Trail Report: More Mojave Desert Mines

[mkjeepers]

[COLOR="Blue"]We went exploring mines in another part of the Mojave desert this week. This section dates as far back as the turn of last century, and has been worked as late as the 1980's.

Some of the mines have alot of very old artifacts and signs of what life was like back 100 to 150 yrs ago.

We visited some 1980 mines out there, but they just don't have the nostalgia as the ones that have materials and junk that are 100 yrs old.

One of the mines had writing on the wall dating all the way back to 1922. (I assume it's legit) even if not the mine dates to that time period.

The Mojave desert dosent show much grace to it's visitors, and I'm sure the miners were no exception. The trails were very rugged and seeing so many blown and abandoned tires along the way makes you be very careful on those sharp rocks. Many of the tires along the trail date back to the 50's.

Though the area was very desolate and rugged we found a good selection of mines that made it a worthwhile trip.

mk

A couple links

http://s304.photobucket.com/albums/n...view=slideshow.


http://s304.photobucket.com/albums/n...view=slideshow

A few pix's[/COLOR]

The first mine


Second mine


Third mine




Old truck that slide off the shelf road


Fourth mine


Fifth mine




Sixth mine


Old can


Mitch's route through the canyon.


Seventh mine


Eighth mine


Ninth mine


Tenth mine


Eleventh mine
















Fourteenth mine




Twelveth mine




Thirteenth mine


Fifteenth mine

[Mitch]

Mike,

Awesome stuff! Twentynine Palms? New Dale / Old Dale? Looks like a busy day. The shelf road looks like fun, but I don't see your tire tracks on it! My next time.

Mike, I remove my crown and hand it over to you, you are
"The Mine King".

Mitch

[LEADFOOTjosh]

Mitch.. i know where we are goin on our next day trip...


WOW!!!

[Nipple Twister]

Very nice pics........

......and trip report, thanks for sharing MK,
:shout:very well done........!

[Mitch]

Josh,

I don't know if we can keep up with Mike's pace! Wow, 14 + mines in one day. Heavy pace there.

Mitch

[Geebo]

Very very interesting..thanks so much for the report and pictures...Love it!!

[mkjeepers]

Mike,

Awesome stuff! Twentynine Palms? New Dale / Old Dale? Looks like a busy day. The shelf road looks like fun, but I don't see your tire tracks on it! My next time.

Mike, I remove my crown and hand it over to you, you are
"The Mine King".

Mitch

[COLOR="Blue"]You know it was dark when we left home and dark when we hit the road, so I'm not sure where we were.

I don't know about this King stuff - I think if you had a JK I'd have to work twice as hard to keep up.

mking[/COLOR]

[mkjeepers]

Josh,

I don't know if we can keep up with Mike's pace! Wow, 14 + mines in one day. Heavy pace there.

Mitch

[COLOR="Blue"]We do move at a break-neck pace. I usually carry a bull whip to keep us on schedule. [/COLOR]

[Mitch]

If I had a new Jeep, I'd there all the time. Mine is just not comfy for that many freeway miles. Awesome stuff. You have taken the pressure off of me Mike, so when are you writing that exploring book??????

I've heard about trips with the bullwhip leaders keeping you on schedule! LMAO!!

Mitch

[headhunter]

More cool places to go!

It's really awesome that we have so many great historic places to visit nearby.

Christian

[Jason]

Mitch,
Now you see why I tow.

If the winter months weren't in the middle of my busy season, I would love to join on these historic trips out in the desert. It's truly why I bought the Jeep.

[jeep-noob]

If I wanted to replicate this trip are you getting info from a book or gps coords? cool trips mk

[Mitch]

Hey, if you find out where Mike gets his info let me know! LMAO

A few suggestions are: Collect trail books, trail guides, offroad adventure guides, basically any refererence books regarding old mines and mining in Southern California. I use a program called "All Topo Maps California". It is a series of 14 cd's that contains USGS topo for the entire state. It's the same program that map shops and places like REI use to print their topo's. If you learn to read and understand those you can find and map a lot of places, then cross reference that with Google Earth. Now you can get accurate GPS numbers and locations. Plus as you learn to "read" Google Earth you will pick up additionsl features that you would have missed. Do a Google Search for things like: "Abandoned Mines" San Bernardino, "Old Mines", "Gold Mines" Mojave ect.... Then find a name of a mine and search that name and see what else it brings up. There are sites like "Mindat", that have GPS references to Mining Data, including surrounding area mines and how far they are from a given location. It is truly a reference project and there is a lot of studying behind it. And most of all is get out of the vehcle and explore everything in a given area! I once felt real dumb taking a group of 5 Jeeps in search of an awesome mine. I knew where it was supposed to be, had seen pictures of it, actully parked 30 feet from the enterance of it and didn't get out of the Jeep cause from where I sat it looked to be blocked with steel bars. After I got home home I was told that the bottom 3 bars were gone and we could have just crawled right in. Over a half mile of tunnels in that special mine, it is so cool that we still only call it "The Awesome Mine". And most of all, only share the special ones with select people, other wise it will be posted and referenced somewhere else and eventially burned or destroyed. Limit the info that you post.

Have fun, If I studied like this in school I'd be scholar!

Mitch

[mkjeepers]

[COLOR="Blue"]How do I find these sites?? Well I figured out how to break into Mitch's computer and steal all of his info.. Most historic and mining web sites usually only post the report and pictures of the sites so as to protect the area from possible vandelizm.

There has been so much vandelism in the past that many of the sites that were very extensive in the 70's now no longer exist. If you're lucky you might find a nail or piece of glass today.

An example is the old movie set of Peria. Someone recently burnt it to the ground, for no apperant reason.



Nothing left today


Usually the interested will find the locations and visit them. My practice is to take only pictures and leave the rest for others to explore.

Some of the sites that I have recently posted have been my first visit there and it's hard to organize a group run - not knowing where you're going, like Mitch mentioned above.

I hope by posting these reports it gives some a destination to go to someday, and I'm sure you'll be able to find these mines and other locations. Mitch has given some good points on how to find a them.

I'm sure I'll bore you'all with more areas in the future. In fact I'll post another here real soon of some of the local mines that I think???? Mitch hasn't posted anything on..... YET. If any are still interested I can give you more details.

MK[/COLOR]

[mkjeepers]

If I wanted to replicate this trip are you getting info from a book or gps coords? cool trips mk

[COLOR="Blue"]JN when I stake out an area I do alot of research on the sites it might contain. Then use several maps on the area to chart out a course. Then study it a little more. Determine the difficulty of the trails and the remoteness etc. Then look for a day to head out there. Usually it takes a couple of trips to a certain area to cover the contents.

For example I'm going to a cool area in Arizona soon. It's a major 4x area for the Arizonians, near Florance Jct. and Tucson. After studying it a little, there are not only the most popular 4x trails in Arizona, but it was also a major old mining district.
So there's some good 4 wheelin to get to the mine sites.

Since we're there we'll check out the various desert National parks as well.

Another area on the calender is South/western Nevada. There are several old ghost towns there from the turn of the 19th century. It's also a major BLM wild Mustang reserve, so we'll check out the wild horses as well. This will be our 4th visit to that area.

mk[/COLOR]