My Trails

For the last several days, I have been camped at a BLM wilderness site by the Merced River, a beautiful, remote area about 20 miles south of Yosemite National Park. There is no cell signal here. The surrounding mountains and high banks of the winding river block out all vestiges of civilization. Just the other day a group of kids out backpacking on a trail below here had a medical emergency when one of the boys fell and received a bad cut on his leg. An adult chaperone had to run for three miles to get a cell-signal and alert search and rescue of their situation. If you walk into the backcountry here and no one knows where you are, you’re pretty much on your own.

Merced River

In a couple of weeks, Carrie Esau and I will attempt the climb and summit of Half Dome in Yosemite. Carrie contacted me several months ago expressing her desire to climb the fabled peak as one of the accomplishments on her “bucket list”, and asked if I would come with her in the attempt. It seemed like a great idea to me! I’m always up for something challenging and adventurous. I like hiking and backpacking but there is one thing you could not get me to do. While we were in Yosemite doing a practice hike, we saw climbers scaling the shear rock face of El Capitan. They looked like tiny dots on the wall several thousand feet above. It makes me dizzy to think about it!

Yosemite National Park is an awesome place. All the waterfalls are full and magical with all the snow melt in the Sierra, and the colors of spring are deep and vibrant this time of year. We enjoyed beautiful weather on our practice hike that descended a trail from Glacier Point. We had no choice but to stop now and then to admire the spectacular views of Yosemite Valley, Vernal and Nevada Falls, and of course, Half Dome, the most prominent feature in the Park. I’m glad that I got to explore the park before hiking Half Dome and the John Muir Trail. The place can be very confusing and now I know how to get around without getting lost.

While I’ve been camped here by the Merced River, I have done a little gold panning. I guess you could compare the hobby of panning for gold to fishing: You get some exercise walking back to your favorite mountain stream; it puts you out in nature to enjoy the splendor of the wilderness; it lets you sit by a cool mountain stream and daydream about catching the big One. In the case of panning it’s a big nugget! I don’t expect to find a big nugget but any little flake is exciting. The big difference between catching a fish and finding a piece of gold is that when you find gold you never throw the little ones back.

The old-timers mined and dredged these rivers extensively years ago. A few struck it rich but most found little gold to pay for all their back-breaking work from dawn to dusk. What little gold the miners found was readily relieved of them by merchants in town charging astronomical prices for supplies. Eventually, the gold became scarcer to find and harder to get out so most of the miners gave up and moved on. There are still small, scattered pieces of gold left in rivers. The runoff replenishes them every year and sometimes prosecutors have overlooked an area, but it takes a lot of time panning to find even the smallest amounts.

I have found several small flakes of gold and one small piece called a “picker”. There is a hike of about 3 miles along the river that brings me to a branch of the Merced, called the North Fork, where I do most of my prospecting. Not many people are willing to walk this far to look for gold and I think that is why I have had good luck there. I found a nice little pool of water up stream that I dangle my feet in and swirl gold-bearing dirt around in my pan. It is always a thrill to see a piece of gold show up in your pan no matter how small it is.

Gold

Tomorrow I will head up north for a bit and find another place to camp. I’m always on the lookout for places that are free but they are few and far between in California. Almost a third of the state is national forest land and every campground has a post with a slot where you can put in your money for a place to park. I never had trouble finding free land to camp on in Arizona and Southern California, but on the other hand, in the summer it is hard to compare the deserts of the south with the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 19th, 2013 at 11:54 am and is filed under Adventure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.