North Through Southern California

It was time to start my journey back north towards my home in Seattle. I took the desert Highway 395 much of the way north through Southern California to Nevada. On the way I detoured to explore the mining areas around Randsburg and Johannesburg, CA.       35.3513, -117.6737 

In that same area, I also investigated the dry lakebed of Koehn Lake (Saltdale), and camped in the Last Chance Canyon mining area of the El Paso Mountains.       35.3688, -117.9474 

Bickel Camp

In the El Paso Mountains is Bickel Camp , the well preserved home of an old prospector called Walt Bickel. I met Dave Cook, one of the friendly caretakers who live on site to protect it from vandalism. I also talked with a modern-day gold prospector who told me about using a metal detector, where to look, and showed me some gold nuggets he'd found.       35.4351, -117.8883 

Burro-Schmidt Tunnel

Walt Bickel's neighbor was William Henry "Burro" Schmidt, who spent 38 years obsessively digging a tunnel with hand tools a third of a mile through a mountain. It was refreshing to get out of the heat and walk through the Burro Schmidt Tunnel , thinking about the man who spent his life working inside, inching forward a little bit a day.       35.4106, -117.8742 

Continuing north through California on 395, I crossed into Nevada on Highway 6, and spent the night camping in the mining country hills east of Hawthorne, NV., where I could look west down over the vast Hawthorne Army Ammunition Depot. I noticed that there was a post driven into the ground nearby with an ancient rusty metal cigarette cases nailed to it. What would be inside, I wondered? Some kind of note? Actually, to my amazement, there was a folded piece of paper inside! A mining claim from 1975 had been waiting for 31 years inside that rusty box.       38.5175, -118.4765