The old Chinese miners left their legacy in this valley in may different ways. Sometimes you'll find smaller artifacts (like the old opium pipe that Scott found a few years ago), but the most visible signs are the walls of rock that were built as a by-product of the manual placer mining process.
The rocks weren't just thrown around as the mining moved through the valley, but instead were very deliberately placed (by hand!) to keep things organized and make the best, most efficient use of the mining area. Otherwise, the miners would quickly run out of room to mine for gold.
These aren't small rocks. If you lay on your back in the bottom of one of the many trenches that the miners left, you'll wonder how the early miners were even able to move some of these large boulders. You really come to appreciate what they went through to mine the riches of the McDame - and you have to always keep in mind that these men were here in the 1870's and had only the tools they could carry in as they travelled, mostly by water or on foot, to this wild and remote land. Everything else had to be built here using what was found here.
