MI 150521

Left fork of Camp Creek
I have always been a little like Daniel Boone, or maybe it is the Indian part of me, and have liked to wander around in the little known places to explore and see nature as it is when it has not been tampered with by mankind.
I can not think of a better place anywhere in this area to see nature as it used to be than the left fork of Camp Creek. It is a dark and shady canyon-like place with several gulches branching off on both sides. There are lots of brush and timber and rocky points. Lone Pine Ridge to the west is also very brushy. The left fork has a little stream of water the year around and there are a few small mountain trout there.
I have for several years wanted to go into that area and look for gold and maybe some day I will. It is too rough and brushy for a horse to get along in very well.
The last time that I was in the left fork was in 1940 when Gifford Lee and I went up the full length of the fork. We each had a saddle horse and a pack horse and we had to cut a lot of brush in order to get through. The upper part is rocky with many bluffs. Just past the bluffs there is a place called the Bark Camp where a man built a quite comfortable little hut when he was staying away from the law men in 1923. The head of the fork is west of Bald Mountain and around Timber Spring. Years ago the area produced lots of grass which made it a good range for cattle but it is not nearly as good now as it used to be. Whenever I am out on the hill tops I sit down and take a long distance look at the left fork of Camp Creek and dream of a prospecting trip into some of the roughest country around in this region. In days gone by I could always find a grassy spot to stake out my horse for a night. Now the grass is about gone and is becoming, like many other things, just a memory. I often wonder when the white man will go there with his saw and axe and spoil the beauties of nature. Probably that time is not very far off.