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welcome to another edition of Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains and I'm
gonna really tell you right off the bat this is kind of a different type of show
for us in that we're kind of in a rebuttal shall we say or in a mode where
we're going to talk a little bit more about one of our most famous or to some
people infamous episodes on is this the Peralta mine or one of the Peralta mines
with a big question mark and a lot of people took that seriously and although
we would love to think it was one of those we we know it was it right I
believe and that it's a cache that's the that was used for things but a lot of
people Larry and the reason I wanted to have my co-hosts here so to speak on
here is that you've been up there well three times now including us but you
were up there in 58 was it and then 72....68 to somewhere around early
seventies okay so you were up there and we're getting people disputing that we
were even up that we made it all up that it's not where we say it is that it's
not in the Superstitions there was a big stone covering it at one time that the
ladder that's in there is not from the 17 or 1800s rather you know and you were
actually there so what do you remember of course we're not saying that the
ladder was from that time period I don't think we ever said the ladder was from
that time period but some people are just there disputing this and and how
long it took us to get there which was an arduous task
it took us what about four hours and we have people disputing that but you know
here's the deal when we went up there we had no idea what to expect I.... We'll admit
that we didn't think it was gonna we thought it was gonna be like most of our
hikes which is just okay here we are we're gonna get there and there was a
trail there or something there was no trail and well if you've
seen the episode or pictures your arms were all just peeled off mine was a
little bit but not as bad as yours Dave with the camera I mean I pity him you
know like all reality shows it's like it's the cameraman that I feel sorry for
and our co-producer and you know big part of this show it was carrying the camera up there
and it was a long hard hike sometimes we were jumping from
literally I was from a cliff to cliff simply because we were like going in
different directions trying to get there and then once we got underneath it if
you remember and I'm sure Dave over here remembers when we got just below it
where it's supposed to be the the cliff I was so sick and I'm telling you I
puked you know I would not a lot not a lot but I did I was sick I was sick to
my stomach and you were tired and I just said Dave going up there and get it he
was psyched he wanted to get it right Dave wanted to get that and so he went
up there there was no trail to it from there
he literally was going through cat claw and brush because there was no trail to
to this ledge to this area so it was obvious that nobody had been up there
for ages and once he got through and that took you and took Dave probably
better part of half an hour or more literally I'd say to get there and when
he got up there we could hear him wow you guys got to come up here and see
this and I'm looking at you I just take some shots Dave oh you really have to
come up here and see this and we did fortunately and that's what they see and
then we get some comments saying well it's too bad you couldn't go down in
there well I did go down in there and there are pictures I believe on the show
but there are pictures on the sight of me shooting up at you guys looking down
like what an idiot you know and so a lot of these things need to be dispelled as
far as what they're saying was it in the Superstition Mountains the ladder
the wheelbarrow somebody was talking about the wheelbarrow that was up there
that's no longer there and they will hunted you to draw a copy of the wheelbarrow
will you know he'll draw it and what do
you sell it for like 25, 30 bucks or something anyway I've gone on enough
Tell us dispel some of this stuff well oh yeah when we decide to go up or let me
put it this way when Hart Mullins took us up there
we didn't go the same direction that we went well what was the date on that it's
1958 okay and you guys we just wanted to go into kind of a straight line over
there and and we got tied up in that major wash and there was so much brush
in the washed that we couldn't really get out - we went well past where we
wanted to get out and then had to work our way back and we were on the north
side of all the wash and brush but when Hart took us up there we were on that
south side of that we didn't have to fight that kind of thing now you they
had some claims up there on the three red hills or we could drive about half
of it and then we only had to walk about half of it which was closed off which is
now closed also to say evidently the Forest Service put a bunch of boulders
in front of that road and you can hardly even find it and when we when we got up
there the hole wasn't isn't as deep as it is now because they were working on it
Hart and his brother Jesse took us up there and there wasn't a ladder there at
the time and and the second trip I took back with with that senator from I think
I said Iowa but it was really oh hi oh his name was John Dingle I looked him up
he just died here not too long ago this was John dingle john or Don
Dingle John ok Senator John has his wife took his place in the Senate I think it
was it may have been a state senate rather than a federal Senate all right
but Wilson lund mr. Wilson was the other fellow involved it was the owner of
Wilson Lund photography in the Quad City area and that's where I met him and told
him the story of the Lost Dutchman and they flew down to have me take him to
that and I really as I as I remember it
looked it up I think it was more towards the mid 70s in 1968 but now when we went
back it was much deeper now Hart Mullins died in 1960 okay but his brother didn't
die in 1960 in fact I have a that a book that the author said that he met him in
1975 and gave him a ride from mill site Canyon back down to the to the Queen
Creek and so Jesse was still alive in the mid 70s
and that he's probably the one that put the ladder in there as they dug it
deeper and deeper and so that you know it's a redwood ladder it's in a cave
it's no Sun could get to it no water could get to it and it's very well
preserved safe from the elements safe from the elements and then of course you
had the the logs that were across the top I think there was only two of them
left that were there in the 50s and they had been there I've been there a long
time yeah and they don't they weren't that far gone you know but they've been
there a lot longer so that ladder probably was not was not left there
until the mid 70s earlier so there's always the business about that thing was
not a hundred and three years old yeah yeah that was a misconception people
said that ladder is not over a hundred years old well nobody said it was as far
as hiking out we were coming down a sixty percent slope and I had to step
off a small ledge too and you know I mentioned when you went down in there in
the hole that my legs were gone I wasn't about to go down in there well my left
knee went out from under me and I took a tremendous crash and I was pretty well
tore up and and three weeks later I had a stroke no I don't know if that had
anything to do with it or not but didn't help yeah it didn't help and well we're
sorry about that yeah but it was worth it no sorry. as far as a amateurs I've
been in the Mountains probably 30 times yeah well it did
it on foot yeah I always rode a horse yeah yeah
well you know I did it either or and he was talking about the long sleeves why
weren't you weren't I did but the thing is is it it it cut the sleeves up to
ribbons on my shirt and that didn't look good on camera so you know some some
things you do for the audience but we went to wrong white well we did and
anyone admit we went the wrong way but even if you go the right way you know
you know it's good whatever three hours you won't have as much brush but we did
clear the way for you a bit Dave did you know he's the tallest he cleared the way
for all of us to get through to correct something there is a
little bit of trail left at the end but we didn't use it we had to climb up to
it and then we were only 15 yards from those from the cave well a lot of the
trail had been covered over with cat claw.. cat claw that a hard thing to say
there's at least 50 yards of that trail left on a cliff yeah yeah
you're right but I mean it it was obvious nobody had been up there for
know where what happened to the wheel barrel oh well my dad took it out and
put it in his yard for yard art and he died in 66 and when we come out here to
take care of his affairs it was gone so three or four days after he died we were
out here and somebody stole it. and by the way there is a cellphone out there
if anybody finds it it's not the Dutchman's it's it's not a Peratla
it's mine there is a cell phone I'm sure it's not in service anymore and probably doesn't
work anyway now but yeah it it was an amazing trip at one of the most exciting and..
dave did go back Scott was that Scott that with with Scott our our drone
pilot so to speak and they got some some more footage we did get some drone
footage before but this was this one was able to go back a little bit further and
show a little more of this area that we're talking about and we're gonna show
that now I haven't seen it yeah actually shows the cave opening doesn't it it
shows the cave opening shows all of that I don't does it show the mine in there
does not the mind but it does show the cave
opening where we were too bad I would have hiked back up there so that they
could get that and I could wave at him not! and it's like you said in the case
says if I hadn't come along you wouldn't have found it no guys these guys that
didn't find it are all complaining well they're complaining and then as you were
going down I just had to go over to the there was another prospect over to the
side of it where the the walls are so smooth I mean they are it's not a fault
so yeah and you know that went back aways and just there was like a little
small prospect there but the entranceway did go back there and I did post that on
on the website but we're going to take a look at at this drone footage and in
closing here is there anything you would like to say to the naysayers well yeah
you can call us amateurs if you want but if you didn't know where you were going
and didn't find it it seemed like to me there's a few amateurs out there besides
us well thank you you know that we don't claim to be looking for the gold at all
oh this is our gold doing this show literally and we don't we don't claim
that we are gonna rappel somewhere someone mentioned why didn't you rappel
down to the bottom of this this pit why I climbed down the ladder yeah besides
rappel got a jump down there pretty much if you are healthy but it
these naysayers that just go do it I think we've given them enough clues
and we told people don't do it because it's dangerous but if you're prepared as
you all that are naysayers say you are then I would expect that you would be
prepared with the the right dress as they said and you know all the different
things they would need rappelling rope you don't forget that and enough water
some food to eat up you know if you have that and you are the experts that you
say you are yeah have at it I think we've given you the clues
two things I want to address that were mentioned was it didn't look like
it was an ore body well we told you right off he wasn't
digging in ore body he was looking for a cache yeah and that's what
I you you go there and you look at it and yeah it's it's obviously a cache now
the place I went to where it was smooth and all that that looked more like a
place they were looking for something but this obviously is a cache you'd be
stupid to keep going down there looking for for something because you're not
gonna find silver you're not gonna find gold copper what have you you're not
gonna find it there and that's obvious it had to be a cache that they would
store stuff to come back and get it later the other thing is as I mentioned
it was bear country well I've been out there not going to the mine but I've
been out to buyus Butte many many times and at least twice I can think of there
was a there was an old Sal with two cubs way off in a distance and another time a
full-grown bears are like gold it's where you find them yeah well seeing us
not a lot of people found the gold there maybe maybe we won't see a bear but
anyway we had to dispel some of that we're still gonna get some naysayers out
there say yeah well yeah this and that that and that's fine just you know clean
up your language a little bit they can believe anything they want they have
every right to believe what they want but they don't have the right to tell me
what to believe yeah this is American probably what I
want to anyway thank you and hopefully we dispelled some of these mysteries of
the Superstition Mountains
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