Cascade Canyon – Lapis Lazuli – Mt. Baldy, CA
Cascade Canyon – Lapis Lazuli – Mt. Baldy, CA
Patrick Keegan and I prospect for Lapis Lazuli in Cascade Canyon. We make jewelry from the stone that we find and grind. Some friends were asking us if it was an easy hike… so… no, it’s not. 2500ft elevation gain in 1 mile. That’s 2 Empire State Building climbs by stair… on broken loose ground. Rocks fall from the cliffs above. Patrick has the scar to prove it. If rain were to hit… the canyon has flash floods that strip it clean. Boulders the size of VW’s disappear overnight… It is a remote, ever changing, exciting, dangerous canyon. 🙂
A portion of the profit from the lapis that we find goes to charities and fundraisers. See: LapisMinor.com
how can you expect that i give you like for climbing?????
WTH crap video is this…..No view of laps lazuli, no mine, what a waste of my time, BIG THUMBS DOWN.
are you allowed to mine here
Checked your website. Very cool!
Is this past the tunnels or before? I’ve been trying to find this place for years :/
Ive been up this canyon a few times in search of that elusive blue Gem stone. Ive found maybe 30 or so small fragments but have never found the mine or source vein. Anyone that knows the location message me. thank you!
How does this work from a legal perspective? Â I checked the BLM maps I have and I don’t see any public sites in their records. Â Are there other sources for data on land where it’s legal to rock hunt or is this private property?
No one believes i found lapis perhaps because the chunck ifound was kept by then boyfriend GRAMPA, richard ernst, claremont gem place offered $350 for raw rock.my best find ever! Never knew the name, scott falls till your video, thanx, want to go again.
i remember trying to walk up to the mine 6-7 times lol not possible (it is filled with mud by forest service) i really never made it to the coordinates very steep, laughable, rope anyone? nobody i brought could go much higher than me. one day it started to get dark and i got scared with my friend paniced this is for people who know the spot and are part mountain goat its hard and dangerous someone died last year off the top spine of the mountain and couldn’t even be removed right away just looking at that shit from the truck trail is very menacing to me
We know what your doing we are not stupid
Which rock?
I went up to the digs with them in the late 1960s. Â Yes, it was a stiff climb.
My then boyfriend GRAMPA, R.E. took me and kept the chunck I found! Claremont gem shop offered$350 raw 15 years ago.
Your title is misleading as fuck, mon frere.
Above the fire road… past the GingerBread house. 🙂
You guys missed out on the ripe blackberries.
@xzerpolix Just past 2 tunnels park at Barrett-Stoddard parking lot… head downstream on road until you run into the old concrete foundation. Directly across stream is lower Cascade.
Here is Keegans account of Lower Cascade. lapisminor.blogspot.com/2011/04/lower-cascade-canyon.html
Oh man I would love to join you guys one of these weekends! I live 70 miles away from Mount Baldy. And I’ve hiked up Mount Dana before so I know I could handle this extreme hike. If you’re ever in need of another adventurer I’d really appreciate the opportunity to look for those blue rocks with you.
NIce vid ! i too would like to join in on a trip. Its probably snowing right now but, it would be really cool if you sent me a heads up before your next adventure !!
i never saw any lapis? where is the lapis? wow i wasted my time watching your hike, and so what about your elevated climb, i take you to Afghanistan for a climb. LETS SEE THE LAPIS, is it as good as the afghan, or is it the bull like what comes from Chile?
do you know any places in northern cali to find gemstonesÂ
I’ve spent the last month up the canyon trying to find the correct face. Not sure if it’s on left or right side. Hiked all the way up to the small mine cave on left and waterfalls on 3 sides of canyon. Don’t know if we passed it or not. Would love to get a better idea of slope face. Let me know, we can chat via email. Thanks.Candice
My uncle had the mining rights to the Bighorn mine in the 1950s and 1960s. Â He and my cousin and friends took hundreds of pounds of quality lapis, including boulders out of there, made many gemstones. Â But he came into conflict with BLM officials about an abandoned claim. Â Every time he went up to the mine he signed with a logbook at the National Forest office and hut. Â But some people kept stealing the logbook. Â He could never prove he was as active as he claimed, since this was not in the days of portable movie or video equipment to document his activities. Â He lost his rights in the late 1960s and had no money for a court case. Â My cousin still has several truckloads of raw material that is fairly high grade.
Thanks for the memories. I hiked that canyon everyday, 50 lbs of supplies up and 100lbs of rough down. BTW…That’s Barney Falls and above it is called the Crusher. We once came over the edge of the fall where we found a fresh lion kill. A Bighorn sheep lay there with a surgeon’s incision in his gut, steaming entrails spilling out of belly.
Now I don’t have to sound like some old weez bag bragging about his youthful escapades. I just have folks watch this. with deep gratitude…Barney
I havent been able to find the startingpoint again, we had driven down a locked forrestry road, was a gruelinghike in may and i almost died crossing a slimy log, loved to see your video.
All we see is you climbing. No mine, no lapis, etc. Do you have a part 2 video?
lapis is with the cystal gems
is this between the road above and the falls that join the river below ot above the road the ginger bread house is on? you know the house, the one neerest the road to the bridge that takes you to the badly road.