Treasure Hunting On Mount Franklin

By Author: jygco
Total Articles: 19
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It was a about 8:00 a.m. on a December morning here in El Paso, Texas as I was hiking and treasure hunting up a steep mountain. If you know anything about El Paso it is that it is called the Sun City, so December here feels like spring. It was a beautiful morning, temperature was in the 70's and there was a nice cool breeze.

We started up the mountain at about 8:00 a.m., after we had checked off the items from our supply list. Backpacks, metal detectors, batteries, metal detector headphones, and all metal detector tools that we usually carry with us. When I say we, I mean my two brothers, two nephews, our guide, and myself. Our guide is a colorful, strange sort of person who believes in spiritual powers. Anyway, our guide told us that he has an old map of buried treasure that would reveal the treasure of the Lost Padre Mine. (You can read this story of the mine on my upcoming post.)

We started climbing and my brother slipped with the loose rocks and fell down. We knew just then that it was going to be a tough climb. The trails, the ones we could make out, were treacherous, but the thought of the buried treasure ...
... kept us going. I will tell you one thing, the view from where we started up to our final destination was breathtaking. Half way there, most of us had fallen at least twice. If we had not worked together constantly we would have ended up in a hospital or worse. Three quarters of the way up the mountain, we had walked around, above, below, or straight through some of the desert's beautiful and most prickly plants: Prickly pear cactus, barrel cactus, ocotillo, yucca, mesquites and many other thorn ridden plants. A week later I was still taking thorns out of my legs. It is all part of the hiking and treasure hunting experience.

The last leg of the climb was the hardest if you can believe that. I was carrying my Garrett Ace 250 Metal Detector, my headphones, and all my metal detector accessories in my backpack usually they feel light but this time it felt like I was carrying a load of rocks. There weren't any prickly plants but it was a 30 foot almost vertical walk to pay dirt. When I had about ten feet to go, my legs started to tighten and they were cramping. The same thing happened to my brothers, and I thought, "I wish we were in our 20's instead of our 40's". Anyway, we were finally at the top and after we got our second wind we asked, "Now where do we go?" Our guide told us to find some markers that were left there by the man that made the map some 30 years earlier. The man had made the map when he accidentally discovered a small hole in the mountain that led to a cave where he and two other men discovered this treasure many years ago, but because of certain circumstances were unable to retrieve it. I have never seen the map but we were able to find the markers that this map mentions. Since our climb had taken several hours and of course the decent would probably take just as long, we were unable to search for a certain type of rock that was used to seal the entrance. We have vowed to return there this spring and claim the buried treasure.