[Russell Towle's journal]
“9/27/86 Morning; still gloomy, imprisoned within inscrutable clouds. But no rain, at the moment.
[...]
A bit of commotion just now al fuerte al fuera; hearing blue jays shriek, I looked out to see them diving, and suspected a hawk; it was, in fact, two hawks, of different species: a small hawk, probably an accipiter, and a red-tail. No hits were made; I saw the smaller one first, perched on a tree near the cabin; then the red-tail appeared, circling over the tree-tops; whereupon the smaller hawk flew up to challenge it, and I lost sight of both.”
[Russell Towle's journal]
More about accipiters:
“The genus Accipiter is a group of birds of prey in the family Accipitridae, many of which are named as goshawks and sparrowhawks.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AccipiterPhotos (and sound recordings) of some accipiters are here:http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/pictures/Accipiter.html
“9/27/87 Sunday morning; a lovely morning, warm, clear, boding well for a hike planned by Bill & I yesterday, to Salmon Lake. I found Bill at his morning station yesterday, sitting at the foot of the porch stairs in full sun, reading several things at once, and in particular reading about Thomas Jefferson, the subject of an upcoming speech.
Played the Mating Bobcat for him. Later, joined Alex for a speck of gold mining, mining specks of gold from Dutch Flat Ravine. [...]”
[Russell Towle's journal]
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 10:08:20 -0800
To: North_Fork_Trails
From: Russell Towle
Subject: news
Hi all,
On September 18, following the motion of Supervisor Rex Bloomfield, the Placer County BOS voted 5-0 to approve the residence at Iron Point, thus overriding the Planning Commission.
To place this within context, Bloomfield, who had days earlier expressed opposition to the house at Iron Point, seems to have become enraged at the Sierra Club, and for all I know, with me, over the issue of the three proposed Wilderness areas in Placer County: North Fork American, Duncan Canyon, and the North Fork of the Middle Fork. Rex has been one of Placer County's most influential Supervisors on behalf of environmental issues, and it is much to be regretted that those of us seeking permanent protection for Placer County's last fragments of unroaded wildlands, should have so alienated him.
The story of that alienation is too long to tell here. I have been advocating Wilderness designation for the North Fork American roadless area since 1976. Today it seems an impossible dream. Tomorrow may bring a happier outlook.
On the Green Valley Trail, there is some good news. The applicant for the Minor Use Permit, to build a house at the trailhead, Susan Winje, expressed her own concern for the future of the trail, and her own wish to enhance public access. She told me that she much preferred to build her parents' house next to her own, which is far from the trailhead, but that she would then need to purchase the adjoining parcel, for a building site. The owner had refused to entertain an offer. But that very day, she approached him again, he agreed to consider an offer, and as I hear, the sale is now in escrow.
So, while for now at least the threat of a house at the trailhead is diminished, the problem of adequate parking, and the problem of securing public ownership for the lands through which the trail passes, and other lands in Green Valley itself, remain.
Finally, I note that on BLM property, beside the public road (Garrett Road) giving access to BLM lands in the Gold Run Diggings, signs have been placed reading "No Trespassing" and "Keep Out, Private Road." I wrote an email to Deane Swickard of BLM, informing him of these signs. We must now add the Pickering Bar Trail to the long list of trails closed or threatened in some way, which list includes the Stevens Trail, the Blue Wing Trail, the Fords Bar Trail, the Green Valley Trail, the Lost Camp Trail, the Mumford Bar Trail (north), and others.
Cheers,
Russell Towle
Visit to Humbug Canyon
[Saturday, September 27, 2003One of the most popular trails in Tahoe National Forest is the Euchre Bar Trail, which drops something less than 2000 feet to the North Fork American. A drive of a few miles leads from the Alta exit on I-80 to the trailhead. At the base of the trail, a suspension bridge spans the river across opposing cliffs, and large trout can be seen swimming the deep pool hemmed within that little gorge.
http://northforktrails.blogspot.com/2003/09/visit-to-humbug-canyon.html ]
Euchre Bar has a body of glacial outwash sediments clinging to the canyon wall. This was attacked by a variety of methods, and gold was wrested from the ponderous masses of boulders, cobbles, sand and silt. It was a mining camp in its own right, and in the early newspapers of Placer County one can read the election returns for many such camps, including Euchre Bar. Most are now deserted.
From the bridge a trail continues up the North Fork two or three miles to Humbug Canyon. This short tributary of the North Fork has its own complex of outwash deposits, and was worked quite intensively in the early 1850s. Like Green Valley it counted as a town, for a few years anyway. In 1862 it was regarded as "worked out," the "music of the saw and the hammer" was no longer heard, no one was left. Yet, as seems often the case, that "no one" was an inexact and relative term, and the Humbug Canyon of 1862 had a store, and sixty men worked the mines in the summer, and twenty remained working through the winter.
Later an era of hard-rock mining began, for many are the gold-bearing quartz veins which lace the Shoo Fly Complex rocks in that area. The Pioneer Mine, the American Eagle, the Dorer Mine, the Blackhawk, the Southern Cross, and many many more, are scattered across the steep slopes.
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| A black oak and an incense cedar merged. |
The easiest approach to Humbug Canyon from civilization is along the Foresthill Divide. Yet the Divide runs to near 5000' in elevation on the approach to Humbug, so snow lies deep in the winter. Hence from the earliest times supplies came, during the winter, on mule trains from Dutch Flat and Towle (near Alta). These pack trains continued into the 20th century.
Saturday Gay Wiseman and I joined Steve Hunter, and Alan and Jay Shuttleworth, for a visit to Humbug Canyon. Steve is a good friend of Bob Dorer and has a key to the gate. I was quite interested in trying to find an old trail from Sawtooth Ridge down to Humbug Bar, where a bridge once crossed the North Fork. Last fall Tom Molloy and I had found the upper end of this trail, but had been unable to follow it very far. It seemed to disappear. Here was an opportunity to follow the same old trail—call it the SawBug Trail—from the river, up. Waldemar Lindgren's ca. 1900 geologic map shows this trail crossing the Dorer Mine quartz lode on the climb to the summit of Sawtooth.
The ca. 1960 "Volcano Fire" burned a vast area between the Middle and North Forks of the American. We drove through the old burn for miles, up on top of the Divide, where plantations of young trees seem to be thriving. As we approached Humbug Canyon, more and more patches of larger, older trees appeared, which had survived the fire. The descent into Humbug was through forests of Black and Canyon Live Oak, alternating with coniferous forests dominated by Douglas Fir and Ponderosa Pine. Around springs there were masses of dogwoods and maples and alders and ferns.
We stopped for a time at the Dorer Ranch, and met Bob Dorer and the ranch caretaker, Danny. Then we walked to the North Fork, a scant couple hundred yards away.
The rest of the party, led by Steve, hiked up to the American Eagle Mine, and then crossed to the north bank of the North Fork to visit other mining areas, including a gigantic cavern with railroad tracks leading into it. I, however, hopped across the river at the confluence of Humbug Creek, found the old bridge site, and struck out upriver on the old north-side trail.
With loppers at maximum power I made swift progress in the midday heat. I sensed that I had likely passed the Dorer Mine, but had seen no sign of it, and the old road was so easy, that it seemed best just to follow along. Without realizing it, I walked nearly a mile, and entered a forested flat, with the remains of an old wood stove, and other artifacts of human occupation and mining.
Could this be the Dorer Mine? Scouting around, I found a couple of wagon roads leading up the canyon wall, and began following the most likely, the most user-friendly, of the two. Difficulties arose. Ten thousand small Douglas Fir trees blocked my way at first, and then my "wagon road" seemed to melt into a squirrel trail, and that led into a knot-hole, and I was done.
Done? No! I thrashed around on the steep slopes, up, west, east, and then, saw another trail, which insensibly widened, and widened, and my wagon road was reborn!
But wait; why would the SawBug be blasted? How could one justify that much work on a mere trail? Surely this wagon road led to some obscure gold mine: a hole in the ground, masses of dirty quartz lying everywhere. And soon enough I found just that. A tunnel, partially collapsed, followed a quartz vein into the sun-kissed mass of Sawtooth Ridge, and, peering past a disturbed bat, I saw light within the gloomy room, and realized that a shaft opened to the surface, somewhere above.
My wagon road seemed to end right there. Yet, climbing to examine the shaft, I caught a glimpse of a trail continuing, climbing up Sawtooth Ridge, and bearing east. So I struck out on that, and lopped many many more branches and small Douglas Fir trees, and the trail shrank, and widened, and had dry-laid stone retaining walls, or had none, and once again I began to think, This is It! This is the long-sought-after, the legendary, the one-and-only SawBug Trail!
But then a nasty notion darkened my mind's eye: perhaps this fine old trail only led to yet another hole-in-the-ground-with-quartz-all-around.
I was over five hundred feet above the North Fork and was drenched in sweat. One member of our party needed to get back to Colfax by some ungodly early hour, so my explorations must stop. It was nearly two p.m.
So, I lopped along back down the trail, back down the high wagon road, to the main wagon road at Wood Stove Flat, and heard voices. I lopped along the main wagon road east and found the rest of the party near a pile of old narrow-gauge track and iron strapping, such as were used for ore carts. They had just visited a most amazing cavern, and reproached me for missing out. I in turn reproached them for missing out. Silly aficionados of mining history who laugh at my loppers!
Then we marched on back to Humbug Canyon and swam in the lovely pool near the bridge site and ate lunch and talked with Bob Dorer and Danny, the Caretaker. After a time we dragged ourselves up the short trail to our cars.
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| A delightful swimming hole in the North Fork American River near the confluence with Humbug Creek |
In another hour I was home.
Such was a visit to Humbug Canyon.
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