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 Post subject: Our Explorations Of Johntown and Gold Canyon On 4/27/13
PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2013 4:59 pm 
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Location: Las Vegas, NV
Our Explorations Of Johntown and Gold Canyon On 4/27/13

The Johntown area is unique in every which way when you consider that this is a significant site in regards to Nevada's history. It was the first place gold was discovered in Nevada and one of the oldest mining camps. Today only a few remnants remain of what once was but to be able to explore these locations do a little metal detecting made it a nice adventure to tie into the regions history such as Virginia City.
 
The journey began seeing wild horses near our turn off which is an old toll road that leads down into the valley and right through Johntown. Its very rare anymore to see wild horses as the government is rounding them all up while some are even hunting them for there meat pretty sad really.
 
My plan was to investigation three sections of Gold Canyon which are divided by roads or mining districts. The first section we would focus on was Johntown which really nothing remains. Hiking down the old toll road we came across a couple residential homes that were built right on the town site. I could see some old artifacts scattered on private property but nothing out of the norm.
 
I talked to a guy offroading who told me to be careful getting to close to the one property as he claimed there was a mean dog that has been known to attack hikers. He was right that dog ran up the hill to bark at us. The guy was telling me that the dog tried to bite him and some friends. He also pointed me out to a den up in the rocks and told us its worth checking it out. We would eventually climb up there where we found a massive hole in the rocks where we could sit down inside and cool off from the hot sun.
 
Spring is a really nice time of year here there are flowers blooming, lizards, variety of birds and even though its high desert its very pretty. Along the way we found an old wagon, tin cup and some sort of left behind ruins. We also found in the road a rib bone of some kind of animal in the area. It was a fairly large bone so it may have come off a mountain lion or larger canine.
 
We would then drive up near Devil's Gate and continue to follow the canyon. I used the metal detector only recovering old nails at one moment I struck something big which was an old shovel head from the 1800's buried a few inches under dirt. There was a mine I tried to crawl down into but honestly I could not get into the hole deep enough I was just to large and ended up getting stuck.
 
The kids and I followed the canyon north rather then going east into the Silver City mining district. Where at the end of it was this volcanic rocky peak which we climbed to the top. The peak or vista point gave us great views of Gold Hill and Silver City. We would decide after the climb to head back to the most important stage of our expedition which is in Gold Hill.
 
When we arrived in Gold Hill there is a sign that says welcome to Gold Canyon. Our first stop would be at a mining site with a massive debris pile surrounded by this entrance into a mine with a big iron door. The door was open so I went in to grab a photo. I could not get deep enough into the mine as it was collapsed inside although there was a small gap I probably could have fit into but it just was not worth the risk.
 
In order to get to the canyon trail we had to get around this mine sadly we couldn't there was barbed wire all over, thorn brush, pockets of water and the terrain was a mess. I got everybody into the truck and instead we parked further up the road near the canyons trailhead.
 
We had less then two hours of the sun going down so we would have to make haste. We had already been hiking for miles throughout the canyon and climbing around. The final part of Gold Canyon however would be the most exciting as we would go to the to a part of it that meandered through thick foliage for a couple miles. Its very lush in this part of the canyon lots of trees and the trail is very narrow as brush consumes it for a couple miles.
 
Along the way we would come across many mine debris piles but no mines. As we were nearing the end of the canyon there was this stone building we came across. It was old maybe some sort of storage it was used for or a TNT house.
 
Not to far away my son made the discovery of an animal mutilation it was very grotesque. The body parts were spread out over a 20' area you had the spine in one area, rib cage not to far away, legs in another, hip bones further away and it was a mess. I photographed the parts as if this were a crime scene. Most mutilations come from mountain lions or hungry packs of coyotes but not all of them like in the Kinzua mutilations we investigated years ago.
 
As we came out of the canyon we came on out near the East Yellow Jacket Mill and the old Train Tunnel. Both places we have visited before and have photos of on our site.  The train tunnel is haunted so I did take my kids through it as we hiked along the tracks. Nearby is some other abandoned building which is posted by the FBI not sure why its in ruins but we just had a gander inside.
 
We could see down the tracks Virginia City it was less then a half of mile away and we walked from Gold Hill to here in a matter of less then an hour on the trail. Its kind of the back way in taking this canyon up into the Comstock Lode.
 
When we made our way through the tunnel the sun was going down it was getting dark out. The boys and I took an entirely different trail back. This was cut diagonally right to where my truck was parked along the way we came across allot of rusty barrels and remnants you will find around mines like bean cans.
 
It felt really good to explore Gold Canyon as of recently someone found a coin in that same here worth half of million dollars. All we found were nails, cans and shovel heads. Tammy also found an aqua colored broken glass bottle neck from the 1800's.
 
Very few remnants remain today of what once was a very active canyon full of thousands of miners picking away at the gold that once lined the canyons walls. It made a great day for a picnic and after the hike we all went out for chocolate covered dipped cones.
 
I still believe that the canyon holds many secrets even behind these collapsed mines. I believe that ghost haunt the canyon and I also believe that sometimes these mutilations we find are not the act of mother nature. Based on the fact that in these mountains I have found some very large tracks in the Flowery Mountains. It never ceases to amaze me of all the oddities we find exploring the hills surrounding Silver City, Gold Hill and Virginia City.
 
We would finish April on a good note we completed allot of great explorations and produced allot of good content for our site. You cannot possibly live in NV and not know the first place gold was discovered as the whole reason for the state being settled was due to its mines.
Lord Rick
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