An Unexpected Hazard In The Sand

[TradClimber]

cub posted:

Did you happen to probe around in there to see how deep it went?

No.

I was able to resist the thought of further probing with body parts, with ease, as not being the best of ideas at the time.

I'm fortunate that Nature even gave me a “cease and desist” warning.

To “insist and persist” would have been pushing my luck that afternoon.

I still had 2 climbing ropes fixed at dry waterfalls to ascend to get back to a “remote camp”.

TradClimber

[yuccahead]

You know a lot of " treasures " have been found in the very same way right ??? lol....

Historik951

Historik951 might be on to something here TC. You might want to go back and check this hole out. Keep an eye out for any cast iron cookware...you may have found it.
The Lost Dutch Oven Mine.
Legend has it that ol' Jacob Waltz had a kid brother, Tennessee, that had a get rich scheme that never panned out, as it were. Tennessee Waltz was sure that the settlers in the wagon trains heading for California would hate it and eventually turn around and head back. He was gonna be out in the desert with a dutch oven shop and sell 'em all new cookware for their trip back to Ohio or Kentucky or wherever.
Well, ol' Tennessee never counted on people likin' raw fish and expensive coffee so, as it turned out, nobody wanted to leave. He decided to dig a hole in a remote location of the Santa Rosa Mountains and bury his dutch ovens for a possible future exodus.
Well, he found gold, don't cha know. About that time his big brother showed up to see how he was gettin' along.
Tennessee showed Jacob the gold he found in his dutch oven hole and they decided they better draw attention away from the Santa Rosa Mtns. to keep out the goldseekers and has been celebrities.. So, ol' Jacob took a 12" oven full of gold over to Arizona and started braggin' how he has a mine up in the Superstition Mtns.
Worked like a charm. He drew maps and convoluted directions how to get to his "mine". People ate it up. Jacob didn't live too long after that but Tennessee took some of his gold, moved to Nashville and invented country music. He never got back out to his gold mine but the brothers got everyone looking in the wrong place for the wrong mine - 'til you came along.

[reptilist]

And it's all etched in stone!

[TradClimber]

Dang!, yuccahead, sounds like you're on to something here.

yh posted:

Tennessee showed Jacob the gold he found in his dutch oven hole and they decided they better draw attention away from the Santa Rosa Mtns. to keep out the goldseekers and has been celebrities.. So, ol' Jacob took a 12" oven full of gold over to Arizona and started braggin' how he has a mine up in the Superstition Mtns.
Worked like a charm. He drew maps and convoluted directions how to get to his "mine". People ate it up. He never got back out to his gold mine but the brothers got everyone looking in the wrong place for the wrong mine - 'til you came along.

Wow, you mean Jim H. and his cohorts should have been searching for the LDOM instead of the LDM all along? And in the Santa Rosas instead of the Supes? No wonder they couldn't find the LDM. They are not going to be happy campers when they get wind this.

Yuccahead, thanks for bringing me up to speed on the LDOM.

Anyhow yh, my Mom don't think it's safe for me to go down in that gory glory hole. I'll see what Guz is up to. He'll probably jump at the opportunity if I chum him with some bait – maybe make him a 10% partner.

yh posted:

Jacob didn't live too long after that but Tennessee took some of his gold, moved to Nashville and invented country music.

I found some more information about Tennessee on the net. He apparently met up with Patsy Cline in Nashville and she did a song about him. Rumor has it that the actual location of LDOM is cleverly hidden in the lyrics.


TradClimber

[Space Cowboy]

See, now that's what I call C&W. 'Rambling Rose', stuff like that.

[yuccahead]

TC sez-

Wow, you mean Jim H. and his cohorts should have been searching for the LDOM instead of the LDM all along? And in the Santa Rosas instead of the Supes? No wonder they couldn't find the LDM.

I don't follow... you mean there are still people out there looking for a non-existant goldmine in the Superstitions? I find that hard to believe.

I found some more information about Tennessee on the net. He apparently met up with Patsy Cline in Nashville and she did a song about him. Rumor has it that the actual location of LDOM is cleverly hidden in the lyrics.

I played it backwards and I think I heard, "follow the sheep trail" .
Swear to gawd.

[TradClimber]

yh posted:

I played it backwards and I think I heard, "follow the sheep trail" .

WOW! Absolutly unbelievable!

So Patsy used an old Beatles trick called back-masking to hide the location of the LDOM in her song. This is all starting to come together now. I was in fact following an old bighorn sheep trail when my leg broke thru the sand exposing the chasm.

Thanks yuccahead for doing this footwork. I now have some more legwork to do.

TradClimber

PS: I had been analyzing the song from a different perspective than back-masking. I was looking for phonetic reversals and subliminal messages. I found only one.

[pattillman40]

Any updates on your discovery Tradclimber? Your story is very interesting and have been waiting to hear any new news on it.
thx,
Tillman

[TradClimber]

Patti posted:

Any updates on your discovery Tradclimber?

I tried to get back to the LDOM last weekend.

See link below for the photos:
http://members.desertusa.com/mb3/viewto ... 171#p24171

I rather enjoy rappelling waterfalls into pools that's over my head. But, it's just gonna have to wait until warmer weather – even a penguin would get hypothermic in that water!

Patti posted:

Your story is very interesting and have been waiting to hear any new news on it.

Nice try Patti!

You and every other claim jumper in the world is watching this thread. They're just waiting and hoping I'll screw up somehow and reveal the location of the LDOM.

Now, if you were to buy me a drink...

BTW, Welcome to the forum Patti!

TradClimber

[TradClimber]

Update:

On July 10, 2011 (8 months after my leg had penetrated the roof a large chasm totally covered over by boulders and concealed smoothly with sand) I came back to the location to look for the LDOM.

To my surprise – the hole was covered over with sand again.

This purple water bottle in this photo marks the exact location of where the hole was last November.


Further investigation revealed a 2” hole a few feet away. I dropped a small rock into the hole and heard a splash.

The purple water bottle on the right marks the second hole. Notice the tan and orange 1” slings. The tan sling is anchored on the right to a solid chock stone and redirected by a not so solid chock stone. This natural anchor will be used to do a 30' overhanging rappel and to lower my raft down to the water.


I dropped a glow stick tied with a cord 12' into the hole and anchored it.


I rappel down to the water and swam back in the chasm to the glow stick that I had lowered thru the small hole from above.


This photo is looking out of the chasm from near the glow stick. For scale my raft is same size as a queen bed. Also in the photo is two dry bags and my pack floating. My pack has a dry bag inside of it full of air. The water is about 10' deep for the entire pool.


This photo shows the giant chock stone wedged between the canyon walls.


cub posted:

The craziest thing was that it could get covered by sand without being "filled up" first.

Based upon these photos – I have a new theory.

1.) Last Christmas downpours caused a flash flood which washed boulders large enough to plug the hole that my leg had made and left many smaller holes around the plug. Further flooding washed smaller boulders and plug these holes and left even smaller holes around the plug. So on and so on until the hole are so small that even sand can plug them.
2.) Nature has everything in place now...
3.) She's just waiting for some fool to walk by.

All photos by TradClimber on 7/6-13/2011 in a remote area of the Santa Rosa Mountains.

PS: Here's a nice reflection in the same pool.