Treasure Mountain, CO - Lost Frenchmens Gold

[UncleMatt]

In Sheepherder Gold, Temple talks about 2 young sheepherders who stumbled onto the cache while going to Pagosa Springs from their sheep camp at the headwaters of the San Juan River. They supposedly went into town with samples of ore they took from the cache. Temple reports that an acquaintance of his did an assay on a sample of the ore, and it produced 1.15 ounces of gold per pound of ore. The pool hall where all the action went down burned down not long after, and I have been unable to find anything in local media about the incident. I also tried to track down the people that Temple said he interacted with while researching the situation, but came up empty. Most had passed away long ago. And attempts to contact the family members of those people did not produce any results. Another dead end.

 

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[cyzak]

I spent a lot of time up on Pagosa Peak looking for that trail that they came down i never could find it i went up 4 mile to Cherry Cairn been up Turkey creek to. I know there had been quite a few people before me you could see were they had been. I believe the young sheepherders had said it was and old trail that they had followed came down on the west side of Pagosa Peak i never could find it that country is tough so much dead fall and steep.Also the weather up there can change fast better be prepared to pull off that mountain about 2 in the afternoon in the summer.

 

[UncleMatt]

If a person really thinks they know the general area where treasure is, do you think they would tell everyone in a book? Temple didn't. Temple misled people, just like the authors of all such tales do. He wanted his family members to find it, not anyone else. Temple's family was hounded by treasure hunters for decades, and I know they all grew tired of that.


I would just like to know if the mine and the cache ever really existed. I would be happy to put all kinds of effort into finding something, if I knew it wasn't a huge waste of time. It also might have been found long ago, and kept quiet. There is a man who bought lots of land around Pagosa Springs back in the early 1900's, but no one knew where he was getting the money to do so. He donated huge areas of land to the community as well. So its possible someone already found it.

 

[Randy Bradford]

I think its far more likely it wasn't discovered and that the trees with the markers on them have long since died, been burned down, or lost to avalanches and floods. There was multiple caches though, good chance one ore more might haven or will be found at some point...

 

[cyzak]

Believe me the only way that it will ever be discovered is walking that country and looking it would probably be just dumb luck if you came across it. I know when I was up there it is some of the most aw inspiring country I have been in just seeing it is a true treasure.

 

[UncleMatt]

I have taken samples from tree blazes up there that date back to the mid-1770's. There are still plenty of old blazes up there on trees. The problem is now that all of the trees are dead from beetles! You can stand on the Continental Divide and for as far as the eye can see the forest is gray and dead! So trees that survived for hundreds of years have now been killed by an insect. And those trees are rapidly deteriorating, and probably won't last another decade.

Its a race against time to find and record all of those blazes. The Forest Service should be all over that! But nothing at all is being done.

There have been a lot of people looking for a very long time now, and yet the main cache has never been found. Except, supposedly, but those two young sheepherders. Which is why I have been so focused on trying to verify its existence!

The sheepherders claim they covered the hole they made with a large flat rock, and covered it with dirt and grass. That was in 1922 I believe. So one has to wonder if there is even anything visible on the surface to give it away. Probably not.

 

[UncleMatt]

By the way, the only source we have claiming that smaller caches have been found comes from, you guessed it, Temple Cornelius! No mention is made of such events in any local media at all! So we don't know if those ever existed for sure either! It might have all just been stories Temple heard from fellow miners and sheepherders, that he then wrote down in his book.

 

[cyzak]

It is typical treasure hunting I first read the book when I got it from the library in Pagosa I must have read it forward and backwards before I got my own copy. I figured man this shouldn't be to hard to find he is giving out all the clues then I thought will if he knows were it is at why didn't he find it. That book kicked off a lot of experiences for me taught me a lot of things to, like natural objects artificially arranged and the excited eye will over look a lot. I am glad that Temple wrote this book hopefully it will keep people inspired to get out and have and adventure it sure worked on me.

 

[UncleMatt]

Great post cyzak! I too was motivated by Temple's book to go places and experience things I wouldn't otherwise have done. I think he believed it existed, I just don't know if that means its actually real or not. I love going up to that neck of the woods to go camping and poking around. And if I stumble across it some day, great. The tricky part is trying to figure out when the likelihood of heavy rain will be lowest in summer months. And the last time I was up there in early September I had thick ice on the tent roof in the morning. You never know, and it changes really quick.

 

[cyzak]

I will never forget how loud that thunder was up there and the hair standing up on end from a bolt getting ready to let loose. Its there I know it is I just had to move on to a different area and location that is big country up there and I believe they traveled into Silverton that way to. My area is Summitville now a lot easier to get to and just as much action from them working the mines I can day hike out of my camper and it is so much easier lol.

 

[Ponchosportal]

What kind of trees live from the 1770s that you have found in the area?

 

[cyzak]

What kind of trees live from the 1770s that you have found in the area?

Ponderosa pine and I have came across Aspen trees that could possibly be in that time frame to but they are few and far between.

 

[Ryano]

I've often wondered but never asked: is this what a tree "blaze" looks like ?

 

[Goldstar1]

No Ryano, that is probably done by an animal,I have thought that before too, a real tree blaze, from what I have seen will have prominent tool marks in the wood . A Tree blaze is also really hard to date unless using tree ring dating which i assume is what uncle matt was referring too with the 1770s date . If that date is correct it would be super old but definitely not unheard of excursions into the San Juans.

I've often wondered but never asked: is this what a tree "blaze" looks like ?

View attachment 1636132

 

[sdcfia]

Here's a blaze on a Ponderosa at 7600' elevation that dates to approximately 1910. The bark is migrating back over the exposed wood and has covered about half of what was originally exposed. If the tree is healthy enough, it will eventually seal the wound nearly completely. If a 1770s Ponderosa blaze still exists, I would be looking for one that shows extreme regrowth.

 

[UncleMatt]

What kind of trees live from the 1770s that you have found in the area?

Engelmann Spruce and Ponderosa Pines are the most common. If you want to see an example of such a large old tree, please stop at the Animas Museum in Durango, CO and look at the tree cookie they have on display there. It germinated in 1605, and didn't die until it was cut down near Vallecito Reservoir in the early 2000's.

 

[UncleMatt]

Many people do not realize that when you cut a piece of bark from a tree, the tree stops growing in that area. So while the surrounding bark continues to add rings each year, the blaze itself does not. So it appears to recede into the tree over time. The deeper the blaze is, the older it is.


I have found many old blazes up there that are so old the bark has re-covered the blaze, often with a layer of very old sap. But if you remove that old sap and bark, you can still see the markings of the tool that created the blaze in the wood underneath the scar tissue.

 

[UncleMatt]

No Ryano, that is probably done by an animal,I have thought that before too, a real tree blaze, from what I have seen will have prominent tool marks in the wood . A Tree blaze is also really hard to date unless using tree ring dating which i assume is what uncle matt was referring too with the 1770s date . If that date is correct it would be super old but definitely not unheard of excursions into the San Juans.

Correct. I took samples with both a coring tool and a tool I had specially made to remove 1/2 inch cores. When the trees have been dead for some time, as most of them up there are, its easier to obtain an accurate date with a larger diameter sample that allows for easier counting of growth rings.

 

[UncleMatt]

Here's a blaze on a Ponderosa at 7600' elevation that dates to approximately 1910. The bark is migrating back over the exposed wood and has covered about half of what was originally exposed. If the tree is healthy enough, it will eventually seal the wound nearly completely. If a 1770s Ponderosa blaze still exists, I would be looking for one that shows extreme regrowth.

View attachment 1636206

In the area we are discussing, the elevation is much higher, 10,000 to 12,500. Which produces thinner growth rings than trees growing at 7,600. The oldest blazes I have found up there are at least 6 inches deep, and often deeper. But the only sure way to know the age is to take a sample and have it analyzed by a dendrochronologist.

 

[cyzak]

If you go to Pagosa Springs stop by the Fred Harman Art Museum they have a aspen log in there with Kit Carson name and date of 1859. It was taken out of the South San Juan in 2006 you can see how big aspen trees can get this one was dying from sun scald but if it was in the right place I am sure it would still be growing.