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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 18, 2016 - 11:27am PT
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Check this out, from an article titled "From Sacramento to Carson Valley," in The Sacramento Daily Union, November 15, 1859:
"Sugarloaf" is clearly named, but in the (overblown) description of what is clearly Lovers Leap, the cliff apparently doesn't yet have a name.
If you're a true enthusiast, you can read the whole article in the California Digital Newspaper Collection, courtesy of the University of California, Riverside. (Which is a phenomenal resource, but a bit awkward to learn how to navigate.)
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Jul 18, 2016 - 11:56am PT
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First time my partner and I went to climb Traveler's Buttress, we rounded the corner and saw Sugarloaf and brought the car to an immediate halt. We got out, scrambled to the top, and never made it to Lover's Leap that weekend. (edit: Actually, I think we made it to Lover's Leap but with too little daylight in winter to do the climb).
My partner even bought a house in the shadow of the thing, and had it until he moved to France.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2016 - 12:42pm PT
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Except for that "head of Strawberry Valley under the summit of the main divide" bit...
My vote goes for him describing the Leap. Plus, the Leap is more of a "beetling" cliff than Eagle Rock.
To the traveler of 1859, Strawberry Valley was a clearly defined place, exactly where it is today. There was a well-known station on site.
The keeper's name was "Mr. Berry." I suspect the site name has less to do with strawberries, than with the fact that you slept on straw on the floor at Mr. Berry's station.
[Hmmm.... the post I'm disputing here disappeared...]
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2016 - 01:30pm PT
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Jebus... that's excellent. Although I doubt any self-respecting 1850s dude besides a painter climbed up to that vantage. When was it painted?
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Jul 18, 2016 - 01:43pm PT
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I remember that the name came from a Native American legend similar to our Romeo and Juliet so the pre-whiteman name was translated as such or whoever came up with Lover's Leap might have heard the legend and gave it that name without even trying to find out what the natives called it. Interesting little tidbit, Greg. Are you going to research it further?
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2016 - 02:27pm PT
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I wasn't planning to, Wayno.... I just happened to stumble across the Sugar Loaf reference in an article I was otherwise reading. Having developed a passing interest in the events of 1859.
Although I am curious to know where those names came from first time. Sugar Loaf is clearly a Gold Rush name. (I've become mildly obsessed with Gold Rush era names. Humbug Flat. Jackass Gulch. Whisky Diggins. Cut-Eye Foster's Bar. Those are Astroman and The Naked Edge quality names.)
I've never heard about the Leap being a pre-contact name. Without evidence, my gut suspects that's an apocryphal story, since if it were, it would probably have been in circulation among the immigrant population prior to 1859 and I think the author of the article I cited would have used it if the cliff had been named at the time of his writing... he uses the name of damn near everything else on his trip.
(And thx Jebus)
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Jul 18, 2016 - 03:00pm PT
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Apparently some spurned lover had yet to do the honorable thing and take the leap. Today they just go out and solo something near their limit.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Jul 18, 2016 - 05:07pm PT
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My memory is shot so I could be wrong or at least confused. I think that Lover's Leap has probably been used before 1859 as a place-name somewhere and the story being attributed to native legend could very well have been concocted. The first settlers might have heard the legend from the natives but were too illiterate to write down or pronounce the name and just called it Lover's Leap after another place with a similar story. Or maybe it was a lovesick miner that took the plunge. Interesting nonetheless.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2016 - 07:07pm PT
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You might be right about the name, Wayno. I don't know. Other than the author cited above NOT using the name, I have no other data point.
But don't blame illiteracy. Only 11.5% of the white population in 1870 was unable to read or write. NCES statistics.
That number was probably higher in 1860, but I'd be surprised if it were 5% higher, and it might well have been lower in California, since contrary to legend, the Gold Rush tended to be a middle class and lower middle class affair--people who tended to have had some education. It was expensive to emigrate. The cheapest way was to walk across, but that required not less than $100 of coin, a sum which most American unskilled, unpropertied laborers had a hard time accumulating. Cost more to come via the Isthmus of Panama.
(The guy I'm interested in was a penniless Irish immigrant whose father had died when he was 11. He supported his mother and sister for five years in the 1840s selling newspapers on the streets of NY, averaging 50 cents to a dollar a day, living in the slums on Frankfurt Street (south edge of the Five Points slum famous in The Gangs of New York; the site of the house he grew up in is now part of the Brooklyn Bridge approach), and then when he hit 16 (in 1846 or 1847) and could apprentice, it took him three YEARS of shipyard work in New York after news of the gold strike broke to accumulate the money to emigrate. And he was a legendarily hard working dude.)
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2016 - 07:16pm PT
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I'm definitely curious to see "Lovers Leap" in print.
I wonder what is the earliest known usage, a la the OED
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2016 - 07:31pm PT
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Likewise, Charles. The best I've hit so far is a clause inked by a then-obscure Territorial Enterprise reporter that goes:
"... with the serene confidence which a Christian feels in four aces."
Which I found so jaw-droppingly good that it made me want to quit and take up basket weaving. Or climbing.
Of course, that reporter's name was Sam Clemens, and he would go on to become perhaps the best American writer of the 19th Century... as Mark Twain. (His moniker first appeared in The TE, and he certainly passed beneath Lovers Leap and Sugar Loaf several times while traveling between "above" (Virginia City) and "below" (San Francisco) and possibly spent several nights in transit at Strawberry Station.)
If there were a great story then circulating about the cliff, hard to imagine him not telling it. Or riffing from it.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2016 - 07:44pm PT
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Because I'm that kind of a geek, I just looked up the whole reference.
It was in The Territorial Enterprise in April of 1864, then reprinted in The Golden Era, May 22, 1864 as "Washoe: Information Wanted," when Mark Twain answers a letter from William, a Missourian curious about conditions in Virginia City and the Comstock Lode.
"Allow me to answer your inquiry as to the character of our climate.
"It has no character to speak of, William, and alas! In this respect it resembles many, ah, too many chambermaids in this wretched, wretched world. Sometimes we have the seasons in their regular order, and then again we have winter all summer and summer all winter.... It is mighty regular about not raining, though, William. It will start in November and rain about four, and sometimes as much as seven days on a stretch; after that, you may loan out your umbrella for twelve months, with the serene confidence which a Christian feels in four aces..."
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 18, 2016 - 09:07pm PT
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This shot blows me away! Where's all the trees? Welp, the've been logged for the gold towns down canyon.
I don't know. Strawberry meadow could've seemed longer without the trees? Kyburz and the surrounding area around Sugar Loaf, without any trees would be more spacious. The authors description of it being "conical" leads me to question..
edit; sorry for the pic of a pic. thats a good shot of "Out The Bigtop" tho, eh? A3 full adventure! FA. Wendal Robie;)
edit; edit: man, if you click on the enlarge image, the picture is quite clear! Amazing these iphones,eh? i'd trade mine for one of those stagecoaches tho, same price new about $800. Ha!
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Ed H
Trad climber
Santa Rosa, CA
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Jul 18, 2016 - 09:47pm PT
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^^^ Great pic Blue - TFPU!
The trail looks pretty flat - nothing like that ankle busting section of Pony Express trail today.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 19, 2016 - 01:31am PT
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From California Place Names by Erwin G. Gudde (fourth edition revised and expanded by William Bright).
'Love. A number of geographic features in various parts of the state bear names like Love, Lovejoy, Loveland; but usually they were named for persons (as Lovelady, and Lovelock were) and have nothing to do with tender emotions. However, El Dorado, Santa Clara and Placer Cos. each have a Lovers Leap. This is a favorite American name for a cliff, not because a lover ever jumped from one so named, but because it would be "a good place to take off, if anyone wanted to" (Stewart, p. 129). By decision of the BGN, 1961, the name of Point Aulon (see Abalone) was changed to Lovers Point.'
Stewart, p. 129 refers to G. R. Stewart, Names on the land, 4th edition (San Francisco: Lexicos, 1982).
BGN refers to the U.S. Board on Geographical Names
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crankster
Trad climber
No. Tahoe
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Jul 19, 2016 - 06:21am PT
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Great thread! The unnamed author is no doubt describing Lover's Leap, despite referencing its height to two-thousand feet.
And the accommodations at Strawberry have improved a bit... "Passengers arrive at Strawberry valley expecting and requiring a decent night's sleep. They are furnished their meals in a wretched hovel, and are (or were recently) lodged on the second floor of an unfinished and unfurnished log cabin, where they are expected to " take it as they can catch it," on the floor in a row of mattresses, each providing his covering, and making his toilet the next morning at the horse trough".
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JerryA
Mountain climber
Sacramento,CA
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Jul 19, 2016 - 06:53am PT
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On the last page of the 1861 first edition of Richard Burton"s "The City of the Saints and Across the Rocky Mountains to California " there is a black & white drawing of a cabin and Lovers Leap captioned "Strawberry " . Burton describes crossing the Sierra Nevada at Johnson Pass on his way to Sacramento. Brewer must have been near by when he climbed Pyramid Peak in 1864 .
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jul 19, 2016 - 06:55am PT
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"I think that Lover's Leap has probably been used before 1859 as a place-name somewhere"--Wayno
Indeed. Just look at "Lovers Leap" on Google Images.
Here's one I've heard of, aside from the one in Santa Clara Co, which was ascended by some curious climbing nut driving by last year.
I would have checked Stewart if you hadn't mentioned it, Ed.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Jul 19, 2016 - 06:59am PT
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Great photo, Blue. I can just make out Donini putting up an FA on Traveler's Buttress. Look really closely.
BAd
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 19, 2016 - 07:57am PT
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I can just make out Donini putting up an FA on Traveler's Buttress. Look really closely.
With a horsehair rope.
Somebody also mentioned the lack of trees. You'll notice that in lots of Gold Rush Era paintings and photography. They logged the heck out of the western slope, yes, and even more the eastern slope and the Tahoe Basin during the Comstock heydays, but I had this conversation via email with our own Tom Lambert a few months ago... the forests on the Western slope were exponentially less dense in those days due to the regular passage of fire, pre-suppression. (As a Yosemite West resident, he's got more than a passing interest in future forest fires.) I can't find our thread, but I think the figures he cited was a pre-1850 average stem count of about 40-60 trees per acre whereas now it's often over 400 per acre. The old forest would burn much more regularly, and also not as hot, that lower density allowing the passage of a "cooler" ground-level fire that didn't climb to the crowns of the trees and cause the "Dresden-style" forest fire we have so often in modern times.
Also, Ed H: From your post are we to conclude that the name is much more modern? That makes it sound like "Lovers Leap" probably wasn't in use during the 19th century. Or only a local usage?
I like the "Lovers Leap" story posted above, but I don't see anything linking it to "our" Lovers Leap. (Interesting to see the bit directly below it about female suffrage. A hot topic in those days.) Also, about the state of the road that is now the PITA Pony Express Trail--it was maintained. I think it was a toll road to begin with, and then received state funds for maintenance, which would explain its excellent condition.
VERY quickly after the discovery of the Comstock Lode (6/1859), Virginia City/Gold Hill grew into the largest urban & industrial concentration between Sacramento and Salt Lake City (and arguably San Francisco and Saint Louis, depending on how you categorize Sacramento and Salt Lake, since neither was industrial), and that road was the most important link between VC/GH and California. It saw a huge volume of traffic until the transcontinental railroad advanced as far as Cisco, which made the route via Donner Pass and N. Lake Tahoe faster. (I think that happened about 1867.) And once the RR reached Reno, traffic came via that settlement, which was originally known as Truckee Meadows.
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Jul 19, 2016 - 08:34am PT
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Enjoying this thread. I too have an affinity for the written word of the last century. I've been trying to give my children an appreciation for outdated lexicon by "bringing back" a few of my favorites.
I often use "thusly" and "alas" with my wife and kids. They seem to dig it.
(When changing my son's dirtbike oil last night) "Here, gimme that crescent wrench....you gotta get under the oilpan and turn that bolt thusly."
(Also last night when my wife passed the plate of porkchops around the dinner table and I got the skinny burnt one) "Alas....Father will find himself hungry after dinner yet again, kids."
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 19, 2016 - 09:17am PT
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^^^ Sherman is high on my list of admired Americans.
Did you know he was an Army lieutenant in California in 1848 and that he was a member of the small expedition that roamed through a portion of the Sierra foothills and sent the official confirmation of the gold discovery back east? And that he spent a good portion of the 1850s in California and was a banker in San Francisco?
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 19, 2016 - 09:40am PT
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That was a well-executed campaign. The big four: Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan, Grant.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 19, 2016 - 10:10am PT
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I just read McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, and he makes the case that even more important than any actual economic damage done by the March-to-the-Sea was the clear demonstration that the South couldn't do anything to prevent a Federal Army from wandering around in the southern heartland. It was the perfect demonstration that the war was lost.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Jul 19, 2016 - 11:03am PT
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Has anyone checked OED or other resources for the first use of Lover's Leap as a place-name? I tried OED online but I don't have a subscription to use their search engines. I tried some other stuff for about ten minutes and did come up with this little tidbit:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=elope
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Jul 19, 2016 - 11:43am PT
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I went to The Medical College of Georgia for 7 years, and during my time there learned so much about the Civil War that I never knew existed beyond the six pages allotted to it in the Californicated history books of my youth. That war was a historical afterthought in my education really. Not so for the young southern student. They get years of it, and it seeps into dinner table and schoolyard life as a kid growing up there. Still a big part of who you are as a southerner for many.
Amazing how deeply the fiber of the "war of northern aggression" is knitted into many a modern day southerner's fabric of life. Many of my personal friends from the Atlanta area still see Sherman as a Hitler type character in History. His burning of Atlanta and that whole campaign is like a boogeyman story to young southern kids today. They hate that guy. Still to this day. And to think we here on the West Coast name our big trees and campgrounds after him. An interesting concept to mull over eh?
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Edge
Trad climber
Betwixt and Between Nederland & Boulder, CO
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Jul 19, 2016 - 09:55pm PT
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Some interesting tidbits here, with references that may have greater detail.
http://www.dougstepsout.com/2013/12/17/american-river-canyon-part-6-kyburz-to-lovers-leap/
Strawberry Valley House was very important stop along the Placerville-Carson Road. A traveler in the spring of 1861 gave us the following description: “in a long, narrow plain hemmed in by bare mountains of granite…is a commodious hotel, where I dined”.
The hotel was built near Lover’s Leap in 1856 by Swift and Watson. In 1859 the owners were Irad Fuller Berry and George W. Swan, who not only ran the hotel but worked tirelessly on improving their portion of the toll road.
It became a remount station for the Pony Express on April 4, 1860, when division superintendent Bolivar Roberts waited with a string of mules to help Pony rider Warren Upson through the snowstorm on the summit.
There is a plaque on the north side of the highway designating Strawberry Valley House as a California State Historic Landmark (#707).
How the valley got its name has been a constant argument since the 1850s. Some say owner Berry stuffed the guest’s pillows and mattresses with straw rather than goose down, which resulted in them calling out derisively: “Do you have any more straw, Berry?”
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originalpmac
Mountain climber
Anywhere I like
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Jul 20, 2016 - 02:05am PT
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Really cool thread, Mr. Crouch. Great bits of history. I recently moved to the area, never have much time to climb anymore, but I ride a motorcycle past Sugarloaf and Lovers Leap often enough. Love the area. Kyburz is beautiful. Any idea on the origin of that name?
Couple of things I would like to throw into the conversation, though drifting here...
Micronut: Love the use of somewhat 'archaic' words, bringing the vocabulary to the young generation. Bit of a thread drift, but language, music and art I feel is what makes us human, separates us from the animals so to speak. This day and age, vocabulary is going down the tubes, so good on you for trying to instill an appreciation of it with your kids.
Crouch and Micronut: Interesting how Sherman made it into the conversation. I grew up in rural VA, (it's part of the south, despite what some damned yankees may say :-) ) the War of Nawthern aggression, as it is pronounced colloquially is way more discussed down there than the west, for sure. Interesting how it is viewed from people not from the south. I don't hate Sherman as many in the south do, but I do joke about it all the time.
Like Sherman through Georgia, or You know who through you know where.
in example; When I was a bartender in my mid twenties in Ouray, I was plowing through women like you know who through you know where. Not much to brag about if you have ever spent anytime there.
Anyway, thanks for the history. Apologies for the thread drift.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 20, 2016 - 08:05am PT
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OriginalPmac: I was wondering about Kyburz, too. I have NOT seen that name used in any of the stuff 1850-1880 I've been reading.
I'll reread J. Ross Browne's "A Peep At Washoe" in the next few days (written in the spring of 1860), but I don't recall any direct mention of Lovers Leap when I last read it. Strawberry Valley and Station gets a scene, if I remember.
I'll link to it at archive.org, which is a phenomenal resource if you're interested in stuff in the public domain. (Pre 1922, or thereabouts.)
The road to Strawberry Flat descriptions start on Page 10 and continue into the next article. (It was a serial.)
Most books and magazine articles pre-1922 can be found there if you're patient and creative with your search terms and don't take no for an answer until you find what you want.
The map above gives us a 1891 start date. Great find, that.
When i was in the Army, I visited a lot of the Civil War battlefields within easy driving distance of Fort Benning. Especially if they happened to be close to climbing areas. Or in them. Love that stuff. But I'm not a Lost Cause lover. Not by any means. I think there has been tons of historical distortion of what was being fought for and why, and if you dig at root causes, it's hard to think it was one worth fighting for.
The two best places in the country to have been during the Civil War were likely San Francisco and Virginia City. About as far from Petersburg as possible.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 20, 2016 - 08:16am PT
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BTW, to my mind, by far the most historically significant event to pass before Strawberry Station was not the Rush to Washoe or the Pony Express, but that which displaced it--the transcontinental telegraph line, which went into operation in 1861. The Pony Express ceased operation that very week.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 20, 2016 - 08:27am PT
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Edge, nice link. I don't know if there's any connection, but San Francisco had a famous "What Cheer House" saloon that I suspect was a fabulously lucrative business. I wonder if they were franchising?
I read fabulous newspaper descriptions of the city-wide celebration of the transatlantic telegraph line (1858) that SF sponsored. HUGE parade. Several wagon-loads of inebriates from the What Cheer House rolled through the city as part of the parade. Dozens and dozens of city businesses entered wagons (what we would today call "floats), and the most popular ones were those of the city's breweries, who "liberally distributed" their libations to the multitudes assembled to view the parade. Unsurprisingly, the state politicians followed directly behind the brewers.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 20, 2016 - 09:24am PT
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I find the amount of detail in those early USGS Quads astounding, one wonders how much was "inference."
But the fact that producing those quads takes quite a bit of time, the place names that appeared on them must have been known for years before the quad's release...
there is a map in the Library of Congress of El Dorado County dating back to the same period, leading me to believe that a concerted, coordinated effort to map the various regions was underway in that closing decade of the 19th century.
here is a Rand-McNally map from 1881 that shows Sugarloaf and Strawberry, which fell off their later maps displaced by more prominent locals...
...but in the rush to get maps of the area out, I'm sure the map makers succumbed to the representations of a small number of acquaintances for their geographical information.
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Jul 20, 2016 - 11:55am PT
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Originalpmac funny anecdote about Sherman. Digging this conversation....
---SUGARLOAF
A sugarloaf was the usual form in which refined sugar was produced and sold until the late 19th century, when granulated and cube sugars were introduced. A tall cone with a rounded top was the end-product of a process that saw the dark molasses-rich raw sugar, which was imported from sugar cane growing regions such as the Caribbean and Brazil, refined into white sugar.[1
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 20, 2016 - 01:32pm PT
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^^^^ Nah, that's just a Grand Illusion...
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 20, 2016 - 04:37pm PT
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how come nobody put up a pic yet?
everyone's climbed there; lewis and clark, daniel boone, kit carson, ben and lil'joe carson, wendal robie, luke skywalker, petch, warren harding, geneva, ed hartuni, tony yaniro, beth rodden, tad, royal robbins, aiden, blueblocr, and everyone else.
the place is iconically SWEET!
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 6, 2016 - 12:42pm PT
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So I did reread both parts of J. Ross Browne's "A Peep at Washoe," and there is no mention of "Lover's Leap."
It's a fine piece of journalism, however, very much a forerunner of Twain.
If you haven't read it, here it is on archive.org, where you can find most everything else published pre-1922.
The whole journey from Placerville to Strawberry, over Johnson's Pass, through Luther Pass to Hope Valley Station and down Woodford's Canyon to Woodford's Station and then on through Genoa and Carson City to Virginia City is described in great (and probably hyperbolic) detail.
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RonV
Trad climber
Placerville
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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Greg,
Thanks for the links, J. Ross Browne's accounts are halarious and the many drawings are so full with expression. Fun reading about all these places we know well. Amazing, great thread....thanks!
Charlie D.
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crankster
Trad climber
No. Tahoe
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Great read, Gregory. Can only imagine what a night in a roadhouse named "Dirty Mike's" was like.
Many miners seeking riches in the Comstock "had to walk back on their natural soles". Funny, and grim.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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The Pony Express ceased operation that very week.
maybe this is about when they built Strawberry proper? The first postoffice, along with a store, bar, and brothel, used to be over near the base of Horsetail falls. i've seen paintings, but never any photos.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 6, 2016 - 08:06pm PT
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Blueblocker -- Strawberry Lodge was definitely built prior to the Washoe Rush in the spring of 1860. It's described in many accounts I've read. The Pony Express had its first run starting on April 3, 1860, and it actually wasn't actually organized until March, so think the station house was built there prior to 1860.
I just read this newspaper account by Adolph Sutro (future mayor of SF, Sutro Tower, Sutro Baths, Cliff House dude) who was in March and April of 1860, a correspondent of the Daily Alta California sent to report on the rich Comstock strike. Here's his account of the trip back to California:
"I left Virginia on the morning of April 3d, on the stage, and reached Woodford's the same evening. The weather had been fine for three weeks, and all snow had disappeared in Carson Valley and the mines, with the exception of the hill-tops and in deep ravines. The next morning, April 4th, we mounted our mules to start across the mountains, but had hardly traveled a mile when it commenced to blow a gale, and
A SNOW STORM
set in ; there were eight in the party, and though we considered it venturesome, we concluded to push ahead. The storm grew fiercer and fiercer as we went on; the flakes of snow and hail were blowing into our faces with such power that they stang like needles, and nearly blinded us. The lofty pine trees swung to and fro, and the noise of the wind breaking through their branches, creaking and howling, was truly fearful. Our poor animals instinctively knew that they had to hurry on, and on we went, as if fleeing before a terrible enemy. At last we reached Lake Valley, stopped there for a few minutes, and commenced the ascent of the summit. The storm continued unabated until we reached Strawberry Valley House, where we arrived about three o'clock in the afternoon, congratulating ourselves for having safely reached shelter. On the very summit, we met a lonely rider dashing along at a tremendous rate. We wondered what could possibly induce him to go on through that gale, and thought it must be some very important business. It was the Pony Express.
[NOTE: That's the inaugural run of the Pony Express, the very first one. The first rider had left Montgomery Street in SF a few minutes before 4 the previous afternoon, and the rider had 70 letters in his pouch: 56 from SF, 13 from Sacramento, and 1 from Placerville. Postage, $5 each. (About $130 modern dollars.)]
Tami--yes, the whole era sucked for the native peoples of the West. No doubt about that.
And Charlie, how about the log hut and drinking saloon at Brockliss’s Bridge (west of the current Hwy 50 bridge over the river below Fresh Pond) where the owner “charged two bits for a drink of execrable brandy, warrented [SIC] to kill at twenty paces.”
Does Woodford's, up Woodford's Canyon to Hope Valley, through Luther Pass to Lake Valley, up and over Johnson's Pass (Echo Summit) to Strawberry on mules in a blinding snowstorm arriving at 3 pm strike anybody else as making really good time?
RonV: That pic below East Wall of the Leap is AWESOME. Did you take that in the lodge?
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RonV
Trad climber
Placerville
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Greg, I have had that photo on my computer for some time now. Think Dave Stam sent it to me.
You were asking about the Kyburz name. Descendants of the Kyburz family still live locally, although the patriarch, Sam Kyburz, pasted on a few years ago.His wife is still around and may know the history of the establishment of that burg.
Although it might be of little help to you I have found some interesting local history at this web site
http://www.gerlecreek.com/history/gerlecreekhistory.htm
Cheers
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 7, 2016 - 07:48pm PT
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Good work, Ron. ;-)
The maps on that web site are pretty interesting... the older the better!
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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frickin Awesome link ronV!
Descendants of the Kyburz family still live locally, wasn't one of them known as "The Big Driver?" He was one of the best cooks in the region!
goin through all that time lapse is homogenizing.
if this was talk about Hyw 80 in the 1930's, my great great grandfathr started the fire department in Penryn. and was the gavel holder in the Mason's
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RonV
Trad climber
Placerville
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From Wikipedidia
Kyburz (formerly, Slippery Ford and Slipperyford)[3] is a small unincorporated community in El Dorado County, California. It is located along the South Fork of the American River and U.S. Route 50, and is surrounded by the El Dorado National Forest. Its elevation is 4058 feet (1237 m) above sea level[1] and was named by its Postmaster Albert Kyburz, in memory of his father Samuel Kyburz, who was a early California pioneer with John Sutter.[4]
The Slippery Ford post office opened in 1861; the name was changed to Slipperyford in 1896, and to Kyburz in 1911, by its Postmaster Albert Kyburz in memory of his father Samuel Kyburz.[4]
Ski racer Spider Sabich grew up in Kyburz, where his father Vladimir, Sr., was stationed with the California Highway Patrol. Spider and his younger brother Steve raced at the Edelweiss ski area, which closed in the 1960s, and is now known as Camp Sacramento.
Also dont know if you have seen this.https://books.google.com/books?id=RRc1AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 25, 2016 - 12:39pm PT
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Here's "Keep the Washoe Routes Open," another 1860 article that discusses the road from Placerville to Carson Valley in detail and has several mentions of Sugar Loaf Flat and Strawberry.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 29, 2016 - 10:48am PT
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Sugarloaf's first ascent happened sometime prior to the summer of 1861!
Someone had raised a 20' flagpole on the summit.
Clipped from this article in the Sacramento Daily Union, July 17, 1861, which describes the journey from Placerville up the American River Canyon.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Aug 29, 2016 - 01:59pm PT
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Lot of fascinating history in the canyon Greg. Good thread. Could be better yet with some native american lore.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 29, 2016 - 02:24pm PT
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If I find it, I'll post it. (Slave to sources)
Or you can....
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originalpmac
Mountain climber
Timbers of Fennario
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Jan 13, 2018 - 08:56pm PT
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Enjoyable thread bump.
The Legend of Lover's Leap
A legend lives of long ago,
When natives liked to roam,
Of an Indian maid of the Miwok shade,
Who was far away from home.
She met a brave. They fell in love
In the alpine regions high,
‘Neath a Tahoe moon they’d often spoon
By the lake of the azure sky.
The Medicine Man, who much alarmed,
Strolled alone to his own teepee,
He rattled bones, and turquoise stones,
Then shared the Gods’ decree.
Their troth was plighted beneath the stars.
(Both happy it is said)
Came a tribal voice: “I forbid the choice!
These two shall never Wed!”
So the Washoe buck took the Miwok maid
Far away o’er hill and dell,
They stood where it’s steep, by the Lover’s Leap
And they bade the world farewell.
They went to the happy hunting ground,
And left behind earth’s trial and woe,
The beautiful maid of the Miwok shade,
And her brave of the high Washoe.
W. F. Skyhawk
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Jan 13, 2018 - 09:31pm PT
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Does Woodford's, up Woodford's Canyon to Hope Valley, through Luther Pass to Lake Valley, up and over Johnson's Pass (Echo Summit) to Strawberry on mules in a blinding snowstorm arriving at 3 pm strike anybody else as making really good time?
That was the first thing I thought when reading that!
Nice to see the Spider Sabich reference too. I spent a lot of time in his house... that was the cabin my buddy bought after our first time driving by Sugarloaf. Still had framed racing pictures and a racing bib framed on the wall. That house had awesome exposed pine trunk beams- some rough hewn square and many just round tapering trunks of trees. My buddy loaded it up with a monster collection of books, magazines, and records... It was so nice hanging out in that place that we often squandered mornings and didn’t get out for a lap climbing The Line or Surrealisic Pillar Direct until afternoon, and then would call it a day.
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