What's Under the Hills? -- A View of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains

The Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains are southern Cascades. They surround the Klamath River and small towns of Orleans, Somes Bar, Happy Camp, and Seiad Valley, to name a few settlements dotting the Klamath River Highway, also known as Highway 96. These tree covered, rounded mountains rise from the valley floor as eloquent spires of strength, not giving way to erosion as the gulches and ravines have done. Between them winter snows melt sending torrents of wild water down hillsides, through waterfalls, and into streams, their channels lined with stone, all loose sediments long ago washed away.

Each element of this blessed cathedral of life gives its own glory to human understanding. The snow drifts down to purify the world. The water from snow's melting gives us kinetic cleansing action and feeds every living generation of tree, bush, or grass. The mountain steadfastly displays strength, providing ridges for walking and views for comprehension of the vast expanse of earth's majesty. All this beneath the all-seeing, ever-present sky.

Many have arrived in the Klamath River Valley looking for treasure, or refuge from an ever-expanding material civilization. Gold hunters found plenty, in an earlier era. Not much that remains is easily accessible. Refuge seekers found small communities filled with people, some of whom could easily become friends. They also found life at a pace humankind is more naturally fit for, thanks to eons of habit, evolution, and conditioning.

How long human life has existed in this valley is unknown. Before Euro-American settlers traveled upriver in the 1850s in search of gold, Native Americans lived here – Karuks, and others. Legends whisper that before their residency, a race of light skinned people roamed the hills and valleys of this region. Present day travelers and residents, some of them, claim to have seen Sasquatch, and called the creature Bigfoot. This is the area from which that pedal-obsessive term came, after workers on a road construction crew found huge human-like prints in the dusty, soft dirt surrounding their massive rigs in the mornings.

These mountains are ancient. David Rains Wallace, in his seminal and oft-honored book, The Klamath Knot: Explorations of Myth and Evolution, wrote:

“The mountain-building process begun in the Jurassic continued through the subsequent Cretaceous period, the Dinosaur Age. Then the westward movement of North America apparently dwindled, since sedimentary rocks stopped being scraped off the ocean floor for a time.” (The Klamath Knot: Explorations of Myth and Evolution, pg. 24)

I have not heard of dinosaur bones discovered in the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains, but I would not be surprised if this happened. What would interest me more than dinosaur bones is a sign of ancient human civilization, pre-dating the Karuk natives that still dominate towns in the Klamath River Valley. I'd love to see a sign that the legendary light-skinned people actually existed in this area. Proof of an earlier race of humans would grab my attention, in part because I've already written a children's novel with these people portrayed as realistic characters. Ancient civilizations fascinate me.

There are many more recent artifacts, and not just abandoned Indian villages or tumble-down miners' cabins in the woods. One family discovered stone lion sculptures immersed in Elk Creek water, as protectors of some underground endeavor, perhaps a mine, a home, or a temple. These would most likely be remnants of the Chinese miners who came here in the 1800s to find gold and jade. The exact location of the stone lion discovery is unknown.

The Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains are riddled with caves including the massively large, frighteningly deep Bigfoot Cave under the Marble Mountain Wilderness, south of the Klamath River. These caves have attracted explorers, been concealed by government employees, and may be home to Sasquatches or other extraordinary creatures of the deep, dark, black silence. Some say they conceal hidden, uncharted military bases; if so, local residents claim not to be aware of them.

Miners came to this territory and blasted through mountains creating cave-tunnels of their own. The Chan Jade Mine near the South Fork of Indian Creek is still accessible, but beware, I nearly met my death there, so climb carefully! If it is gold you seek, there's sure to be some, but where to look, and how, are problems. There's also the matter of claiming, claim-jumping, and legalities. Gold nuggets aren't easy to get to. Most gold is still deep within the mountains, and nature is leaving it there, for now.

Who is to know whether one of these hills conceals ancient human development, a huge temple, perhaps, covered by millions of years of sediment and dust, then covered with trees and other growing matter? Many of the hills seem the right shape and size, so it is easy to imagine. When David Rains Wallace came here for his first tour, in 1969, he had this impression:

“The pyramidal ridges seem to say 'mystery' to my mind in the way that the shape or color of a parent bird's bill says 'food' to its nestlings. Pyramids have a way of doing that, as evidenced by the lasting fascination of certain Egyptian tombs. The Siskiyou ridges might have been the vegetated remnants of some prehistoric city, vast beyond comprehension. They did not seem altogether natural, at least, not with the insensate simplicity often associated with nature.” (The Klamath Knot: Explorations of Myth and Evolution, pg. 2)

With so many eras of life gone by, it is reasonable to imagine, to sense, to perceive, the presence of mysterious remnants, seen or unseen. The eyes tell one story: majestic mountains covered with trees. The mystic knows another through sensing without sight, without being told, without need for words. It is that sensitivity I employ as I walk the paths of this metaphysical realm.

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About the author: Linda Jo Martin is a ten-year resident of the Klamath River Valley, a novelist, an artist, and a seeker of metaphysical truth. In her spare time she travels through the state of California, writing down her observations for her website, Journey! California.

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