Contact Mine Hike: Joshua Tree National Park

February 14, 2014

This is a nice hike to an old mine that has a number of structures and lots of interesting equipment lying around.

 

Probably the best part of it, though, is finding the old mining road and walking on it.  After all of these years most of it is still in great shape.  Our hiking book described how to locate the road, but we didn’t locate it at the first place where we could have.  Someone had put orange ribbons along the trail from the road, but the ribbons led us away from where we could have first joined the road.  

 

 

 

The map above shows our travel to the mine and returning from it.  At the bottom of the map, one can see that we traveled a different trail back.  It was easier finding the old mine road once we were on it, while traveling back, than heading to the mine. 

You can get there by traveling up the wash until the road trail goes off to the right.  Just be looking for it.  Or, you can measure the distance from the road--.6 mile, and look for the road trail on your left, toward the west.  It’s more fun to follow road trails than hike in washes, and besides one gets the thrill of imagining the skill and daring of the miners who built these roads and traveled them in wagons weighed down by ore and pulled by teams of mules.

The hike is a nice 4.2 miles with 750 feet of elevation gain.  The footing is great. 

Remains of an old cable winch are still there.  There is a photo in our hiking book of it.

 

 

I like that guy's hat better than mine.

 One can also see the remains of what looks to be a Model T frame that attached to the winch that probably was used to pull ore out of the mines below it.  

Down below the mine, in the junk pile, looked to be the rear suspension for this vehicle.  It also appeared there was an old steam engine of some type.  Perhaps it was used before the automobile engine.  

Close to the mine was what was left of an old cast iron stove.  Was it brought up here to cook meals for the miners?  Probably.  It appeared as though the mining camp was about .5 mile below the mine, as a road went off to an area that was large enough and flat enough for housing structures.  

 Pretty cool.