Hill, where volcanic ash strata of the Valley Springs Formation create a perched aquifer, and a perennial spring nurtures a meadow high on the warm southwest slopes, where Indians lived for thousands of years, and where some enterprising 49er set up a trading post.
There is every reason to believe that the original beginning of the Canyon Creek Trail was at the Cold Springs Trading Post. Potato Ravine formed a kind of pass leading out of the gorge of Canyon Creek. In yet another meadow, also associated to the perched aquifer in the headwaters of Potato, were grown the very potatoes which gave the ravine its name, in 1849 or 1850.
If one is very clever and practiced using Google, one can find the diary of a doctor who spent the summer of 1849 near this trading post. Lamentably, we learn very little of this area from the doctor's diary. A mention of the impossibly steep cliffs of the North Fork (probably referring to Giant Gap), a mention of huge pines near the trading post (the Eocene river channel, unrecognized at that time, had evolved deep soils, and well-watered as well; we should imagine Ponderosa and Sugar pines, up to eight feet in diameter).
Soon we were beside Canyon Creek, high and loud and fast and a little muddy after the night of drenching downpours. Across the bridge, the roar of the first big waterfall greeted us well before it came in view. The Leaper was far beyond the fire-hose aspect of lower flows, and was a confused mass of white water bridging the little chasm-notch beside it with great force and sound and fury.
As the main North Fork canyon hove into view to the south, the last shreds of fog were already lifting and dissipating, and the clouds above were lifting as well, their bases already thousands of feet above. The showers had ended.
More and more flowers are appearing along the CCT, and really it bids fair to be an exceptional year for the things. In some years one wades through forests of flowers. Other years, drier years, they are much reduced in size and number.
The creek was raging into and through the amazing Inner Gorge, a corkscrew chasm with mist and thunder rising from hidden waterfalls. We took the steep cross-country route down to the base of the Big Waterfall, perhaps 120 feet high, which splits into two falls in high flows. It was generating an impressive cloud of spray, which drifted all around us, a hundred yards away.
I have been there several times when the creek carried *much* more water, and a kind of hurricane of mist sweeps over the very spot we were standing, and one is almost instantly soaked.
An ephemeral stream spilled down the cliffs across the creek, those remarkable steep slabs broken on right angles to make gigantic overhangs. In fact, the steep cliffs around the base of the Big Waterfall make it a hazardous place; rocks crash down frequently, and smash to smithereens of shards on the big rounded bosses of bedrock along the creek. Large sluice boxes were once mounted below the falls, and the stout iron pins in the rock, which somehow (using cables, I guess) anchored the boxes, have been smashed down flat by flood events, probably many decades ago. The pins are unchanged since I first saw them, in 1977 or 1978.
The sun broke through suddenly, and a rainbow played in the mist. We continued down the Big Waterfall Trail, past The Terraces, to the Canyon Creek Trail, and soon thereafter, struck away east on the HOUT.
The clouds thinned and the sun rapidly warmed the canyon wall, lush in spring grasses, mosses, flowers, and ferns. Last week no fewer than four ticks dug into my hide, during a hike on the HOUT. They are quite a nuisance in the rainy season, yet seem to disappear when summer comes.
Bogus Ravine, on the west side of Bogus Spur, named for Bogus Point, far above us on the canyon rim, was full of whitewater. We crossed without incident and soon reached strangely steep Croquet Meadow, just beyond where the River Trail forks right. There Alex decided to stop, but Catherine was of course ready to forge ahead to the overlooks on Big West Spur. Not a shred of fog remained, but some rather glorious cumulus clouds drifted here and there, draping shadows over the two-thousand-foot cliffs.
Here as elsewhere the world was alive with the sound of water and waterfalls; every little ravine in Giant Gap had its own long series of cascades and falls, and the North Fork itself must have been flowing near a thousand cubic feet per second, and was still a mite muddy, or at least, not its usual picture of clear clarity.
We had found the sweater, so full of holes, I had left along the trail last week, the very sweater which actually inspired "darn it, darn it!" Now, as we followed the HOUT east towards Big West Spur, we saw that the "true" line of the HOUT was above us, in trees and brush. At a certain point we found the HOUT's tiny bench cut and decided to explore back west towards Croquet Meadow: perhaps the original line of the trail could be restored.
Catherine set her pack down on the narrow trail, and I watched stupidly while it slowly turned over and began to roll away, straight down. It was almost stopped by a fallen Digger Pine, but snuck beneath its trunk and turned into a little cyclone of mass and momentum, making glad leaps and bounds and spinning away out of sight.
This changed everything. We decided to let Alex know where things stood, but on reaching Croquet he was gone, already away on the return trail. We dropped to the River Trail in hopes the pack had hung up in the brush somewhere, rather than plunging directly into the North Fork, below. No sign. We split up and I climbed back up to where it had first escaped. Then, climbing right back down the fall line, I passed the fallen pine and carelessly dislodged a good-sized rock, which instantly whirled away on its own trip to the river. Unless Catherine had veered east, she was safe, but I shouted out warnings in any case. As it went out of sight a spot of color caught my eye.
Descending, I grabbed the pack and set out west, to find Catherine scouting open grassy slopes below the River Trail. A water bag and umbrella were still missing, and we took a quick look but could find no trace of either.
Now three in the afternoon, it was prudent to retreat, rather than push on to Big West. We enjoyed a nice hike into the westering sun, enlivened somewhat when I left my GPS unit at Bogus Ravine, and had to run back over a quarter-mile of rough trail to retrieve it, while Catherine waited.
Despite these minor calamities it was a wonderful day in the great canyon. We reached our cars a little before day's end, a little wet and bedraggled, but quite pleased to have acted on impulse and taken the path less traveled.
Driving my son to school at 8:00 a.m., a regular downpour of cats and dogs quelled my ardor. Sometimes these storms hang up in the Sierra for many hours, or even a day, after they have ended in lower elevations to the west. Who could say if this storm would stay or go?
Alex Henderson could. He called around 9:00, while light showers persisted here, to report sunshine there (Auburn), and proposed a hike. In a matter of minutes Catherine O'Riley was on board, and we all met at Gold Run, rather too late in the morning for Big West Spur and the good old post-storm Phantasmagoria of Fog, but at least the showers had ended.
We parked near Garrett and marched across the soggy Diggings to the Canyon Creek Trail. Little creeks one usually strides across without pausing had swelled into rushing rivers, within an ace of stopping us and forcing a ford. We were in the headwaters of Potato Ravine, not so labeled on modern maps. The waters of Potato were captured by the "Big Pit" of the Gold Run Ditch & Mining Co. in the 1870s, and since then have flowed into the more northern shaft and out to Canyon Creek in the huge drain tunnel.
At the head of Potato, west of Canyon Creek, stands Cold Springs Hill, where volcanic ash strata of the Valley Springs Formation create a perched aquifer, and a perennial spring nurtures a meadow high on the warm southwest slopes, where Indians lived for thousands of years, and where some enterprising 49er set up a trading post.
There is every reason to believe that the original beginning of the Canyon Creek Trail was at the Cold Springs Trading Post. Potato Ravine formed a kind of pass leading out of the gorge of Canyon Creek. In yet another meadow, also associated to the perched aquifer in the headwaters of Potato, were grown the very potatoes which gave the ravine its name, in 1849 or 1850.
If one is very clever and practiced using Google, one can find the diary of a doctor who spent the summer of 1849 near this trading post. Lamentably, we learn very little of this area from the doctor's diary. A mention of the impossibly steep cliffs of the North Fork (probably referring to Giant Gap), a mention of huge pines near the trading post (the Eocene river channel, unrecognized at that time, had evolved deep soils, and well-watered as well; we should imagine Ponderosa and Sugar pines, up to eight feet in diameter).
Soon we were beside Canyon Creek, high and loud and fast and a little muddy after the night of drenching downpours. Across the bridge, the roar of the first big waterfall greeted us well before it came in view. The Leaper was far beyond the fire-hose aspect of lower flows, and was a confused mass of white water bridging the little chasm-notch beside it with great force and sound and fury.
As the main North Fork canyon hove into view to the south, the last shreds of fog were already lifting and dissipating, and the clouds above were lifting as well, their bases already thousands of feet above. The showers had ended.
More and more flowers are appearing along the CCT, and really it bids fair to be an exceptional year for the things. In some years one wades through forests of flowers. Other years, drier years, they are much reduced in size and number.
The creek was raging into and through the amazing Inner Gorge, a corkscrew chasm with mist and thunder rising from hidden waterfalls. We took the steep cross-country route down to the base of the Big Waterfall, perhaps 120 feet high, which splits into two falls in high flows. It was generating an impressive cloud of spray, which drifted all around us, a hundred yards away.
I have been there several times when the creek carried *much* more water, and a kind of hurricane of mist sweeps over the very spot we were standing, and one is almost instantly soaked.
An ephemeral stream spilled down the cliffs across the creek, those remarkable steep slabs broken on right angles to make gigantic overhangs. In fact, the steep cliffs around the base of the Big Waterfall make it a hazardous place; rocks crash down frequently, and smash to smithereens of shards on the big rounded bosses of bedrock along the creek. Large sluice boxes were once mounted below the falls, and the stout iron pins in the rock, which somehow (using cables, I guess) anchored the boxes, have been smashed down flat by flood events, probably many decades ago. The pins are unchanged since I first saw them, in 1977 or 1978.
The sun broke through suddenly, and a rainbow played in the mist. We continued down the Big Waterfall Trail, past The Terraces, to the Canyon Creek Trail, and soon thereafter, struck away east on the HOUT.
The clouds thinned and the sun rapidly warmed the canyon wall, lush in spring grasses, mosses, flowers, and ferns. Last week no fewer than four ticks dug into my hide, during a hike on the HOUT. They are quite a nuisance in the rainy season, yet seem to disappear when summer comes.
Bogus Ravine, on the west side of Bogus Spur, named for Bogus Point, far above us on the canyon rim, was full of whitewater. We crossed without incident and soon reached strangely steep Croquet Meadow, just beyond where the River Trail forks right. There Alex decided to stop, but Catherine was of course ready to forge ahead to the overlooks on Big West Spur. Not a shred of fog remained, but some rather glorious cumulus clouds drifted here and there, draping shadows over the two-thousand-foot cliffs.
Here as elsewhere the world was alive with the sound of water and waterfalls; every little ravine in Giant Gap had its own long series of cascades and falls, and the North Fork itself must have been flowing near a thousand cubic feet per second, and was still a mite muddy, or at least, not its usual picture of clear clarity.
We had found the sweater, so full of holes, I had left along the trail last week, the very sweater which actually inspired "darn it, darn it!" Now, as we followed the HOUT east towards Big West Spur, we saw that the "true" line of the HOUT was above us, in trees and brush. At a certain point we found the HOUT's tiny bench cut and decided to explore back west towards Croquet Meadow: perhaps the original line of the trail could be restored.
Catherine set her pack down on the narrow trail, and I watched stupidly while it slowly turned over and began to roll away, straight down. It was almost stopped by a fallen Digger Pine, but snuck beneath its trunk and turned into a little cyclone of mass and momentum, making glad leaps and bounds and spinning away out of sight.
This changed everything. We decided to let Alex know where things stood, but on reaching Croquet he was gone, already away on the return trail. We dropped to the River Trail in hopes the pack had hung up in the brush somewhere, rather than plunging directly into the North Fork, below. No sign. We split up and I climbed back up to where it had first escaped. Then, climbing right back down the fall line, I passed the fallen pine and carelessly dislodged a good-sized rock, which instantly whirled away on its own trip to the river. Unless Catherine had veered east, she was safe, but I shouted out warnings in any case. As it went out of sight a spot of color caught my eye.
Descending, I grabbed the pack and set out west, to find Catherine scouting open grassy slopes below the River Trail. A water bag and umbrella were still missing, and we took a quick look but could find no trace of either.
Now three in the afternoon, it was prudent to retreat, rather than push on to Big West. We enjoyed a nice hike into the westering sun, enlivened somewhat when I left my GPS unit at Bogus Ravine, and had to run back over a quarter-mile of rough trail to retrieve it, while Catherine waited.
Despite these minor calamities it was a wonderful day in the great canyon. We reached our cars a little before day's end, a little wet and bedraggled, but quite pleased to have acted on impulse and taken the path less traveled.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Damage to Big Granite Trail: update
Last fall word came in from Tom Martin of Alta that the historic Big Granite Trail (BGT) had suffered new and additional damage from logging operations.
The BGT originally connected Cisco on the north to the North Fork American River on the south, and beyond to the La Trinidad Mine in Sailor Canyon. See the Cisco Grove and Duncan Peak USGS 7.5-minute map quadrangles.
The more northern parts of the BGT became roads long ago, for instance "The Grade" is what a local's local calls the road from Cisco Grove up to Huysink Lake. This road shows on a map from 1902. Currently one accesses the BGT by driving past Huysink towards Pelham Flat. An unmarked road left leads to the trail. Descending, one enters Four Horse Flat, where the original line of the BGT was destroyed by logging, some ten or fifteen years ago.
It is in this same area where new damage occurred last fall. The snow fell before I had a chance to get in there. Two lumber companies own land there, intermeshed with Tahoe National Forest (TNF) lands: Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI; famous for clearcuts) and another outfit called CHY. It turns out both have timber harvest plans, either approved (SPI) or pending approval (CHY) in the area. I was unable to determine "who done it."
I obtained the CHY and SPI harvest plans from the CA Department of Forestry (CDF), and wrote a letter to Deputy Chief Bill Schultz, complaining of the damage to a truly great and wondrous historic trail. This trail makes, I'd say, the very most scenic entrance into the North Fork canyon of all the old trails.
Now, it is remarkable and horrible that, in a frenzy of timber harvests in the 1960s, very many of our historic trails were ruined, utterly obliterated. What I find strange is that the process continues to this very day.
I copied my CDF letter to Governor Schwarzenegger, for I have a feeling, an odd feeling, that almost nobody in our State or our County governments has the slightest inkling that these historic public trails are being ripped up by bulldozers.
Today I received a letter from Dale Geldert, Director of CDF, in which he writes "Governor Schwarzenegger has asked us to respond to your letter regarding harvesting practices and protection of historic trails in the North Fork of the American River." Geldert goes on to remark that the CHY harvest plan is still under review and that no decision will be made until the snow melts and on-the-ground inspections can be made by CDF personnel.
I also learn, from John Betts, an archeologist who has worked hard to preserve and document petroglyphs in the Sierra, and who once worked for CDF, that CDF almost never hears from people who care about historic trails. It is so far off CDF radar that one might lose hope; but John says what is really needed is people like us making comments on timber harvest plans, and demanding the old trails be protected. John says CDF almost never hears about these trails, and often does not know they exist.
We wrote letters to CDF about such a trail at Lost Camp (south of Blue Canyon) not too long ago. The historic China Trail was actually marked as a skid trail, in the Siller Bros. Lumber Company harvest plan, that is, bulldozers were *supposed* to use the old trail to drag logs up to a landing. But our letters forced a small change, protecting the China Trail.
We couldn't stop the timber harvest at Lost Camp, but we did change the plan and protect the China Trail from what might have been very significant damage.
Such is some news about the recent damage to the Big Granite Trail. The public comment period will, it seems, remain open on the CHY harvest plan, at least until next June, when the snow will be gone, and the on-the-ground inspections can go forward.
The BGT originally connected Cisco on the north to the North Fork American River on the south, and beyond to the La Trinidad Mine in Sailor Canyon. See the Cisco Grove and Duncan Peak USGS 7.5-minute map quadrangles.
The more northern parts of the BGT became roads long ago, for instance "The Grade" is what a local's local calls the road from Cisco Grove up to Huysink Lake. This road shows on a map from 1902. Currently one accesses the BGT by driving past Huysink towards Pelham Flat. An unmarked road left leads to the trail. Descending, one enters Four Horse Flat, where the original line of the BGT was destroyed by logging, some ten or fifteen years ago.
It is in this same area where new damage occurred last fall. The snow fell before I had a chance to get in there. Two lumber companies own land there, intermeshed with Tahoe National Forest (TNF) lands: Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI; famous for clearcuts) and another outfit called CHY. It turns out both have timber harvest plans, either approved (SPI) or pending approval (CHY) in the area. I was unable to determine "who done it."
I obtained the CHY and SPI harvest plans from the CA Department of Forestry (CDF), and wrote a letter to Deputy Chief Bill Schultz, complaining of the damage to a truly great and wondrous historic trail. This trail makes, I'd say, the very most scenic entrance into the North Fork canyon of all the old trails.
Now, it is remarkable and horrible that, in a frenzy of timber harvests in the 1960s, very many of our historic trails were ruined, utterly obliterated. What I find strange is that the process continues to this very day.
I copied my CDF letter to Governor Schwarzenegger, for I have a feeling, an odd feeling, that almost nobody in our State or our County governments has the slightest inkling that these historic public trails are being ripped up by bulldozers.
Today I received a letter from Dale Geldert, Director of CDF, in which he writes "Governor Schwarzenegger has asked us to respond to your letter regarding harvesting practices and protection of historic trails in the North Fork of the American River." Geldert goes on to remark that the CHY harvest plan is still under review and that no decision will be made until the snow melts and on-the-ground inspections can be made by CDF personnel.
I also learn, from John Betts, an archeologist who has worked hard to preserve and document petroglyphs in the Sierra, and who once worked for CDF, that CDF almost never hears from people who care about historic trails. It is so far off CDF radar that one might lose hope; but John says what is really needed is people like us making comments on timber harvest plans, and demanding the old trails be protected. John says CDF almost never hears about these trails, and often does not know they exist.
We wrote letters to CDF about such a trail at Lost Camp (south of Blue Canyon) not too long ago. The historic China Trail was actually marked as a skid trail, in the Siller Bros. Lumber Company harvest plan, that is, bulldozers were *supposed* to use the old trail to drag logs up to a landing. But our letters forced a small change, protecting the China Trail.
We couldn't stop the timber harvest at Lost Camp, but we did change the plan and protect the China Trail from what might have been very significant damage.
Such is some news about the recent damage to the Big Granite Trail. The public comment period will, it seems, remain open on the CHY harvest plan, at least until next June, when the snow will be gone, and the on-the-ground inspections can go forward.
CDF Contact Info
Henry Calanchini reminds me that I often neglect to provide contact info; for instance, if it is important to let CDF know we care about historic trails, then let's have an address!
OK. So far as CDF, here's what I've got, excerpted from the snail mail letter I sent last December:
*******
December 15, 2004
William Schultz
CDF
6105 Airport Road
Redding, CA 96002
re: Timber Harvest Plan 2-04-169-PLA; damage to historic trails
Dear Mr. Schultz,
Please keep the public comment period open for THP 2-04-169-PLA; I had much difficulty in obtaining a copy, and although my telephone calls to CDF began in October, I did not get a copy until around December 10.
In the very same area is SPI's current "10% Exemption" harvest plan, 2-04EX-1061-3-PLA. I refer mainly to the basins of Big Valley and Little Granite Creek, south-flowing tributaries of the North Fork American River.
Please note that Foresthill District Ranger Richard Johnson of Tahoe National Forest tells me that TNF has contacted both CHY and SPI about further TNF land acquisitions in this area, including all of the CHY and SPI holdings in the basins of Big Valley and Little Granite Creek. I strongly support these acquisitions, which have been progressing slowly for years.
I had wrongly imagined that the devastation already caused by SPI and CHY harvests in the area was finished, and that TNF would be able to buy these lands before any further damage occurred.
[the rest omitted)
*******
Cheers,
Russell Towle
OK. So far as CDF, here's what I've got, excerpted from the snail mail letter I sent last December:
*******
December 15, 2004
William Schultz
CDF
6105 Airport Road
Redding, CA 96002
re: Timber Harvest Plan 2-04-169-PLA; damage to historic trails
Dear Mr. Schultz,
Please keep the public comment period open for THP 2-04-169-PLA; I had much difficulty in obtaining a copy, and although my telephone calls to CDF began in October, I did not get a copy until around December 10.
In the very same area is SPI's current "10% Exemption" harvest plan, 2-04EX-1061-3-PLA. I refer mainly to the basins of Big Valley and Little Granite Creek, south-flowing tributaries of the North Fork American River.
Please note that Foresthill District Ranger Richard Johnson of Tahoe National Forest tells me that TNF has contacted both CHY and SPI about further TNF land acquisitions in this area, including all of the CHY and SPI holdings in the basins of Big Valley and Little Granite Creek. I strongly support these acquisitions, which have been progressing slowly for years.
I had wrongly imagined that the devastation already caused by SPI and CHY harvests in the area was finished, and that TNF would be able to buy these lands before any further damage occurred.
[the rest omitted)
*******
Cheers,
Russell Towle
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Big West Spur
Giant Gap forms one of the most beautiful scenes in California. It was the subject of an etching by 19th-century landscape artist Thomas Moran. For a time in the 1860s there was a movement to rename it "Jehovah Gap," for such is the awe inspired by the place.
Except where invaded by granitic plutons, the bedrock of this part of the Sierra is metamorphic, sometimes referred to as the Western Metamorphic Belt, which in turn is divided into Western, Central, and Eastern belts. These "belts" are formed by one or more distinct formations, generally exposed as long linear masses, striking north, in slight contrast to the overall strike of the Sierra crest, to the northwest. A system of steep, largely inactive faults parallels and divides these belts.
For instance, here the Eastern Belt is made of the metasedimentary early-Paleozoic Shoo Fly Complex, plus those younger formations to its east, such as the Sailor Canyon and Tuttle Lake formations. The Eastern Belt is divided from the Central Belt by the serpentines and peridotites of the Melones Fault Zone, also called the Feather River Peridotite. In this area the Central Belt is composed largely by the late-Paleozoic Calaveras Complex. This "complex" has not been successfully divided into distinct formations, but here at least it shows an eastern metavolcanic series, and a western metasedimentary series.
The Calaveras rocks were once roughly flat-lying, but are now tipped up on edge. Even the volcanics seem to have been deposited in layers, which is clearly true of the metasediments. The shear conditions under which metamorphism occurred were such that a fabric or grain was imparted to the rock; and this fabric itself is mainly parallel to the bedding planes, of both the volcanics and the sediments.
The volcanics of the Calaveras frame Giant Gap. Despite the bedding planes and the metamorphic fabric, these rocks are quite massive and resistant to erosion. They are in faulted contact with the serpentines of the Melones Fault Zone to the east, and in the contact zone, Calaveras rocks show some evidence of crushing and fracturing. However, some of the most massive and resistant parts of these metavolcanics are immediately west of this fault, forming Giant Gap Ridge, The Pinnacles, and the Eminence, on the south wall of the canyon, and Red Ridge, Lovers Leap, and Big West Spur on the north.
Friday morning I met Catherine O'Riley for a walk on the HOUT. This High Old Upriver Trail forks away from the Canyon Creek Trail well down towards the river, and actually leads up the canyon into Giant Gap. In places it is quite hard to follow, it is really not much of a trail.
We parked along Garrett and crossed the Diggings to the east, picking up the Canyon Creek Trail in Potato Ravine and making good time on the downhill. Flowers began to appear at the bridge (Biscuit Root), and I was not too surprised to find the smaller of the two Canyon Creek Larkspurs already in bloom, right below Gorge Point, along with False Rue Anemone. Then there was Buckbrush, and Manroot, and Brewer's Rock Cress, and Brewer's Monkeyflower, this last quite a little jewel, with its rich magenta petals and golden throat-streaks. Overall we must have seen over a dozen different species in bloom. California Milkmaids were especially nice, on the steep east side of Big West Spur, where the HOUT plunges through an elfin forest of dwarf Canyon Live Oak.
The pattern of recent days was repeated: clear skies early, a few little puffballs late in the morning, and then cumulus clouds every which way, rapidly growing into thunderstorms, but not so closely packed as to exclude all sunlight.
In other words, it was spectacularly beautiful. As the clouds grew taller, breezes stirred and freshened into a steady west wind, which brought the ghosts of the Valley fog into the Sierra, in the form of a milky humid air-mass which threw a bit of chill over everything.
This mixture of billowing clouds and misty air made for an ethereal atmosphere not dissimilar from one of Moran's paintings. The views of the great cliffs and spires of Giant Gap was greatly enhanced by intricately-shaped patches of startlingly deep blue sky and brilliant white clouds, while below, at our level, the mist began to hide more distant parts of the canyon altogether.
We were out on Big West Spur, where the HOUT winds in and out of a series of rock-blades and ravines about 400 feet above the river, in extremely steep terrain, pretty much cliff upon cliff and rock upon rock. The wind began to chill us, so we moved from a rock-blade to a ravine, and that little bit of shelter was just enough. The force of the wind was broken, the force of the sun, repaired.
After resting and exploring and taking pictures of the Milkmaids and the sparkling clear river, rich in rapids and deep emerald pools, we decided to climb to the "first summit" of Big West Spur, where the ridge almost levels out, like the Diving Board, a mile or so to the west.
Near the summit we reached a rock tower with great views both up and down the canyon. Climbing higher, we visited a series of incredible viewpoints, and as we were also going north, it happened that we had a better and better view through Giant Gap into Green Valley. There was the Pyramid, there, Hayden Knoll, there, Sawtooth Ridge, and beyond Sawtooth, a line of storm clouds, with rain streaking to the ground, below.
It was a wonderful chiaroscuro scene, with bright and dark clouds, bright and dark cliffs, and we took many photographs. It is really one of the best of all vantage points on Giant Gap. To my amazement, we could see one of the two tunnels on the line of the HOUT, the West Tunnel, in Tunnel Gully, below Lovers Leap.
Eventually we had to leave, and made a slow yet steady march up and out of the great canyon, strangely moved by what we had seen. It was a truly great day in the North Fork.
Except where invaded by granitic plutons, the bedrock of this part of the Sierra is metamorphic, sometimes referred to as the Western Metamorphic Belt, which in turn is divided into Western, Central, and Eastern belts. These "belts" are formed by one or more distinct formations, generally exposed as long linear masses, striking north, in slight contrast to the overall strike of the Sierra crest, to the northwest. A system of steep, largely inactive faults parallels and divides these belts.
For instance, here the Eastern Belt is made of the metasedimentary early-Paleozoic Shoo Fly Complex, plus those younger formations to its east, such as the Sailor Canyon and Tuttle Lake formations. The Eastern Belt is divided from the Central Belt by the serpentines and peridotites of the Melones Fault Zone, also called the Feather River Peridotite. In this area the Central Belt is composed largely by the late-Paleozoic Calaveras Complex. This "complex" has not been successfully divided into distinct formations, but here at least it shows an eastern metavolcanic series, and a western metasedimentary series.
The Calaveras rocks were once roughly flat-lying, but are now tipped up on edge. Even the volcanics seem to have been deposited in layers, which is clearly true of the metasediments. The shear conditions under which metamorphism occurred were such that a fabric or grain was imparted to the rock; and this fabric itself is mainly parallel to the bedding planes, of both the volcanics and the sediments.
The volcanics of the Calaveras frame Giant Gap. Despite the bedding planes and the metamorphic fabric, these rocks are quite massive and resistant to erosion. They are in faulted contact with the serpentines of the Melones Fault Zone to the east, and in the contact zone, Calaveras rocks show some evidence of crushing and fracturing. However, some of the most massive and resistant parts of these metavolcanics are immediately west of this fault, forming Giant Gap Ridge, The Pinnacles, and the Eminence, on the south wall of the canyon, and Red Ridge, Lovers Leap, and Big West Spur on the north.
Friday morning I met Catherine O'Riley for a walk on the HOUT. This High Old Upriver Trail forks away from the Canyon Creek Trail well down towards the river, and actually leads up the canyon into Giant Gap. In places it is quite hard to follow, it is really not much of a trail.
We parked along Garrett and crossed the Diggings to the east, picking up the Canyon Creek Trail in Potato Ravine and making good time on the downhill. Flowers began to appear at the bridge (Biscuit Root), and I was not too surprised to find the smaller of the two Canyon Creek Larkspurs already in bloom, right below Gorge Point, along with False Rue Anemone. Then there was Buckbrush, and Manroot, and Brewer's Rock Cress, and Brewer's Monkeyflower, this last quite a little jewel, with its rich magenta petals and golden throat-streaks. Overall we must have seen over a dozen different species in bloom. California Milkmaids were especially nice, on the steep east side of Big West Spur, where the HOUT plunges through an elfin forest of dwarf Canyon Live Oak.
The pattern of recent days was repeated: clear skies early, a few little puffballs late in the morning, and then cumulus clouds every which way, rapidly growing into thunderstorms, but not so closely packed as to exclude all sunlight.
In other words, it was spectacularly beautiful. As the clouds grew taller, breezes stirred and freshened into a steady west wind, which brought the ghosts of the Valley fog into the Sierra, in the form of a milky humid air-mass which threw a bit of chill over everything.
This mixture of billowing clouds and misty air made for an ethereal atmosphere not dissimilar from one of Moran's paintings. The views of the great cliffs and spires of Giant Gap was greatly enhanced by intricately-shaped patches of startlingly deep blue sky and brilliant white clouds, while below, at our level, the mist began to hide more distant parts of the canyon altogether.
We were out on Big West Spur, where the HOUT winds in and out of a series of rock-blades and ravines about 400 feet above the river, in extremely steep terrain, pretty much cliff upon cliff and rock upon rock. The wind began to chill us, so we moved from a rock-blade to a ravine, and that little bit of shelter was just enough. The force of the wind was broken, the force of the sun, repaired.
After resting and exploring and taking pictures of the Milkmaids and the sparkling clear river, rich in rapids and deep emerald pools, we decided to climb to the "first summit" of Big West Spur, where the ridge almost levels out, like the Diving Board, a mile or so to the west.
Near the summit we reached a rock tower with great views both up and down the canyon. Climbing higher, we visited a series of incredible viewpoints, and as we were also going north, it happened that we had a better and better view through Giant Gap into Green Valley. There was the Pyramid, there, Hayden Knoll, there, Sawtooth Ridge, and beyond Sawtooth, a line of storm clouds, with rain streaking to the ground, below.
It was a wonderful chiaroscuro scene, with bright and dark clouds, bright and dark cliffs, and we took many photographs. It is really one of the best of all vantage points on Giant Gap. To my amazement, we could see one of the two tunnels on the line of the HOUT, the West Tunnel, in Tunnel Gully, below Lovers Leap.
Eventually we had to leave, and made a slow yet steady march up and out of the great canyon, strangely moved by what we had seen. It was a truly great day in the North Fork.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Conversation on Diving Board Ridge
Wednesday dawned clear and promised nothing but sun, so I felt restless, while working at my computer, and gradually inched towards outright escape. One friend was recuperating from back surgery, and needed to hike for his health. Yet another friend was visiting Dutch Flat from Germany, and had expressed interest in seeing this--this what-you-may-call-it--this "Diving Board Ridge," upon which I had bestowed such extravagant praise, and over which I had lavished such impeccable prose.
Considering these facts, it seemed proper to make some telephone calls, for business must be done, and soon enough I was throwing a sandwich and a camera in my pack, and out the door I sallied, into freedom. And sunshine.
At the Gold Run exit of eastbound I-80 I lay in wait, hard against the massive stone monument, built by the Lord Sholto Chapter of the high and puissant E Clampus Vitus in 1984; built to bear the bronze tablet naming Gold Run a State Historical Landmark. The bronze was originally installed in 1950, but construction of I-80 forced its removal to this new place.
They arrived, and Alex and I piled into Ed and Ingrid's SUV to make the two miles drive south on Garrett Road, to the BLM gate, and parking.
Recently I have heard yet again from someone who innocently drove out Garrett, hoping to hike on the public lands there, lands administered by the BLM; and Garrett passes entirely onto BLM lands, without any sign that a boundary has been crossed (tho suddenly, the trees are much larger); and that person drove until Garrett seems to dwindle into a private driveway, with a home quite near.
And that person was sure he was trespassing, and gave up, and turned around. Not the first time I have heard of just this thing.
Here, towards the end of Garrett, you are still on BLM lands, but it sure doesn't look that way. Immediately past the house, the road bends east and loses all surfacing; no pavement, no gravel. And a hundred yards along is the huge green BLM gate.
This road shows on the 1866 General Land Office map as connecting the town of Gold Run to a certain section corner in Indiana Ravine, on the edge of the North Fork canyon; and it is labeled "Road to the Mines."
The road stays just south of the gold-bearing Eocene gravels of the Gold Run Diggings proper. One could walk this road without ever realizing that a wilderness of raw gravel ridges and boulders and hollows and hills of every type, lay a stone's throw away, over a band of manzanita. From here, the Diggings extend about two miles north to I-80.
We followed this Road to the Mines along the rim of the canyon, bearing generally east, but winding back and forth wildly, through groves of Whiteleaf Manzanita and Knobcone Pine, past the Pickering Bar Trail (unmarked, in a flat, breaking south into heavy manzanita, between two tall pines), to the overlook nearby.
An amazing view of Giant Gap opens from here, framing parts of Green Valley and the Sawtooth Ridge and the even more distant snow peaks, in the background. Truly amazing.
Continuing down the road, we were all hemmed in and overhung by manzanita. The road ends in what used to be a turn-around, but now is half-covered by a fallen Kellogg's Black Oak. I remember driving my VW Bug down here, several times, in the late 1970s. I would follow the little track down to the little ravine, cross, and then explore the Secret World.
This can be quite an adventure, for the Secret World has, well, many secrets. It is a smallish world, I mean, a smallish hydraulic mining pit, closed off on three sides, west, north, and east, to the rest of the Diggings and the rest of the World, by high banks and cliffs of gravel. To the south it opens into the North Fork canyon, and Indiana Ravine plunges over the edge, into a long series of waterfalls, reaching the river at Pickering Bar.
If one bears south upon entering the Secret World from the west, via the tributary ravine at the end of the road, you will find some awesome sluice cuts in the solid rock, places where narrow grooves were hacked and blasted to a depth of twenty feet. A patient exploration of these deep miniature canyons will lead one up and out on the east, into big boulder piles, and quite near to the site of the stamp mill which earned this place its name, the "Mill Claim" on the ancient maps, from the 1860s and 1870s.
For, the deep gravels could be very strongly cemented, and yet quite rich in gold. So they had to be smashed up fine, before running them into a sluice box.
Or, if one bears north on entering the Secret World, one can visit the Stone Cabin, built by gold miner Byron Emric in the 1930s or so. Or one can wend away north to the Great Wall of the Ultimate End, the Ultima Thule, as it were, of the Secret World, where a mine tunnel gives easy access through a high gravel ridge, into the main Diggings.
No, it's quite the special place. Take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints, and as few of those as can be managed.
We followed a loopy path to the Stone Cabin and on across boulder piles dating from the Chinese era of mining here, when the era of drift mining had ended, the stamp mill, likely hauled away, and all that remained was for Tia Sing and his gang of coolies to turn the water over the old drifting ground, and wash it all down to bedrock, and then clean that bedrock with a patience and a care which eked out steady, and possibly good, rewards.
Since the Mill Claim is described in operation by newspapers of the 1870s, and hydraulic mining at Gold Run stopped in 1882, Tia Sing and his men likely made the Secret World around 1880.
To clean the exposed bedrock floor of the Eocene river meant moving all those boulders which had once been in the sediments, but were too large for the sluice boxes, and were piled to this side and that as occasion demanded, until all the ground had been gone over with a fine-toothed comb. If the bedrock was rotten, it would be pickaxed and blasted up, and the debris carefully scraped up and carried to the upper end of the nearest sluice box.
It seems Tia Sing had a derrick, for there are some huge boulders in the Secret World, piled high.
Climbing the east wall of the World near Stone Cabin, we struck a certain secret trail across the Diggings and filed through a pass to the Indiana Hill Ditch, completed on September 13, 1852. Later, one Osmyn Harkness came into sole possession of the IHD; he also owned mines at Gold Run and Lost Camp. It is Osmyn Harkness's old patented hydraulic claim at Lost Camp (1872) which eventually fell into the hands of Siller Brothers Lumber Company. That is, in consequence of Osmyn Harkness's noble efforts, in the 1870s, to tear the living hell out of the land and pollute Blue Canyon and the North Fork with mercury and mud, Siller has now won approval for a drastic timber harvest over 560 acres of ridge and canyon.
Our secret trail crossed the IHD and plunged into the North Fork canyon. The roar of the river could be heard, far below. Winding through live oak woods, always descending, we intersected the old Lumber Slide, after which Trail never strayed far from Slide.
The Slide was used to drag big bundles of sawed lumber down the ridge-crest, and working the stuff all the way down into Canyon Creek and Indiana Ravine, to the east and west. Both these ravines carried tailings in quantity, and were worked as "tailings claims," all fitted with big sluice boxes, at least, between waterfalls. One can still see many of the monstrous iron pins and bolts set in the bedrock beside Canyon Creek; cables once connected the sluice boxes to these bolts and pins, and kept the boxes from breaking up or being swept away, under the tremendous mass and force of the streaming mine tailings.
Great views are had of the Big Waterfall in Canyon Creek, from along the Diving Board Trail.
After passing some impressive rock retaining walls, we reached the Diving Board itself. The ridge profile flattens to level, and a cute little flat spreads across the summit, all sheltered by Canyon Live Oaks, with overlooks nearby, one facing east, the other, west. We admired the views very much; they are extraordinary. One is so central to the axis of the canyon, when perched upon that promontory, that great distances unfold within its vista. Lovers Leap and the Pinnacles are silhouetted against the sky, and we watched cloud shadows chase across the ruddy cliffs and spires.
We had the time, over at sunny West Overlook, to indulge in sophisticated conversation, of the sort ordinary folk could never hope to understand, or how much less, attain to themselves. For instance: I suggested that, if one needed a sweater repaired, and one was mad at the sweater-repair person, one might well exclaim, "Darn it, darn it!"
My "Darn it, darn it" was swiftly and unanimously classified as the lowest form of all that which might imagine itself to be humor, but which could not now, nor ever in any future, any planet, nor even any galaxy, actually be counted as humor, at least, not by a sane and sentient being.
Well. I'm not so sure. I think it's funny.
Then Alex launched into a passionate exposition, or it might, I think, have been a diatribe, and his subject was 1919, and Versailles, and Lloyd George, and President Wilson's Fourteen Points of Light.
The fates of nations were being decided for once and for all, it seems, and Alex was building, building; building in intensity, and in fervor and intelligence, until, almost gasping, or even stuttering, under the burden of the Terrible Truths which sprang so relentlessly into his mind's eye, he deduced there could be but one way to "clearly clarify" the problem.
This brought a series of objections and raised eyebrows and remonstrances into play. If we were to allow Alex to "clearly clarify" any problem whatsoever, we must perforce allow Russell to say "Darn it, darn it" whenever he wished. And this was no easy thing to allow.
We had already strayed into a similar area, trying to compose a limerick about limericks.
So it was a very nice day, and we were really tremendously inspired by our own stimulating conversation. We could and did listen to ourselves well-nigh all day long.
Eventually we climbed back up the trail, and out and around and through the Diggings on a new and different line, and at last reached Ingrid's SUV. We were in good time; I would not be late picking up my son from school.
But the SUV's battery was dead, and no amount of clear clarification or darned darnings could restore it to life. That required the husky little Toyota 4WD and jumper cables of John Davenport, who lives in an old hydraulic mining reservoir, a couple hundred yards away.
So all was well and it was another great day in the North Fork. The tiny puffball clouds of morning had grown into many immensely tall and unbalanced giants of the afternoon, giants which put miles of land into shade at a time. These too-tall clouds were utterly and spectacularly beautiful. Finally they grew into so many Frankensteinian laboratories, so many dark hearts wrapped in brilliant white, where monsters were made all in secret, amid thunders and lightnings of every kind.
Of course, one never actually *sees* the monsters hammered out in those secret sky-factories; they are, after all, secret.
It's enough just to know they're there.
Considering these facts, it seemed proper to make some telephone calls, for business must be done, and soon enough I was throwing a sandwich and a camera in my pack, and out the door I sallied, into freedom. And sunshine.
At the Gold Run exit of eastbound I-80 I lay in wait, hard against the massive stone monument, built by the Lord Sholto Chapter of the high and puissant E Clampus Vitus in 1984; built to bear the bronze tablet naming Gold Run a State Historical Landmark. The bronze was originally installed in 1950, but construction of I-80 forced its removal to this new place.
They arrived, and Alex and I piled into Ed and Ingrid's SUV to make the two miles drive south on Garrett Road, to the BLM gate, and parking.
Recently I have heard yet again from someone who innocently drove out Garrett, hoping to hike on the public lands there, lands administered by the BLM; and Garrett passes entirely onto BLM lands, without any sign that a boundary has been crossed (tho suddenly, the trees are much larger); and that person drove until Garrett seems to dwindle into a private driveway, with a home quite near.
And that person was sure he was trespassing, and gave up, and turned around. Not the first time I have heard of just this thing.
Here, towards the end of Garrett, you are still on BLM lands, but it sure doesn't look that way. Immediately past the house, the road bends east and loses all surfacing; no pavement, no gravel. And a hundred yards along is the huge green BLM gate.
This road shows on the 1866 General Land Office map as connecting the town of Gold Run to a certain section corner in Indiana Ravine, on the edge of the North Fork canyon; and it is labeled "Road to the Mines."
The road stays just south of the gold-bearing Eocene gravels of the Gold Run Diggings proper. One could walk this road without ever realizing that a wilderness of raw gravel ridges and boulders and hollows and hills of every type, lay a stone's throw away, over a band of manzanita. From here, the Diggings extend about two miles north to I-80.
We followed this Road to the Mines along the rim of the canyon, bearing generally east, but winding back and forth wildly, through groves of Whiteleaf Manzanita and Knobcone Pine, past the Pickering Bar Trail (unmarked, in a flat, breaking south into heavy manzanita, between two tall pines), to the overlook nearby.
An amazing view of Giant Gap opens from here, framing parts of Green Valley and the Sawtooth Ridge and the even more distant snow peaks, in the background. Truly amazing.
Continuing down the road, we were all hemmed in and overhung by manzanita. The road ends in what used to be a turn-around, but now is half-covered by a fallen Kellogg's Black Oak. I remember driving my VW Bug down here, several times, in the late 1970s. I would follow the little track down to the little ravine, cross, and then explore the Secret World.
This can be quite an adventure, for the Secret World has, well, many secrets. It is a smallish world, I mean, a smallish hydraulic mining pit, closed off on three sides, west, north, and east, to the rest of the Diggings and the rest of the World, by high banks and cliffs of gravel. To the south it opens into the North Fork canyon, and Indiana Ravine plunges over the edge, into a long series of waterfalls, reaching the river at Pickering Bar.
If one bears south upon entering the Secret World from the west, via the tributary ravine at the end of the road, you will find some awesome sluice cuts in the solid rock, places where narrow grooves were hacked and blasted to a depth of twenty feet. A patient exploration of these deep miniature canyons will lead one up and out on the east, into big boulder piles, and quite near to the site of the stamp mill which earned this place its name, the "Mill Claim" on the ancient maps, from the 1860s and 1870s.
For, the deep gravels could be very strongly cemented, and yet quite rich in gold. So they had to be smashed up fine, before running them into a sluice box.
Or, if one bears north on entering the Secret World, one can visit the Stone Cabin, built by gold miner Byron Emric in the 1930s or so. Or one can wend away north to the Great Wall of the Ultimate End, the Ultima Thule, as it were, of the Secret World, where a mine tunnel gives easy access through a high gravel ridge, into the main Diggings.
No, it's quite the special place. Take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints, and as few of those as can be managed.
We followed a loopy path to the Stone Cabin and on across boulder piles dating from the Chinese era of mining here, when the era of drift mining had ended, the stamp mill, likely hauled away, and all that remained was for Tia Sing and his gang of coolies to turn the water over the old drifting ground, and wash it all down to bedrock, and then clean that bedrock with a patience and a care which eked out steady, and possibly good, rewards.
Since the Mill Claim is described in operation by newspapers of the 1870s, and hydraulic mining at Gold Run stopped in 1882, Tia Sing and his men likely made the Secret World around 1880.
To clean the exposed bedrock floor of the Eocene river meant moving all those boulders which had once been in the sediments, but were too large for the sluice boxes, and were piled to this side and that as occasion demanded, until all the ground had been gone over with a fine-toothed comb. If the bedrock was rotten, it would be pickaxed and blasted up, and the debris carefully scraped up and carried to the upper end of the nearest sluice box.
It seems Tia Sing had a derrick, for there are some huge boulders in the Secret World, piled high.
Climbing the east wall of the World near Stone Cabin, we struck a certain secret trail across the Diggings and filed through a pass to the Indiana Hill Ditch, completed on September 13, 1852. Later, one Osmyn Harkness came into sole possession of the IHD; he also owned mines at Gold Run and Lost Camp. It is Osmyn Harkness's old patented hydraulic claim at Lost Camp (1872) which eventually fell into the hands of Siller Brothers Lumber Company. That is, in consequence of Osmyn Harkness's noble efforts, in the 1870s, to tear the living hell out of the land and pollute Blue Canyon and the North Fork with mercury and mud, Siller has now won approval for a drastic timber harvest over 560 acres of ridge and canyon.
Our secret trail crossed the IHD and plunged into the North Fork canyon. The roar of the river could be heard, far below. Winding through live oak woods, always descending, we intersected the old Lumber Slide, after which Trail never strayed far from Slide.
The Slide was used to drag big bundles of sawed lumber down the ridge-crest, and working the stuff all the way down into Canyon Creek and Indiana Ravine, to the east and west. Both these ravines carried tailings in quantity, and were worked as "tailings claims," all fitted with big sluice boxes, at least, between waterfalls. One can still see many of the monstrous iron pins and bolts set in the bedrock beside Canyon Creek; cables once connected the sluice boxes to these bolts and pins, and kept the boxes from breaking up or being swept away, under the tremendous mass and force of the streaming mine tailings.
Great views are had of the Big Waterfall in Canyon Creek, from along the Diving Board Trail.
After passing some impressive rock retaining walls, we reached the Diving Board itself. The ridge profile flattens to level, and a cute little flat spreads across the summit, all sheltered by Canyon Live Oaks, with overlooks nearby, one facing east, the other, west. We admired the views very much; they are extraordinary. One is so central to the axis of the canyon, when perched upon that promontory, that great distances unfold within its vista. Lovers Leap and the Pinnacles are silhouetted against the sky, and we watched cloud shadows chase across the ruddy cliffs and spires.
We had the time, over at sunny West Overlook, to indulge in sophisticated conversation, of the sort ordinary folk could never hope to understand, or how much less, attain to themselves. For instance: I suggested that, if one needed a sweater repaired, and one was mad at the sweater-repair person, one might well exclaim, "Darn it, darn it!"
My "Darn it, darn it" was swiftly and unanimously classified as the lowest form of all that which might imagine itself to be humor, but which could not now, nor ever in any future, any planet, nor even any galaxy, actually be counted as humor, at least, not by a sane and sentient being.
Well. I'm not so sure. I think it's funny.
Then Alex launched into a passionate exposition, or it might, I think, have been a diatribe, and his subject was 1919, and Versailles, and Lloyd George, and President Wilson's Fourteen Points of Light.
The fates of nations were being decided for once and for all, it seems, and Alex was building, building; building in intensity, and in fervor and intelligence, until, almost gasping, or even stuttering, under the burden of the Terrible Truths which sprang so relentlessly into his mind's eye, he deduced there could be but one way to "clearly clarify" the problem.
This brought a series of objections and raised eyebrows and remonstrances into play. If we were to allow Alex to "clearly clarify" any problem whatsoever, we must perforce allow Russell to say "Darn it, darn it" whenever he wished. And this was no easy thing to allow.
We had already strayed into a similar area, trying to compose a limerick about limericks.
So it was a very nice day, and we were really tremendously inspired by our own stimulating conversation. We could and did listen to ourselves well-nigh all day long.
Eventually we climbed back up the trail, and out and around and through the Diggings on a new and different line, and at last reached Ingrid's SUV. We were in good time; I would not be late picking up my son from school.
But the SUV's battery was dead, and no amount of clear clarification or darned darnings could restore it to life. That required the husky little Toyota 4WD and jumper cables of John Davenport, who lives in an old hydraulic mining reservoir, a couple hundred yards away.
So all was well and it was another great day in the North Fork. The tiny puffball clouds of morning had grown into many immensely tall and unbalanced giants of the afternoon, giants which put miles of land into shade at a time. These too-tall clouds were utterly and spectacularly beautiful. Finally they grew into so many Frankensteinian laboratories, so many dark hearts wrapped in brilliant white, where monsters were made all in secret, amid thunders and lightnings of every kind.
Of course, one never actually *sees* the monsters hammered out in those secret sky-factories; they are, after all, secret.
It's enough just to know they're there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)