A new book from author Jess Tobias was recently published – The Gold of Northern Baja – that covers 2 of my favorite topics, Baja and Gold!

If you were anything like me growing up as a kid, the idea of exploring an old, abandoned gold mine could fuel your imagination enough to daydream for hours, as I often did in grade school, six decades ago in Long Beach, California.

You can imagine the thrills I felt as a young teenage boy to have the opportunity to spend entire weekends exploring some real abandoned gold and silver mines in the California deserts with my Scouting troop back in the late 1960s.

I have cherished memories of our Scoutmaster teaching us to scour the terrain to in search of a tunnel vent to be able to bypass barricaded mine entrances and once inside, exploring what seemed like an endless maze of tunnels, squeezing past cave-ins to reach a deep shaft that we would work together as a team to rappel down to the lowest level, only to stumble across a treasure trove of antique mining equipment left behind from a long forgotten era.

Unforgettable memories that would probably get a Scoutmaster sent to prison today. But let’s not get off-topic…

If someone had questioned me sbout a 19th century Gold Rush when I was much younger, I would likely have assumed they were referring to the hundreds of thousands of prospectors who flocked to northern California, Mexico back in the mid-1800s, where men and women from all world came to seek fortune after the news broke of James Marshall discovering gold at Sutter’s Mill, about 40 miles southwest of Lake Tahoe.

What I did not know until I moved down here over 20 years ago is that Baja California experienced its own Gold Rush of sorts, just four decades after the first gold find at Sutter’s Mill.

Cross-Border Gold Rushes

Word got out in early 1889 that a local miner had discovered gold in the Santa Clara mountains, about sixty miles southeast of Ensenada. The state of Baja California quickly became the focus of rampant rumors that reignited the hopes of prospectors who had missed their chance to get rich in “Upper” California.

Life as a working prospector in Baja California back in the late 1800s was exponentially more difficult than what they had endured north of the border where food and water were much more abundant as well as access to general stores and other services. So, after investing a few hard years down here with little to show for it, most of them gave up and returned home.

More than a few of those frustrated prospectors would claim that the stories of Baja California gold were nothing but lies.

However, many of those who tried their luck at finding gold south of the border would later acknowledge that the reality was they were quite ill prepared to deal with Baja’s extreme climate and rugged topography, spread over thousands of square miles of remote and unforgiving territory. The harsh conditions and nearly complete lack of services for Baja’s most remote regions have changed little over the last few centuries and even today it’s not that difficult to comprehend the daunting challenges those prospectors must have faced back then.

And when you consider the fact that gold indeed has been found in many different areas of Baja California in the years and decades since that 1889 Gold Rush, the data seems to corroborate the belief that there probably is a lot more gold yet to be found. But like everything else down here, Baja is not going to give up her treasures that easily; you’re going to have to work for it.

Before you give up and put all your maps and prospecting tools away, let me suggest a great resource for you to consider.

The Gold of Northern Baja

Let me introduce you to a long time Baja traveler, historian, prospector and author – Jens Tobias.

He has done most of the heavy lifting for you, so you can skip over many of the most difficult challenges those early prospectors faced.

In his new book – The Gold of Northern Baja – the author shares his own personal stories of Baja travels and prospecting south of the border, compiling a life time of experience together with in-depth research.

The net result is a comprehensive, well written book that is a fun read, providing a lot of interesting information balanced with historical background info on the topic of prospecting for gold south of the border as well as the state of Baja California.

Some of the book’s chapters include topics covering a general history of Baja California, from pre-Missionary days up until the modern era, as well as specific data and interesting trivia related to gold mining in the 10 different gold districts of the state with maps, coordinates and the geology of the local gold deposits.

Readers will also appreciate the chapter that covers important safety considerations for traveling south of the border as well as explaining the legal ins and outs of prospecting/mining in Baja California.

Baja Vacation Travel Guide

The book will appeal to a wide audience, weaving local history and gold mining stories together, adding valuable travel tips and advice for many of the more remote regions here in Baja California, creating a unique and valuable Travel Guide.

As you read through the chapters on the different mining areas the author shares detailed driving directions to help you find some of the more remote mining sites, adding valuable local tips with information on nearby hotels and campgrounds as well as boondocking (primitive camping) options.

There is indeed Real Gold to be found Many of these tips you will find in The Gold of Northern Baja are so far off the beaten path that they are not described in any other current travel guide.

Whether you are an avid prospector/miner, a history buff interested in the stories of gold in Baja California Mexico, or just a curious traveler, you will want to keep this book with you on all of your future road trips south of the border. I already bookmarked several pages in my copy of the book to help map out and plan a future vacation itinerary.

And who knows? I might just pack a prospecting hammer too, just in case…