Black Dome Earthcache EarthCache

Some seventy kilometers northwest of Clinton, B.C., at the northern edge of the Camelsfoot Range, lays an ancient, dormant volcano known as Black Dome.

A butte-like summit (meaning an isolated flat-topped residual mountain with steep sides), Black Dome is of very little interest to climbers as it is driveable to the summit on old mining and forestry roads from the nearby Gang Ranch area. However, it is better known for its scenic vistas of the South Cariboo and some interesting geologic features. At its peak, one can get views east over the Cariboo Plateau and west across the Chilcotin Plateau. It is also one of the few places where you get a panoramic view of the more alpine Coast Mountain range diminishing into the plateau horizon.

The mountain itself, an ancient volcano, has many obsidian (a glass-like rock) deposits, formed from cooling lava. The rocks range in age from 2 to 55 million years old (Pliocene to Eocene eras) and consist mainly of hornblends and rhyolites. The summit itself, where the youngest rocks on the mountain are found, are olivine basalts and agglomerates. Nearby, there is an old geothermal site called Bubble Hotsprings. These rocks were likely the result of geothermal activity 5-20 million years ago.

Black Dome has also seen its share of history of the centuries as well. In the early 1950s, Bralorne Mines Inc. began a gold mining prospect on the peak, which caused a bit of excitement, not for the gold potential in the quartz veins, but for a crisis brought on by severe winter weather that forced an air evacuation of the camp due to imminent famine. The mine itself was relatively prosperous through that decade, and again in the late 70s when gold prices peaked.

And back in the 1860s, when the Great Cariboo Gold Rush was at its peak, the Black Dome area was central to transportation to the gold fields via the Lillooet trail. However, in some cases it wasn’t by the traditional horse and buggy method. In fact, one entrepreneur, Frank Laumeister, introduced camels as pack animals on a route in the area believing that the beasts of burden so well suited for packing on the steppes of Asia would thrive in the dusty Cariboo. It was also useful that they were cheap, hard working and needed less food than horses or mules did. Unfortunately, the terrain was simply too difficult for their soft feet (which appropriately gave the name to the mountain range where Black Dome resides – Camelsfoot) and they had such an offensive odour that other pack animals wouldn’t pass them on the trail. Many horses and mules actually fell off cliffs trying to go around the camels, causing Laumeister to be sued by other packers for the loss of their animals. Eventually, the animals were set free in the Cariboo but were officially gone by 1905, although it is rumoured that some managed to hang on until around the mid 1940s in certain areas. Since then, research has indicated that Laumeister’s venture wasn’t actually a disaster – some recent estimates claim that the return on investment for some of the routes in which camels were used was as high as 400%.

To log this Black Dome Earthcache site as a visit, e-mail me some geologic information such as a description of the type of rocks you find in this area. Posting a photo is not required but appreciated. The coordinates posted are for the summit. As this is a fairly remote area, plan accordingly for any attempt at logging this cache. One can approach from either Clinton in the south (70kms as the crow flies) or Williams Lake in the north via Dog Creek (95kms as the crow flies).