Trail Report: Surprize Lk Trail/Clipper mine WA 4 Jun 11

[Rubiclone]

Now it's my turn after seeing and being jealous of all your trips into the desert checking out Mines and Ghost Towns during the winter as we're pretty much snowed in Jeepin wise. We don't have many Ghost Towns, but we have a few mines, only a couple are open and on public land. This one is only about 30 miles from the house. First we ran the trail up to the lake, but with 3-6 feet of snow still, we only got half way. As you can tell by the water flow, at least it's melting as it finally got over 70 degrees yesterday, today, and tomorrow since September of last year! As you can see, this trail is fun with the rock gardens. Next we went back around to the trail to the mine which has that hole that the creek runs thru for a little fun. We only went in about a 100 ft of it's 1,500 ft length as it's spooky in there with the possibilty of a bear or cougar greeting us, and I was armed! The mine produced mainly copper, but some gold and silver too. The whole length of the roof is the copper vein. Lastly, we took an old 2-track with giant water bars for some fun.
The firt 5 are vids, and the rest are pics. BTW, I'll be riding my street bike from here to Redlands for a wedding next week and then back home. Too bad gas prices are so high or I'd tow the Jeep down.

[Mitch]

Andy,

Excellent write up and pictures. Looks like a cool place to wheel and to explore. The mine looks way too wet to have animals hanging out in it. Please tell us what the tunnel is like when you make all the way to the end! Thanks for sharing your adventure.

Mitch

[aw12345]

cool pics and video

[platnumb4x]

Awesome! Great country. Wish I was there. See any deer up there while you were out?

[GP4Play]

Great report and pic's,love the Northwest country.Thanks for sharing.

[Mike]

Looks like a Great day of wheelin'! Great pics.

[Rubiclone]

It was an awesome day for Jeepin. Today was supposed to be a repeat, but as usual it was high clouds and only got to 70. Yesterday not a cloud in the sky and at 80.
I haven't seen a deer or an elk in weeks, but today I saw 2 very big mountain goats, one at a 100 yards on my mountainbike/powerwalk today on the other side of the river we were at yesterday.