DELTA-SIERRA GROUP

Double click on any of the thumbnail size photos to see a larger picture. Hit the "BACK" button on your browser to return to the main page or Pick Another Trip  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14   Home

Trip 2: Silver Dollar Gorge, Duncan Canyon, Level 2, Day Trip. To see more Trip 2 photographs by Paul Plathe and Randy Smith click here.
When the Thumbnail Gallery opens, click on any Thumbnail Photo to see the Slide Show.

This is another easy outing; excellent for first time gorge scramblers. The bedrock creek bed allows for easy walking. There is, however, one mandatory, rather cold swim of about 50 feet in length where the canyon walls converge. After the mandatory swim the creek bed offers several easily negotiated stair step like drops which require zigzagging down the gorge. Following this is a unique stretch where you walk in veined rock. This makes for neat water channels and pools.

This veined rock feature often reappears further down canyon. We scramble on down to where the canyon steepens significantly. Here we turn around and go back up canyon for about an hour to an unnamed exit trail at an active mining claim. The trail is steep at first, then the grade lessens. After about 600 feet of elevation gain, the trail brings us out to a road and back to our starting point.

The outing is done as a loop utilizing only one trail head. The trail into Duncan Canyon is called the Gold Dollar trail. It begins as the road ends, and it has 600 feet of elevation loss as it drops heading up the canyon. There is almost no poison oak along the trail which permits hiking in shorts. This historic trail crosses Duncan Creek at an active mining claim, and continues on up to Red Starr Ridge. This ridge has the inactive Red Starr Mine with its buildings which burnt in the Starr Fire of 2001. All that remains of the houses, kitchen facilities and shops are footings. This outing usually finishes early enough to make the dinner hour in historic Auburn.