By James Bruner

Travelers find new friends, the beauty of nature, and the excitement of gold in northern California.

The road  stretched endlessly  before us. Familiar hills of Arkansas and Oklahoma now lay far behind. The miles slipped steadily by as we drove hour after hour across the Texas plain, but we knew we were only getting started. We were on a prospecting and treasure hunting expedition that would require traveling almost 5,000 miles, and spending many nights in camp before we would again see the comforts of home. Still, I couldn’t help thinking how much easier it was for us than for those first 49’ers who traveled this same route by wagon and horseback in their quest for gold.

Our purpose for this trip was really three-fold. My treasure hunting buddy, Jay Gill, and I had planned for months to make a gold prospecting trip to northern California. I also wanted to visit with my father while we were there. He is now in his 80’s, but acts like he thinks he’s still a teenager.

The  third purpose, which  came up after our trip was already planned, concerned my son, Monty. He had won an academic scholarship from a  laboratory in Richland, Washington. He would be paid for working in the lab and earn a semester of college credit at the same time. The deal was just too good for him to pass up. And I  promised his mother that I would see him reach Richland safely. This would mean driving a few hundred more miles than  originally planned, but what the heck, we were on vacation anyway.

I  have been a treasure hunter for almost  40 years and have been very active in just about every phase of the hobby/profession. But  when it comes to prospecting  for gold, I consider myself  strictly  a  greenhorn.  The only  actual prospecting  experience I have had previously took place over 30 years ago when I spent a few months in the Sierra near Twain Harte, California. Fortunately my partner, Jay Gill, was a seasoned old veteran. He has  prospected in many different places over the years, including the Colorado Rockies, and even in the jungles of Ecuador. I was depending on him to teach me the ropes and get us off to a good start.

We reached Gallup, New Mexico long after my usual bedtime and stopped to grab a few hours sleep. As a spectacular desert sunrise silhouetted craggy hills in the East, we headed north on Highway 666. This  route took us through the eerie lunar terrain where Shiprock and skeletal remains of other long dead volcanos dominate the landscape. Jay and I had traveled this way on another treasure hunting trip back in the spring. But, Monty had never seen anything like it and was really impressed with the spectacular scenery.

We  soon  passed  through  the south-west corner of Colorado and on through the beautiful canyon country of Utah. By the time we had grown too sleepy to drive any farther we were in the Snake River country  of  Idaho,  where we stopped for the night. We crossed the Snake River Plain early the next  orning, along the old Emigrant Road used so many years ago by those early  pioneers headed  for Oregon.

Again my mind drifted back, as I tried to visualize what it would be like to traverse  this  harsh  terrain day after day on foot or in a wagon. This was only our third day on the road, and already I was becoming weary. But how could I really understand the feelings or taste the hardships of those hardy souls who  had  to endure months of hot,  dusty travel, while we crossed the same distances in mere days of air conditioned comfort.

We reached Richland, Washington in the afternoon and got Monty moved into his new apartment. Jay and I spent the night with him and got some much needed rest. With a bit of sadness I said my goodbyes to Monty early the next morning, knowing it would be several months before I would see him again. But he was in good spirits and looking forward to a new experience.

As Jay and I drove south across Oregon in view of  beautiful snow-capped mountains, the spirit of adventure gradually  returned to me also. We reached Tulelake, California, where my father lives, that afternoon. After visiting a while, Jay and I decided  to see  what the coinshooting was like here in northern California. The Silver Sabre II I was using, and the Tesoro  Toltec 100 Jay  had  brought, performed quite well. By dark we had dug a little silver and a large number of modern coins. But  it was gold that we had traveled thousands of miles to find, and we were anxious to reach the Klamath River and do some serious prospecting.

Early Sunday morning  Jay and I headed west on Highway 161 which runs along the state line just inside the northern border of  California. As  we  drove through a waterfowl refuge on Lower Klamath  Lake we noticed a road sign which stated “SLOW DUCK CROSSING.” This was the first time I had ever seen a “duck crossing” sign, but it was no joke. We had to slow down and even stop at times as thousands of ducks crossed the road, some flying and some walking. It was a sight to thrill anyone who loves to view wildlife in their natural habitat.

We checked our old road atlas and considered taking a shortcut over the mountain on a Forest Service road, even though it wasn’t shown on the new highway map we had. We stopped at a ranger station to check on the situation before turning off the highway, but the station was closed.  We  decided  to take the short-cut anyway since it  would save us about 50 miles of driving, and after all, Jay and I were no strangers to back country roads.

Most of  this road was dirt or gravel, and after reaching the top of the mountain side roads branched off in all directions. Few of  the intersections were marked and it was difficult to tell which way we should go. At one junction we chose the wrong fork of the road and soon found ourselves at a dead end near the bottom of a canyon. It was bow hunting season in the area and we met a deer hunter who gave us directions on how to get down the mountain to the semi-ghost town of Montague. We made it this time without getting lost again.

Even  though  we  had  been side-tracked for a time, the drive over the mountain was one of the most interesting parts of the trip. Wildlife was more plentiful here than on any other stretch of road we had  traveled. Chipmunks and various species of  birds  were everywhere. We saw numerous black-tail deer and took some good pictures of them. The scenic views were also spectacular, with snow-capped Mt. Shasta rising  in the background.

We arrived at Happy Camp in mid-afternoon and stopped at the New 49’ers headquarters to get information on where to camp and pan for gold. The first person we met was Dave McCracken. Dave was in the process of giving a seminar on placer gold recovery methods. Not knowing what was going on, Jay and I had barged inside right in the middle of his seminar, as if we owned the place. Dave was very gracious about the whole thing, and after a brief conversation and introductions all around, we sat in on the rest of the seminar.

After the seminar (which proved to be very  informative),  we talked a while longer and Dave told us we could spend the  week as  his guests  and  work  New 49er Club claims. Bill Stumpf, the organization tour guide, directed us to a campsite for the night on Elk Creek Road just south of Happy Camp. We quickly  set up camp and started panning on the nearby  gravel bar. I recovered several flakes of gold from the first pan full of material, and this continued to be the case with every pan the entire week we were on the Klamath.

The next day Bill led us several miles upriver and showed us where we could camp and pan for gold.  He even  loaned us his MACK-VACK to use while we were there! The MACK-VACK is a vacuum type tool for sucking dirt and gold out of cracks and crevices and into a five-gallon bucket.  It proved to be very effective and we used it to good advantage in several locations. After showing us around and pointing out a few spots he thought should be productive, Bill wished us luck and went on his way.

We set up camp near two other miners who were  working with high banking units. One of the miners was named Don who said he lived in Klamath Falls, Oregon. He worked for the  railroad and mined gold during his vacations and days off. Don was a very outgoing  person who tried to be friendly and helpful from the very first meeting. Don also hunts nuggets with a detector and had some nice specimens to prove it. The other miner was Jerry Snell from  Eugene, Oregon, and  he works for a timber company. Jerry is more reserved and waits until he has time to evaluate a person before committing himself. But after he gets to know someone and finds out  that  they  are O.K.  he will help them any way he can. Jerry showed me a nice collection of gold he had recovered from his  high banking operation on the Klamath.

A large black bear visited our camp every  night, but he didn’t disturb anything. He would just leave his spoor and then walk on up the river.  He was probably checking out every miner’s camp along the way  to see  what  they were up to. After all, this was HIS territory and we were just trespassers. If I had met the old boy on the trail  there wouldn’t  have been any question about who had the right of way. Don and Jerry said  they had seen him walking along the river about 50 yards from camp the evening  before we arrived. He remained out of sight the few days we were there. But just knowing he was around added a lot of  atmosphere and a sense of wildness to the country.

Our side of the river had been heavily worked, both by the early miners and in recent  times. Jay and I looked the situation over and decided that with the limited equipment we had, our best bet would be to clean out overlooked crevices and pockets between the large boulders along the river. We had brought along a sluice box, but the river was so deep and swift along this stretch that we didn’t find a suitable place to set it up until the last afternoon we were there. By that time it was too late to pack our equipment the half-mile upriver to that location. So, we panned all the material by hand and recovered what gold we could that way.

Gold panning was something I wasn’t very proficient at and I needed a lot of practice. After a couple of days of steady work I became a lot better at it. But I was never able to work a pan of material as quickly as Jay could. As I watched the sand and gravel swirling around in my gold pan I  tried repeatedly to let my mind drift back in time and try to recapture the atmosphere of  those early miners who first  worked  this  river. Although  the scenery was still wild and beautiful, and my  muscles ached  from the unaccustomed effort, the feeling I sought continued to elude me. Perhaps the sound of gasoline engines on the high bankers and the occasional  airplane overhead held me too close to the present.

After we  had been panning a couple of days, Bill Stumpf and Gordon Zahara came by to see how we were doing. Gordon has been very successful nugget shooting  with a detector in some of the old hydraulic mining areas nearby. The New 49ers contracts with Gordon to help members and guests become more proficient at nugget  hunting and to guide expeditions into the field several days each week. I expressed an interest in some nugget shooting with the Tesoro Silver Sabre II I  had  brought  along on the trip. I knew  the Silver Sabre II wasn’t specifically designed for finding gold nuggets, but I thought  it would be sensitive enough to do an adequate job. Gordon said he would be glad to take us on a nugget shoot, and we made plans to go the next day.

As luck would have it, it was showering heavily the morning of our planned hunt. We met Gordon at the New 49’ers headquarters and discussed the situation over coffee. After watching the rain for a while we decided  to cover our detectors with plastic bags and try it anyway. The clouds began to break up before noon and it  turned into a nice day. Another man and his two teen-age sons accompanied us on the hunt, but they only stayed until about noon.

We drove to a spot near the little mining  town of Clear Creek, then Gordon led us up the mountainside along a steep trail about a quarter mile to an old hydraulic mining site. The biggest problem we encountered detecting  the area was the highly mineralized ground in certain areas and  the many hot rocks. The man and the two teen-age boys were not familiar with the new “nugget shooting” detectors they had recently  bought and soon became very   frustrated trying to deal with the numerous hot rocks and ground mineralization. I think that is the main reason  they gave up  the  search so early. I could  hardly  keep  from  laughing  when I overheard  the  man  tell Gordon, “We’re having a  problem chasing elusive signals.”

Gordon is a veritable storehouse of knowledge concerning the gold mining potential of  the area and the use of detectors in its recovery. He was more than willing to  share that information with anyone who was interested and wanted to hunt. Of course he has his own special places he  isn’t  ready to take anyone else to,  yet. One of  the methods  we used in our search  was  to rake down  the steep sides of a shale bank and go over it with our detectors. Gordon was the only one who found a nugget  that  day, a  small  one about  the size of a rice grain.

We tested the Silver Sabre II on this small  nugget and it detected it easily. I also had no difficulty detecting small hot rocks and galena  crystals, which seemed to have about  the same conductivity as a gold   nugget. I  believe I  would  have found a nugget  with the Silver Sabre II if I  had just   been  fortunate  enough to  have gotten over one. There is an old mine shaft near the  area we  were detecting and a trash dump from that time period. Jay and I hunted a while in that area and found several  interesting old relics from the early mining days.

Another impressive feature of the Klamath River country is the many different  kinds of rocks and minerals found there. We often  found small garnets along with the flakes of gold and black sand at the bottom of our pans. We also picked up a couple of   nice  pieces  of  jade and several other interesting rock samples. I believe this would be a prime area to do some rock hounding if a person could get this mind off gold mining long enough.

The days  passed  quickly and before we  realized it  the time had come when we needed  to pack up and start home. Jay is a fireman and  had  to report  back to work the  following   week.  We  returned  the borrowed MACK-VACK to Bill Stumpf and said our farewells. We were very grateful for  the generous  hospitality  everyone  had  shown  us.  I   wished to show my appreciation by giving Bill and Marcie and Gordon’s wife a few Indian spear points from Oklahoma and Texas. Bill wasn’t to be outdone, however,  and before we left he  handed  me a beautiful gold nugget as a souvenir. By Saturday afternoon  we  were driving across the lonely Nevada deserts on our way home.

The road stretched  endlessly  before us. Although we  had  traveled thousands of miles within  the last  few days, none seemed as desolate as  this  barren desert. I  guess  the last  couple of  weeks  of strenuous effort and long days on the road had taken  its toll.  I had  been trying  the entire trip to go back  in time and experience the feelings of  those early pioneers and miners. Now, crossing the empty deserts of Nevada,  almost  totally exhausted, I was at least partially successful. It didn’t matter that  we were traveling at  65 miles  an hour. The  horizons  were so distant   there was no perception of getting anywhere. We had somehow  become caught  in a realm  where time was meaningless and the vastness of  the land too great   to comprehend.   The  chances  of  us  ever reaching our homes began to seem hopeless.

Yes, I had finally recaptured the feeling some of those early travelers must have experienced, but it wasn’t exactly what I had expected. In an effort to come back  to reality, I turned to Jay and said, “It may not seem  like it now, as tired as we are, but someday  we’ll look back at all this and think of it as a big adventure.” Jay sat in silence for several moments as if contemplating the events of the past few days. “It has been quite an adventure”, he answered softly.

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