deepskyal
Bronze Member
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2007
- Messages
- 1,925
- Reaction score
- 63
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Natrona Heights, Pa.
- Detector(s) used
- White's Coinmaster 6000 Di Series 3, Minelab Eq 600
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
- #1
Thread Owner
What a beautiful day yesterday for sightseeing and exploring.
I went to Austin Dam to look for the potential sites for lost treasures, safes full of silver and gold, jewelry, and what nots strewn across the valley floor.
I got lots of exercise, didnt take my machine out of the car once!
I came away from the place with a new look on the flood disaster and opinion on where stuff would be.
First off, the biggest problem is people. Almost everything in the area of a couple miles below the dam is private property, cutting off access to the lowest part of the valley to explore anything.
I drove as far down as Costello and ,nada..no access anywhere.
Secondly, the one area I did manage to get down to, the valley floor is overgrown with willow shrubs, golden rod and brush so thick it's almost impenatrable. You'd never be able to swing a detector in there.
And, most importantly, the flood was a disaster, BUT....I saw a picture in a small diner, (I'll post it later,I took a pic of it), it was a panorama of the flood showing about a 2 mile swath the day after.
It is definately a birds eye view.
Unlike all the other pics I've seen during my reasearch, this one was a collection of pics put together from somewhere high up. (If you look at some of the old pics, you'll see how barren the hillsides were back in those days so it was easy to get a view from up high)
Anyhow.....the swath of flood damage was suprisingly narrow, maybe 150 feet across. The water must not have been very high, but full of debris instead, and leveled everything in its path. Like a mud flood, not a water flood.
If you look how the dam burst, I think you'll agree that it wasnt any monster wave rushing through the valley, just water probably 3 or 4 foot high with logs acting as battering rams tearing through everything in its path.
I came to the conclusion that any valuables lost are not far at all from where they were uprooted from.
Unfortunately, that area would most likely be where the new Austin school is.
That entire portion of the valley floor, from the road, clear to the creek, has the school building and athletic fields, in a several acre section. The only area probably left undisturbed would be across the creek from it and again, the brush would make it impossible to swing a detector.
I wouldn't mind a trip someday, just to walk up the creek and see what may have been exposed in the creek bottom from constant flow, but I'm giving up the idea of swinging a machine looking for buried safes.
The only access to the creek I found was where the sewer treatment plant is, and i doubt that will be open long. There are a couple posts with rusted speed limit signs turned around that I'm guessing had something painted on it at one time....probably no trespassing, but I was more than willing to play ignorant about my knowledge of that. The posts are set so as to allow a cable to be strung across the road, which is dirt.
But. I will say, that the area along the creek in this area is pretty interesting. Nice flat valley floor, a big bend in the creek, and obsticles that certainly would have impeaded the flow of junk enough to let any heavy metal drop along the area.
However, any of you North Central Pa'ers....I did pass a couple interesting sites worth detecting.
There's a small town about an hours drive South along Route 255 I think, Byrndale. It has a pretty nasty looking ballfield, as in, needs major renovation due to age and neglect...age being the key word.
Old wooden bleachers with weeds as high as the top tier, and I spotted some playground equipment as I went by.
I suspect from the towns size, the field was used by several communities because I didnt notice anything else around.
AND....how about the rest stop on Rte 255? Thats been there for ,at least, 40 years.
I remember it as a kid when it had the stinky old outhouse building. Now it has a small, and I do mean small, information center that was closed on my trip back home, and it now has porta johns instead of the fixed out building, but...years of travelers passing through...Hmmmmm.
Look for the Austin pics later today.
Al
I went to Austin Dam to look for the potential sites for lost treasures, safes full of silver and gold, jewelry, and what nots strewn across the valley floor.
I got lots of exercise, didnt take my machine out of the car once!
I came away from the place with a new look on the flood disaster and opinion on where stuff would be.
First off, the biggest problem is people. Almost everything in the area of a couple miles below the dam is private property, cutting off access to the lowest part of the valley to explore anything.
I drove as far down as Costello and ,nada..no access anywhere.
Secondly, the one area I did manage to get down to, the valley floor is overgrown with willow shrubs, golden rod and brush so thick it's almost impenatrable. You'd never be able to swing a detector in there.
And, most importantly, the flood was a disaster, BUT....I saw a picture in a small diner, (I'll post it later,I took a pic of it), it was a panorama of the flood showing about a 2 mile swath the day after.
It is definately a birds eye view.
Unlike all the other pics I've seen during my reasearch, this one was a collection of pics put together from somewhere high up. (If you look at some of the old pics, you'll see how barren the hillsides were back in those days so it was easy to get a view from up high)
Anyhow.....the swath of flood damage was suprisingly narrow, maybe 150 feet across. The water must not have been very high, but full of debris instead, and leveled everything in its path. Like a mud flood, not a water flood.
If you look how the dam burst, I think you'll agree that it wasnt any monster wave rushing through the valley, just water probably 3 or 4 foot high with logs acting as battering rams tearing through everything in its path.
I came to the conclusion that any valuables lost are not far at all from where they were uprooted from.
Unfortunately, that area would most likely be where the new Austin school is.
That entire portion of the valley floor, from the road, clear to the creek, has the school building and athletic fields, in a several acre section. The only area probably left undisturbed would be across the creek from it and again, the brush would make it impossible to swing a detector.
I wouldn't mind a trip someday, just to walk up the creek and see what may have been exposed in the creek bottom from constant flow, but I'm giving up the idea of swinging a machine looking for buried safes.
The only access to the creek I found was where the sewer treatment plant is, and i doubt that will be open long. There are a couple posts with rusted speed limit signs turned around that I'm guessing had something painted on it at one time....probably no trespassing, but I was more than willing to play ignorant about my knowledge of that. The posts are set so as to allow a cable to be strung across the road, which is dirt.
But. I will say, that the area along the creek in this area is pretty interesting. Nice flat valley floor, a big bend in the creek, and obsticles that certainly would have impeaded the flow of junk enough to let any heavy metal drop along the area.
However, any of you North Central Pa'ers....I did pass a couple interesting sites worth detecting.
There's a small town about an hours drive South along Route 255 I think, Byrndale. It has a pretty nasty looking ballfield, as in, needs major renovation due to age and neglect...age being the key word.
Old wooden bleachers with weeds as high as the top tier, and I spotted some playground equipment as I went by.
I suspect from the towns size, the field was used by several communities because I didnt notice anything else around.
AND....how about the rest stop on Rte 255? Thats been there for ,at least, 40 years.
I remember it as a kid when it had the stinky old outhouse building. Now it has a small, and I do mean small, information center that was closed on my trip back home, and it now has porta johns instead of the fixed out building, but...years of travelers passing through...Hmmmmm.
Look for the Austin pics later today.
Al
