The Following story has never
been told nor published, however certain details will be withheld to maintain
ambiguity of the site. This is just another of the many I am unable to pursue
any longer.
The year was 1927 in central Utah when two cattle
ranchers were making their last trip for the season to gather in their cattle
which had been grazing in the mountains through the summer. The two men had
rode their horses from their camp located lower in the mountains to the base of
a well known peak in the area where their cattle were last know to have grazed.
They had gathered in all they could find and were making their last trip down
the mountain to their base camp.
The weather was looking like a
storm was coming and sure enough, when the cattle men were just a couple miles
from base camp and turning into the main canyon from the north and heading
west, the storm hit them with full force. The storm was quite heavy and the
snow was hitting them in the face with a strong force which made it difficult
to see. Even the horses were having troubles staying on the trail. The ranchers
decided to let go of the reigns and let the horses instinctively seek cover.
Immediately the horses turned around and proceeded back up the trail and turned
north, where they had just came from. Not far past the turn northward the
horses took off the main trail and began to climb an old steep trail heading
towards a what appeared to be a thicket of trees. The trail began to level out
as they entered the stand of trees. They rode further into the grove and
supposedly rode into a place where there was an overhanging ledge in a
conglomerate rock formation.
The cave like overhang was said
to be large enough the horse walk in with the riders still mounted. Once inside the cattlemen dismounted and began to gather what ever they could to start
a fire. One of the cattlemen noticed in the back of this cave like overhang was
a small hole large enough for a man to enter. Upon closer examination it was
found to be a cave and large enough to further get away from the storm. The two
men entered and began to build a fire. As the fire blazed they noticed a tunnel
and making a make shift torch they decided to explore a little. One of the men
making his way trough the tunnel stumbled over some thing in the center of the
tunnel, holding his torch closer it reveled a pyramid stack of what turned out
to be ten pound gold bars. Further exploring, two more stacks were found.
In every case it seems when a story
comes about such as this, it always seems that some one finds something and for
whatever reasons they do not take anything and then cannot find it again. Well
this story is a little different.
The two men hardly believing
their luck and what they had found, gathered up as much as they could carry
out. One man shoved a bar down his pants of which it slid down pant leg and
broke his foot. Still the men managed to get out of there with enough to take
care of their families for some years. When the storm lifted the men took
careful notes of observations so they could return.
It wasn't a few years later and the
great depression hit and anti gold hoarding laws came into play. During these years
of the depression it is recalled by some of the locals I have spoke to, that
there was certain families in the area where the men lived, and being cattlemen
none the less, it seemed they got through these depression years without
want or need. It was 15 years later before the men attempted to return to their
found cache site. It would seem even though they felt they had good reference
points and the map, all they could do was argue about which hill they were
on. The two men as far as the story goes, never found the right place again.
60 Years later the story would
find its way to me by a friend who had contact with an acquaintance the original family, actor Clint Walker of the 1950's - 60's Western TV series, Cheyenne. It
would seem that after another 15 years of searching and then another dozen
years or so the descendants of one of the two men tried their hand at looking
for it. But to no success the story was passed along. Upon receiving the story
in 2003 from my friend who knew Clint Walker, , my wife and I decided that beings we had some good vantage points or
things given as line of sight from the opening of the cave like overhang, that
we could bring ourselves to a place between the two points and for the most part
backwards analyze it. This seemed to work quite well and knowing the other
things used to triangulate the site we were able to find a target area. We
scheduled a trip into the area which isn't to terribly difficult to get into
but takes a little hiking.
Clint Walker
1927-2018
We had chosen what is supposed as
being a forest service trail to make our way into this place, as we traveled
along the wide and well defined trail we began to find things along the trail
that made it very clear, this was no forest trail regardless of whether they
claimed it or not. The first thing we found was a tree carving we never
expected but well known from many years of being in the Uinta Mountains and
actually dating the trees and the carvings where possible. This one was found carved
on Mountain Mahogany.
When we found this right next to
the trail it was clear that a likely employee of the Forest Service had
attempted to carve over the trail marker in an effort to mask it from what it
actually is. The glyph used to mark a forest service trail is the same as the
glyph used by the Spaniard to lead to their mines and such. Many do not realize
that the Forest service long ago adopted this
glyph to hide the fact that someone such as Spaniards were coming here long
ago. It is said by some that the way the glyph works is, that the dot above
the line means the trail going in and the dot below the line means the trail
going out, and that may be according to the Forest Service. But if the glyph
proves to have been carved hundreds of years prior, who from the Forest Service
was here to carve it? The true meaning of an authentic Spanish Trail Marker is,
the dot being above the line means the intended mine it is leading to is ahead
or up. If the dot is below the line as you face the tree, the mine is behind
you and if you are traveling in the direction facing the tree, you are
traveling away from the mine. This Glyph is identical in base meaning as the
Native American Glyph.
Although we have never core
sampled this tree nor the carving itself, knowing the Mountain Mahogany is a
very slow grower, I called my Biologist friend and sent him photos for
verification of the variety of the tree. He told me that it was more of a bush
like a Juniper but that it was a slow grower like scrub oak and asked the depth
of the over growth since it was marked of which is about 3 inches, astonished
he asked what the diameter of the tree was and I told him 18 inches, again
surprised he said you have a very old tree and a very old carving.
Continuing along the now very
apparent old trail we found a fallen monument and not to much further up the
trail we found another still standing but some what hidden in some Junipers.
Because of the Crustose (Orange )
Lichen and the size of the growth of the spores, we knew the monument had been
there a very long time.
Notice
lichen spores.
It is said that
if the spore is the size of a dime, it represents about 100 years since the
rocks were moved, I have found that this is fairly accurate, the spores on this
monument are about the size of a silver dollar.
Further up the
trail are even more trees with the appropriate mark showing the mine is still
ahead. This one is a Juniper.
An old Juniper with
about 4 inches of overgrowth since it was carved.
In the same general area but
further up the trail we found evidence of a silver vein crossing the trail,
near anyone could see silver is present by the samples of stained rock crossing
the old trail, If the image does not show it very well, there is a heavy
blue-ish silver stained layer of rock crossing the old trail, a clear
indication of silver. By this time we knew we were in the right area and we
were certainly near to an old Spanish Mine and likely near the cache site.
Silver dark blue
stained rock found crossing the old trail, shining due to sunlight.
As the excitement built up due to
the things we were finding, we just couldn't wait to continue. Rounding a
corner further up the trail we find an unusual monument and past this point
about 1/3 of a mile, we find no more trees with marks. The monument is built in
an unusual fashion with an overhang built into it as if to say this is what you are looking for and from here you can see it. At the
point of the monument however we could not see any conglomerate as was
indicated in the story or so we thought. However a closer look and we found the
conglomerate.
Author examining the
Lichen Growth
This monument has since been
destroyed and I have a theory on who it may have been and why, and this is one of
the many reason why documentation is very important. To this day I can show you
exactly where it sat, and this is important. Not far from this monument is the
conglomerate we had hoped to find, whether we have the right deposit of
conglomerate or not is not known. In sight from this monument is conglomerate
ledges of which still to this day needs to be searched, but I suspect a lower
location in order to fit the story. We have returned a few times since, but
nothing has been done to locate the overhanging ledge. The forest service has
added a sign early in the trail which says no motorized vehicles past this point, at a point we use
to be able to access long past this on four wheelers. It is a good thing our 4
wheelers don't have motors and instead have engines. ;-) It is now a much longer
walk but not to much more difficulty. I’m not a miner, but I sure would like to
get a geologist in there to find this silver vein.
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