Return to the Lost Adams Diggings

Dear reader,

Do you ever get tired of the news? In books, are celebrities and politicians just not holding your interest the way they used to? Do stories about Mexican drug cartels, murder, rape and Middle Eastern civilizations falling apart, with terrorists running amuck---does that simply fail to thrill you? Well, there is an alternative Read this book It will take you away from all that and get you totally engrossed in a subject that has never failed to capture its share of human attention. That awesome, never failing subject is gold. For a delight, instead of a tutorial---try it In the autumn of the year 1864, the man Adams (with the help of a guide) led an expedition of twenty-three people deep into the Apache controlled region known then as Apacheria. The guide promised gold---in large quantities---and coarse in substance. The large group of prospectors believed him. The party followed that guide to a remote and isolated canyon. It was so remote---and so isolated---that to this day the location remains very well hidden. Even the mountain-range the canyon occurs in is deceptively gentle, in its appearance, when viewed from virtually every direction---except straight up According to literally hundreds of accounts, the guide was right. The miners found a great deposit of the precious yellow metal in that canyon. At one point in time, the discovery was thought to be the richest strike on earth. Then, without warning, the mining party came under attack; and of the twenty-three that began the quest, only five survived. One of the five was the man named Adams; from him came most of the facts of the story. Adams and a man named Davidson escaped the assault and got away. Adams made his way to California where he lived for many years. When the Indian Wars were over, he tried to return to the ill-fated camp, but he could never retrace his earlier route. He died in 1886 while still attempting to find his great strike. His legacy---to the world---was the Lost Adams Diggings. The searching Adams started increased as the American public became transitory in their movement west. In the years following the end of the Civil War, gold was discovered all over the West, and for a while gold fever gripped the nation. The Lost Adams was the subject of conversations, letters, and publications. For 150 years, now, people have read those publications about the Adams Diggings and pitted their skills against the majesty and splendor of the mountains of Arizona and New Mexico. They were trying to find what J. Frank Dobie once described as the "Great Unfindable " This is the story of Paul A. Hale, and his partner Ron Schade, and what they found in one of the most isolated and remote places in Arizona, or New Mexico.