Garnet Hill

On July 12, I wrote that my friend and I got up at 7:30 and had breakfast downstairs in our hotel in Volcano, California. We left by around 9 and drove to Pioneer to look at maps, get gas and pack a lunch.

From there we descended to Lower Tiger Creek Reservoir and proceeded to the upper reservoir. I noted that it was paved most of the way but there was gravel in spots. Eventually, we transferred onto Salt Springs Road but it wasn’t really obvious where. As we had no cell coverage, I was relying on a cached mapping application on my phone.

The roads’ names changed with no transition so I had to stop to consult the map a lot. I discovered that Salt Springs’s connection to the highway there was actually closed so it was good that I had selected Tiger Creek Road. However, that also made me concerned that we would encounter another barrier somewhere. Luckily we were following the main aqueduct between Tiger and Salt Springs Reservoirs so it looked like, both on the map and in person, that we were on the right track.

Our anxiety over which way we were going continued until we got to Bear River though. The drive was really interesting and it took a really long time because the road was narrow, winding and steep. We thankfully had a lot of conversations on the way. When we crossed Bear River we noticed a guy with a bike and a potential swimming hole. That was about where we descended into Moore Creek Campground and crossed the Mokelumne River.

We arrived at the “Coast to Crest” Garnet Hill Trailhead one and a half hours late – at around noon. I think the total time for the drive was 2 1/2 hours. We put our hiking boots on then and began our ascent, which begins in a southeasterly direction. There were pick up trucks on the road ahead of us, one with a winch.

Basically, the Garnet Hill trail is an unimproved road which climbs above Moore Creek but follows its southeastern trajectory. It is primitive but because it’s in the national forest and not close to wilderness, people can drive their cars anywhere they want as long as it’s on a road. There are a few spurs which branch off to the creek at the intervals where the trail switches to the north.

I noted that the terrain is really rugged but passable for a four-wheel-drive. For instance, as we topped out on the second switchback, we passed a pick up truck owned by, what appeared to be, based upon plates and stickers, a professional geologist. It was parked on a northbound spur. No one we saw on the road knew who owned it though.

Halfway up the hill, my friend noted that the heat was slowing her down. So, I traded my bag with her to lessen her load. The temperature was pretty high.The grade was really difficult at this point too. We sometimes could only go a few yards before having to rest. I was also kind of worried about water consumption.

As we approached the base of the hill around the fifth switchback, the trail began trending in an eastward direction. We met two guys on a walk. Then we entered a more forested area on the south facing slope. At that point Moore Creek had already ascended into it’s own canyon and we were on the side of Garnet Hill proper.

Two switchbacks later we arrived at the saddle where the Coast to Crest Trail ascends to the top of Moore Creek. To the east we could see the granite walls of Calaveras Dome. This was where the trail we wanted split off to the west as it began the final ascent to the top of Garnet Hill. The forest was a little more sparse there. We met a couple who had just concluded their day searching for gems.

A short while later, my companion found the “dump“ on the east side of the hill. On the geology maps I was using this indicated a place where a bunch of rock had either been dropped or left behind from a dig. There was plenty of evidence of human activity there. The trail to the dump was exactly where the documents I had printed said it would be. Using that as a guide I began to understand how to interpret my surroundings.

From here the trail made its final stretch on the south side of the hill. As we approached the top, we were finally able to identify the veins of coarse-grained metamorphic rocks known as skarn which were formed by the contact metamorphism found in the area.

This was essentially where the ruins of the mine began and we immediately found numerous interesting specimens. I was amazed at how I could discern the way carbonate-bearing rocks had been replaced in the parent material as metamorphism progressed. In fact the geology was so varied at that point it was hard to stay focused on reaching the two landings at the top.

The first landing was clearly set up as a staging area for equipment when the mine was in operation. I gathered, based upon everything I knew about the location, that the central vein was just scraped out of the pit below and loaded onto trucks to be shipped to labs and processing plants elsewhere. The literature showed that a lot of chromite rich ore (tectites) had been mined from the location but it wasn’t economical so the mine had been abandoned.

We poked around in the dust and rocks for a good hour and identified a lot of different types of rock and minerals–mostly gneiss and garnet but there are accounts that epidote and other minerals have been identified. I was very tired at this point and was having trouble navigating the dust and sand.

We ended up climbing to the second landing–the actual top of Garnet Hill–separately. I looked out over the Mokelumne to the west and Salt Springs Reservoir to the East and knew I could see some of the towns we had visited in getting to the place. However, lacking cell reception I could only stare in awe.

I found my companion there sitting under a tree drinking water. We were really tired but not defeated. I encountered more stunning examples of the place's mineral beauty as we descended. My companion was ahead of me at first and at some point I actually started being concerned at our separation.

We got to the bottom at 3:30 and once we had gotten into the car and cooled down, we drove to Salt Springs Reservoir and dipped our feet in. The people with the pick ups we had seen earlier and the one with the winch were all at the lake. There were a bunch of other cars there too. After we parked and viewed the lake from the dam, I noted that there appeared to be a causeway that runs from the reservoir partially around the shore of the lake, but the trail actually ascends above the lake quite a bit. According to the map, it goes all the way back to the end of the canyon.

We wanted to go to the swim place my friend saw but the air had begun cooling for the late afternoon and we weren’t certain about the best way out. So, we decided to just head to Highway 88. I found Ellis on my maps easily enough but wasn’t certain about it until we had made it down into the canyon and up to the Bear River crossing.

As we climbed out of the Bear RIver we figured out where Ellis was using my map cache and local signage and we were able to get to Highway 88 pretty quickly. It was only a bit later that we made it to Volcano for a delicious fried chicken dinner.

We walked around town for a bit. We didn’t see any bats.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.