Trail Report: Exploring the Ghost Town Desert

[Mike]

My friend Amber (OffKamber) gave me a book called Exploring the Ghost Town Desert. It is a guide the Rand Mining Area and its natural and historic points of interest. It is an interesting read and it got my juices flowing to go explore the area again.

So for Sharon and my 22nd wedding anniversary, we rented a cabin in Randsburg, took a Friday off work and went adventuring!

FRIDAY

First stop was breakfast at the top of the Cajon Pass. We had never been to the Summit Inn Cafe, but it is a real 50's diner on old Route 66 that Elvis Presley used to stop at on his way to Vegas:



From there, we made a bee line for the Goat Sky Ranch to check into our cabin for the weekend:



The place was great! Lot's of room and all the furnishings were surprising:







After setting in, we went to explore the town of Randsburg:



The General store has an old soda fountain were we ate lunch:


Following the guide book out of town we stopped at a view point that overlooks both Randsburg and Johannesburg:



The plan for the rest of the day was to go find some old mines and then climb up to Government Peak for an overview of the area. This is where things went a little sideways. The guide book is 13 years old and the mining activity of the Rand Mine has been pretty active since then. There are roads that are just gone now; fenced off and or buried under new tailings.

But there are lots of roads in the area from what I saw on Google Earth, so we just set out to find other ways to the spots that we wanted to see. The Sunshine Mine is not accessible anymore. The roads near it are "blocked" with big rocks, but the mine itself appears to be being buried by new tailings.

The Buckboard mine was "modernized" for safety I guess:



It used to be wooden framed vertical shafts. Now they are lined with shiny corrugated steel tubes and a giant steel grate over top of each opening. Not so Old West feeling....


We pushed on with the goal of swinging around to join up with the Rand Mountain trail from the Charles Wells book. The BLM has been very busy at work in the area marking the routes. They did a good job of getting the signs out on every road, but unfortunately, there are now a great many of these!:



So many closed roads that it made it impossible to get to the trail that I wanted to from the south side of the mountain! Nice work BLM! This will end up being a sub-plot for the whole weekend. They must have gotten some of the stimulus money from Obama and are putting to NOT good work.

Luckily, there is at least one road still open that gets to the top of the ridge. It comes out after the fun part of Rand mountain. But that didn't stop us from back-tracking down the ridge to see what it is like. It seems to be a fun little trail. I will have to go back and run it from the north entrance to see what all of it is like:



We meandered our way along the ridge to the overlook at Government Peak:





From the mountain, you can see the unusual geometric patterns that are being formed by the mine tailings:



We exited the mountain down the north side and headed back to grill ribs and cook dinner at the cabin. As the evening started coming on, the heavy Friday rush hour traffic started up:



We had a flock of Chukars, Quail, and a bunch of rabbits using our front yard as a highway. Oh yeah, three cars went by during the evening too. I almost called the mayor to complain.


SATURDAY

Saturday morning, we got up fairly early and cooked eggs and bacon for breakfast. The Chukar and Quail made a morning track through the yard going the other way. Noisy guys, but fun to watch.

For this day's adventure, we planned to make a loop through the Koehn Dry Lake valley, into the Red Rock SP, and then through the mountains. The plan was to drop out on to Garlock road near US 395 and then head back past the Garlock ghost town before heading to Randsburg. Not so much... Remember those little red signs?

But I get ahead of myself. First stop is the ghost town of Saltdale:







As hot and dry as this summer has been, when I stepped out onto the salt flats, they were still squishy and WET!:


So we kept to the high ground and hiked around one of the giant settling ponds:




I was surprised to find that it doesn't have to be steel to corrode from salt:



[COLOR=#b22222]To be continued....[/COLOR]

[RAT]

Sweet. I enjoyed my snap chat tour with you. You guys rock man...

[TipsE-Z]

Looks like an awesome trip you guys had.

[Mike]

Part Two

After Saltdale, we stopped by the big red rock formation in the Red Rock State Park:



From Hwy 14, we entered Black Rock Canyon. A short but cool little trail that really only has one obstacle: A steep climb up lava rock:



We headed north after leaving the Black Rock Cyn trail to try to find the Barnett Opal Mine. Unfortunately, it was closed and gated. I wasn't too surprised to find it closed and set out towards the Dutch Cleanser Mine by following the upper rim of Last Chance Canyon.

We did well for a few miles but then suddenly and without a good visible cause, the red signs reappeared. Following the open trails in the general direction that we were hoping to go, we found that a large number of roads were blocked off with No Motorized Vehicles signs. The road that I had planned to drive was on the wrong side of that sign!

Winding our way around the new and unnecessary obstacles, we finally made it to the Dutch Cleanser mine:





After lunch at the mine, we made our way to the Holly Cleanser Mine next. Again, the road that I planned to take had a Red Sign in the middle of it! We made our way around other roads only to find a shiny new barbed wire fence blocking out a large swath of land for no apparent reason.

We took the first road that headed in the direction that we wanted to go after the fence line and it turned out to be a pretty fun hill climb. At the top, we spotted the ruins of a stone cabin on a side trail near the fence line. We worked our way around to find the trail that we thought would take us to it. We were in luck:





It has a great view of the northern part of Last Chance Cyn:



As it turns out, it is on the road that I wanted to take from the Dutch Cleanser mine in the first place. I have no clue why this narrow section should be closed to the public.

We eventually made it to the Holly Cleanser Mine:



There are fence posts planted and waiting for barbed wire to close off a majority of the access to the Holly Cleanser Mine. It looks like we will still be able to get to the main mine shafts but the full length of the mine will be off limits by the time that I get out there again.

Next we went to Bonanza Gulch and checked out the only mine shaft left that hasn't been bulldozed in the upper gulch. Based on what I saw, I understand the need to collapse them. They are not hard rock mines and were probably unsafe.

We passed the Post Office on the way to find something that I had not heard of before I had read the guide book. A miner named Hatfield built a dam in one of the gullies coming out of the mountains in the hopes of catching gold easier.

Lo, and behold, it is still there!:


Out of Bonanza Gulch, we passed Camp Bickel, and stopped at Colorado Camp:



And Holland Camp:



After that point though, the mining structures were few to be seen. What was amazingly prevalent was unusual terrain features:





At Golar Gulch, my planned path was again blocked by an ugly red sign. After the delays caused by the multitude of other closed roads, we chose to take Golar Gulch out to the pavement instead of taking a chance of being further delayed by unexpected closures.

We got back in time for the evening migration of Chukar. We grilled some shark steaks and added them to the left over ribs for a great surf and turf dinner.


SUNDAY

Sunday we slept in a bit, but the morning migration of chukar was a natural alarm. We cooked another bacon and egg breakfast before we loaded up Mr. Green and said goodbye to the cool cabin:



We struck out north to the Summit Diggings area. This is the second place that gold was discovered after Bonanza Gulch. When the Randsburg strike was discovered, it pretty much brought the first two to a close but not completely.

The dugouts that the guide book describes have been destroyed with a backhoe, but enough remains to imagine the area as it was.

We found some red signs in the this area, but not as prolific as the other areas....YET!
We found the famous Veteran's House. This is a rock house carved out by a WWI veteran and his wife. They lived in it and worked their claim until they died:







We followed the old bypass for the railraod, called a shoo fly. Then we wound back down to the RR tunnel through the hill that was completed in 1908. This is on live tracks, still in use today:





The other side is pretty impressive as well:



We stopped back into Randsburg to get a shake to go after we had lunch. We still had a few stops planned on the way back home. The first one was the old tungsten mine of Atolia:



Some of the structures are not likely to make it much longer:


But if you really explore, there is some cool stuff remaining:




We took some time out to do some target practice while we were in the middle of nowhere. Aren't girls with guns sexy?:


The last place that we explored on the way home is the old Fremont Station. It was a railroad siding for water and fuel. Some passengers boarded there occasionally, but all that is left is a foundation. The clear path of the railroad remains in both directions and beckons for more adventures:



We hated to come home, and regardless of all of the road closures that we found, we still had a fantastic time! It is a great area to explore. Be patient as you poke around and you may find fun stuff that you are not expecting. We certainly did!

[USMC 0369]

[COLOR="#800000"]GREAT looking adventures you guys! Some day I'll stop web-wheeling and get out with you guys... some day soon I hope![/COLOR]

[RAT]

Ok. I have to come clean. I knew where you were going, so the day before I went out there and stuck those annoying red sticks everywhere. I'm surprised; you found them all!

[curtis]

Great report Mike.

[CVD]

Thanks for the report. Another area to put on the list.

[FishPOET]

Another fantastic adventure. Thanks for the report and photos.

[Mike]

Ok. I have to come clean. I knew where you were going, so the day before I went out there and stuck those annoying red sticks everywhere. I'm surprised; you found them all!

Ha! I should have known since none of it made any sense. :devil:
And of course I found them all. I've got skills at finding closed trails!

[RAT]

Ha! I should have known since none of it made any sense. :devil:

That should have been your first hint...

[nwoods]

Ok. I have to come clean. I knew where you were going, so the day before I went out there and stuck those annoying red sticks everywhere. I'm surprised; you found them all!

Oh man, that is almost funny enough to make me laugh after getting all pissed off about closing those trails! I was up playing around on Government Peak just a couple of years ago, and had free rein of the place. There was tons of mine stuff up there, plus the active quary on the south side. That cabin looked fantastic Mike!

[Mike]

Oh man, that is almost funny enough to make me laugh after getting all pissed off about closing those trails! I was up playing around on Government Peak just a couple of years ago, and had free rein of the place. There was tons of mine stuff up there, plus the active quary on the south side. That cabin looked fantastic Mike!

The Goat Sky Ranch offers several cabins, but the Whippourwill Cabin is their top of the line. I definitely recommend it.
Website is here: http://randsburgcottagehotel.com/

The BLM signs were so new that they smelled of new plastic! It was hard for me to not just ignore them but I did. There ares soooo many roads in the area that are just for mining. In my mind that makes them historic and in need of preserving, NOT closing.

Oh well, I was a good boy and played by the rules. But I REALLY want to change the rules.

[JeepGal]

Thanks for sharing most of your anniversary explorations...:tongue: :haha:

[DaK]

Been out here for over 13 yrs and some of that stuff is new to me. It is amazing what you find when you just wander around out there. Have been victim of the redsticks many times out there. What gets me are the ones on one of the trail but not the other.

Thanks for posting up.