Since my focus this year is going to be on mining towns, I was thinking that I would organize some rallies that are only 50% about drinking (down from 90%), and we could spend that other 50% of the time exploring old mining areas. Marc, Dick, and I did this on a loop from Bodie through the Nevada boondocks and had a great time doing it.
Some potential spots (please add more if you have ideas):
1. Ophir, Nevada and surrounding areas
2. Mining country north of Elko, Nevada
3. Various loops in Colorado
4. Granite, Montana and surrounding areas (possibility for early June on this one)
5. Central Idaho mining camps
If you have interest in such trips post up here and we'll see what we can get going.
DD and Company,
Something like this is right up my alley. I'm immobile for 2012 due to family obligations related to weddings and military deployments, but I do have a couple or three thoughts to toss out there:
The mining area north of Elko includes the Jarbidge area mines. They're very high in elevation (9,000-10,000')and 4-5,000' above the "town" of Jarbidge. Both of the routes to Jarbidge from Elko were closed into July in 2011 due to record snowpack and road washouts from the runoff. The Rio Tinto mines near Mountain City, NV are easily accessed and some large buildings remain there.
The Granite, MT area is a terrific choice. Just last week, western MT reached 110% of normal snowpack, and they regularly get lots of it through April and May. While Granite is only at about 7,200', lots of the surrounding area is 8,500' or above. In mid-July 2011, we were re-routed by snow (stopped in our tracks) at 8,500' and 9,000'. Consider the Quartz Hill mining district, east/southeast of the town of Wise River in the Pioneer Range, for exploring, as the Vipond Park is as spendid of an alpine bench as you'll find anywhere, and it's laced with mines. Just off the bench, down a "OH S#%T" shelf road, lies Canyon Creek Road, with restored/stabilized charcoal kilns, and right down Canyon Creek Rd from there is the smelter community of Glendale, w/ruins of the smelter building and stack.
Turning up Trapper Creek from Glendale brings you to the huge complex of workings of the Hecla Mines. It's my understanding the Hecla Mines draws University of Texas and other traveling undergraduate geology field camp groups each summer. It's a world-class example of skarn mineralization and must be a collector's paradise, and the workings and old buildings are too numerous to mention.
The Birch Creek drainage on the east side of the Pioneers, just south of Melrose, where Canyon Creek/Trapper Creek empties out, is home to the mining town of Ferrell (Fernley?). Last summer I saw a field camp there in July, and I met an elderly consulting geologist mapping the skarn contact trace. A number of old buildings remain there.
The whole of the Pioneers is lightly visited, so disbursed camping options are innumerable.
At the south end of the Pioneers, just off of MT 278, lies Bannack. Bannack is a state park which was founded as the first capital of Montana Territory in 1864. The state park offers a tour of the mill and cyanide plant at Bannack, and the equipment and mill buildings are very well preserved. The whole town is neat, for that matter. If one were to go during Bannack Days (3rd weekend in July annually), there are quite a number of exhibitors present. My favorite of recent years are the Government Land Survey re-enactors, who bring late 19th century transits, chains, and such, and who are a hoot to talk to. They're all modern surveyors who collect the old gear and set up displays at festivals.
Interested parties could enter from I-90 east of Missoula, take a great and scenic 40 mile gravel road drive up Rock Creek canyon to Philipsburg, easily spend a day or two in the Granite/Philipsburg area, another day or two at Vipond Park/Quartz Hill, another day or two at the Hecla Mines, and a day at Bannack. Leaving Bannack headed south for Nevada or California, you can go over Lemhi Pass, where Lewis and Clark crossed the Divide in 1806, have a soak at Sharkey's Hot Springs, part-way down the Idaho side, where the BLM has developed a very nice facility, and then run down US 93 south from Salmon, ID, for a walk-in soak at Gold Bug hot spring, quite possibly the most splendid hot spring in the Lower 48.
Foy
