Volume 5, Chapter 6
Volume Overview: I always lay out a proposed route for each journey before leaving my home base in Billings, Montana. Part of the fun is the months of research and planning prior to departure! This spring’s trip is a bit abbreviated, but the plan is to dash west from Billings to Portland, Oregon, for some business; head down the west side of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada to Yosemite National Park in California; cross the mountains heading east to Reno/Sparks, Nevada; trek through the northern deserts of Nevada up to Twin Falls, Idaho; explore the Jackson Hole area of Wyoming; and then head back to Billings through Yellowstone National Park and Cody, Wyoming. Let’s get rolling!
Jackson, CA to Columbia, CA (Hwy 88 to Pine Cove back to Jackson to Hwy 49 to Columbia, CA)
The journal picks up down the road from Coloma in Jackson, CA. Jackson was founded in 1848 as “Botellas”, named by early travelers for the many glass bottles littering the ground around a local spring. A trading post was soon established nearby and some gold was found in local creeks. In 1851 the town’s name was changed to Jackson, a post office was established and it was named the county seat for Amador County. The placer gold soon ran out but hard rock mines were discovered near by and the Kennedy, Zeile and Argonaut produced nearly half of the total gold found in California over the next hundred years. Surprisingly, Jackson never really grew into the metropolis one would have expected. Relatively easy access to the cities of the valley and San Francisco dampened the development of Jackson. Several fires ravaged the town in years around 1860, but the wooden structures interspersed amongst the brick were quickly rebuilt. Today this is another of the Gold Country tourist destinations, though the main attraction is the large casino up in the hills outside of town.
At the end of Main Street where it turns left and starts climbing a hill sits the National Hotel (starting to seem like every gold rush town had a “National Hotel”!) Built on the site of a wooden hotel named the Louisiana House that burned down in the fire of 1862, this structure was built in 1864 as the National Hotel (reflecting a more politically prudent choice during the height of the Civil War).
Me memories of Jackson will stick with me for quite some time, due in no part to the fact that I DAMAGED the Lunch Box trying to maneuver down the very narrow Main Street. Jackson, as with most towns from this era, is built at the bottom and up a hill. At one point along Main Street, the curb is about 15 inches high. As a big Dodge Ram truck and I tried to get by each other, I scraped the bottom back panel along the curb, gouging all the way down to the fiberglass for about a foot. Trust me when I tell you severe pouting ensured…. Brother Scott, book me for early June for some repair work!)
Before continuing the journey south along Hwy 49 I take a little detour east up Hwy 88 to an out of the way state park, Indian Grinding Rock. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, Native Americans had inhabited the valleys of the western Sierra Nevada for thousands of years. In addition to the plentiful game in the area, the other major source of food were the millions of acorns dropped each year by the thick oak forests that carpet the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. This small valley with open meadows and large valley oaks also contains a cluster of marbleized limestone outcroppings scattered across the meadow. The natives used rocks to grind acorns into a meal that was then cooked into mush for consumption. The site was inhabited for so long, and the use of the rocks so intense and repetitive, that “bedrock mortars” formed as the rock underneath was slowly ground away (used similar to a mortar and pestle spice grinder). This little state park is definitely off the beaten path and on the morning I was there Augie and I were the only two visitors on the site. A slight breeze ruffled leaves on the giant oaks and the sound of birds filled the air.
A reconstructed Miwok village reigns over the quiet meadows that are adorned by the limestone rocks.
In the meadows to the east of the reconstruction lie the rocks. A viewing platform has been built extending out over the largest rock in an effort to keep the tourists from damaging the rocks. This was a bustling village and as far as I could tell, every one of the rock outcroppings scattered around the glen had been used as mortars.
Here are some close-up views of different areas of the rock cluster.
A duck found itself quite at home in one of the depressions.
There are over 1,185 mortar holes contained within the 135 acre park.
While the Miwok villages spread out over a number of valleys along the western slopes, they were not a united political unit. Trade existed between the various villages but each individual village governed itself. As with most of the Native American populations in California, the diseases brought by the Europeans were devastating to the Miwok and their numbers quickly dwindled. The area became part of a farm, which was held by descendants of the same family until the 1950’s and who respected the heritage of the grinding rocks and protected the site. The family sold the site to the State of California for a state park in 1958. One of those ‘off the road” moments that are really interesting. As I noted earlier, I had the entire park virtually to myself as I wandered the meadows in a cool breeze until the very end, when the squeals of elementary students getting off school buses for the ever-present field trip bus pierced the still of the valley. Oh well…
As I continued down the road to my next stop, Columbia, I passed through a number of gold rush towns that are clearly weekend destinations for visitors from the valley and then came across a close-up reminder that the California drought that we all hear about. By nature the interior of California is a semi-arid environment and the millions of people who live there now depend upon reservoirs storing spring rain and the run-off from the winter snow pack. Given that this is the fourth year in a row of extreme drought, the reservoirs are very low. This is just a small view of New Melones Lake, formed by a 635 foot high dam built in 1979 alongside of Hwy 49. You can see from the waterline just how low the lake is.
Next up: Wrapping up the visit to California Gold Country
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