Mt. Moosilauke (1875) - Going for the Gold
". . . The twins' first bedrock prospecting trip to Moosilauke, late in that summer of 1870, was based out of the Prospect House. They enjoyed their wagon ride up the long ridge from Merrill's over the greatly improved road. Hidden in their luggage were a pair of axes, two small crowbars, and a short-handled shovel. They stayed a week then and spent most of their days just below treeline, out of sight of the Prospect House.
They hacked apart root clumps and shoveled aside loosened dirt and gravel, probed and pried with the crowbars, and tried to get down to bedrock at every site. During that first trip they got no encouragement on their chances for finding gold. They did, however, decide to concentrate future prospecting efforts to the west and southwest of the summit - not because the chance for gold there was better than elsewhere, but rather because they'd be more out of the public view.
At the end of that first trip they hid their tools and left Moosilauke; hiked back up the mountain a week later carrying picks and full sized shovels, which they hid each night with their cache of other tools. They avoided the entire bowl that descended to Gorge Brook simply because guests at the Prospect House or travelers on the Carriage Road would readily have heard their scrapings and bangings and because they'd already panned Gorge Brook without any notable success.
Down off the summit cone from the Prospect House, on their second bedrock prospecting trip, they began a long morning testing for sound: Aaron standing at treeline while Amos bashed at occasional rocks in the thick fir below. That exercise kept them moving south along the contour - further away from the Prospect House. After an hour Amos revolted, and they switched chores until Aaron, too, was well scratched by the "buckhorn" dead fir. Eventually they found a large area where they could crash and clang and shout with no chance of attracting notice. The shortest way to get there from the Prospect House was to descend the Carriage Road to below treeline - into the saddle towards South Peak - and then drop down the steep slope to the west. Having located the area, the brothers set to work getting down to bedrock. That time they didn't carry any gold home.
They made two more trips to Moosilauke that fall. On the last one they talked at length with a young geologist who was also staying at the Prospect House. They posed general questions to him about the gold of Lyman and Lisbon and never once steered any geology talk towards Moosilauke. The geologist seemed to be an adventurous youngster more interested in weather - particularly bad weather - than rocks. They learned to their astonishment that he had spent the past winter in the Prospect House and that he was planning to spend the coming winter on Mount Washington! They thought he was crazy, but wished him well, hid their tools for the winter, and went home to plan their prospecting activities for the next year. . . ."
From "Up Moosilauke, 1875" by Jack Noon, pp. 342-375, The Moosilaukee Reader (Vol.2). ©1999.
