The Ghost Town

abraxas · Jan 31, 2007

phantompablo said:
I don't recall seeing any but that's not to say no. Everytime I walk around out there I find something new and amazing so it's definitely possible!

I had seen a slide of the formation at a photo class out of the Desert Institute last fall. I didn't hear for sure where it was, so I'll have to check it out. Malapai Hill on the geology tour road is another place I'd like to shoot at sunrise.

Thanks Mohain and Alex06!

Alex06; I'd like to see photos of the desert area out your way. I've been collecting stories and am interested in Pegleg Smith. Apparently there were a few guys named that. The one I'm interested in was a mountain man in the early 1800s who during a battle with Indians had his leg shattered by an arrow and amputated it himself with a knife as the other members of his party were too squeamish. They did carry him into a Ute Indian village and the people there danced around him for days chewing healing herbs and spitting on the stump. While recovering, he carved and fitted his own peg, and learned to ride a horse with it. The murderous Walkara, chief of this band of renegade Utes became good friends with him, and they would ride into the ranchos of southern California and steal thousands of horses at a time during their raids.

When California became part of the U.S., horse-thieving, on any level became a crime. Pegleg 'retired' to warmer climates (east of S.D.) and found a rich gold mine. However, it was either covered by a flash flood or earthquake and is lost in the eastern canyons of the mountains bordering the western Colorado desert.

Or maybe it was a whole different guy named Pegleg Smith- I just wanted to say 'stump.'