Here is another trip report from March. This trip was to a claim in the Cariboo region.
The claim is located approximately 30km to the North of the town of Lillooet on the Fraser River. Access to the claim was gained via Highway 1 from the lower mainland to Lillooet, then 4×4 roads to the claim. We took the West Pavillion FSR and turned onto an un-named dirt road towards the claim. The driving distance from Abbotsford is approximately 316km and took about 5.5 hours to drive. The map below shows the route taken.
Upon arrival to the claim we spotted some old buildings and decided to check them out. It turned out to be a really cool ghost town. There were several shacks that are still standing and a very well preserved church. I haven’t been able to find out any information on the ghost town. It is really one of the best preserved ghost towns that I have seen.
The trip was off to a great start. After checking out the ghost town we tried to find a suitable route down to the river. The sides of the river in this part of the valley are very steep. We tried out a route and it ended up being a little too steep, we were able to make it but it wasn’t easy.
The next morning after looking over the topo maps and weighing our experience from the previous day we decided to take an old creek bed down to the river. The creek bed was not a direct route but it is much easier walking and a fairly consistent grade. We arrived at the beach and began scouting sample locations and started digging.
We managed to get four samples this time. As usual we used a measured volume of material, screened on site and hand panned down to a manageable amount. The gold values were not super exciting from this round but there was gold in each sample. I saw some small flakes in the gold pan in a couple spots.
Across the river on a different claim we spotted some old mining equipment. It looks like an old trommel with a hopper and possibly some jigs. That property was a past producer but it looks like it hasn’t been worked in some time. After three days the trip was over and we headed back to civilization. To top off the trip we spotted some mountain sheep on the side of the highway.
Did you get permission from the claim owner to work on their claim?
Hi Richard,
I was actually hired to work on that claim.
The ghost town is actually a First Nations village on a “Indian Reserve”, Pavilion Indian/Leon’s Creek Reserve, known as Ts’kw’aylaxw,
Cool, can you tell me more about it. Such as the time period that it was inhabited, what the people were up to. Why did they build such a fancy church?