Re: [Redbadbear] Sycamore Treasures (a post for this especially materialistic season)

I have always enjoyed your Sycamore Canyon tales.  Thank you for this.

Times have changed since the 1950s, of course.  Do you know if there is cell phone access from the depths of the Canyon?

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Hunter Gray <[email protected]>
To: Bear Without Borders <[email protected]>
Cc: Redbadbear <[email protected]>; SycamoreCanyon <[email protected]>; marxist <[email protected]>; newgreencanada <[email protected]>
Sent: Thu, Nov 28, 2013 7:16 am
Subject: [Redbadbear] Sycamore Treasures (a post for this especially materialistic season)



  
    
                  

Given the blatantly -- and very openly -- materialistic nature of This Time of Year, this post seems quite appropriate.  Best, Hunter
 
SYCAMORE TREASURES AND TREASURE HUNTERS [HUNTER BEAR,  JULY 10  2006] 
This is a letter I wrote a few days ago to a kid in his mid-teens who lives
in a still small North Central Arizona town.  He had learned of my powerful
and on-going empathy with the immense Sycamore Canyon country [now formally
designated as Wilderness Area], mentioned his own camping experiences in the
more accessible areas in the far lower end [just north of the Verde Valley]
and is interested in Treasure.  He reminds me in many ways of myself in that
general age range [and  me even now, as far as that goes] -- but a key
difference is that I had no interest [and still have none] in conventional
Treasure.  My interests have always been in wildlife [especially bears and
lions], ever expanding new and greater geographical vistas, and anything
Unique.  I may -- may -- be the only contemporary human who has walked the
basic length of Sycamore Canyon. That was in 1955, discussed in my post,
"Ghosts," its Link given at the end of my letter.]  It's possible, of
course, that others have made that Great Trek -- but, if so, I have found no
account of it whatsoever nor heard any such tale and that kind of news does
eventually travel widely.

In that  trip of mine, I did find gold-laden quartz but have never revealed
its location -- nor have I ever revealed the  sites of the impressive and
ancient Native cliff dwellings that I found in one of the almost countless
side canyons -- great gulches themselves, vasty in their lower regions.
It's worth noting that I also saw on that trip, grizzly sign -- and a very
large black and long-horned Spanish bull, as wild as any other wildlife --
undoubtedly a lineal remnant from the tiny handful of short-lived small
Spanish settlements in the 1700s.  It is worth noting that I saw that bull
in the general region where the Lost Spanish Mine may exist.

The old prospectors -- the "lone burro men" -- were obviously interested in
The Search far more than any conventional treasure.  I rather suspect this
kid is cut from that cloth.  Anyone going into Sycamore Canyon proper -- a
very long fantastic complex of canyons and cliffs but with its own natural
logic -- should be an extremely tough trail/rough country veteran indeed.
And it would, in all probability, take at least weeks of intensive searching
to locate the Lost Spanish Mine.  [Besides, the fortunate designation of the
entire region as Wilderness now precludes any mining of any kind.]

But here's the story -- an interesting respite, I trust, from the Horrors of
our mainline world:

>From Hunter:

Flagstaff is my home town.  From the 1940s into the early 1990s, my parents
owned about 15 acres along Lower Oak Creek, in the Cornville area.  When
things became congested, my brothers and I sold the land to a Phoenix
doctor.  When I was a kid, Cottonwood was just a little town and the mining
operations at Jerome and Clarkdale were going full blast.

I live now in Eastern Idaho, on the 'way far up western edge of Pocatello --
BLM and USFS lands begin almost adjacent to us.  Many coyotes, and a fair
number of lions, moose and elk and mule deer, and much more are all around
us.

You sound very much like myself when I was your age.  Sycamore Canyon has
always been -- always will be -- my very special region.  I hunted the
various down-in levels on the eastern side for years, fought fires up above
for the Coconino, and, in 1955 spent several days hiking down the length of
Sycamore -- all the way into the Verde Valley.

There are at least two Treasures in and immediately around Sycamore Canyon.
One is the cache of money buried by Old Man Casner, probably during the
Depression.  Unless someone has a Vision, that is probably beyond reach.
The other is the Lost Spanish Mine or the Padre Mine -- and that is
certainly a findable reality.  As you probably know, the entire Sycamore
Canyon and environs region is formally designated Wilderness Area and this
status now prevents any mining, lumbering, etc.  Interestingly, I checked
all of this recently -- in a general, policy sense -- with a nearby
neighbor/friend of mine, a mining engineer for Bureau of Land Management and
he confirmed these legalities as they relate to Wilderness designations.

But that doesn't prevent someone from investigating the mystery of the Lost
Spanish Mine.

There are two very old, relevant stories [which you may have picked up
somewhere but they may have long since faded.]  They were told to me ages
ago by the two old Hermits, Joe Dickson and Jerry Greaves, who then lived at
the Old Packard Ranch at the far upper end of the Verde Valley region where
Sycamore Creek emerges and joins the Verde River.  Joe and Jerry had
searched off and on for the Lost Mine but never got far enough up-Sycamore
to get into the region indicated by these stories.

One story involves a bear hunter [with dogs] named Daggs.  The time was
somewhere in the 1910s.  Mr Daggs and his dogs were pursuing what was
probably a grizzly in the area where the very long and relatively narrow
part of the Canyon begins to widen into Sycamore Basin.  The bear went into
and up an extremely steep side canyon [and there are many of these, of
course] which headed up on the Canyon Rim itself.  Although it sounds like
the Western Rim area, Daggs' account apparently was very sketchy.  In any
case, he found himself -- up in that steep side canyon --at a very old,
small mine with an extremely rudimentary smelter works.  He saw these as
Spanish in origin.  But he had no interest in this and continued after the
bear [and I don't know the outcome of that part of it.]

The second account is more helpful.  In the late 1930s or so, a young
Easterner [about 21], was at Sedona on an early tourist trip.  He decided to
walk from Sedona to Williams, Ariz which, as you know, is about 40 miles due
west of Flag.  He started forth and, many days later, in bad shape, finally
got to Williams.  The whole country was new to him and his account, sketchy,
did convey a few more details than those given much earlier in time by Mr
Daggs [whose story the kid never heard.]  Anyway, the young man described in
more detail exactly what Daggs had seen: going up a steep and narrow side
canyon;  a very, very old mine; rudimentary smelter; and a kind of
mortar/pestal type thing which was probably used to smash the ore prior to
smelting.  He saw all of this as very old indeed.  He could give no cogent
specific directions of any kind.

But we can assume he was reasonably logical.  If so, starting out from
Sedona, he would have gone through large Sycamore Pass, dropped down into
the upper end of Sycamore Basin, and then taken one of the several long and
narrow and steep side canyons up to the Western Rim.  That side canyon, it
seems to me, would either be where the narrow part of the Canyon emerges
into the Basin -- or, just to the west, going up the very high cliffs that
immediately overlook Sycamore Basin.

If I were looking for the Lost Mine, I'd follow the in-Canyon route of the
Eastern kid.  But, again, there are a number of steep side canyon
possibilities on that Western side.

If you do this venture, it might be best to be accompanied by a friend or
two.  The country, as you know, is exceptionally rough, rocky, steep, and
all-around challenging.

You may have already seen these website pages of ours.  But, if not, they
will be interesting:

http://www.hunterbear.org/ghosts.htm

http://www.hunterbear.org/lost_adams_diggings.htm

It's been good talking with you.  Hope this has at least been of some
interest.  Write again if so inclined.

Good luck on things and all best, Hunter Bear 
 
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / 
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
 
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