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Show Tribal Council. pickers: ota tesa PR hen PSU eeOw tet POO windich fe , believe is a massive Spanish mine. And even he is skeptical of the stories he hears surrounding the gold: “Some of Ron Wopsock | Sue REE ; ‘ the stuff you read is b.s., some of it is fraudulent. Some of it is crazy.” He’s not the only one with a claim on Hoyt’s Peak. Lonnie from. Wyoming is another Hoyt’s peak claim-holder. His mine is currently filled with water, but he hopes to rig a pump by next spring. He and his partner Larry | warned me about maps: “None of the from the maps are. in this oo county... Lonnie has worked his claim since 1992, with no gold yet discovered. Why does he keep going? “Self-satisfaction,” he replies serenely. heads the business committee and feels the same way: “It’s a big time [problem]. They dig into banks ... the erosion is bad. It’s wearing away the hills. There is no gold in the antes The end result has been noth- ee Back in 1993, the tribe hired treasure hunter Jim Thompson to investigate claims. After three months and much high tech equipment, the hunt turned up little more than fresh holes. Bobby Chapoose, head of tish and wildlife, was there: “They dug and they dug and they dug some more. They never ran into anything. I’ve done my share of looking; the gold is in the stories.” But Chapoose has heard some wild What Will the Neighbors Say? If you ask the people that live in the Uintas, near the supposed gold, few give the story much credence. | Although Spanish mines are known to be well-camouflaged, locals know the area. Most are part-time prospectors; there is such a thing as “prospectors’ eyes.” At the Sagebrush Cafe in Tabiona, the man behind the counter told me, “The only gold was for the people writing the books.” Around here there are stories of nearby, but now defunct, Stockmoore. Two clever young realtors named Stock and Moore salted the ground with gold (salted mines are another common theme to the stories of gold), started a mini gold rush and sold property fast, making off with the loot before they were found to be frauds. Rabbit, a long time local, knows all about gold fever. Both he and his wife have tried their hand at panning. “It stories: hands cut off, people killed or beaten, people having bad experiences and never coming back. He's also heard the hilarious gold source stories: Aliens put it there; it’s Montezuma’s treasure; the land once was inhabited by giants that collected the gold. Chapoose says that, besides mild dementia, one thing he does see is the danger of “gold fever”: “There’s no respect. People really are a nuisance. I’ve run my share of people off the land. Where’s the respect? I see the greed factor. I think they're greedy. Greed changes their character. Most people are good, but the sneakers, they’re no good.” [See Sidebar for an invitation to fish at Rock Creek.| You should also know there is a dou- ble curse on the gold from the Carre_Shin-Ob. The souls of the massacred. really does something to you,” he says. . “Sometimes I think the prospectors © miners are doomed to roam their tunnels for eternity (they died without lived just to see the gold, it’s so beautiful. A little speck will make you go crazy. My wife had it bad; she won’t go receiving the last rites of their Catholic faith) and the Indians cursed the gold as well. Strangely, the majority of the treasure hunters around have died of. unnatural causes. Remember the near it now.” What eo fever? Cee age.” his gold ~ Pharoah’s And the Bottom Line is ... ? There are other cautionary tales as well. Dell Nuzman runs White’s Prospecting in Spanish Fork, part of the Spanish Trail into Utah. The first thing Dell did was to alert me to the dangers in gold seeking: “From what I’ve learned, the Indians will kill you. It sounds far-fetched, but they have Indians that will guard places 24 hours a day. Gold is sacred to them. But whose gold is it? Who does it belong tO? | If you believe the myths, then you believe that the Indians lost their own blood for the cause, and you can imagine who they think it belongs to. If you don’t believe the myths, then you can understand them not wanting white 2U | SEPTEMBER 14, 2000| 84 ruining reser- vation land the way they ruin their own. The reservation land boasts some Issue hit the stands Sept. 28 Ga Sa lan es eat eg ies a ak oa = WEEKLY | wanted was to be left alone,” laments Chapoose. “We don’t need ‘this - headache.” The only sure facts about gold in Utah: Bingham Copper Mine has the richest gold mining operation around, reportedly “enough to pay for mine operations.” Bingham currently mines the biggest concentration of precious metals in the state, bigger than even 7 men coming around and curse? The Indian reservation is ele by permit only, and trespassers are punishable in Federal Court. “All we ever _of the most pristine water around. It’s a resource the tribe would like to keep that way. The Indians don’t give much stock to the myth of gold on their land. Mostly they’re just tired of people poking around and ruining their land. “It’s a problem, these books about Spanish gold. They hike in and dig at night,” relates Larry Cesspooch of the Ute the Comstock gold rush. Perhaps this is Utah’s only mother lode. | SOURCES: This article just scratches the surface of stories and lore out there. The pri_ mary sources were Footprints in the Wilderness A History of The Lost Rhoades Mines, by Gail Rhoades and Kerry Ross Boren, published by Dream Garden Press in Salt Lake City, and George Thompson’s Faded Footprints: The Lost Rhoades Mines And Other Hidden Treasures of Utah’s Killer Mountains, pub- lished by Roaming West Publications. There is a host of other publications—if you’ve caught the bug. — |