INDIAN VALLEY: CANYON CREEK TRAIL, FIDDLE CREEK RIDGE TRAIL, NORTH YUBA TRAIL & HALLS RANCH TRAIL

This campy photo was taken in Indian Valley but it but it has no relationship to the Indians who lived here.

There's an Indian Creek, Indian Hill, Indian Bar, Indian Flat, Indian Springs or Indian Valley in every major watershed in California – that should remind you that it was all, until recently, Indian country. By the way, they're still here. The Indian Valley that I want to talk about is on the North Yuba River, in California's Sierra Nevada, about six miles west of Goodyears Bar. It's situated in a steep and densely forested canyon between Indian Hill and Snowden Hill on the south and Fiddle Creek Ridge on the north. Indian Valley is about two and a half miles long with an elevation of 2,500’ on its eastern (upstream) edge and 2,300' on the western end. Because the river has such a low grade it has an abundance of gravel and relatively flat areas on both sides of the North Yuba, especially in the upper valley. This would have been good spawning ground for salmon prior to gold mining.

In the early 1850s a trail from Oak Valley descended Depot Hill to a toll bridge that crossed the North Yuba River at Cut-Eye Fosters Bar near the mouth of Cherokee Creek. Depot hill was as far as freight wagons could go so goods were transferred to pack mules here for the descent into the canyon. Cherokee Creek? It may surprise you to know that Cherokee is the most popular toponym for an Indian tribe used in California. Most of the places named for them are gold towns or mines. Cherokees were no strangers to placer gold mining because there was a gold rush in their ancestral homelands in Georgia and the Carolinas in 1829. When they attempted to mine their own land they were driven away but not before they mastered the fundamentals of placer mining. They arrived in California early in the gold rush and were among the few who knew anything at all about gold mining.

At Cherokee Creek the historic Brandy City Trail ascends the ridge to the north. It's not maintained but the lower portion of that trail still exists only to fuzz out amidst the messy logging and maze of roads on the ridgetop. Another historic trail from Cherokee Creek followed the river upstream for three miles to Indian Valley. In 1854 a 22-mile road between Downieville and Cut-Eye Foster's Bar (also at the mouth of Cherokee Creek) was proposed in the Sierra Citizen. This road was never constructed, but the existing trail was improved and parts of it have since been covered by State Highway 49. The Mountain Messenger of July 22,1865 reports that "...the trail between Goodyear's Bar and Indian Valley is the best maintained trail we have ridden over in a long time...". Part of the trail from Cherokee Creek survives as part of the Canyon Creek Trail, maintained, (more or less) by the Tahoe National Forest. There is parking at the trailhead, which can be found off of Highway 49 where it crosses the North Yuba on the west end of Indian Valley. It's a three and a half mile hike in a healthy forest of ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, incense cedar, black oak, canyon live oak and many other plants with their associated fauna. The trail follows the contour of the river a few hundred feet upslope and continues to the mouth of Canyon Creek, a major tributary of the North Yuba originating near Poker Flat, over 20-miles upstream. Note: there are two Canyon Creeks in the Yuba River watershed, one is a tributary of the South Yuba and the other replenishes the North Yuba. Both are large and important streams.

These are bedrock mortars at Cut-Eye Fosters Bar. The indigenous Nisenan people used them to prepare a variety of foods and medicines.

You may ask yourself, who was Cut-Eye Foster? He's described as a horse thief and a dishonest merchant who traded with miners and the local Indians. This would have been a good place to mine because the upper reaches of Cherokee Creek eroded the tertiary gravels in the Brandy City area and carried gold down to the river. Several miles downstream from Cherokee Creek was Fosters Bar, now under Bullards Bar reservoir and named for William Foster, a survivor of the Donner Party who mined there (no relation to Cut-Eye Foster). While we're on the subject of place names there was also a Cut-Throat Bar on the North Yuba between Goodyears Bar and Indian Valley, so-named for a sick German miner who cut his own throat there.

Despite the easy to find gold in Indian Valley uncovered by the early miners the indigenous people were rich before the gold rush. The native population, due to their location, were probably a mixture of Nisenan, Koncow and Mountain Maidu linguistically, culturally and biologically. I suspect that some of the Washo, who lived east of the summit, wintered here as well. (Most ethnographers have identified this place as Nisenan country so I'll use that determination for ease of discussion). The Nisenan enjoyed this beautiful and bountiful valley for thousands of years before the intruders arrived. It supplied a variety of edible plants, abundant acorns, plentiful game, reliable runs of salmon and steelhead, and diverse materials for basketry and netting. The natives used subtle and consistent land management practices, including burning, to assure that the land continued to provide what they needed. Even though most of the topsoil, gravel bars and vegetation was removed from the valley floor by subsequent gold mining episodes there is still plenty of archaeological evidence attesting to the thousands of years of occupation by indigenous people..

Looking around today you can see piles of tailings and other mining features that are the legacy of mining practices that sluiced all of the low ground in the valley. Even the gravel of the river bed was exposed and sluiced with the siltation and escaped quicksilver sent downstream. Add to that logging and small-scale agriculture and you can appreciate how drastically Indian Valley has been transformed.

Placer mining was physically demanding work. Miners who came to the Yuba River in 1848 found the local Nisenan willing to work hard for items that they found useful or exotic. Among those goods were knifes, axes, beads, red cloth, serapes, sugar and flour. In 1848 over half of the gold miners in California were Native Americans. By late 1849 many of the Nisenan recognized the value of gold as a commodity and began mining themselves. Trading posts appeared on the Yuba River at places like Sicard Flat, Parks Bar, Jones Bar and Fosters Bar specifically to trade with the Indians. Then the Camp Union Treaty of 1851 made it illegal for Indians to hold a mining claim. In the hard times that followed they continued to crevice for gold as a supplement to traditional hunting and gathering practices which were impeded by the legal notion of private property. This kind of treatment is unfair and galling.

Naturally some of the Nisenan resisted and attempted to retaliate but they were overcome by well-armed and determined bands of miners. William Chamberlain in his History of Yuba County (1879) describes such an incident and it's repercussions: "In the winter of 1850, a boy named Woods, while carrying the express from the South Yuba to Downieville, was chased near Campbell’s Gulch (Camptonville) by Indians. A man was killed there the same day. A party was made at Downieville, which proceeded to the Indian Camp, surprised and murdered nearly all its occupants."

Bill Meek was raised in Indian Valley in the early 1860s. As a boy he accompanied the Nisenan on their grasshopper drives learning how they smoked and roasted them for storage and ate them with manzanita berries in acorn mush. In his reminiscences he observes their seasonal movements upcountry to the mountain lakes, returning with dried fish and venison for the winter. He also talks about their burning practices. It's kind of surprising that the Nisenan were able to maintain traditional practices (including burning) into the 1860s.

Indian women and men panned for gold to supplement traditional foods by entering the cash economy. Miners tolerated meager mining but would not allow the Indians to have legal mining claims.

Fishing, especially for salmon and steelhead trout, was an essential aspect of Nisenan culture. Gold mining activities degraded water quality and riparian habitat and even restricted Indian access to streams.

(Illustration by Charles Nahl)

On February 2, 1858 the Indian Valley Water Company filed Articles of Incorporation, the purpose of which was to construct "...a ditch, flume or aqueduct to convey the waters of the North Yuba River to the lower end of Indian Valley in Sierra County, the water to be used for mining, mechanical and agricultural purposes."  Their main ditch was four miles long, with a head dam on the river and the ability to distribute water to both sides of the river. In 1865 there were at least two water-powered sawmills in operation in Indian Valley. One was run by William Crawford and the other by Samuel Bonstein.

By 1859 mining claims on the river were covered by tailings from upstream hydraulic mines like Monte Cristo, Red Ant, Rattlesnake Diggings and Sailor Flat Diggings, among others. Nevertheless many miners were disillusioned with the low prevailing wage. Seeking another "Bonanza", many of them left for the Fraser River in British Columbia (1858) or the Comstock Lode in Utah Territory (1864). During this period many claims were sold or leased to the Chinese. According to Sierra County historian James Sinnott there was one large Indian camp and three small Chinese settlements in Indian Valley.

Meek said that the population of Indian Valley consisted of 19 families, including three men who had married Nisenan women. There were also 150 single miners, 110 Chinese, and 300 Nisenan. People from “most every state in the union”, as well as from France, Germany, Scotland and Ireland were in Indian Valley, including Mexican pack trains that were passing through.

Morning in lower Indian Valley

The Sierra County Tax Assessor's records show that in 1867 and 1878 most of the mining in Indian Valley was accomplished by Chinese miners. Sixteen Chinese claims and one Chinese merchant are noted in the Tax Assessor's records for these years. Estimates vary on the size of Chinese mining "companies" but the consensus is that three to ten men using derricks, dams, pumps and ditches constituted a company for most Chinese river miners in Yuba River country. Sometimes Chinese miners commissioned a local white person to file claims for them with the intent of having a more secure deed. They also leased mining ground on existing claims. Therefore it's likely that there were more Chinese miners on the North Yuba than indicated by public records.

By the mid-1920s Highway 49 was completed and the Forest Service built campgrounds for tourists in Indian Valley. The Depression of the 1930s quickly eliminated tourism and brought a return to hand placering on the North Yuba. A conservative estimate is that 100,000 people returned to the rivers of Northern California in 1932-33. Some academics call this era "The Automobile Gold Rush." Between 1933 and 1935 the price of gold rose from $20.67 to $35 per fine ounce, which revived interest in gold mining. According to the State Division of Mines, hand placering paid an average of $6 per week, with about a third of the miners averaging $3.50 per week. During the Depression many of the streamside campgrounds on public land were occupied by unemployed single men and young couples engaged in placer mining using primitive techniques. One of the temporary settlements in Indian Valley was known as "Tar-Paper Shack Flat."

Between June 1, 1941 and April 30, 1942, William Richter and Sons, using a dragline dredge removed 1,646 ounces of gold and 208 ounces of silver from 338,000 cubic yards of gravel in Indian Valley. But on October 8, 1942, the War Production Board Limitation Order L-208 was issued shutting down most of the gold mines in the country. After WW II very few of the mines reopened because the cost of mining had become too prohibitive.

When the war was over public lands were vigorously logged to provide homes for veterans and their families. Cal Ida Lumbering Company set up a sawmill on the heavily forested ridge between the North Yuba and Canyon Creek, more specifically between Indian Valley and Brandy City, where they operated from 1944 to 1967 employing 150 men for four or five months of the year. When the mill closed Indian Valley became a purely recreational destination.

Indian Valley is a popular place for swimming in the summertime. The campgrounds close for the winter.

Regarding recreation, in addition to the already mentioned Canyon Creek Trail, there are two other trailheads in Indian Valley. The North Yuba Trail is a six-mile trail between Indian Valley and Goodyears Bar with a trailhead in upper Indian Valley that is clearly marked. It's a heavily forested trail with the sounds of the North Yuba as a constant background. A few years ago a fierce winter wind demolished a stand of trees near Goodyears Bar causing major damage to the trail that I don't think has been repaired yet. The trail is on the south side of the North Yuba and Highway 49 is on the north side – the only thing I don't like about this trail is how often you're distracted by the sight and sound of vehicles on the highway. I like to hike it in the winter when there is less traffic and, because the trail is on the shady side of the canyon, there are a multitude of waterfalls from seasonal drainages and a vivid range of mosses and ferns to enjoy. If you are interested in this hike I highly recommend this blog: https://northyubanaturalist.blogspot.com

The other trailhead is for the Fiddle Creek Ridge Trail with trailhead parking on the Cal Ida Road in lower Indian Valley. It's not far from Highway 49 and easy to find, but if you cross the creek you missed it. This is a long slog upslope in a mixed conifer forest assuring that the sloping trail is covered with pine and fir needles that make the tread slippery in spots. Because the ridge between Fiddle Creek and the North Yuba is so narrow I expected some pretty good views but this ridge is very dense with trees. It's a good place to see mature Douglas fir, yellow pine and the occasional sugar pine, but there are few views until it intersects with the Halls Ranch Trail, where the ridgetop is largely treeless and the views of the North Yuba Canyon and the Sierra Buttes are terrific. It's about four miles between this trail intersection and Indian Valley.

Trail intersection on Fiddle Creek Ridge

Hall's Ranch is shown on Doolittle's 1868 map and I remember that a Forest Service fire crew was stationed here in the 1970s, but it's overgrown and difficult to find now so it's not much of a destination. At the other end of the Hall's Ranch Trail is a signed trailhead at a place known as Ramshorn, located on the North Yuba/Highway 49, between upper Indian Valley and Goodyears Bar. From Ramshorn it's a two-mile climb of about 1,400 feet from the river to the ridgetop and the trail intersection. There is a good stretch of ridgetop with exhilarating views made possible by a fire in the 1970s. This ridge was part of a fuel break created by dropping the trees. You can still see some fire scarred trees on the ridge. From the intersection with the Fiddle Creek Ridge Trail you can drop down to Fiddle Creek where it's pristine and lovely, especially in the fall when the leaves change color. Continuing beyond the creek to the north the trail is dusty and tangled and merely the remnants of a once important pack trail. If you were to hike the Halls Ranch Trail to its connection with the Fiddle Creek Ridge Trail then descend it to Indian Valley (or vice versa) the distance would be approximately six miles.

Umbrella plants in Fiddle Creek

FOOTHILL DANCERS

Me and my partner Carol dancing for rain on the South Yuba

Dancing is fundamentally human.  We've all had the experience of hearing good news or witnessed a moving event where we've spontaneously responded with a little shuffle or even a hop or two.  Children, because they are so unencumbered, do it all the time.  In Yuba River country the indigenous Nisenan people, for reasons both social and ceremonial, have been dancing for thousands of years.  Among the events enhanced by dancing were the arrival of spring flowers featuring miles of blooming meadows that are now covered by housing developments.  Obviously the Weda was danced outside with the participants wearing flowers.  If I could enter a time machine to revisit a historical event this would be it.  Another important occasion for dancing was the acorn harvest when the Lumai was danced.  Feasting, gambling, trade and socializing went on for days with many people traveling long distances to attend.  In Nevada City there were five round houses to host participants. These are only two of many dances that happened in the cycle of ripening plants, migrating animals and events based on trade and diplomacy.

Miners frequently visited Nisenan ceremonial events, without invitations.  The mining population referred to them as Indian fandangos and often ridiculed them in newspaper accounts.  Some of these events were sacred ceremonies and not at all entertainment although they were seen that way by outsiders.  Eventually some of the Indians charged a nominal admission to view ceremonies that were probably de-sanctified.

Nisenan and Miwok dancers

California was still part of Mexico until September of 1850.  The lingua franca was Spanish and most of the ubiquitous packers and the women who accompanied them were Mexicans.  Californios were accustomed to pleasure and pursued it by gambling, cock fighting, horse racing, displays of vaquero expertise, bear and bull baiting and of course dancing.  They also dressed ornately, with flair and foppery.  For the miner it was impossible not to be affected by the existing spirit of gayety and celebration.

"Fandango" by Charles Nahl 1872

Between 1848-1850 most dancing happened in saloons.  The fandango " a rude native dance", became the descriptor indiscriminately applied to any kind of merriment that involved dancing, hollering and refreshment.  Places where fandangos were held were called dance halls or fandango houses.

There were many remote camps where there were few women and certainly no women willing to dance with miners.  In the general absence of women, Dame Shirley of Rich Bar, on the Middle Fork of the Feather wrote, in 1851, about a style of dancing called "The Lancers, which appeared to be very generally known."  For this kind of dancing, "it was understood that every gentleman who had a patch on a certain part of his inexpressibles should be considered a lady for the time being."  She went on to describe the dancing as a type of "severe gymnastic exercise" that allowed men to dance "with all their might."

Among the spectrum of dancers were "hurdy gurdy girls" who would dance with a miner for a fee and encourage men to buy drinks.  The hurdy gurdy, itself, was a lute-like musical instrument played with a crank or bow by a male "boss."  The young women were recruited from rural Germany with their parent's permission, usually gained by advancing some money up-front.  The contract was typically for two years.  Their ages ranged from 16 to 25 and they traveled, with the boss, in parties of five or six, through the small mining towns of the Sierra Nevada and other regions where they worked hard for their money.  Owners of the venue were charged $4 a dancer if they worked until midnight and $7 if they worked all night.  The women also received some commission on drinks sold.

It's not California but it captures the exhilaration of dancing.
Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, F-6264

The hurdy gurdy girls were expected to avoid familiarity and according to a reporter for the Daily Alta they did.  He reported that "as a class they are virtuous", of course there is no way to determine how this actually played out, besides it's none of our business.  Of the many descriptions I've read about them they appeared to be all business and characteristically charm-free.  One man compared the experience to dancing with a doll.  Apparently it was enough to be near a woman, to hold one while madly whirling about was even better.  No matter what, "good" women did not find the hurdy gurdies "respectable."

Any way you look at it, it was hard work.  Imagine dancing, robustly, with rough characters who are being encouraged to drink more alcohol.  Flying elbows, high kicking and trampled toes were commonplace.  There are comments in the historic record suggesting that the hurdy gurdies often wore boots, sensible shoes in this case.  By the mid 1850s the dancing girls were ubiquitous: "They have rendered dancing epidemic" (Daily Alta California, October 19th, 1857).

Dancing at Poker Flat at the head of Canyon Creek, North Yuba
n.d. photographer unknown

Oddfellows and Masons were well established in the mining camps and by 1855 their memberships were large enough to fund lodges which hosted rituals and balls.  As towns prospered they also became more socially stratified offering, for instance, dancing schools and dancing masters who taught proper steps and techniques.  In the town of Alpha, near the South Yuba, this announcement appeared in a local newspaper: "Mr. J. A. Williams of the Alpha Hotel has made arrangements for giving a ball on Friday evening the 31st. He has a fine commodius hall for dancing and will make suitable preparations for accommodating guests coming from a distance" (The Nevada Democrat June 9,1858).  Balls could be open to the public, like the Alpha Hotel's, or quite exclusive, requiring an invitation.  By the 1870s most mining towns had some version of a brass band and sometimes a small dance band – danceable, but staid.

Lively and untutored dancing didn't revive in the Sierra Nevada foothills until the post WW II era when the U.S. Forest Service and private land owners ravaged the remaining timber stands to build homes for returning veterans and their families.  Small owner-operated sawmills appeared all over the foothills where former mining towns like Moores Flat, Camptonville and Brandy City were repopulated by lumbermen and their families.  The loggers and ranchers had a taste for country music with its relatively simple, but soulful, songs that were easy to cover by small regional bands like the Rythym Rascals and the Night Owls who played in the Grass Valley, Nevada City and San Juan Ridge area.  Kay Vance, piano player for the Night Owls and owner of the Last Chance store, told me that on Saturday nights on The Ridge they would move the store's juke box out onto the dusty lot at the intersection of Tyler-Foote Crossing Road and Grizzly Hill Road where the locals would enjoy drinking and dancing.

Dancing in a contemporary foothill community

The next round of exuberant dancing came with "back to the landers" who moved into the foothills in the late 1960s and 1970s.  Music was an important part of the "sub-culture" and their dancing was distinctly on the ecstatic side.  I remember dancing until the floor caved in at a party in Amos's Barn.  In those days it seemed like everyone danced. Few bands today cultivate a dancing crowd but there are notable exceptions.

In the 1980s when venues were affordable in Nevada City there was a lot of experimentation.  There was music, dancing, theater, visual and conceptual art – you name it – we had it.  One of my favorite recollections of that era has to do with dancing.  On Commercial Street there were two bars on the same block facing each other – one was the Crazy Horse and the other I think was called Framylstamyls.  Dancers were overflowing out into the street when the police arrived, not to dampen fervor, but to place portable barricades to stop automobile traffic.  Imagine that, the police ("protect and serve") were making the street safe for dancing!  You can still participate in passionate dancing once a month at the Crazy Horse at their three-hour late afternoon event known as "Geezer Hour." Obviously there is still plenty of dancing going on and it's up to you to practice this puja – don't allow yourself to get creaky.

Poland 1967
Dancing is universal

CALIFORNIA BEARS

Black Bear in the Back Yard

In 1926, A. Irving Hallowell's seminal "Bear Ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere" was published in the American Anthropologist. In it he noted that the practice of honoring bears in ceremony was circumpolar and appeared in groups as diverse as the Inuit of Canada, the Sami of Finland, the Ainu of Japan, and with tribal groups living in Mongolia and the Russian Taiga, to name but a few.

Arctolatry is the worship of bears but worship is only one way to relate to bears.  Clearly there is also fear and awe, in some cases respect, in others disdain.  A lone hunter or walker who encounters a bear treats it with awareness.  Several times I've had the experience of unexpectantly meeting a black bear on the trail, one time we looked into each other’s eyes and I could see the bear's nostril moving while it assessed the situation.  These are long and timeless moments with total presence of mind – but deeper than thought.  In this unpredictable place either of our responses could be primal. In these moments I've stayed still, not because I had a plan, but it played out this way and fortunately for me in each episode the bear turned and loped away.  These bright and scary moments are more crisp and fulfilling than a fist full of new-age workshops.  After a bear encounter I've always felt that I'd been gifted.

An 1890 photograph of the Bear Flag. The original was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake

On June 14th, 1846 a group of about 30 Americans living in what we now call Sonoma California, declared their independence from Mexico.  It was called the Bear Flag Revolt so-named after a flag created by William L. Todd, a nephew of Mary Todd Lincoln, who painted a star and a grizzly bear on a piece of unbleached muslim. The star commemorates the Lone Star Republic of Texas, who declared independence from Mexico in 1836 and joined the United States in 1845. Adjacent to the star is an animal that was intended to be a grizzly representing the many bears that flourished from grassland to granite before the gold rush.  John Bidwell was there for the flag raising and overheard the indigenous Suisun people's remarks about the flag. They identified the silhouetted bear as, "Coche", the common Spanish name among them for pig or shoat."  The words CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC appear below the star and grizzly while at the bottom of the flag is a single long stripe running horizontally.

In 1911 a more tidy version of the Bear Flag, with an obvious grizzly bear, was adopted by the California Legislature as the State Flag.  The last California grizzly was killed in the early 1920s but, nevertheless, was designated the "State Animal" in 1953.  California is the only State with an extinct species on its flag. Places in the Yuba watershed  that show deference to the grizzly include: Grizzly Hill and Grizzly Creek on San Juan Ridge, Grizzly Gulch, a tributary of Oregon Creek, Grizzly Fort near Fiddle Creek, Grizzly Hill near Poker Flat and another Grizzly Hill near Brandy City.

Drawing by Lauren Davis

The Nisenan, who occupied the watersheds of the Yuba, Bear and American Rivers had bear shamans who draped themselves in grizzly pelts.  When anthropologist Ralph Beals interviewed people of the Yuba and Bear Rivers he found that Bear Shamans "survive vividly in the minds of old people." Apparently a man (or woman?) could become a grizzly by rubbing ceremonial herbs on the skin.  The bear shamans were feared and several of the Nisenan knew of murders attributed to grizzlies or shamans.  Details are sketchy and perhaps impossible for us to understand because we've never lived with grizzlies.

Livestock, introduced by the Spanish in the 18th century, created extensive open-range effects on native grassland.  Cattle, sheep, goats and pigs were docile and easy prey for grizzlies who were grassland and chaparral animals.  They didn't hibernate because they overwintered at lower elevations.  Settlers and entrepreneurs determinedly hunted grizzlies for self-protection, meat, hides and to protect their livestock investment. They were so successful that by 1877 the State suspended a bounty program because Grizzlies were no longer perceived as a threat.

As of March 2018, the Center for Biological Diversity had garnered nearly 20,000 signatures on a public petition to restore the grizzly bears to remote mountain regions in California. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife opposes the idea as do statewide livestock associations.

The black bear is a forest bear, the grizzly is not. When grizzlies ruled, the black bears were limited to upslope forests but now they range from the lower foothills to Lake Tahoe. Unfortunately our sloppy habits have created black bears who've become addicted to our trash and unconscious "camping" practices.  These bears become a nuisance and will eventually be killed for foraging.  It's as if we're baiting them into bad behavior and then punishing them for it.  We've talked about this problem for years, but it's not getting any better.  Continuous education is the best way to change the equation – if we can effectively teach elementary students about the potential consequences of smoking tobacco or not wearing a seat belt we can teach them how to participate in the natural world.  People want to do the right thing but sometimes have to be shown how they fit into the web of life.

Please do not deliberately, or through carelessness, feed the wildlife.  Bears will suffer the most because they are large animals who remind us of wilder times when we were not at the top of the food chain.

Photographer unknown

THE SIERRA BUTTES Part 2: TRAILS to YOUNG AMERICA LAKE and MOUNTAIN MINE

Sardine House was the residence of the ditch tender who kept an eye on the ditch from Lower Sardine Lake to the Sierra Buttes Mine. In 1886 the owners of the Young America Mine completed a road to Sardine House and then on to the mine.  The former location of Sardine House is at the current intersection of the road to the Lower Sardine Lake and the road to Packer Saddle.  Today, where the road forks, there are two trail heads.  

A photograph of Bassett's Station (circa 1880) shows the road to the Mountain Mine

Photographer unknown

The Mountain Mine Road

On the south side of the road split is an enormous roundish boulder with a dirt road originating at its base.  This is where you park and begin walking south – it's impossible to get lost.  The road crosses Sardine Creek which can run high but there's always a constructed way across the stream.

Trail map to the Mountain Mine

Almost any hiker can manage this 6-mile round trip with a 1,450' elevation gain.  It's on a scenic road to the Mountain Mine, which sits just below the summit of Sierra Buttes. Parts of the road are supported by dry stacked rock retaining walls and other segments are blasted into the hillside. This is a splendid big-sky walk with views of the North Yuba, Flume Creek and the Sierra Buttes.  The road is rocky so it's important to wear appropriate shoes and there is little shade therefore a hat and sunscreen is advisable. 

Volcano Lake

On the way up is crystal clear Volcano Lake at 6,350' situated at the end of a short spur road and definitely worth a visit.  It can be also be the destination for a shorter day hike. Volcano Lake is on land purchased by the Sierra County Land Trust who continue to buy land for the public to enjoy in the Sierra Buttes-Lakes Basin area.  We appreciate it!

 

The Sierra Buttes and Flume Creek

The setting of the Mountain Mine is incredible. It's in the steep and barren Flume Creek drainage originating on the east side of the Sierra Buttes.  There is little to see now because harsh weather conditions have eliminated any standing structures.  In 1885 it was owned by Henry Warner of Sierra City.

A quartz ledge at the Mountain Mine

 According to the 13th Report of the State Mineralogist (1896) they mined five quartz veins thought to be an eastern extension of the Young America ledge by using three tunnels, two of which pass entirely through the ridge.  Ore was delivered to a 40-stamp water-powered mill by a 6,000' long wire rope tramway carrying 400 pound buckets.  Power was provided by a four foot Pelton Wheel using water from a 3/4 mile ditch and flume from Sardine Creek and the North Yuba.  The mine typically processed 125 tons of ore daily and employed 55 men but was, at the time of the visit, "temporarily closed by litigation."

In 1905 the mine and mill were still operating and owned by a mining and investment company based in San Francisco & New York (Register of Mines and Minerals for 1905. California State Mining Bureau).

• • •

TAMARACK CONNECTION TRAIL, then overland to YOUNG AMERICA LAKE

The Tamarack Connection Trail is on the north side of the road split and it's clearly marked.  By walking this trail to the ridge top and then following the narrow ridge to the southwest it's possible to drop down to Young America Lake.  It's a roughly a seven mile hike round trip with an elevation gain of approximately 1,650'.  

View of the Sierra Buttes and part of Lower Sardine from the Tamarack Lakes Connection Trail

Trail Map to Young America Lake

After several switch backs in a forested area the trail climbs gradually to the southwest at about mid-slope for approximately a mile then climbs more abruptly to the northwest via a few switchbacks to a narrow ridge on a northeast-southwest axis.  Here you will see a trail to the southwest – take it.  It's a pretty good trail for about a mile and then it starts to get sketchy. Basically it gets steeper on the south side of the ridge as you proceed and you want to stay close to this side. There are occasional ducks (stacked rock trail markers) but you can't really depend on them being there.  The trail sometimes appears then disappears and you will get glimpses of Tamarack Lake downslope to the northwest. 

This is the ridge line south of the lake showing the notch and chute that offer access. You descend (and ascend) at that small cluster of conifers in the center of the photo.

Eventually you'll see a dramatic unclimbable spire on the ridgeline – move towards it. Just before you reach it there is a notch where you can climb down to dramatically situated Young America Lake.  This is not an easy descent and it's helpful to have gloves to grip the sparse but tenacious vegetation.  If you feel that it's too dangerous – trust that feeling and back off – no shame here, call it smart.  It's often easier if you have the encouragement of a companion or two but keep in mind that you'll be climbing out too.

Young America Lake and the Sierra Buttes

 In the basin there are massive slabs of rock strewn about, some of them even tinkle like giant porcelain platters as they rock and bang against each other while you navigate this impressive landscape in which you are nothing but a tiny soft creature.  Young America Lake at 7,250' is dramatically nestled in a depression 1,337' directly below the Sierra Buttes.  Downslope to the northeast are Sardine Lakes with Haskell Peak off in the distance. This is a stunning landscape in all directions.  There are few trees here – you'll be glad that you brought plenty of water.  If you take a dip I can assure you that it will be cold because it's pure snowmelt that gets rechilled every night.

The south wall of the Young America Lake basin 

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THE SIERRA BUTTES and LOWER SARDINE LAKE – NORTH YUBA

Dawn on Lower Sardine Lake

Recently my wife Carol and I spent a few days at Sardine Lake, just below the Sierra Buttes, near the North Yuba.  It's a gorgeous place!  The area north of the Sierra Buttes and south of Mohawk Valley contains something like 50 lakes and ponds.  Between Upper Salmon Lake and Gold Lake a ridge divides the watersheds of theMiddle Fork of the Feather River and the North Yuba.  The Nisenan, Maidu, Washo, and the unnamed people who preceded them, visited this area for thousands of years.

Lower Sardine Lake, circa 1890s.
Photographer unknown

By 1850 miners were searching for gold in the region.  They came to this remote place based on the delusions of a man named Stoddard who traveled to Marysville, Nevada City and other places displaying a few nuggets that he claimed came from a mountain lake with quantities of gold on its shore.  While at the lake he was driven off by Indians and was trying to get together a party to join him in finding the lake again.  About 25 men joined his group while another 500 to 1,000 gullible gold seekers followed behind.  Sierra and Plumas County historians, Farris & Smith (1882), called it "A perfect stampede".  The gold seekers never did locate the bountiful lake, but while there they prospected and found lode gold near the Sierra Buttes and placer gold at Rich Bar on the Middle Fork of the Feather among other discoveries.

The beauty of the Sierra Buttes and Lakes Basin region did not go unnoticed.  In 1858 the Coleman House at Gold Lake ran this advertisement in the Sierra Democrat: “The house is supplied with the conveniences of a first-class hotel, and in addition, there is every facility for rowing and sailing on the Lake, hunting on shore, fishing, bathing, and every other character of diversion to be expected in a resort of this character.”

Bassetts Station, 1910. Note the Bear hide on the right front fender.
Courtesy of the Sierra County Historical Society Museum at the Kentucky Mine

In the early 1860s William G. Hancock opened a way-station where Howard Creek enters the North Yuba, near the present-day intersection of Highway 49 and the Gold Lake Highway. Chris Tegerman bought it in 1865 and it became the Howard Ranch.  When the Yuba Gap Wagon Road opened in 1870, Jacob and Mary Bassett bought the ranch and renamed it Bassett's Station.  The Bassets built a large log structure and two barns, one for horses and another for oxen. They also maintained a blacksmithing shop, a sawmill and a boarding house for sawmill workers and miners.  There was even access to a telegraph.  In 1900 breakfast and lunch cost 50 cents and supper $1. You could spend the night and have hay for your horse for $1.  Nearby a sawmill operated from the mid 1880s to the early 1900s.

The late nineteenth century brought a surge of interest among Californians in natural environments for relaxation and recreation.  Outdoor camping and mountain climbing were important aspects of this movement and had a special appeal to city people.  There was even a form of medical treatment known as the "wilderness cure." Early in the twentieth century, appreciation of the outdoors had become a national cult and perhaps nowhere held more appeal than did California. 

The North Yuba became a popular area for summer resorts, especially those in the vicinity of Goodyear's Bar, Downieville, Sierra City and Gold Lake.  Among the local resorts were the Diamond L Ranch at Lusk Meadows which opened in 1908, offering fishing, hunting and excursions on horseback with 13 cabins available to visitors.  The McGee Resort opened on Upper Salmon Lake in 1910.  When the three Christian brothers took over in the 1930s they built 40 cabins and platform tents and renamed it the Salmon Lake Resort.  Packer Lake, a favorite camp spot for pack trains, became the Packer Lake Resort in 1926.  When the Browning family acquired Sardine Lake in 1935 they built a structure in 1941 and by 1946 they offered six rental cabins and called it the Sardine Lake Resort.

McGee's Resort at Salmon Lake, 1925
Photographer unknown

After the Depression the Tahoe National Forest began hiring professional landscape architects to design campground facilities.  A major attraction in this area is the Sierra Buttes Fire Lookout, first built in 1915-16 and replaced in 1964.  The lookout is 8,587' in elevation and is definitely worth the climb.  Aircraft have replaced lookout towers, in part, because their radius of effective fire detection doesn't usually exceed 15 miles.

In 1886 the Hayes-Steelman Road connected Bassett's and Gold Lake and it was realigned and reconstructed in 1913.  In the 1960s the Forest Service constructed a good road to Gold Lake and in 1972 extended it to Mohawk Valley in Plumas County.

A trail over Yuba Pass opened in 1852, expressman Sam Langton, and others still used it in 1863.  Before the opening of the Yuba Gap Wagon Road in 1870, Sierra County produced about 2,000 bales of hay.  When freight wagons started using the new road over the summit production immediately increased to 11,000 bales.  Most of the hay, essential to feed oxen, horses and mules, came from Sierra Valley.

The Harris & Freeman Stage between Blairsden and Sierra City.
Courtesy of the Sierra County Historical Society Museum at the Kentucky Mine

Stagecoaches, weighing about 2,500 pounds, carried nine to twelve passengers inside and up to a dozen more on its flat roof.  Reinsmen were often called “jehus” after the biblical charioteer, described thusly: "for he driveth furiously".  On steep uphill grades passengers were expected to get out and walk and men were expected to push.

The economy of nearby Sierra City depended entirely on hardrock, or lode mines.  Ore was usually mined underground and then transported to the surface, where it was crushed and processed for its gold content.  Sierra City enjoyed prosperity between 1870 and 1914.  Its most successful mine, the Sierra Buttes Mine,discovered in 1850, sold in 1870 for $1 million to London-based investors.  They made significant improvements in its operations, by 1882 the mine's three mills had 96 stamps in operation.  In 1888 the mine employed 209 men at an average wage of $50 per month with board.  The Sierra Buttes Mines produced between $17 and $20 million in gold.

Part of the tram at the Young America Mine on Lower Sardine Lake.
Photographer unknown

YOUNG AMERICA MINE

Oliver Sunderhaus and Philip Deidesheimer located a mining claim on the north slope of Lower Sardine Lake in October of 1883.  In 1885 they opened the Number 1 Tunnel and took close to 100 pounds of the rich ore to Downieville.  The Mountain Messenger enthused, “It is a fine a lot as can be found anywhere.  The Young America has every appearance of being a bonanza”.  Within a few months a wagon road from the Gold Lake Road, a ten-stamp mill and a boarding house were completed.  Next a 3,200 foot cable tramway was constructed to deliver ore to the mill.  By 1886 there were 40 stamps dropping at the Young America Mine where a December clean-up of 25 day's work yielded $25,563.

The holdings of the Young America Consolidated contained four lakes.  The uppermost is Young America Lake which functioned as a reservoir for snowmelt.  Upper Sardine Lake provided water for the operation of the Young American mill and hoists located on the north shore of Lower Sardine Lake.  Below Lower Sardine was a wetland where the tailings were impounded – today it is a recreational area known as Sand Pond.  The gross proceeds of the mine and mill for the year ending August 15, 1886 amounted to $294,000. 

The Mountain Messengerof January 12, 1889 posted an article describing a lively event at the mine.  Three carriage loads of revelers and one of Sierra City's two brass bands were invited to the Young America Mine where "Lower Salmon Lake was brilliantly illuminated with bonfires and skating was indulged in until after midnight, the skaters keeping time to the sweet and enlivening music of the "Spanish Band". This sounds like a wonderful time and I'm sorry I missed it, but reading about it made me remember a time in the early 1980s, when I was cross-country skiing with my late wife Susan on Lower Sardine Lake. It was a beautiful day in March so we decided to soak up all the sun we could by skiing naked.  It was exhilarating and Susan looked mighty fine gliding around in such a gorgeous setting.  After about 30 minutes or so we realized that we could get burnt in seldom seen places so we dressed and skied on, laughing all the way.

One of Sierra City's brass bands.
Photographer unknown

Several offers to purchase the mine were made in 1889 – the owners were asking a million dollars. In the same year a representative from the State Mineralogist visited the mine. He reported that 120 men were employed; 72 of them worked in the mine earning an average of $2.50 a day while the six men in the mill made $3 a day and the 42 men who worked outside as timbermen, teamsters, breakmen, blacksmiths, etc. were paid $2.25 a day. A six foot Pelton Wheel powered the 40-stamp mill and a three foot wheel ran the air compressor.

Workers from the Young America Mine pose on a flume. The Lakes are Upper and Lower Sardine.
Photographer unknown

The average monthly clean-up of the Young America from September of 1885 through 1890 averaged about $20,000, but began to decline at the end of that period.  Production of high grade ore in the latter part of 1891-1892 decreased significantly and the mine owners found themselves in financial trouble.  In April of 1892, instead of a dividend, an assessment was levied on the stock held by the owners.  There was very little work done in 1892-3.  In all the Young America produced over $1.5 million, making it one of the richest mines in this area.  According to the 13th Report of the State Mineralogist (1896) the Young America was no longer operating but was recently sold and a cyanide plant was erected to process the tailings.

Today the water of Lower Salmon Lake is clear and the mine's 40 stamp mill is no longer pounding and clanging away.  If you were visiting here 130 years ago you would have encountered an industrial setting with an entirely different atmosphere.

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