The road didn't look that long at first, but we/well... some , got there.
The two darker crosses in the photo Marius posted are also reproductions, either made by the person who took the photo OR Bilbrey himself.
The originals are slightly different, both darker and rougher in appearance. All of the "stones" in the "Latin Heart + 2 Crosses" photo are of Jim Hatt's own set of replicas.
Jim fashioned the original mold by hand from tin foil, using the scaled photos he had ( likely Bilbrey's ) or the same photo as the one that Marius posted. From the first set made using the tin foil molds, he then made a set of latex molds, from which he cast a few more sets of plaster cross replicas. All of those he gave away or sold for a nominal price to a few people who wanted them. I believe he made his copies of the LH, using the same procedure. While visiting Jim at his home, and talking about all of this, I showed Jim some photos that I had taken earlier that day while out in the mountains, which I felt represented some of what was on both the H/P stone and the map cross. Jim got a bit agitated , first asking me "how the H--- I had found those things, and then telling me to never put them online. He then pulled Conatser's book off his shelf, opened it and showed me a couple of paragraphs and a map. Then later, and just as I was about to leave, he took down the two crosses which hung on the wall above his computer, and insisted I take them as well as the book. I offered to pay for them, but he refused to take anything, even though he said they were the last ones he had. Turned out it wouldn't be the last time he was so generous.
View attachment DSCF1213 crosses.bmp
Later, during another visit, after we had discussed the Latin Heart on DUSA, he showed me a similarly scaled color photo of a black heart on a piece of what looked like a brown rubber floor mat from a car or truck. Although I could see the carvings, I couldn't read them and Jim wouldn't enlarge the photo for me at the time. He also showed me a second black and white photo of a man on one knee who was holding the heart in his hands and facing the camera. Similar to the one of Travis and his partner. It was shot in a flat area with a small rocky hill in the background but I can't say whether it was taken at QC or somewhere else.
The man was wearing a light colored cowboy hat, a light colored jacket and wire framed glasses, as I recall.
Jim didn't say who he was, and I didn't think to ask at the time. But later, he did give us the tape that he had made of his talk with the friend of the finder.
I MAY have those photos on a CD or DVD somewhere.
From what we know about Bilbrey and his friends and partners searches in the TM area, I suspect that if Bilbrey DID find the crosses as he said, that he believed that location to be at or very close to what they applied to. The later article, which was about his claim(s) AND the stone crosses, said that he had found SOME gold at his dig, and based on that, the FS was willing to allow him to continue his mining activity there.
