Forbidden Universe
Paranormal => The Paranormal & Ghost Society => Topic started by: AngelOfThyCosmos on February 14, 2018, 03:41:12 PM
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Our Adventure To Humboldt City & Saint Marys Nevada On 11 - 4 -17
The Humboldt Mountains are some of the most prestigious and beautiful mountains found throughout the state of Nevada. With ghost towns like Star City, Unionville and even Humboldt City you cant go wrong. I am slowly trying to complete a series of research explorations at every ghost town found within the range and our next stop would be Humboldt City followed by Saint Mary's which is below it along the mighty Humboldt River of Nevada.
The only downside to going out doing winter expeditions is that the weather may not always play in your favor. There was a 90 percent chance it would be raining perhaps even snowing up in the range that morning. Generally in the cooler months I spend allot of my time up in Nevada warmer months California because the sierras are treacherous this time of year. I have a deep love for ghost towns so I was very excited to explore them regardless of what the weather was going to be like.
The thing about winter expeditions is allot goes into them you need shovels, firewood, blankets, food, water, first aid etc. Getting stuck in a canyon like Humboldt may mean never seeing a human being and weather taking a turn for the worst. I am always prepared this is why I do not work with allot of people this is why I am no longer friends with Chris Geigle because the guy brings a six pack says hey I am ready to journey haha in a clunker that is falling apart. Going to ghost towns is not a game and definitely not a joke. If your going to journey in them you have to do it the right way this is why I been doing them for nearly two decades across the country.
Nevada has some of the prettiest ghost towns though and many of them are tucked away in secluded rugged canyons. Sometimes when I journey in these canyons I think wow who in a million years would ever even know that a town like this existed back in the day. If it takes as much work to get back to a place like this in my truck I can only imagine a stagecoach or horse wagon being worst. The Humboldt Range is rugged mixed in with high desert, creeks, springs and even woods. Its unique and when we arrived it was snowing at its highest peaks.
Being that the days are allot shorter my trips up to ghost towns generally start in the middle of the night so that I can arrive somewhere at sunup. Nothing beats getting coffee, listening to music and cruising at sunup trust me. When my family does come they just sleep the entire ride till we are there sometimes they just come along for the ride and most of the exploring is done by me which is fine to. I just want to know I have the support of family and friends when I am out there in the field conducting solid research.
Our journey would begin at Humboldt City eventually taking us along the Humboldt River to Saint Mary's and finishing up at sunset in Oreana. I did not have much luck with Oreana not much really remains. Just because you go to a ghost town does not always guarantee your going to find many remnants remaining. Sometimes I just go to the town site for the purpose of having to see it myself in a sense. Its one of those things that I have to know and I cant go by what everyone else says online either. My research differs place to place in a sense Humboldt City I believe is haunted based on my experience but some ghost towns are in fact the opposite. Every location I go to is different in its own special way and that is why I go to them to find out then share my journey with all of you.
Eventually these ghost towns reach our website sadly many of you never look at my work so you miss out on great scenic photos, nature, black n white galleries, awesome history and even paranormal evidence. PGS does not live on social media our site is paid for each year so that all of you can see these ghost towns in full not just read about them in my reports on something like facebook. The best way to preserve these locations is to admire them through our site and allow others to learn that we preserve them through photography because some day most of them will be entirely gone.
So with that being said our journey would begin in Humboldt Canyon the skies were dark as night a very slow moving storm had consumed the area for over 24 hours and it was looming perhaps not going anywhere. I had no idea what we were in for or if the journey would be doable. Old man winter had taken hold but despite the obstacles the journey continued and soon we would be exploring ruins of a stone city.
Humboldt City Nevada
The ride begins in the foothills of the Humboldt Range when I arrived the sun was not even up so the mountains looked like dark shadows from afar with wicked clouds looming over them. The higher you go the worst the weather can get that is with any range in Nevada and we were heading near the top of the range through a narrow canyon where this town once existed. In a million years you would never think anything is back here but once you leave the high desert you begin to follow a creek with giant cottonwood trees and since Fall arrives later here they were all changing colors from orange to gold.
We started off at a massive foundation it runs for about 30' and if you follow the road past it there is a wall that goes a couple hundred feet quite amazing. The miners that lived here used native stone to build all there structures. But it appears that walls had lined the main road into town but today they are in ruins only standing a couple feet high. In the distance I could see cattle grazing a perk living in Nevada is that its a free range so yes cows do roam ghost towns at times and other times some pretty big bulls so be careful.
You can see at the mouth of the canyon as it narrows various stone ruins but they are not very tall if you want to see larger more in tact ones you have to take the rugged road in and trust me its not for cars if you take one you will bottom out. As a matter in fact I hit a hole and it bent my step bar which is pure steel. I did not even hit the hole hard I went over it a few mph and my truck dipped down probably hit a rock in the hole which caused it to bend the bar.
I was not happy but shit happens and there are prices to pay if you decide to offroad in Nevada that is why I tell folks if you want to journey you should come out with me because I see all to often people doing this on there own who end up going off cliffs, breaking down, getting flats or even stranded. A bent step bar is the last of my worries! It begin to lightly rain considering that the weather said it was going to rain for eight hours a gentle sprinkle was okay since it stopped after a few minutes.
There are mill ruins to the left when you first enter town it had to be a small mill you could tell by the foundations perhaps a couple ore crushing stamps. I parked fairly close to the mill grabbed my gear, food, drinks etc then begin my journey deeper into the canyon. The canyon is fairly overgrown so many foundations and rocky walls peer up from the brush you sort of have to walk through it to get to some of the remnants. Most of the remnants appear to be miner cabins until you get downtown then they become larger more extensive.
The creek was barely flowing at one time they would divert the water here so miners could grow gardens it was a gorgeous well maintained town. Its amazing what a century and half can do to something when left unattended. Before I entered downtown there was this road that went down a hill and took us to a gravesite with a white wood cross. His name was Larry Vincent Levy buried here in 1991. Its hard to know if others are buried in this small grove but there is some massive cottonwood trees surrounding it probably there when the town first came to be.
If you go further up the canyon there are cliffs on each side of it to the right is a large cave/mine entrance in one of the cliffs. Not even sure how a miner would have even gotten up there to get into that mine. I tell you miners were fearless back in the day they would hang on a rope to mine for silver or gold most knew the risk they just did not care. When you hit downtown to the left are some less steep cliffs and you can see quite a few holes in them where mining had been done. I did not check them out could have climbed but my zoom revealed they were just big holes perhaps 12' wide and only went a few feet back.
We found a stone and wood structure which had a roof on it that I explored and went in also. Not far from this was ruins overgrown with trees spiraling up through the windows and roof. Most of the roof was collapsed but this was one of the finest structures I found in town. Near it someone had used old bed springs to make some sort of animal pen maybe for chickens. In another nearby cabin there was a deep hole inside maybe someone build the hole for storing food.
The largest stone structure in town had an area with a couple grand fireplaces also strangely I noticed something different though with the fireplace. It had what appeared to be a cinder block encasement for the chimney. My guess would be is after the town become abandoned someone probably lived in this stone house then decided maybe to fortify it maybe renovate it using some cinder blocks which did not come out till the 1900's in construction. But this stone structure still was very well preserved with wooden door frames and windows.
I was exploring and my camera hit some soft dirt when I went to pick up the cam lens was jammed ugh. I tried to push it in sometimes that works but instead it cracked and shattered the internal lends. Boy was I upset about that lucky for me I have two to three other cameras not as good but for what I was doing in this ghost town it would be fine. You can count on things breaking if your adventuring if they do not then your not working hard enough. It does not mean I have to like it but things happen I mean when your climbing around your gear gets dropped, broke, dusty, dirty, jammed and wet.
There is a massive building surrounded by two very tall walls not to far from it is an outhouse. If you walk between the two walls there is a structure you can enter which has two entrances in the front, one side entrance and one back entrance. I have no idea what this stone structure is like many of the stone structures this one was fortified with mortar not all structures in Humboldt were so again maybe someone came in later to try to save the town. Because most stone structures had none so you could tell someone took some time to fortify the structure therefore the walls of it are amazingly tall but also in good shape.
There is seems to be allot of small rooms in the cliff side behind the town one of them was behind the structure I climbed through this small window and looked in a small hole. Maybe they were small claims or mines but more so I think that some of the miners lived in these outcrops, dens or some rooms. The one I found was just a round room with an 7' ceiling may have went 12' back.
I found a small mine to I was going to go in but when I shined my light inside of it that is when I the entire entrance surrounding the wood frame started to collapse. I watched this crack go diagonally spread in a matter of seconds. Above me was a 15' hillside of earth and rocks if it collapsed id been buried and dead. I was not going to go on in and even me standing in front of it if it collapsed the earth slide would have not just collapsed the entrance but probably would have extended further out beyond so even if you stood 5' away it still was far to close.
If I went into the mine and it collapsed id been trapped running out of air. Both scenarios were grim considering I had bent down to look into the mine and dirt started to fall on me. I backed away very slowly trying not to disturb anything the entire entrance was on the verge of collapse with a few tons of earth. If that falls on you your dead which is why I tell try to tell my viewers when you journey to these ghost towns be aware of hazards if I was not paying attention who knows I would not be writing this report!
I went higher up in the canyon on foot there is some dead end roads the mines are along the canyon walls even above some of the stone ruins. I probably could have continued going to the top of the canyon road but the weather was getting pretty bad. It was snowing on the peaks above us, rain was coming down and eventually the higher you go into the canyon the less stone structures you will see.
But there is a woodsy section that is really awesome the trees here are so thick you cant even see the skies and its higher up in the canyon. Also the higher you go into the canyon the more you can see the Humboldt River Valley. Not just the river but wetlands of the Humboldt Sink so from higher up you seem what appears to be many shallow lakes. Its kind of cool because every hour a train comes through the sink so when you see the train it looks like its going through the water because the tracks are surrounded by water. I seen a few trains come through from the top of the canyon you can hear them clear as day.
I seen some miner cabins further back in the cabin id love to go higher up but see I had other ghost towns I had to explore and this time of year it gets dark really early especially in these canyons where the sun does not provide allot of light especially at sundown. That is the one downside to ghost towning this time of year you do not have as much time to explore because at night in a canyon like this you will never see anything because most stone ruins are being consumed by brush so even during the day many ruins are hard to find unless you leave the roads of this ghost town.
I will say one thing as most of you know I deal with allot of paranormal encounters during my expeditions. While I urban explore I also try to mix a little paranormal into it. Some locations are not haunted some are but each expedition I try to bring our viewers a tidbit of evidence or something awesome that is unexplainable. In this case near the mine that almost collapsed my EMF Gauss Meter went off in my pocket. I took it out ran various cans and was getting readings past a ten no power lines no electrical source nothing. The needle was bouncing up and down like crazy sometimes staying in the danger zone for 15 seconds.
My son took the EMF reader same thing it was going off every time we pointed it at the collapsing mine. I put it in my pocket it was going off and on like crazy. The meter I use you have two options there is a hidden button that you can hold down point at a source then take down the reading or if there is some EMF in the area it will go off or spike on its own. Something caused the meter to spike near the mine it was not spiking when we arrived it only started after the entire mine begin to collapse. Maybe a warning? I believe that a ghost was warning me to keep out or that it was about to give.
I lost the signal a few times then it begin to follow me back to my truck where I dropped off my pack then we climbed to the top of the mill to get one last look at the sink and the expanse below us. This was an amazing town it had a view but the people who lived here built everything out of stone. The stone work is amazing id say there is about 15 to 20 sets of stone ruins here. I also noticed there was a couple rusty stoves I could be wrong but I found two rectangular rusty furnaces if that is what they are. Everything is a bit scattered the walls are overgrown, some walls stand a few feet and other cabins have entire fireplaces.
This was an amazing town in its hey day it had streets lined with stone walls, gardens with small ponds perhaps even waterways, large stone structures, beautiful views, cotton wood trees everywhere and the creek was always flowing which cascades along the west side of the canyon. You could go through the canyon and probably reach nearby Star City another boom town we investigated. The ghost towns found in the Humboldt Range are very different then the ones you see in other regions of Nevada. The Humboldt Range is less desert like and more lush with forest, creeks and large cottonwoods its a bit surreal really.
If you study some of the miner cabins they had some massive stone slabs as I told my son can you imagine the work involved with moving these rocks then fitting them together so that the people who lived here had shelter. This was harsh country back in the day the Indians were not enthralled either about the miners moving into the range which was also their home. This is an ancient area not far either from the cave of the red haired giants which is also an area we have done research at. So before the miners was the Paiutes and before the natives their was a race of giants some as tall as 14' in height who roamed this mountains peaks. The sink at one time was all under water when the Lahontan was a sea. In ancient times canyons like these were beachfront property.
I have to say this is one of my favorite ghost towns but the road is hard to get through we had a bad winter last year so most ghost town roads are now washed out or had rock slides. The road was not in great shape as a matter in fact I bent my step bar on my truck lol and I was only going 3mph very slowly over a massive hole and trying to avoid some rocks. On my way descending some group of young guys in a car was coming through keep in mind its a single lane road so I nearly tipped the truck trying to go up the hillside so they could pass. I was not happy because I knew those guys should not take a car up here therefore it not only made things hard for me but they ended up having to turn around.
When I was parked at the bottom of the canyon reading my ghost town books and maps they pulled along next to me asking where Florida Canyon was. They told me they also had gotten almost stuck trying to go up to where I was at and I thought to myself duh your driving a car and well easily you could bottom out here. They did not have much knowledge over the area so they thought Humboldt Canyon was Florida Canyon but its not. When they left I studied my ghost town maps found it and they were 30 miles off they probably had no clue that this road takes you to Humboldt City. The guys were young and 20's no less I respect others who at least make an attempt to explore the Nevada back country.
I sometimes get a chance to meet new people while journeying and well at least they were nice guys. Sometimes you run into someone who wants to shoot you and bury you in the desert trust me the work I do is dangerous. That is why viewers should always look at our journeys on our website because most of you can only imagine the risk I take even just going somewhere and trying to make sure you do not get stuck or stranded. It takes a special person to do what we do you have to love ruins and being in seclusion. Humboldt City is desolate but its easy to close your eyes and imagine what life was like here with kids running around playing near the creek, miners working above the town site, music playing loud from the saloon and stages coming through downtown.
Our next part of the expedition would take us along the Humboldt River. Our time up in the mountains was about up now we would be in the expanse below heading out to Saint Mary's. Not allot of people know about this boom town but there were some railroading and river towns in the 1800's which no longer exist. Barely anything is left of Saint Mary's but I really love being on the river so I had to explore it.
Saint Mary's Nevada
Saint Mary's is a ghost town on the Humboldt River believe or not a few camps and towns sprung up along the banks but hardly any of them today remains. Saint Mary's is a small project only because not much remains and so when I add it to the site you wont see allot compared to other major boom towns I have done over the years just sayin'.
I left behind Humboldt City to our backs descending down the canyon where we crossed over the highway then began to journey along the river. There are quite a few cattle gates here you have to open them drive in close the gates behind you. People think its private land its not but the ranchers have to contain the cattle thus its a bit tricky to get up here depending on which way you take.
The railroad follows the river also and the tracks have no gates so be careful crossing them. I had to wait for a train to pass before I could get to the river banks. Trains pass through here it seems by the hour. Allot of these towns were developed on the river so they could export and import goods. The Humboldt River and Transcontinental Railroad were both equally amazing as a matter in fact the Humboldt is I believe the 3rd longest river in the US it does not dump out into the ocean either but rather into the desert.
We would journey over the Callahan Bridge of course back in the day it was made of wood since then its been rebuilt and now is concrete. Its easy to find Saint Mary's because on each side of the bridge is an open patch of land with giant cottonwoods. This is where the town sat which had a butcher shop, mill, saloon and a couple of hotels. They had ferry's, fishing on the Humboldt River, adobe residences etc
When I arrived all I found was a stone built into the side of a hill there was also above it some kind of other concrete or cement structure which you could peer down into about 8' across. I am not sure what it is or what it was used for maybe remnants of the mill. Less then a half mile away is an adobe structure I could not find it though you can see it on maps hard to know where its at because the brush back here is ridiculously dense.
The town sits up on some bluffs I was driving on them and the road was heavily eroded at one time my entire truck leaned towards the river nearly rolling into it. That would be a bad scenario because its a deep muddy river and you could drown if you rolled it. But the road was in bad shape when I cross Callahan's bridge then made a right following the river. The road actually follows the river for about a half mile but it inches really close to dropping off right over the bluff. With soft mud and sand from it raining I had to be real careful.
The cottonwood trees that grow around Saint Mary's the town site are probably about the only other thing remaining since they were growing when the town began. I am sure no doubt there is more to see but so much brush. I spent about a half hour here taking mild readings, EVP and a few photos. But really there is so little to see and with that being said I want to combine this town with another river town just a couple miles away called Lancaster.
I may have put in the wrong coordinates to Lancaster on my GPS because I got turned around could not find it. You have a few ghost towns back here in the sink problem is there are hundreds of dirt roads that go everywhere around the river and some lead to nowhere but wasting gas and time. I spent an hour trying to find the turn off for Lancaster passing by cattle, opening and closing gates etc its desolate out here. I am not even sure the other two river towns exist but I know St. Mary's and Lancaster Nevada have a few historic remnants worth trying to share with others.
I will have to come back out here to finish this project its not done and that happens sometimes. To do good ghost town research you have to sometimes come back a second time although most of the time I do not have to unless I miss some things. Its so vast certain locations are needles in a haystack all roads begin to look the same and you end up on the wrong road or driving for miles trying to find things. Not much remains of Saint Mary's but it was a gorgeous river town at one time all lost.
I drove about 20 miles along the river then I cut out to the highway and went to the semi ghost town of Oreana. Their is not much that remains of old Oreana I drove out the bluffs found nothing and I drove around the newer part of town which has a couple old mills but with people living on the property and it being posted it may not be a good idea. There was some newer fencing around this mill I parked out front at to photograph with a very active house next door so I have to think about urbexing this or risk getting shot at.
I may go back to Oreana though I have to do more research and find a few more sites I can check out. Its not a huge town some of these semi ghost towns have only 20 to 50 people living in them. They live among the abandoned historic sites which makes it sometimes hard for me to do my job as an investigator, explorer and historian especially when they buy up these properties to build a new house right next to an old mill.
I spent the last part of my day driving along the tracks in Oreana and Etna to this road that goes down to the river. There is an old farm or ranch down there its suppose to be abandoned but the gate had a lock on it and well it does not look so abandoned. I parked my truck in this big abandoned expanse tall grass everywhere Amtrak going by and the sun was finally peering out. Boy ill tell you it was a dismal day it rained on and off the entire time we were out near St. Mary's so by the time we got to Oreana it cleared up and was warming up nice.
Near the tracks I found a foundation of some kind and not far from that some kind of old wooden utility shed maybe an outhouse hard to know. You can find remnants of Oreana if you look around but its not allot. With it almost dark out I gave up Oreana to try to hike out to a ranch that was off limits. You have to be careful in Nevada so many ranches are old and historic some are even abandoned but the problem is that ranchers used abandoned ranches to grave there cattle while others might just built a new house next to the old one. Id like to check out this historic ranch but I am going to have do more research.
You can count on me revisiting Oreana again but also in the near future ill try to do more work up around St. Mary's and visit old Lancaster which has some stone ruins. There is allot of little towns along highway 80 that have some nice gems if you take the time to explore them. There supposedly is a small cemetery here to so ill definitely have to find it. Oreana and Etna are sister old milling and railroading towns here in Nevada. It is worth seeing if you can find what is remaining but most of the areas such as with the old mill are off limits.
Etna and Oreana are a few miles part but there are remnants in both communities. I will have to do more research to make a second trip. Both towns had mills, saloons, stores, hotels, post offices etc today though life is a little more slower. Most folks pass through here not even blinking twice on the expressway. But you have the beautiful Humboldt Range you can explore to the south and to the north the bluffs of the Humboldt River with history in between the two. We found some things but more remains to be seen and I cant wait to go back again.
To finish off the evening I drove on up to Reno at a nice family style restaurant where I had Tilapia, Fettuccine and spinach along with a huge side of mashed potatoes and garlic bread. I also had chicken wings and some sliders. I was hungry LOL you would be to if you drove a few hundred miles and spent the entire day exploring in the cold rain. It was a really awesome restaurant all home cooked food and after a long day of journeying it really was a nice treat. I am a firm believer in good eats while on the road you should always take a time out to sit with friends and family to break bread being thankful for the things you do have. In this case I was thankful that we were safe no flat tires, getting stuck in mud or rolling into the river. Humboldt City is rugged and St Mary's is just a wild ride along the steep bluffs what an amazing day!
Peace,
Lord Rick