Three Trees on the Trail

Today I hiked Euchre Bar Trail, my goal the Southern Cross Mine, but when I reached the third downed tree, I decided to turn around.

No other vehicles were at the Iron Point trailhead when I arrived at 8:15. The clear skies and cool temperatures promised perfect hiking weather. In my Osprey pack were a fleece jacket, knit cap, and fire making items, to keep me through a chilly night in the deep canyon should circumstances dictate - a twisted ankle or being half-eaten by a mountain lion or such. I've never encountered another hiker beyond the bridge, and didn't expect to see one today. I wound down the steep trail. A westbound Union Pacific freight train some one thousand feet above me broke the silence. Soon I could hear the roar of the river. I reached the footbridge over the North Fork American River. There was no wind, and the surface of the water was like glass.

Iron Point Trailhead

Some twenty minutes after crossing the river, I reached a downed pine tree with a trunk diameter of about thirty inches. The needles were still green. The roots, now reaching into the air, had taken up large chunks of slate. The slate is part of the Shoo Fly complex, the oldest rocks of the Sierra Nevada, and in the slate can be found veins of quartz containing gold. I looked for quartz in this exposed slate, but saw none. I wound around the roots, crawled over the trunk, and continued on my hike.

I reached the second fallen tree, which I had seen on my last hike here (2014, I think). The bark had fallen off the trunk. I crawled over the trunk and continued on.

This section of trail is very beautiful, with the several emerald-green pools below. I passed a pile of stones at a level spot overlooking the river. I'm sure the Forty Niners put up these stones for a cabin or tent site during the Gold Rush. About the ground are chunks of quartz the miners pulled out of the hillsides. The rocks are now covered in moss.

A bit later I reached the third downed tree, too large to crawl over. Others had made a path up and over the roots. I looked at this obstacle and considered my situation. I was by myself, the mine was a good half mile away, and there might be more downed trees. If I needed to reach the mine, I could try the route from Foresthill Divide through Dorer Ranch. I considered everything, and decided to have lunch at my gold panning spot.

View from the trail to my gold panning spot

The river was at the lowest level I had ever seen, a good two feet below normal judging from the moss on the rocks. I'll return soon with a bucket, shovel, and gold pan, but today I simply enjoyed the scenery. Small trout rose to the surface. Frogs hopped about. During spring snow melts, in years without drought, I've seen the river running so hard that getting caught in the current meant certain death, and I've heard the clunk of boulders the size of basketballs moving downstream. But today I could have crossed the river without getting my knees wet. I finished my lunch and poked around the bar. People camp here. Someone had left behind a piece of quartz taken from a nearby vein. I'm sure they had taken several pieces, but left this one as it contained so little gold it was not worth carrying out of the canyon. I left the rock, so that others could find it and see the gold. Also at the bar was the rusted wheel of an ore cart from some mine around here.

Gold-bearing quartz

I wonder if this is where Thomas Lane met his end. From the Daily Alta California of July 2, 1855:

I made the 1800 foot ascent without needing to stop and rest. I did briefly talk with two men in their thirties hiking down to the river, the only others I saw on the trail this day. They didn't intend to go beyond the bridge. Few people do. Here may be the reason the trail from Iron Point to the river is well maintained, while the section from the river to Dorer Ranch is blocked with downed trees - it's a matter of use. Or maybe the Forest Service doesn't have the staffing or funds to remove those large trees. (The Forest Service website says that no trail maintenance has been done since 2013.) Perhaps it's intentional neglect. This is a designated Wild and Scenic River, and since few use the section of trail, why not let it revert to its wild state?

Placer Big Trees Grove

As if there aren't wonders enough in Placer County, we even have our own grove of Giant Sequoia trees. This northernmost grove was discovered by a prospector in 1855. Six Giant Sequoias are standing. One is named after a state senator from Placer County (Lardner). Three are named after Allied commanders from the Great War (Haig, Joffre, and Pershing). Two remain unnamed. While the Joffre Tree is the tallest (250 ft), the Pershing Tree (225 ft) is the largest by volume, its trunk 12 feet in diameter at breast height. These Giant Sequoia are small compared to their southern cousins.

I visited the grove on June 4th. It had been many years since my last visit.

In Foresthill I stopped by Worton's Market to consult the map, and to take in the wonder of the vast canyon of the Middle Fork American River. Nearby were about a half-dozen Forest Service workers who had stopped for supplies. With their trucks and trailers and all terrain vehicles, plus their shovels and ropes and assorted other gear, they were clearly heading out to the wilderness for some hard work. They were in their late twenties and early thirties, all men except for the one woman. From my queries I learned their job was to seal the entrances of abandoned mines. What a dream job to have.

A short distance beyond, I turned onto Mosquito Ridge Road, which follows the Middle Fork. I stopped in places to examine walls of slate twisted in crazy angles from subduction. Long ago there had been a mile or two of slate above these points, but those rocks eroded away and now fill the level Sacramento Valley.

I crossed the bridge over the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the American River. With easy access to the river, many people try their hand at finding gold around here. I've worked gravels upriver myself, but found little color. At the side of the road was a pile of camping and prospecting gear. I stopped and got out and looked out from atop the bridge. I saw the owners of the gear off in the distance, carrying more items up trail. I wondered how their luck went finding gold.

I continued up Mosquito Ridge Road. The views of the canyon were magnificent, but I had to pay attention to the road to keep from driving off it.

I left warm and sunny conditions in the Valley. The weather can change quickly in the mountains. Around Milepost 23 (I think at 4500 feet) the temperature had cooled by some fifteen degrees, and there was briefly a light rain.

I took the turnoff to the Placer Big Trees Grove, and soon reached the parking lot. Only one other vehicle was there, and the occupants (two young men with two dogs) were departing the trailhead as I got out of my truck. So with them a good way ahead of me, I essentially was alone on this half-mile trail. I took an interpretive booklet and commenced my walk. The cloud cover gave good diffused light for photography.

This grove is so far from the others that there has been no cross-pollination from outside Giant Sequoias, leading scientists to wonder if these trees have evolved their own genetic code. In the past century, Giant Sequoia plantations have been established around this area. Potentially in a thousand years Giant Sequoias will tower here and there. But the plantation trees may impact the genetics of the descendants of these old timers, and nobody knows if this is a good thing or not.

This is a grove. One can find individual trees. I once saw a lone Giant Sequoia by a remote trail, near Dix Mine in Placer County.

On the return drive I had this view of the canyon. Magnificent.

And one more picture of those twisted slates.

Yankee Jim's Road

"Have I been down this road before?"

The question came to mind while braking my Ford F150 pickup truck in low gear as I wound down the narrow primitive road named Yankee Jim's. The Colfax and Forest Hill Commercial Toll Road Company carved this route through the Sierra canyons in the early 1880s. Colfax was a railroad town and Foresthill was a mining community. Yankee Jim's was a mining town on the road, near Foresthill. The toll booth at the North Fork American River crossing closed in 1906 when Placer County bought the route. The current bridge dates to 1930 and is in poor shape.

Yankee Jim, by the way, was a gold prospector and horse thief. He left his eponymous town and continued his horse thieving ways in southern California, where he ended his days at the end of a rope.

My passenger Gary is a fellow member of the Sierra Foothills Amateur Radio club. Recently finding a shared interest in gold panning, we decided to do some prospecting together, starting with today's scouting trip. Gary had last been on Yankee Jim's Road many years ago and thought it was worth a try.

Four roads go over the North Fork. The crossing furthest downstream and the most traveled is Highway 49, which follows the Mother Lode. Next is Ponderosa Road, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. Then comes Yankee Jim's Road. The fourth, higher into the Sierra, is Iowa Hill Road, built during the Gold Rush on a precipitous route, the most exciting ride in the county. Beyond that, the canyon walls become too rugged for roads, with only foot paths reaching the river, and few even then.

I've driven the other roads but I couldn't remember if I'd ever been on Yankee Jim's. It seemed familiar but I wasn't sure. The road from Colfax to the river was in good enough shape. This section was once paved but now it's gravel over a slate base. Attention is needed with all the curves. Some drivers don't pay attention and over the side they go. Rare, but it does happen: a quick Google search provided a recent account (link here) of a tow truck pulling a Honda from the North Fork just below Yankee Jim's Bridge. Since I paid attention we easily reached the old bridge without incident.

The next turn-around after the bridge was a mile and a half away. We didn't know this, nor did we know that the most interesting section of road was just ahead.

The grade increased. Clearance on both sides narrowed to a few feet. The canyon dropped steeply to Shirttail Creek some one hundred fifty feet below. These factors by themselves meant only increased attention was needed for the ascent; but, with the dirt and gravel surface slick from the rain two days before, and the road getting more uneven, the prospects for continuing in my two-wheel drive truck were not good. Should we proceed, when the road could be even worse beyond the bend? I didn't want to get stuck - the tow would cost more than what my 18-year-old truck was worth. Sliding off the road was the worst scenario: I pictured my crumpled truck resting upside down at the bottom of the ravine, with Gary and me trapped inside as the waters of Shirttail Creek filled the cab. Backing the truck one-third mile to the bridge would be slow and difficult. Right now this rugged canyon country didn't look so charming.

We decided that Gary would walk the road ahead to check conditions. He had to squeeze out of the cab, for the canyon wall partially blocked the door. We programmed a simplex frequency into our two-meter handheld radios. Gary disappeared around the bend. Reports came that the road was improving. After some ten minutes he told me to proceed, that he had reached a road crew. I started the truck, put it in low gear, released the parking brake, and gave it the gas. My truck kept its traction on the area of concern.

I reached Gary and the road crew, two men with a grader and a truck, at a bend where my truck could pass. We spoke with the two for a few minutes, and then we continued. I drove slowly over the freshly-graded dirt to maintain traction. The travel was fine. We reached Mexican Gulch, at the turnoff to Shirttail Creek Road, and worked a few pans of gravel. After finding only a few small specks of gold, nothing of interest, we continued on to Yankee Jim's. In the early years of the Gold Rush this was one of the largest communities in Placer County. Now only a few people live here. The place seemed vaguely familiar. I asked myself again if I had been up Yankee Jim's Road before. I really couldn't tell. We drove to Foresthill and exited the historic toll road.

----

That journey was on Thursday, April 9. I wanted to get a better idea of the road, one that would come only from a walk, so I returned to Yankee Jim's Road by myself on Monday, April 13.

I approached Yankee Jim's Road from the Colfax side, and parked next to where the pavement ends and the primitive road begins. The bridge was 3.5 miles away. The elevation here is 1875 feet. I started the walk down Bunch Canyon a few minutes after nine o'clock.

Posted signs tell the traveler not to stray beyond the road. Such notices in these parts, where a frontier mentality persists, are best heeded.

Reaching a long section of fence, I peered between the slats and saw an old and decrepit house below. I'm not sure if anyone lived in it.

I reached the boundary of Auburn State Recreation Area, beyond which came beautiful scenery.

The twisted and tortured rocks I passed were formed by subduction. This is the Calaveras complex. The rocks get older towards the river. I began my walk along slates from the Jurassic, passed the Gillis Hill Fault, walked by ultramafic rocks from the Triassic, and finally reached metavolcanic rocks from the Permian. Alt and Hyndman's Roadside Geology of Northern and Central California (2000) states:

The best that can be said of the Calaveras complex rocks is that they are an unholy mess, difficult to decipher in the field and impossible to describe adequately on maps or in words. The rocks include a scrambled assortment of pieces of old oceanic crust and sediments that were deposited on them, all torn up along faults, jammed into tight folds, and recrystallized into metamorphic rocks in the heat of the deep trench. Even geologists experienced in working with such rocks find it hard to stop at an outcrop and understand what they see.

Within this unholy mess formed quartz veins with gold. I passed the adits of several abandoned mines, all sealed now for safety.

More beautiful scenery. Plus, the golden poppies were in bloom.

The North Fork American River came into view.

A small landslide, likely caused by the rainstorm the previous week, partially covered the road.

I approached the bridge. A female park ranger was removing fee payments from the collection box. I reached the bridge at 11:03, after a walk of two hours. The elevation was 930 feet, so I had descended 945 feet in 3.5 miles.

After crossing the bridge I met the same grading crew from the past Thursday. They had finished their grading to the bridge and were preparing for their return to Foresthill. They remembered my truck.

I walked one-third mile to the spot where we stopped on Thursday, for Gary to get out and scout the road ahead. The coordinates were 10N 681911 4323045, elevation 1092 feet. I took a photo of the spot and the drop to the creek below.

I turned around and walked back to the truck, reaching it shortly after one o'clock. The hike had lasted four hours. I covered 7.6 miles.

I had seen only nine other people: 1) A man in his fifties on a mountain bike, and his dog, coming up from the bridge; 2) A county worker in a truck headed to the bridge; 3) A female park ranger headed to the bridge; 4 and 5) The grading crew across the bridge, with truck and grader; 6) A male park ranger approaching the bridge from Foresthill; 7) A man in a privately-owned truck approaching the bridge from Foresthill; 8 and 9) A couple in an SUV headed to the bridge from Colfax.

There's history and scenery on Yankee Jim's Road. If the road conditions are bad, there's also an interesting ride. Avoid the road after a rain due to the slick conditions. With two-wheel drive, wait until after the road graders repair all wear from the winter. Keep a close eye on the road. Pray that you don't meet an oncoming vehicle, for there are long stretches where only one vehicle can fit.

I'm looking forward to my next drive down Yankee Jim's Road to the North Fork American River, this time with my gold panning gear.

More on J.W. Beardsley

Yesterday a reader sent additional information on my April 22, 2014 post regarding Joshua Beardsley, the unfortunate miner drowned in 1876 in the North Fork American River at Green Valley, leaving behind a wife and two children in Michigan. It explained why he was taking the small boat across the river - he was going to feed his dog.

My information to this point came from old California newspapers imaged to the California Digital Newspaper Collection, a project of the Center of Bibliographical Studies and Research at the University of California, Riverside. The search engine on this site greatly speeds research.

Many more historical California newspapers have yet to be digitized. They are found in libraries, either in original form or on microfilm. I've wanted to visit the Auburn Library with its microfilm collection of Placer County newspapers. Figuring J.W. Beardsley's death would be a good search topic, today I went for a visit.

Of course I had to search for his name the old-fashioned way: page by page, column by column. No fancy computer search engines when dealing with microfilm. The rolls were kept in the drawers of a metal cabinet. Newspapers from 1876 included the Dutch Flat Forum, Placer Herald, and Placer Weekly Argus. I started with the first issue following his death, to an issue or two following the discovery of his body.

Here's what I found:

Dutch Flat Forum, April 20, 1876: "News was brought here this morning from Green Valley by J. Harper, which strongly indicates that Joshua Beardsley was accidentally drowned in the American river at that place last Monday night. He was seen by several of his neighbors where he expressed a determination to return home to the opposite side of the river, which it is evident he attempted to do so in a rudely constructed ferry boat, which was discovered next morning capsized in the middle of the river. All efforts to discover his whereabouts up to the present time have proven futile." (There was much mining activity in Green Valley in 1876. Nobody lives there today.)

Placer Herald, Auburn, April 22, 1876: "During the storm of Monday morning snow fell in the mountains as low down as Blue Canon." (This article was unrelated to J.W. Beardsley, but the storm may have raised the river level.)

Dutch Flat Forum, May 11, 1876: (This contains numerous errors, corrections are in brackets) "FOUND - in our issue of April 20 we stated that Goshua [Joshua] Beardsley was supposed to be drowned in Bear River [American River]. The conclusions were correct, as the body was found at Sacramento [downriver of Sacramento] about ten days afterward [J.W. Beardsley drowned on April 17 and his body was recovered May 3]." 

Placer Herald, Auburn, May 13, 1876: "Early in the week a body was found in the Sacramento river, some distance below the city of Sacramento, which was identified by his brother, as that of J.W. Beardsley, who was drowned on the 17th of April, in the North Fork of the American river, at Green Valley, while attempting to cross in a boat. His body had been carried by the current at least 75 miles."

Historical newspapers contain valuable information, but for those not yet digitized, finding a particular subject absent specific dates can be daunting, the proverbial needle in the haystack.

Of Old Air Rifles and Ancient Stone Pestles

I took my niece and her son (age 9) target shooting on public land near Alta in Placer County. We used my Sheridan Blue Streak air rifle, my first firearm, acquired when I was about thirteen. With that rifle I had my luckiest shot ever, in Tehama County around age fifteen, the target being a California valley quail running up a small rise some twenty yards away. I took quick aim and fired. The 5mm lead pellet entered the bird's breast. But the quail had its revenge, for it fell amidst poison oak bushes. This was my first real exposure to poison oak. I got oil on my arms and face, and for days afterwards I suffered greatly.

I taped a paper target to a cardboard box, and atop the box I set aluminum soda cans. My niece was familiar with firearms - I'd taken her to Dillman Range in Lincoln three times before. But this was her son's first time handling a firearm, so I gave him a safety briefing: shooting firearms is not a game; a firearm is not a toy; always consider a firearm to be loaded; never point a firearm at what you don't intend to shoot; &tc &tc. And then, to drive the point home, I told him what I was told many, many years ago. Pointing to the barrel of the rifle, I said, "This is where Death lives." We then commenced target shooting.

What a magnificent spot to spend the day! Some 1800 feet below us was the North Fork American River. Before us was the expanse of the canyons, covered with pine trees and manzanita bushes, and to the west was Giant Gap. To the east and 26 miles away stood Tinker Knob at the crest of the Sierra, elevation 8901 feet. The December storms brought much-needed snow to the Sierra, but warmer weather followed, and now here and there the andesite rocks on the sun-exposed west slope of Tinker Knob could be seen, meaning a low snow level, not good for our drought situation.

And we had this place to ourselves, mostly. Two people in an old sedan bearing Washington state license plates drove up and parked nearby. We paused shooting until they disappeared on their day hike. This topography transported to a flatland state out east would be a national park crawling with people.

The sky had been overcast and the temperature chilly upon our arrival around eleven o'clock, but soon the sun poked through and warmed things up. The dead of winter in California.

A short distance from the practice site, on the return drive, I stopped to show the two a small slate bedrock with some five grinding mortars. A Nisenan village had stood here. It was a good spot to live. A spring with fresh water was close by. Deer and other game were in the surrounding forests. There were salmon runs in the river (no longer, due to dams). Over thousands of years, generations of Nisenan women had sat at this bedrock, grinding seeds and nuts into meal, making the mortar holes deeper and deeper.

I had been here several times before, but it was my niece who discovered the rock pestle buried halfway in the soil. It fit perfectly in the hand, the flat side to the palm, fingers easily grasping it, the rounded side matching the concavity of the mortar holes. When had a Nisenan woman last used it? Was it right up to the Gold Rush, when the Argonauts came in a ran off those Nisenan they did not kill outright? And when was it first used? 1000 years ago? 4000 years ago? One thing was for certain, the rock was not from the rough slate here. It was rounded and polished in a riverbed, and the nearest riverbed was some 2000 feet below us. We set the pestle back into the hole, made it appear undisturbed, and continued on our way.

New Year's Day

What finer way to bring in the new year than with a leisurely hike? And with the morning brisk and the skies clear, and me being the first one on Stevens Trail, the historic miner's toll path that connected Colfax and Iowa Hill, what could make this day even better?

Well, this is my first day of retirement.

(Postscript, January 4: I forgot to add, and I must add, that I left so many wonderful people, and took away many good memories. I thank everyone so much, especially my boss!)