Two weeks ago, I went to the abandoned gold mine of Cape Horn Tunnel in Humbug Canyon. Today I returned to the canyon for some more exploring. I wanted to see if there were abandoned gold mines down an unimproved road I had no time to visit on the previous trip. I found that there can be a big difference between what's on a topographic map and what actually exists.
Leaving the Sacramento Valley, I drove up Interstate 80 to Auburn, and then took the road to the old mining town of Foresthill. I traveled another thirteen miles to China Wall Staging Area, where I parked my truck. No other vehicles were about. This parking lot is just above the snow line. When the snows come, the lot will be filled with trucks pulling trailers with snowmobiles. I put on my day pack and went on my way. The temperature was in the mid thirties. Frost was on the ground. The elevation here is five thousand feet. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Leaves had fallen from the deciduous trees. Most trees here are conifers.
I wound my way among the manzanita along the canyon rim. My route paralleled a water ditch once used for mining operations. No water runs through it now. I wonder if the ditch was built with Chinese labor, giving it the name China Wall. There's no wall around here, only this ditch. From the rim I could see six miles to Iron Point, the start of Euchre Bar Trail from the Alta side. Euchre Bar is my favorite trail. Indeed, this vast canyon, with its long stretch of the upper North Fork American River, is my playground. I've been to the canyon many times, yet I've seen only a small fraction of it. The rugged terrain alone will keep the vast majority of it out of my reach.
Rugged terrain, yet the early miners apparently scrambled over every square inch of it in their search for gold. After all, they sunk mine shafts in many remote places. I think the hillsides were far more accessible in the early years of the Gold Rush. I haven't researched this, but I think the Indians here used fire to clear the underbrush, as did the Indians in the Eastern forests, to give game such as deer room to thrive. When the first miners arrived, they easily walked about the forest. Later, the miners cut down the trees and suppressed the fires, and now the forest floor is choked with brush. Casual hikers like me aren't going to leave the unimproved roads or trails and plunge into that brush. So I'll never see most of this canyon up close. I can only go so far from a trail or dirt road.
Back to the object of my visit today: to walk down the unimproved road in search of abandoned gold mines.
The topographic map had a discrepancy - the unimproved road was shown as a foot trail. At about one hundred yards, a small tree had fallen across the road. I walked under it. Soon there were small manzanita bushes and pine saplings growing in the road. It had been years since a vehicle had come down here. And then the road completely diverged from the foot trail on the map. With the map loaded in my Magellan Triton GPS, my waypoint was in the woods with no trail nearby, although I was still on the road. I continued on a bit, until the vegetation in the road simply blocked progress. I shouldn't have gone this far. I had left a map at home giving my intended route, and I wasn't following it. Since I was alone, this wasn't a good idea. So I turned around.
I didn't see any abandoned mines along this route. Perhaps this had been a logging road many years ago.
I walked uphill and returned to my truck. My little exploration this day had revealed nothing of real interest. But it had been a pleasant hike nonetheless.
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