Esselen people The peak was considered a sacred mountain by the
Esselen people from which all life originated. According to their creation story, the world was destroyed in a great flood, and when the waters rose, the summit of Pico Blanco was the only land to remain exposed. According to one version of the legend, an eagle, coyote, and hummingbird, or—based on another, an eagle, crow, raven, hawk, and hummingbird—survived the flood. A magical feather was plucked from the eagle and planted in the ocean to cause the waters to recede, recreating the world.
European visit The mountain was seen by
J. Smeaton Chase, who traveled on horseback up the coast in 1911, who reported:
Survey use The summit of the mountain was the location of a triangulation station built by a survey crew from the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey, a predecessor agency of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They were charged beginning in about 1931 with modernizing nautical charts of the California Central Coast, which was prone to ship wrecks. The peak was a six and a half hour climb from the coast. The observation teams would often have to wait hours for the fog to lift before they could make their observations.
Alfred Clark's discovery Alfred King Clark was born in
Middlesex, England, on February 21, 1848. He was baptized at 13 months in the Parish of Old St. Pancras. His father George Robert Clark was a stonemason from
Tunstall, Staffordshire, England. The family lived on Albion Street in the London neighborhood of
Tyburnia, near Hyde Park. In April 1861, his mother Hannah and Al boarded the
Adelaide in Liverpool and departed for New York City. Three weeks after President Abraham Lincoln delivered his address at Gettysburg, Al Clark enlisted in the
5th Pennsylvania Cavalry on December 11, 1863 at age 15. Clark was farmer and a carpenter in Castroville, Soledad, and Salinas. He occasionally worked as a laborer on road-building crews. Clark helped Isaac Newton Swetnam build his home at the mouth of
Palo Colorado Canyon. Clark built his own homestead on the south fork of the
Little Sur River around the turn of the century. He filed a land patent for on June 30, 1906. A local legend reports that local Native Americans would, at the behest of the Spanish soldiers, travel into the wilderness near the Little Sur River and return with burros laden with high-quality silver ore. The Indians insisted on traveling alone and the Spanish never learned of the silver's location. Clark reportedly made friends with one of the last surviving members of the
Esselen tribe. When near death, the Indian revealed the existence of the silver mine in the vicinity of the Little Sur River. Clark began searching the area for the mines' locations around the turn of the century. He filed a patent for six tracts of land on June 30, 1906. When he found traces of the mine, he sought financial backing in San Francisco and found a partner in Dr. Clarence H. Pearce. Clark began digging a tunnel but after months of fruitless labor, Pearce withdrew his support. Clark persevered, working occasionally as a ranch hand for Alvin Dani, foreman of the nearby Cooper Ranch. Clark was often not seen or heard from for months, and he became a living legend and earned a reputation as crazy and eccentric. The Silver King mine shaft led straight into the mountain , then dropped , where separate tunnels branched off from it. Al Geer and his family befriended Clark and took care of him when he became ill, and again as he aged. Geer paid for Clark to take his one and only plane ride over his property when Clark was in his 90s. Clark gave his land and home to Al Geer before he died on February 11, 1932. Clark told Geer during his last days that he had never found silver, but while digging his mine had found an underground chamber. He said the cavern contained several rooms containing icicle-like formations hanging from the ceiling and similar formations rising from the floor (
stalactites and
stalagmites). He described flower-like structures on the wall, possibly what is described today as
gypsum flowers. These formations are often found in underground limestone formations. He said he saw an underground stream containing white fish. He found a large room with a packed earth floor and well-used mortar holes. The walls were decorated with "elephants with long shaggy hair and curly teeth" and "cats with long sharp teeth." Clark said he had sealed the hole to the chamber. The Geer family moved into Clark's house. When Geer finally found the entrance to the mine, the tunnel was caved in and Geer was unable to reopen it. No modern proof of the cavern Clark claimed to have discovered has been found. Clark's former home site and land is within the boundaries of land currently owned by Graniterock of Watsonville, California. == Hiking and camping ==