Treasure Mountain, CO - Lost Frenchmens Gold

[sdcfia]

It sure does. I have no idea if ANY of that stuff exists up there or not, but I have a blast looking for it

Absolutely. Having a mission - looking for something (manmade objects, native artifacts, wildlife, lost hikers, anything) - is the best way of getting into the remote reaches of the mountains, where few if any people go and a guy never knows what he'll find. Hiking trails are OK, but for me, they've always been just a convenient means of finding a starting point to go off-trail and begin wandering.

 

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[cyzak]

Do not forget about the weather up there sometimes the soonest i can get in is July and your lucky if you can be there in October. They would have had a very limited time to do anything people have to realize they did not have the modern tech we have now. I know just the amount of wood that would have to be cut just to cook food let alone stay warm everything would almost have to be cooked to be consumed and that would emit smoke.

 

[UncleMatt]

Great point about the weather! Every year I play this game, trying to predict when the snow will be gone and when the monsoon rainy season will begin up there. I've gone up and been hit with hail storms before I could even pitch camp. And many days I sat in my tent waiting for fog and rain to clear off so I could start exploring. And hiking along trails on ridge tops is not fun when lightning is dancing all around you.

 

[diggingthe1]

I've always guessed they smelted the gold at the spring north of Del Norte. There is an agate hunting location there. At a talk I went to they said they had found evidence with detectors. I used to go up there and there is a few old foundations. The spring seems deep and I have always wondered if they might have stashed the gold in the spring. Check it out sometime, it makes a great trip if nothing else. I sure could be totally wrong also.

 

[cyzak]

I've always guessed they smelted the gold at the spring north of Del Norte. There is an agate hunting location there. At a talk I went to they said they had found evidence with detectors. I used to go up there and there is a few old foundations. The spring seems deep and I have always wondered if they might have stashed the gold in the spring. Check it out sometime, it makes a great trip if nothing else. I sure could be totally wrong also.

It is highly unlikely they would do that they never did any thing in the same place. They always had different areas because of attack like the saying keeping your eggs in one basket they spread it around but they might have dropped something never now thanks for the info appreciate it greatly.

 

[UncleMatt]

The two sheepherders claimed there was a smelter inside the cache room. Who knows if that is for real or not

 

[cyzak]

That is why i believe it was the French that had that smelter i am no expert on how they went about there mining process but i know it was different than how the Spanish processed it.

 

[UncleMatt]

The Spanish were familiar with smelting though

 

[cyzak]

Yes they were ,the only problem is they would not smelt gold and store it in the same place remember all that smoke dead give away.But maybe the French did not care maybe the French thought they had it made up their.

 

[Holyground]

It was found by Americans and developed into a good mine. Search the mountain above.

 

[cyzak]

It was found by Americans and developed into a good mine. Search the mountain above.

Very true, both ways had real good ore bodies that were developed on down the road but this is about were they cached there gold back in the old days.

 

[UncleMatt]

But the cache room found by the sheepherders was the secret processing location, not at the mine itself. They had to concentrate the gold as much as possible to make it practical and profitable to carry it back to Taos or Santa Fe. No one wanted to carry unprocessed ore for long distances, especially to communities where it would draw the attention of the King's representatives. Who would tax it 20%. So smoke or not, it had to be done up in the high country.

I look for locations that had what the miners needed to do that in secret. Places where smoke would have to rise a long way to the top of ridge lines so it could dissipate before it could be seen from afar in the form of a defined plume. Places where there was grass for pack animals, and water, and game, and also trees for fuel. As well, Temple claimed to have found a charcoal pit in his search area. And while the production of the charcoal would create smoke, when the charcoal was used in the smelter, very little smoke would be produced, allowing it to be hidden IN the cache room itself while operating.

So if the cache really exists, I believe it contains a smelter just as the sheepherders claimed.

You have to climb inside of the heads of the people who were engaged in this stuff to try to get an idea of where to look. And one thing that the author of Ventana remarked about the likely location of the cache was that it was "in a place no one would ever want to go". That perfectly describes the extremely rough terrain of where I am looking.

 

[UncleMatt]

I think some are getting the two different stories under discussion here confused with one another as well. I apologize if I have led the topic away from the story of Treasure Mountain, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Lost Mine of the Window.

 

[cyzak]

The problem here is that i think that there has been very few people on this site that have looked for the Lost Mine of the Window. You and me are about the only ones that have committed on it i gave up on it because i could not look for two of them and chose the Treasure Mountain.

 

[sdcfia]

The problem here is that i think that there has been very few people on this site that have looked for the Lost Mine of the Window. You and me are about the only ones that have committed on it i gave up on it because i could not look for two of them and chose the Treasure Mountain.

If it were me, I'd choose the Lost Carson in the Needles. There seems to be some basis of that one (I saw an alleged photographic copy of the alleged assay of the alleged ore from an old timer who looked for it), but I suspect Cornelius has added enough disinformation in his story to send folks in the wrong direction. As UncleMatt knows, that country is also a brutally rough place to go.

 

[cyzak]

If it were me, I'd choose the Lost Carson in the Needles. There seems to be some basis of that one (I saw an alleged photographic copy of the alleged assay of the alleged ore from an old timer who looked for it), but I suspect Cornelius has added enough disinformation in his story to send folks in the wrong direction. As UncleMatt knows, that country is also a brutally rough place to go.

Decisions decision, I have taught my self to be wise in the path that I take if I believed that it did not lead some were I would not be on it.[Not all those who wander are lost}

 

[cyzak]

But the cache room found by the sheepherders was the secret processing location, not at the mine itself. They had to concentrate the gold as much as possible to make it practical and profitable to carry it back to Taos or Santa Fe. No one wanted to carry unprocessed ore for long distances, especially to communities where it would draw the attention of the King's representatives. Who would tax it 20%. So smoke or not, it had to be done up in the high country.

I look for locations that had what the miners needed to do that in secret. Places where smoke would have to rise a long way to the top of ridge lines so it could dissipate before it could be seen from afar in the form of a defined plume. Places where there was grass for pack animals, and water, and game, and also trees for fuel. As well, Temple claimed to have found a charcoal pit in his search area. And while the production of the charcoal would create smoke, when the charcoal was used in the smelter, very little smoke would be produced, allowing it to be hidden IN the cache room itself while operating.

So if the cache really exists, I believe it contains a smelter just as the sheepherders claimed.

You have to climb inside of the heads of the people who were engaged in this stuff to try to get an idea of where to look. And one thing that the author of Ventana remarked about the likely location of the cache was that it was "in a place no one would ever want to go". That perfectly describes the extremely rough terrain of where I am looking.

They usually had the smelters on the side of the mountain or a hill they would try and catch the uphill draft from the air to improve heat in the smelting process. I know this probably does not sound right but they needed a lot of heat to get the mixture up to the right temp and the air played a big role in it. That is why i believe it was in a very tough area to get to were they built it to work right believe me they had to look just for the right conditions and place.

 

[UncleMatt]

They probably had a vent hole in the top of the cache room to accomplish exactly that effect from air currents, and it also would have kept the room free from smoke so work could go on in it.

 

[UncleMatt]

I too am interested in searching for the Lost Carson Mine, as many of you know from my thread on that very topic here on the forum.

 

[cyzak]

They probably had a vent hole in the top of the cache room to accomplish exactly that effect from air currents, and it also would have kept the room free from smoke so work could go on in it.

Exactly what i have been thinking that is why it is so hard to find the Lost Mine of the Window i wonder if the father and daughter team ever got any were.