Borrego 13 and the Gonzales Lost Mine

[gollum]

The only plant life is outside the actual badlands along the wash between the Badlands and Borrego Mountain. Then its' still only Smoke Trees and brush. Some grassy stuff and Desert Trumpets (I know they grow around gold deposits, but this is over MANY feet deep sand drifts).

Best-Mike

[cubfan64]

Mike - wow, and I thought hiking in the Superstitions was rugged!!! It looks like you could mark off a 1 square mile patch in the those photos and spend the rest of your life exploring every nook and cranny and still not see everything!

I never met Gene, but did correspond with him by e-mail a few times a couple years ago. Last I heard, he had come out to Arizona either last year or the year before and wanted to attend the Rendezvous, but believed he had either a heartattack or stroke and ended up driving back to where he had come from (somewhere in the SE US). I haven't heard a word from him or about him since then.

The two biggest issues I had with reading the actual story were that I developed a sense that McGill may have sent Gene on a "wild goose chase" just to avoid having to deal with him on a daily basis. He passed along plenty of information to Gene and Marie, but I just always got the feeling he was sending them away so they could have an adventure and if somehow they located something interesting, great - if not, they were out of his hair. The other thing was how tedious it got hearing Gene go for extreme optimism to extreme pessimism.

As far as what things I thought I had heard differently from your prelude. I don't have my notes in front of me and relying on a failing memory is probably not a good idea, but here are the things I thought I had heard differently.

1) I thought the maps Erwin received from the Gonzales family were primarly associated with southern CA and that the one that didn't seem to fit was the one Adolph decided was associated with the Superstitions - not the other way around.

2) For some reason I thought Adolph had been found by one of the search vehicles that Erwin had "recruited" to help him look for his father. I had thought Erwin knew about them finding Adolph as soon as it happened - that one I may be recalling totally incorrectly.

3) I thought Adolph had convinced Erwin to go with him to CA for other business but basically had "tricked" him into going with and once out there he then told him he planned to look for the mine at which point Erwin had no choice but to help his father - thus the letter Erwin wrote that you quoted.

Incidently, I had access to all those same letters and postcards when Eleanor Clark shared them with Garry - Garry and I were working together to try to locate her at the time, so it was really exciting to find her and see some of those documents she had that hadn't been seen before

I'll have to look around and see if I can find sources to back up the 3 things I thought I was remembering correctly. Honestly though, none of them have any real bearing on the story itself, so please continue

[gollum]

Hey,

One version of the story was related by Kenworthy briefly in his LDM Book. I have read other versions elsewhere, but most of them all said it happened in 1929. I KNOW that was wrong now.

As far as the rest of the possibilities, I don't have anything definitive other than the Post Card and letters to Magill. One version of the story stated that the car that found Adolph Ruth was the first vehicle to drive to Borrego Springs. Most versions (to the best of my memory) agreed that the maps mostly pertained to Arizona as that was where the Gonzales Family had most of their mining interests with the Peraltas. The mine in Anza was mostly forgotten by the family until sometime after the Peralta Massacre (this is from Kenworthy's book).

You are correct. It gets pretty vicious in the Summertime in the Badlands. That is also my favorite time to go (I think I must be masochistic HAHAHA). No touristas and the Park Rangers stay in their nice air conditioned offices. I have the place all to myself.

Best-Mike

[gollum]

Its kind of a pain not being able to just add stuff to a post, but I understand.

I tend to stay away from the well traveled trails. I stray through the nastiest places I can find. At first, I figured that was how I stood the best chance of finding something nobody else had seen. If a place was too hard to get to, not very many people would go there. Eventually, I just got used to it, and found that the only places in Southern California that I could truly be ALL by myself were in these horrible spots. Now I love them all. The worse the better.

Best-Mike

[cubfan64]

Its kind of a pain not being able to just add stuff to a post, but I understand.

I tend to stay away from the well traveled trails. I stray through the nastiest places I can find. At first, I figured that was how I stood the best chance of finding something nobody else had seen. If a place was too hard to get to, not very many people would go there. Eventually, I just got used to it, and found that the only places in Southern California that I could truly be ALL by myself were in these horrible spots. Now I love them all. The worse the better.

Best-Mike

A man after my own heart!! I couldn't agree more that the harder a place is to access, the more I want to see it and the better the chance of finding something "special."

[Jim Hatt]

DITTO!!!