Plumas County Adventures
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Adventure 1
Rock Island Ridge Site
First Find an old map with a desired site to find:
This 1871 map of T23N R6E shows a cabin in section 22 (under the "G"
in SUGAR). The map shows the cabin near a road that connects to the Oroville-Quincy
Stage Road. In 1871 these were dirt roads, naturally. The chances of finding
the cabin from this information alone are slim. To find the cabin I have
to assume the position of the cabin relative to the section lines is accurate
and proceed as follows.
Next, scan a USGS Topographical map and superimpose a UTM grid. I use Canvas
3.5 to add the UTM grid. The UTM lines on topo maps are every 1000 meters.
I like to add enough lines so that the smallest interval is 50 meters. Canvas
3.5 has a feature called "duplication to a line." First you draw
a line on top of a UTM Line. Next you select the line and choose "duplication
to a line." You choose the numer of times duplicated and then choose
where the stopping point is (another UTM grid). The duplicated lines spread
out to fill the interval between UTM grids. It is nice to make these lines
very fine and colored or grayed. Here is the result.
Next scale the site on the old map (See Map Scaling)
and place the location on the UTM map. Approximate
the UTM location off the map and enter into a GPS locator. In this case
the cabin is estimated to be about 646000 E by 4409950 N.
Lastly GPS navigate to the spot and find the location. This is often easier
said than done. You need to navigate to a spot; then mark the spot. Then
investigate a circle up to 100 meter radius (Remember you have SA error
in most GPS readings) about the point. To
GPS Navigation hints.
I found the actual site at 646118E by 4409954. It took me about 30 minutes
to find the spot. Although the site was quite near two roads, I got the
impression that few people had been there in recent times. In fact, I have
driven past this spot many, many times in the last 30 years and never thought
that this could be a cabin site. Oh well, you know the old adage "If
I just knew then what I know now..."
There was not much left. I found an obvious cabin
site. It was small, but it was a level clearing among fairly large trees.
I found square nails in the site. There were indications that there had
been a fire. Perhaps this cabin burned down--that was the fate of many old
buildings in the woods. Below the site I found a bottle neck (old cork style)
of purple glass. I found part of a green medicine bottle that read "Dr.
King's New Discovery for Consumption." The remnants of an old brass
alarm clock were found nearby. I took photographs and will post one on this
page in the near future.
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