This old road you see here in front of
me is blocked off with these metal bars. These were installed sometime within the last
six or seven years because the latest Google Earth satellite image shows them not here. I think that image was taken six years ago,
and I believe it's the most recent image of this area. So theses were installed sometime, as I mentioned,
within the last six years to keep people out. They made it so you can walk in. There is a little zigzag here like that, but
they don't want people driving up here. You can see where they had made berms here
in the road before they put the metal gate in because in the most recent satellite image
a vehicle is parked up here on one of the square concrete pads. I don't know what's up here. It's either a mill of some sort or something. It looks very intriguing, so I'm going to
hike up here and check it out. I've made it up on top of this little plateau,
and the road is still torn up. You can see it here in front of me. I just came from this direction. They really wanted to make sure nobody came
up here in a vehicle. I thought maybe just the first eighth of a
mile would be that way but no -- they've destroyed the whole road as you can see here in front
of me. They really tore it up. So the road is going to curve up here to the
right, and then over there on top of that little ridge is where there are some remains
of some kind of processing plant or mill. So we'll see.... So the road is right in front of me, and on
that far side there's a metal pole. The same thing is on this side. These, however, are made out of ore cart tracks! Big ones! See that? That's the upper part of the rail and then
there's the back side of it, so maybe there was a mine up here. I don't know, so let's keep going up the road. You can still see how it's torn up. I'm sticking to the one side where it's smoother
here on the berm. Yes, those ore cart track posts are a promising
sign perhaps. It's about 105 degrees out here today. I have lots of water with me. It's actually pretty nice! I love it out here in the summertime! Here is an area of waste rock that looks like
it might have been copper. Can you see that blue, turquoise, and green? I know there are copper mines in this general
area, so if this was a mine or a processing mill it might have been a copper mine or a
mill that processed copper ore. I'm almost certain that's what that is. Looking around up here, I see over there in
the distance what might have been an ore bin. I'll go check that out in a minute. That's what that looks like to me. Panning over here to the left you can see
right down there a concrete foundation and a round, circular, concrete foundation attached
to it. There is something right here in front of
me. There is a big rectangular foundation here
and a lot of similar rocks are inside of it. So this was a pretty big operation because
you can see more concrete foundations there. Looking over here to my right, I think that's
all waste rock. It is quite a big pile, so this was a mill
of some sort. I really can't find any history about this
location online. I don't know what the name of it was or which
mines used it. It is forgotten out here. Like I said while hiking up here, they made
sure to tear up the road, though, to keep people from driving up here. Here is what I think is some kind of ore bin
with an ore chute in it. Can you see right there at the bottom? There is a grizzly there to sort the rocks. The rocks must have came from up on top there. They were dumped in and came out through here. Yes, I think I see shadows up there. It looks like there are more bars across the
top. Yes, that's what this was, I think. Let's go check out the top side. It's a pretty big structure! Again, look right there. That metal used for the bracing is ore cart
tracks. That's very interesting that they would use
ore cart tracks. The trucks would drive right up here on the
road, and they would dump their copper ore into this grizzly. This grizzly has been covered by a grate,
but if that grate wasn't there you can see the parallel beams that are underneath the
grate. They would dump the ore in there, I guess,
and it would fall down to where we were down below. You can see the daylight down there where
I stuck my head in there. So this is just a big dumping point, I guess. It's kind of like a silo maybe? Here's looking out beyond it. There must have been more buildings here at
one point. You can see all the foundations we were checking
out earlier. It seems like this was really built cheaply. This wall, for example, feels like aluminum
or something, and they used ore cart tracks there for bracing. It looks like it was put together haphazardly. I am going to head down over there and check
out those remaining foundations. There is a circular foundation that looks
interesting. But, yes, this was a obviously a big site
but it just wasn't put together very well. It looks like it was put together very cheaply. Because this is an abandoned mine processing
site, here at the top of the ore hopper they had to put one of their somewhat ubiquitous
warning signs. You can see it right there. So I just came from up there, and this is
the lower foundation here with this circular foundation. Here is a side view. Okay, I'm getting a little closer here. I see some partially buried pipes here. Right there are the pipes, and you can see some kind of material coming out of those
pipe fittings. So this tank, even though it's been cemented
on top, was probably open at one point. As a matter of fact, in the Google Earth satellite
imagery it looks like there is a hole in the top of this tank which is no longer there,
so they they sealed it up. Yes, it's interesting. Here is another big concrete foundation. It looks like whatever was done in that building
-- in that structure there -- it looks like they might have discharged waste product down
into this ravine. Further down there is what looks like a concrete
dam or a barrier of some sort. So they might have used this as a discharge
channel. I don't know if you can see that there. It is right there in the center of the frame. I'm not going to hike down there. It's probably just a small dam.
