Rodger climbing around the boulder jam to reach Zig-Zag – GoPro- 6

Over the last several months, many critical comments have come to our site regarding content and clues. I welcome the varied opinions; engagement is a good thing, especially when it comes to the multiplex history of the Dutchman’s legend. Critique is a part of the process, in that it helps to cut the wheat from the chaff, for it can help helps to determine which clues are most likely fiction and which ones are more disposed to being credible. The key words being most likely. Most Dutchman experts believe that, the credible clues will only be known if the mine exists and it actually is discovered. Only then will it be possible to do an ANALOGY and determine which of the clues have all along been credible and which clues have been misinformation. Let’s make an analogy of the word “ANALOGY” and how its definition fits the challenge at our site.

“a-nal-o-gy noun a comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification. “an analogy between the workings of nature and those of human societies”

Try to think of the mountain canyon at our site as a huge puzzle board where the historical clues are puzzle pieces and must fit onto the mountain to complete the puzzle.

Many of the historical guides posted clues that lead directly to our site area. These are puzzled pieces from both the recorded documentation of the spoken word of mouth, second and third person and then linkage by way of old maps. The linkage we have in hand is hard to dismiss. It is shocking to me that so many of our puzzled pieces place themselves onto the mountain and then fit so directly in to the mountain puzzle board, that it is shocking. To know that we have these pieces in front of us is amazing. These interconnections form a correlation that is …. to use the adjective pick-and-shovel…. exacting, that they are hard to deny. This is one reason we are confident of what we have. We cannot reveal most of these at this time, that is for the book.

Some examples of a few of the clue puzzle pieces you need to link information are…. Is the mine entrance a volcanic vent? Is the entrance behind bushes? Is it 12 feet above a shelf? Is a dangerous ledge involved? Below the mine is there a searcher tunnel that has been walled up? These are examples of just a few of the things (just a few) that would help to check off some boxes in the got-cha column. Also do any of the maps correlate to the site you are at.

Several posters have been critical about the severity of the area adjacent to the mine and have said we are full of BS!, how could Jacob Waltz, who was an old man when he worked the mine get up to the mine if we cannot (without using high tech gear) with three- or four-man teams.

Some posters say it cannot be the same site area the Dutchman worked. These posters must be sound bite readers and have not read our site in its entirety. Several times, I have covered this issue of accessibility back in the Dutchman’s day (1860s), compared to today in 2019 including the reasons for the drastic change. Please everyone read our entire site from the beginning, it will be more enjoyable and as I start to share pieces of the puzzle it will make more sense.

For all the above reasons I have decided to focus on the path up to the mine and share some facts without giving away too much. Hopefully this will help folks get a feel for this most important, dangerous and illusive mountain…. canyon.

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Mine area access during the Waltz Era.

First I will discuss the mine site area during the Dutchman’s time in the 1860’s. I also will lightly cover the Peralta Priest Witch stone which contains engraved recorded information from a very old Spanish or Jesuit map. Keep in mind that the Peralta Priest Stone is not as old as the information recorded on it. Also, the information on the stone could have admissions or alterations but for the most part it is accurate and, therefore, very relevant. It describes the physical travel to the site area and then describes the final challenges of how to find and then travel the final pathway up. Once on the pathway it gives warnings, trail marker information and clues that verify you are in the correct place.

During Waltz ‘s time the travel to the Superstition Mountains was no picnic. It was a harsh and dangerous journey; just getting to the base of the mountains was a rough journey.

Once you start entering the Superstition Mountains, you travel through piles of boulders 3000ft to 5000ft high, yes, the mountains appear to be made of endless boulder piles, with dangerous crevices everywhere.

For Waltz to get to his mine, he had to cover about 45-plus miles, traveling through some of worst landscape you can imagine. Today when we travel up rt88 (the Apache Trail) I often look down from the road into the canyons where he would have traveled on foot leading his donkey’s and I try to imagine what an arduous journey it must have been back in the 1860s. I find it hard to believe he could make it there in two days (certainly not one day), mine for a day and be back in three or four days as some have suggested. For this reason, many Dutchman scholars say he was not mining but was emptying out someone else’s cache. More and more I think that Waltz was working a cache of gold and not physically mining or possibly he was doing both. But for me the jury is still out on the totality of Waltz ‘s activities at the mine site area. As we explore more of area, hopefully some of these answers will come to light.

Waltz ‘s trip from his adobe house through the desert to the base of the mine area was a slow laborious journey, traversing open desert and winding canyons, over and around hills, slicing through garb shredding under brush, all the while dealing with 100 plus degree temperatures. After traveling two days through Apache territory, Waltz would reach the foot of the canyon below his mine. Because he was exposed, he would immediately start the dangerous ascent to his mine.

Some Dutchman researches believe the photo with an old miner riding a burro to be Jacob Waltz. It more likely is another miner in the Phoenix area that also worked the Superstition Mountains. The actual identity has been an ongoing debate for years, no one knows for sure who this is only that it is very early Phoenix After all there were hundreds of miners working in the area during Waltz ‘s time, most were loners and drifters, kept to themselves, almost phantom like, few were known by name. Cameras where extremely rare, the silver photo plates were a cumbersome and precious cargo. The one miner folks knew about was Jacob Waltz. After all in Phoenix they all wanted know the Dutchman and find out where his mine was. But he shunned them.

If you were in Phoenix during this time and you were a photographer, with a limited supply of photo plates, who and what were you going to record to a silver plate? Maybe nobody of note and then again perhaps the one miner in town who had a rich goldmine, the Dutchman Jacob Waltz.

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Waltz ‘s climbs up to the mine area

The path up to the mine was extremely steep and dangerous, but in his day it was doable. The doable was made possible because the pathway up was a Zig- Zag- and then a finale Zig, which was the upper path leading to a small 20×50 foot shelf. After being on the site and being able to view where the old pathway up had been before the earthquake, I believe that it may have been possible to get a small burro up to the shelf. It would have been hard work, but may have been possible depending on the amount of underbrush and growth on the approach leading up to the first Zig. Supposedly Waltz had stated that the Peralta’s had hacked away the underbrush with machetes and worn a pathway up to the start of the first Zig at the start of the path. Today there is boulder jam which our guys must climb around to reach the old path at the first Zig.

Still the sheer incline and poor footing would have been extremely dangerous. A small burro has as least as good or better footing than a man., With the thicketed underbrush gone, a smallish feral donkey (burro) could have reached the path. Could he get up the path? Certainly not today, but I think back then, with a skilled packer it may have been possible.

Early on Waltz had a partner and they took several pack animals a mix of horses, mules and a couple of burros. Which animals they took, depended on their objectives. Their efforts at the mine were most likely different every time they traveled to and then back from the mine. Waltz told Julia Thomas that they kept the animals tethered about a mile from the mine. At night they came back and camped at the spot. During the day when Waltz and his partner where gone, the mules would have protected the horses from mountain lions.

I believe I know where they tethered their animals, and I know there are lions in that area. Also, I believe there may have been a secondary reason they would have had a smallish burro as part of their travel party. I cannot share this now but will in the book. I have reason to believe they most likely had a mix of burros, two horses and maybe a mule. This is speculation from some things I know about the area. I will talk about this in the book.

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A visitor to our site.

Photo shot by Arcana Exploration on location

I know almost for certain that the Witch Priest stone, leads to the same location that was worked by the Peralta’s and the Dutchman. Keep in mind originally the information on the stones had nothing to do with the Dutchman. Please sound bite readers, I am talking about info depicted, not when Travis Tumlinson or someone else may have done the stones. I have reason to believe that the information on the Peralta Stones was copied from a much older map, most likely of Jesuit origin.

Most legend scholars believe the Priest stone starts as a long trail and ends below the mine area. The General consensus, by most legend researches also believe that the Priest stone trail leads to the foot of the mine and then tells you about the path going up (Zigzag), including dangers and trail markers.

Shot by Arcana Exploration, at Dutchman Museum.

1. You 18 lugares (most likely 18 monument markers on the trail through the desert) The long trail to the mine. (Arcana has found 3)
2. Then it tells to seek the map (MAPA), most likely a stone or stones with trail markings up to the mine. (Arcana has several arrows and other markings leading up to the site.)
3. ESTA BEREDA ES PELIGROZA “the path is dangerous”
4. The Priest Witch stone confirms that the path has always been dangerous. The Peralta’s and others have confirmed likewise that path up was dangerous.

Here is a key point! The site area was already dangerous, long before the Dutchman’s time – and long before the devastation of the 1887 7.4 magnitude earthquake!

Arcana Exploration can see today how dangerous the path would have been, even before the earthquake. Looking at the part of the path that was not affected by the 1887 quake. We can see that even intact the path still would have been a widow maker. Before you get to the path it is extremely steep, full of brush (with snakes), poor footing, and exposed to the elements. I am sure this is one of the reasons why the Dutchman did not go back during the last ten years of his life. Also Waltz knew the longer he stayed away, the more the brush would have grown making it more difficult to reach Zig-Zag.