We should not pass up the opportunity to look for the Royal mines of the spanish. The nice thing about the royal mines is that the spanish left the entire road map etched in the mountains themselves. There are hundreds of them. On a recent trip to visit the relatives in Oregon I counted 6 of them from Winnemucca north to Lakeview Oregon. Hwy 140
Just have to look for a U shape on a mountain. These were meant to be seen about 10 miles away. As you get closer to the range marker you will see 75% of the time, 3 points on a rock or ridge. An excellent book on this is Monument markers by Charles Kenworthy. The info around the "U" will tell you which way to find the trail. Although they made 2 paper maps, one to Mexico City and the other to Spain, the carvings on and new shapes created in the rocks would lead you to the mine. Around early 1700 a massive set of earthquakes shook north america and caved in many of the mines causing the King of Spain to make a new rule. Every royal mine was to have a parallel mine about 15 feet away as a rescue mine. I like to call them the dummy mines. When the spanish left the area in the fall they would carry all they could and store or cache the rest near the entrance of the mine and seal the entrance. The dummy mine was left open, because there wasn't anything in it. Someone stumbling onto the dummy mine could enter it and see that it was all played out, not realizing how close they were to a wealthy cache. In 1810, all the Spanish were called back to fight in the spanish/mexican war. All gold, silver etc. were cached in the entrance and sealed, many believing they would return after the war. The war lasted 15 years or so and only the mexicans returned who had any knowledge of the mines. I've found a two box metal detector is an excellent tool as its relatively inexpensive and can penetrate 20 feet into the ground. All you have to do is find the dummy mine, and then detect around it for the real McCoy.
With the economy of today lets not waste anytime thinking about it -- let the Hunting begin.
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