THE STEVENS TRAIL / NORTH FORK OF THE AMERICAN RIVER

Looking Downstream to Mineral Bar

My intent with this blog is to write about the Yuba and Bear Rivers in the Sierra Nevada in California, but there are other beautiful, interesting and exhilarating rivers nearby.  The North Fork of the American is a designated Wild and Scenic River and the Stevens Trail is on the National Register of Historic Places.  The trail is in a steep and rugged canyon located only a few miles south of the Bear River and I visit it often because it’s in the neighborhood.

Be forewarned that the Stevens Trail has become extremely popular and can be very busy in good weather.  Part of its popularity is because the trailhead is on a major highway and therefore easy to get to, also in the spring the hillsides are ablaze with colorful wildflowers.  The trail is a 3.7 mile descent of 1,200’ from the trailhead to its terminus at Secret Canyon followed by a return walk back upslope to the trailhead making it a 7.4-mile hike.  It’s a well-designed 19^th century pack trail that’s doable by a wide spectrum of hikers, even those who seldom hike.

I generally avoid crowds, so I seldom use this trail in pleasant weather unless I leave early in the morning or hike in the winter when it’s just as gorgeous.  Because of the heavy use it’s important that you leave no trace and pack out trash left.  This trail is a gift and deserves respect.

How to get there:

Colfax, California is on Interstate Highway 80 between Auburn and Emigrant Gap.  Take the Colfax Exit and get on North Canyon Way on the east side of the highway.  Drive north for less than a mile, past the cemetery, to the clearly marked trailhead.  Some people have homes adjacent to the trailhead so don’t block driveways or trespass – be neighborly.

The Stevens Trail

The Stevens Trail connected the supply and transportation hub of Illinoistown with the hydraulic mining town of Iowa Hill and other mines on various tributaries.  In between these two settlements is the North Fork of the American River located at the bottom of a steep canyon.  The ridge dividing the Bear River and the North Fork of the American climbs northeasterly from Auburn to Illinoistown.  Illinoistown was located about a mile south of present-day Colfax and was also known as Upper Corral and Alder Grove.  The Placer Herald of September 18, 1852 said that it was named Illinoistown in October of 1849 when the miners had a grand dinner in this “town of four houses”, and since most of them were Illinoisans, “… they by acclimation and a bottle of whiskey, named the place Illinoistown.”  The same article describes two productive steam operated sawmills and a fruit orchard – by 1853 they also had a Post Office.

The earliest references to Illinoistown describe it as lying within a small valley which, of course, was valuable to the indigenous Nisenan people as well.  This valley, and others like it were within forests of Sugar Pine, Douglas Fir, Incense Cedar, Yellow Pine and Black Oak providing a mosaic of diverse ecosystems and environmental nooks that were essential ingredients for the Nisenan version of the good life.

The industrious inhabitants of Illinoistown immediately went to work dropping trees, digging holes for gold, creating big corrals and allowing livestock and horses in streams and meadows and other native ecosystems.  Despite this rude behavior the Nisenan people were never consulted.  The interlopers never asked for permission, never offered a trade, never even had a meeting to disclose their intent.  They simply ignored the indigenous people.  When the Nisenan responded by nicking cattle and horses the whites retaliated with extreme measures, eventually burning the native's winter stores in several locations and forming a militia called the California Blades, who burned entire indigenous settlements and posted Indian scalps along the trail between Auburn and Illinoistown.  This particular episode of barbaric behavior is well documented in the historic record.

Secret Canyon and the North Fork of the American

The ridge itself is still a major route from the Sacramento Valley and Auburn to Donner Summit and the east side of the Sierra Nevada.  There was trade and communication between the west-side Nisenan and the east-side Washoe for centuries and there is archaeological evidence of trade and occupation for thousands of years by the unnamed people who preceded them.  In the historic era, Illinoistown was the eastern terminus of navigation for wagon traffic, a place where goods and people were transferred to pack animals who descended into the canyons to supply miners on the Bear River and the North Fork of the American and its tributaries. The trail between Illinoistown and Iowa Hill was built in anticipation of the transcontinental railroad (Central Pacific Railroad) which was completed in 1869.

John Rutherford allegedly began work on the trail in 1867 and immediately took on a partner named Truman Stevens who, by 1870, was the sole owner of the trail.  Prior to the railroad there were already rudimentary trails into the canyons used by both the indigenous people and gold miners, but the Stevens Trail was an investment.  In 1866 a Post Office was opened in Colfax, while the one in Illinoistown was closed.

Iowa Hill is 9 air-miles southeast of Colfax on a ridge between the North Fork of the American and Indian Creek at an elevation of 2,860’.  Gold was discovered near Iowa Hill in 1848 but the area was propelled into prominence by the discovery of deep gravels in 1854.  These tertiary gravels were mined by hydraulicking and later by drift mining.  In its heyday there were 15 stores and 18 hotels with a population of approximately 1,000.  By 1880 the Iowa Hill mining district had produced $20 million in gold but was considered “worked out.”

Slaughter Ravine

As you begin your descent from the trailhead there is mostly Canyon Live Oak above and below the trail.  In the wet months the tread can get a bit soggy.  Where the trail crosses Slaughter Ravine there are wildflowers in the spring and summer along with introduced plants like Tree of Heaven, Periwinkle and fruit trees.  Before long you’ll find yourself on a dirt road that was created in 1978 and remains the only disturbance to an otherwise pristine trail.  Easy to find signs will direct you back to the trail.

At Robbers Ravine the trail splits into an upper trail and lower trail.  The upper trail is the more scenic of the two, but it can be difficult to navigate in the wet season.  From the upper trail is a good view of Cape Horn where Chinese laborers, while secured by ropes, picked and blasted a ledge for the Central Pacific Railroad tracks.  Cape Horn is a steep bluff with a 75° slope, 1,400’ above the North Fork of the American River.  There is a popular story about Chinese workers in baskets hanging over a cliff to do this work, but this can’t be substantiated by research and this geologic feature is not really a cliff, but a dome with a dramatic slope.  Baskets would shred if they were lowered and raised along this rocky slide.  Author Maxine Hong Kingston tells a story about a man, who supposedly worked on this project, describing the lowering of baskets to get Chinese workers in position to set dynamite.  I doubt its accuracy as history simply because there are no records. Also, reminiscences, in their continuous retelling, change and tend to amplify the “good parts.”  Maxine Hong Kingston is a contemporary artist informed by tradition, who freely admits that some of her work is outside of the sphere of academia and wouldn’t necessarily stand up to Western critical analysis but this does not diminish her art in any way.  There is an interesting discussion of this topic on the Central Pacific Railroad site (cprr.org).

Facing Cape Horn From Robbers Ravine

After the two trails merge, you’ll come to a place where the trail becomes a rock ledge with a mining excavation adjacent to the trail.  Don’t bother exploring, it wouldn’t be an abandoned mine if it were productive.  Continue walking out to a point with a great view of the North Fork of the American downstream where you can see the bridge at Mineral Bar.  In 1851 a ferry crossed the river here on the wagon road between Illinoistown and Iowa Hill.  Charles Rice built the Mineral Bar and Iowa City Turnpike Road in 1854 and worked as the superintendent and toll collector for the next 30 years.  Tolls across the 110’ bridge ranged from 25 cents for a pedestrian to $6.50 for six yoke of oxen and a wagon.  It was a 10-mile trip that took four hours.  Placer County purchased the road in 1906 and today Mineral Bar is a Bureau of Land Management managed recreation area.

From this expansive vista the Stevens Trail descends to the east, with curvy river views and some steep drops downslope.  On September 4, 1884 the Placer Argus published an article titled “Fatal Fall” in which they report the arrival of a riderless horse in Iowa Hill prompting the formation of a search party.  “Honorable J. H. Neff found a hat known to belong to E. Webster on the Stevens Trail about a mile from the river on the Colfax side.  Mr. Webster was about 60 years old and a native of Maine.  His body was found well below the trail.  It is supposed that his hat fell off, and he dismounted and stumbled over the bank, a distance of over 200 feet.”  In November of 1890 the same newspaper reported the shooting of a 7’ long, 125-pound mountain lion on the Stevens Trail.  The message is the usual one for outdoor activities, enjoy yourself but remain alert, for things can change in an instant.

Hikers on the Stevens Trail

There are long shade-free areas as you descend to Secret Canyon so wear a hat, use sunscreen and bring enough water.  It can get hot here in mid-summer.  When you get close to the river at Secret Canyon, there is a rocky ledge below the trail with a few bedrock mortars and some rusted wire rope.  This was the location of a wire rope suspension bridge across the river that was used extensively from 1871 to 1895; in 1914 it collapsed and was never rebuilt.  Andrew Hallidie, renowned for his invention of the San Francisco cable cars, made the first wire rope produced in the West for the Bay State Mine on the Middle Fork of the American River in 1856.  In the following year Hallide established a plant to produce wire rope in San Francisco’s North Beach.  By 1869 A.S. Hallidie & Company had built a 320’ bridge across Deer Creek in Nevada City and a 225’ bridge across the Bear River, among others.  Years ago I walked the trail from Iowa Hill to this place and it was dense with vegetation and less scenic than the north side but I can’t vouch for its condition now.

Wire Rope from the Suspension Bridge that Crossed the River (1870-1914)

In addition to the bedrock mortars found at the bridge site here there are many more on the river’s edge just above the stream in Secret Canyon.  In the early 1980s we counted over 50 bedrock mortars at this location.  In the intervening 40 years many of the mortars have filled with sand and gravel due to the accumulation of silt and the periodic placer mining that takes place here.  This is such a beautiful spot.  Imagine the Nisenan gathered here where the river is shallow and there is a gravely bottom, perfect for salmon spawning.  The men may have been fishing here, while the women were possibly drying salmon and pounding fish bones into a powder suitable for soup stock, while caring for the children swimming nearby.  I don't think I'm reaching to say that they enjoyed and appreciated this place and I can easily imagine them singing, swapping stories and sharing jokes as they worked.  This is obviously a seasonal campsite and I wonder what trail they used to get here.

Bedrock Mortars Alongside the North Fork of the American

When you get out of the canyon you may be hungry and ready for some regional hippie-mex food available at Homie Joe’s Tacos on North Canyon Road a stone’s throw from the Colfax Cemetery, near Highway 80’s Exit 135.  There are some trade offs, but there is a unique and savory menu, plenty to eat, and great ambiance.  I appreciated being addressed as “Brother-Man” and I intend to return.

Hank Meals will be hiking the Stevens Trail on January 12, 2020, For more information contact laura@hiking4good.com.

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CANYON CREEK TRAIL ON THE NORTH YUBA RIVER

Bedrock mortars at Cut Eye Fosters Bar

[It just dawned on me that I talked about this trail in an earlier post (Indian Valley/September 2018) but, just like I’ve walked this trail many times, what harm is there in writing about it more than once?  Compare the two posts for different renditions].

How to get there:  From Nevada City, California travel north for 30 miles on State Highway 49 to the bridge over the North Yuba River and make an immediate left to the trailhead parking area.  On the way there you will cross the South Yuba and the Middle Yuba Rivers.

The Canyon Creek Trail is a pleasant all-seasons trail that parallels the North Yuba River on a sidehill trail through a lush forest at about 2,300 feet in elevation.  Along the way there are many places to find solitude and/or splendid swimming holes.  The walk to Shenanigan Flat is a bit over a mile, it’s about 2 miles to Cherokee Creek and about 3 ½ miles to Canyon Creek.  The trail begins on a gated road just after crossing the Highway 49 bridge over the North Yuba River.  In the late 1960s this dirt road transported campers to Shenanigan Flat where the Forest Service maintained a campground, but has since closed it.  The road itself was created in the 1860s, probably just after the big flood in the winter of 1862 when all of the bridges on the Yuba River were swept away.

As you hike take notice of the rock retaining walls on the downslope side of the road.  Of course, the real attention getter is the North Yuba – it’s beauty, speed and, in the wetter months, it’s sound.  This whole stretch of the river, from Indian Valley down to the mouth of Canyon Creek is inaccessible by vehicle and idyllic to visit for a swim, an ousel’s song or for pure wanderment.  There are few trails to the river from the main trail but much of it is approachable.  I urge you to respect this, and all rivers, you’re just visiting.

  Near Shenanigan Flat

The river makes a noticeable turn to the northwest at a place called Shenanigan Flat, a wonderful name whose origins are lost to the void of history.  I did find a few basalt flakes left behind by a stone age tool maker but the earliest historical presence I could find was a record of the mining claim of Michael Cortes & Company in 1874.  It’s a relatively flat bench sitting above the river, opposite Indian Creek, and must have made a sweet summer camp site for centuries before gold miners arrived.  There is an active, but low-key, mining claim nearby and there are the remains of concrete fire pits left from its days as a campground.

I have a friend who lived for a summer at the Shenanigan Flat campground in the late 1960s.  He was there with his family trying “to get back to the land.”  In hippie dialect that meant they had “dropped out” and were poor, but proud of it.  Their neighbors in the campground were a family who were trying to make some money by small-scale gold mining – they didn’t dress, act or talk like hippies.  Both families were polite to each other but not real friendly.  Their kids sometimes played together, but it was casual. 

The other neighbor worth noting was a large rattlesnake “seen around camp fairly often.”  My friend and his family were “OK with the snake” because it hadn’t displayed any territoriality.  In fact, they were almost in a state of grace because they lived near danger by being alert and harmonious with nature.  In other words, no one had been threatened or bitten.  Everyone was aware that the snake was there because it was acknowledged in manly conversations consisting of short sentences and grunts.

In time the mining family had gotten used to their natural neighbors and invited then to dinner around the campfire.  This blatant hospitality couldn’t be ignored, and the hippie family was determined to be a good neighbor, even if they were served Spam and canned string beans.  Instead, it was a big surprise when their host started frying a rattlesnake, while offering that it was “the big one.”  When faced with a spiritual conundrum it’s best to accept the hospitality, which the hippie family did.  I’m sure this qualifies as a shenanigan.

As the trail proceeds downstream to the northwest it assumes the width of the earlier wagon road that still extends to Cherokee Creek where there was once a toll bridge across the North Yuba.  The two historical maps that show the bridge location differ – the topography suggests that the bridge was on the east (upstream) side of Cherokee Creek.  On the opposite ridgetop, a few miles north of Camptonville, was a place called Depot Hill which was the highest and easternmost extent of freight wagon navigation in 1850.  Here wagons were downloaded to pack animals for the steep descent to Cherokee Creek and Cut Eye Fosters Bar on the North Yuba where there was another pack trail coming upstream from Fosters Bar (no relation to Cut Eye), which is now under water behind New Bullards Bar Dam.  At this point you’re probably annoyed that I’m not using possessive apostrophes when describing historic mining locations.  That’s because it’s a local convention not to – they were never used on maps, in contemporary newspaper accounts, mining journals or even Post Offices – I’m only perpetuating a local custom.

Near Cut Eye Fosters Bar

While mining at Cut Eye Fosters Bar in the summer of 1849 Philo Haven was approached by an Indian named Lo who offered to trade gold nuggets for some exotic miner’s cuisine.  Farris and Smith’s, 1882 History of Sierra County described the occasion this way: “Mr Haven began frying pancakes. The company began having visions of a famine. Even the great American pie-eater would have hung his head in shame had he beheld the delicate mouthfuls and the quantity of food devoured on this occasion. But even an Indian’s capacity was limited, and the feast was finally finished, greatly to the relief of the gold hunters.”  The next day they headed upstream to a place that would eventually become Downieville only to find that Hedgepath & Company had staked out claims already but there was plenty of good mining ground left.  

Cut Eye Fosters Bar was the most upstream place to obtain provisions on the North Yuba in 1850.  Newton Miller and company used a wing-dam to mine here from January 1851 to July 1852 and called it “a lively place.”  Cut-Eye Foster was described as a professional horse thief who employed Indians and kept a corral of pack animals.  California historian, T. H. Hittell remarked, that Foster had no problems with the local Indians because he had no prejudice against them.  “Judging by his own experience, he did not think there was any danger to be anticipated as long as they were not molested.”  William Downie had dealings with Cut Eye Foster and said he was philanthropic, but dishonest, “… prices were absolutely ruinous to his customers. He charged three dollars per pound for potatoes and butter, two dollars for flour, and so on in proportion, making everybody recognize that, if life was worth living, we certainly had to pay dearly to sustain it.”

The North Yuba Canyon from the Brandy City Trail

Cherokee Creek is a beautiful stream with plenty of riparian vegetation.  It has been heavily mined because it erodes the auriferous gravel deposits near Brandy City, a formerly productive hydraulic mining community.  Cherokee is the most popular Indian name for mining properties in California even though their homelands are in southern Appalachia.  In 1829 placer gold was discovered in their territory, from which they were eventually moved, but not before learning something about gold mining.  They were savvy miners when they arrived and I’m sure they took advantage of their knowledge.

You may or may not spot the trail to Brandy City that takes off from the Canyon Creek Trail below Cherokee Creek because it’s no longer maintained and there was ferocious logging on the upper reaches of this trail in the 1960s.  There’s not much to see there anymore because all the buildings are gone, although there is a small cemetery.  At one time this was an important hydraulic mining center with a sizable French population.  The Sierra Democrat of July 3, 1858 reported on a “Grand Ball at Brandy City – formerly Strychnine City – on the evening of the 27^th given by the Canyon Creek Ditch Company, and others, and you can bet it was a fine affair.  Seven of the ladies were taken to the Ball in a Concord A No 1 four horse coach. The balances were carried on horse and mule flesh and danced all night to broad daylight.”

Brandy City, 1900

Cross the foot bridge across Cherokee Creek and continue downstream to the south, then westerly, through a healthy forest of Douglas fir, yellow pine, incense cedar, black oak, live oak and broad-leaf maple.  This part of the trail is narrow and undulating like the original pack trail.

It was on this part of the trail on a narrow ridge toward the river where, in the late 1960s, you could see a tipi incongruously perched in a dense forest of oaks and conifers.  According to local rumors there was an attractive young woman who lived alone in that tipi.  Mister P., who worked for the Forest Service, heard the rumor and decided that he should investigate.  He told me that he found the tipi alright and as he walked toward it a nude woman stepped out to greet him.  Now Mister P. was a first-generation Italian American and a practicing Catholic who became quite agitated even as he was telling me the story.  He stood up and muttered “Mama Mia, Jesu Santo", and crossed himself several times before, red in the face, he made the universally understood “big boobs” gesture.  Actually, you had to have been there to fully appreciate his kinetic approach to storytelling.  Mister P. never told me what he and the woman talked about, but he was obviously concerned because he went to fetch the Ranger.  When they returned the Ranger verified Mister P.’s description of the situation and they apparently had a long conversation about safety.  It’s reassuring to know how responsive Forest Service management can be when the situation warrants it.

After crossing the small stream in Brummel Ravine, the trail descends to a dramatic confluence where Canyon Creek enters the North Yuba at Kelly Bar.  There’s a great swimming hole and campsite here.

Canyon Creek entering the North Yuba at Kelly Bar

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