Scenes from our Day trips up the Steese Highway
Taken by Ron Wendt on a private claim, Ron dubbed this photo "Sourdough playing in the dirt," but Jim is actually teaching Lynn how to pan for gold.
Dredging with the small dredge near
12-mi. Summit. The pump had developed a leak which sprayed right into the carburetor,
so I improvised with a plastic grocery bag we had in the van. It worked!
Jim, metal detecting on Mammoth Creek. It was a stormy day, but we actually encountered so many bugs that these hills could be this dark simply from all the bugs that inhabit them.
This type of log cabin is called "Alaskana," meaning that this homeowner built his home just to suit himself. It is quite rustic-looking, except for the TV antenna on the roof. They are hard to see in this photo, but he not only has grass on the roof, fireweed is blooming up there.
This is 12-mile summit. When you reach the top you feel like you are on top of the world. There are no trees here, just tundra and alpine flowers and plants. There is a trail here, but it cannot be seen in the photo, it is too faint. The trail is a very old one, and long. It goes from the banks of the Yukon River to the north at Circle City, to the town of Fairbanks. If you look over the tops of all those ridges in the distance of this photo, and crossed all of them you would be in the Chena River drainage, not far from where we live.
This is a camping area on the GPAA Deadwood Creek mining claims, in the Circle Mining District. We hoped the rain would be gone by the time we arrived here, but it was worse than on the way up. And the mosquitoes??? The mosquitoes in this area are legendary. I've read old mining books that say they actually drove some miners to their deaths. I believe it. When Jim stepped out of the van in a brushy area he was immediately, and completely, enveloped in a black cloud of mosquitoes! Of course, a damp day of rain just makes them worse than ever, but it was something that was hard to believe. Jim said that in the 30 years he has lived here, he has never seen them that bad. Needless to say, we did not do any prospecting that day.