These Canyons are Full of Ghosts

A man who ate with Charles Manson and survived

Follow one of the last Death Valley Gold Prospectors

Tourists from all over the world travel to Death Valley. Most of them never see the romantic and mysterious badlands at the south end of the valley. This area is off beaten path, remote, and dangerous!

These Canyons are Full of Ghosts is about the gold hunters that loved to search the southern wastelands, the high hills and deep canyons, come hell or high water. It is about their last days in an era lost forever. The whole valley is off limits now for prospecting.

We’ll put on some extra grub. You must be hungry,” Charles Manson said to Emmett Harder.

No longer can you hear the distant sound of dynamite nor will you see men or women in tattered denim clothes, with pick and shovel, working their mining claims. However in these pages you can step back to when they were there. And share their excitement and share their dreams—and you will be sure to strike it rich.

Take a journey into the peculiar world of Death Valley. This is still the Old West. People try to make their fortunes here but often end up more destitute than when they started. And some end up losing their life in the process.

Explore Death Valley with the last of the gold hunters.

Get your copy of this real adventure today.

Paperback

eBook

International (eBook and Print)

These Canyons are Full of Ghosts

Author: Emmett Harder
ISBN: 978-0-9960206-7-1 (ebook)
Market price (U.S.): $3.99
Formats: eBook
Page Count: 401 (eBook)
Interior: B&W
Title code: Book113
Available in these countries in eBook and Print: United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Spain, France, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, United Kingdom

From the inside cover

If you love the love the desert and its mysteries, if you enjoy California’s western lore, if you are an adventure, this is your book. You will find it quite different in style and story than you have ever read before—and it’s true! High-Grade Harder makes it all come alive!
Bill Mann, prospector, miner, desert historian

If you love the desert and it’s mysteries, if you enjoy California’s western lore, if you are an adventurer, This is your book.
You will find it quite different in style and story than you have ever read before–and it’s true!
J. P. Elingsworth

These Canyons are Full of Ghosts will take you back to the miles of mountains and valleys and Canyons of Death Valley. Read it and you will begin to feel what Emmett Harder felt so many times when he was prospecting and Mining in the Panamint Mountains.
Edward Leo Lyman, PhD, Western Historian

This book was inspired by his wife’s insistence that he needed to tell about some of his own adventures instead of just writing exciting stories about others. This is an autobiographical account of some of his experiences with the last of the Death Valley prospectors.

From the Author

First of all the name Death Valley is wrong; it’s not a place of death, it is actually a place of life. The local Aborigines, the Shoshone Indians, are upset with the name that promoters have made popular. It’s their beloved homeland; their name for it is Timbisha.

282 feet below sea level, Badwater Basin, Death Valley

When I ask some people in Southern California (I was born in and live in San Bernardino, California) if they have been to the Valley they often turn up their nose and usually answer, “Why would I want to go there?” If they were better Informed they would know that Timbisha is one of the great wonders of the world.

A valley that is way below sea-level, that eons ago once was an inland great lake, and is now a fantastic lake bed that is rimmed by spectacular mountains, some that are as high as eleven thousand feet. This Timbisha had been a utopia for the Shoshone Indians who have lived there for thousands of years.

Today, in the center of the valley, there is a modern resort and conveniences including many campgrounds. It has become a world famous vacation spot. Thousands of visitors from other lands come there winter and summer to enjoy the spectacular marvel. The naked geology and the myriad of colors will leave you astonished as will the intriguing human old west history that will surround visitors.

The Visitor Center facility is a marvel in itself and there you can see an enhanced model of the whole area (which is in total larger than several of our States) and the Rangers on staff will help you to absorb the history and grandeur of what has become a National park. Their books and gifts store is truly a treasure chest also.

What it’s like

The fact that the temperature can go to record breaking highs in the summer is a phenomenon that is undeniable, however there are many residents that live in this National Park year round. And with modern air-conditioning the Timbisha Indians now have a reservation just across the valley from the prestigious resort, the Death Valley Inn; they no longer have to do their annual migrations into the cooler forests and springs in the highlands as they used to. Many foreign visitors come so as to experience this happening.

The ghosts in the valley are from the outstanding dramatic history of the rugged pioneers and some of the old prospectors I worked with. As far as the valley being dangerous, in order to stay safe, you do need to follow the advice given by the Park Service. As far as death in Death Valley, far more people are murdered in metropolitan cities each year than succumb to the grim reaper in our misnamed Death Valley Park.

When you visit the park you can find out and appreciate the Shoshone word Timbisha and enjoy one of this country’s most outstanding Parks. The line These Canyons are Full of Ghosts is just the title of a book Harder wrote about his life as a single Jackass prospector in the valley, many long years ago, before the area became a National Park.These Canyons are Full of Ghosts is now published in ebook format.

About the author

Modern day explorer, prospector and adventure Emmett Harder is a Death Valley story teller without equal. He introduces readers to what it is really like to try and strike it rich in the Death Valley region.

Emmett Harder could be called the real “Indiana Jones”, no movie double, he has had many unconventional opportunities. He was born during the 1930’s economic depression. He grew up as latch-key child through the 1940’s, while his father and mother and his four older brothers were caught up in the nation’s WWII war effort. Even before his life was interrupted to take part in the Korean conflict, and he was be sent on a clandestine attempt to save the French at Dien Bien Po, in what later became the Vietnam war, he was out prowling the great desert.

Having traveled to many far away places and worked on a variety of projects, he still says, “I feel most at home in the wastelands of Death Valley. I have always been a child of the desert, starting at 14 years old and dragging my 11 year old brother with me. And like the old prospector in the “Treasure of The Sierra Madre” story, I’m still out there looking for the next strike.”

Emmett is a writer, lecturer, historian and researcher. He teaches at Cal State University San Bernardino’s Extended Education Division. Often he leads organized safaris into historic and mysterious places found in These Canyons are Full of Ghosts. As reader at the Huntington Research Library, with his unique understanding of how things really happen, he is often lost in the distant adventures.

Death Valley Days

Death Valley Days and the Ryan mining camp are coming back to television, over 50 years, brought back by Rio Tinto. You will see places described in These Canyons are Full of Ghosts.

See this link for the television news cast on KSL Utah. Ronald Reagan actually hosted this show on the 1960’s.