austin
Gold Member
austin
You wrote " BUT (and I've told it before) when I was young a very old man told me of his sheelite mine in those mtns., drew me a map and told me where the LDM was. Found his mine and the canyon where the LDM was supposed to be. "
Can you upload this map ? Maybe I can help you in some details .
Marius
I told this story on here before, but here goes. Jerry drew a map on a piece of paper, a friend and I(both hippies) went looking in a $200, 1961 Chevrolet sedan, I was about 19-20, we found Jerry's old mine(he was in his 70's then), found the other canyon where the LDM was supposed to be, could see a slide area I thought, didn't investigate it, never believed it, was heading for my 3rd year of geology and knew better, plus there were other places we wanted to go. Fast forward about 15 years, I went back to college, changed my major to history and graduated and became a teacher(science and history). Really nice young lady in my science class had a project to do for history and she picked LDM. Asked me for help. I had filed the map away with a couple of clippings, a fake tourist map I bought in Phoenix and I gave the file to her and told her to keep it. She did her report, got an A, I got a hug and I forgot about it. Now fast forward to this. The map is gone, and all I can remember is that their were three canyons, I think NE about a mile or so from Weaver's Needle and the sheelite mine was in the far right (3rd) canyon and the LDM was in the second one. They are not big, more like little draws, I went hiking with a lady friend I met on a trip to Europe who invited me to Chandler(she taught in Mesa or vice-versa)we hiked a bit out there, it is/was a government wilderness and she and I never gave a thought to looking for either mine. I never believed Jerry's stories of Apache guards working for the U.S. govt. wearing badges and watching over the gold. I was just a hill country Texas kid that lived for arrowheads, collected old colt pistols, quit killing animals and always had several jobs, good money in the bank and a big inheritance. I tried that gold mining stuff for 6 months once, nearly starved, froze to death and I think today's aches and pains are from that. Is there gold there? I doubt it, but I'm not the expert. Go there, ask a ranger for a map or sketch to the sheelite mine and go left one canyon. Those mines are shown today on topo maps and it isn't hard to find. We were stoked on Coors tall boys(we couldn't get it here in San Antonio then, had to drive 90 miles to Uvalde) and we found the mine. If you live near me, I'll meet you at the Broken Spoke in Austin and do my best to re-draw the map. Only thing I don't remember is what direction from the Needle. Sorry, but I think all of you guys are wasting your time. I won't argue about it and everyone can do as they wish. I am sort of retired, a tad crippled up and extremely lazy. Good luck on your hunt...