Gold Fever Off Road Trail

The Gold Fever Off Road Trail is a back country drive by some historical sites in Holcomb Valley, in the San Bernardino Mountains. The trail departs highway 38 along the western edge of Big Bear Lake, near the discovery center.

The trail departs highway 38 along the western edge of Big Bear Lake, near the discovery center. The route follows Polique Canyon Road up the a junction with 3N16 near the Holcomb Valley Ranch. Climbing up about 3.9 miles along Polique Canyon Road, you will pass the first two of ten sites, which are the Holcomb Valley View and Last Chance Placer.

From Last Chance Placer, the trail turns east on to the Holcomb Valley Road, 3N16. Following 3N16 for about one half mile, the trail insects and turns to the left on to Gold Fever Road. Gold Fever Road is a quick side trail from 3N16 and allows access to Two Gun Bills Saloon, Grasshopper Quartz Mill and the Hangman’s Tree. Gold Fever Road again connects to the Holcomb Valley Road and quickly the sites of the Original Gold Diggings, Bellville and Arrastres come into view situated around a large meadow.

From the Bellville townsite, the trail winds around Gold Mountain and drops back down to Big Bear near Baldwin lake. This last leg of the trail brings the sites of Ross’s Grave, Pygmy Cabin, Metzger Mine and Lucky Baldwin Mine into play.

Overall, the gentle tail offers probably the best one day tour of Holcomb Valley. The tour is well defined and markers along the way offer history lessons for the explorer. Our biggest issue with the route, is that two of the locations are not the actual locations that supposed events happened. For example, Two Gun Bill’s Saloon is just an old large cabin site. The actual location of the Saloon is the the southeast corner of 3N16 and 3N12. The could have added this actual site along the route and kept the current site as a large cabin site.

Trail Markers

1	Holcomb View Trail	3.2 Miles
2	Last Chance Placer	4.8 Miles
3	Two Gun Bill’s Saloon	5.8 Miles
4	Jonathon Tibbets’ Grasshopper Quartz Mill	6.3 Miles
5	Hangman’s Tree	6.5 Miles
6	Original Gold Diggings	6.8 Miles
7	Belleville	7.1 Miles
8	Arrastres (Gold Ore Grinders)	7.1 Miles
9	Ross’ Grave	7.3 Miles
10	Pygmy Cabin Site	7.3 Miles
11	Metzger Mines	9.0 Miles
12	Gold Mountain also known as “Lucky Baldwin” Mine	10.8 Miles

Trail Summary

Name	Gold Fever Off Road Trail
Location	Big Bear, Holcomb Valley San Bernardino Mountains, California
Latitude, Longitude	34.2662, -116.9205
Difficulty	Easy, pending conditions
Length	11.5 Miles

Gold Fever Off Road Trail Map

Points of Interest