Hike to Brannigan Mines and Brannigan Cabin

Our favorite spot in the country to camp and hike is the Mojave National Preserve.  And this year, as something extra special, we got to be at our favorite spot, at different times, with both our grandson Ian and with Owen.

We took some spectacular hikes with them in the Old Dad Mountains in the Preserve.   A hike we took with Ian and a hike we took with Owen were two of the three most strenuous ones we did this entire road trip (that is out of, so far, 74 total hikes).  We expected this kind of hiking from Owen (Army Green Beret, with Mountaineer training), but were frankly surprised, and happy, to see how well Ian did.  We have always known him to be an avid, and enthusiastic, hiker, but his performance was really something.  And, as always, he was in good spirits despite its difficulty.

On our final day in the area, after both had left for home, we took another absolutely spectacular, and fairly difficult, hike.

We hiked from our camper to the rolling hills of the Old Dad Mountains to the west of us.  The Old Dad Mountains are an interesting geographical feature in that on the east side of them they are high, rolling hills, but on the west side they are sheer mountains.  The valley floor falls away on the west side, so when one is on the top of the eastern side looking down, the valley floor is much lower than is the valley floor one has just traversed to get to the top of the hills on the east.  Is that clear?  Is to me, but I can picture them. 

We decided to try an old road that we saw on our maps that lead to the rim on the eastern side of the Old Dads.  The views to the west were spectacular from the rim.  Then we walked along the ridge, in a northerly direction, continuing to marvel at the views.  We could hike for a long distance along the rim.

After walking along the rims of several of these high hills we looked across the deep valley and, to our surprise, saw the Brannigan Mines!  We had been to these mines two years ago, but had hiked to them from the west side instead of seeing them from the east side as we were seeing them now.

We also saw what appeared to be a foot path that wound its way from close to where we were, around the side of the canyon, and to the mines.  So, of course we had to do try out this foot path.

It worked!  We got to the mines.  Then we decided to keep climbing over the top of the mountain the mines were in and go down into the valley floor on the west to check on the status of the Brannigan Mine cabin.

This cabin is from the early 1900s.  When we visited it two years ago somebody or a group of somebodies was in the process of changing it from an historical site into a weekend cabin.

We reported this to the authorities, who got right on it.

Here is our blog entry from two years ago about the Brannigan Mine and this cabin:

Brannigan Mine hike and status of Brannigan Mine Cabin

What we found this year was that the authorities had followed through and had done what they could to remove the unauthorized "home improvements" that had been done.

So, kuddos to them.

Then we hiked back to our camper.  "Hiked back" actually means that we climbed about 800 feet in one mile.   Whew!

Now, here is the hike with photos:

First, walking along the ridge, and photos of the amazing views of the Old Dad Mountains:

Vicky at the to[p of a ridge:

See Vicky?

 

See me on the ridge?

Then at one point Vicky notices a mine across the deep valley, and we remember that this is the Brannigan Mine:

At the bottom left of the photo you can make out the trail that we saw that seemed to lead to the mines.

Here is an enlargement of the area where the mine is:

So of course we had to see if we could make it down to the trail to get to the mine area.  Which we did.  Here we are on the trail. We are kind of difficult to see.  This trail is not marked, and is not an it is still in excellent shape.  No footprints.  No evidence of other hikers--one reason is probably because it isn't visible from the side of the mountains where we began our hike.  Exciting!

Me on the trail:

Vicky on the trail:

We make it to the Brannigan Mines:

Hike down to the valley floor to see the Brannigan Mines cabin:

Then we had a decision to make.  We hadn't planned on seeing the mine, or the trail to the mine, when we began our hike.  The decision we had to make was whether we continued on and hiked down to the valley floor to check out the Brannigan Mines cabin.  From where we were, at the mines themselves, the hike down to the valley floor would be about a mile down a very steep old mining road.  And the problem, of course, was that then we would have to walk back UP that same old mining road to get back.


We had to do it though.  We had to see what had happened with the cabin that we had reported to the authorities two years ago.

Here is a view of the cabin as we approached it:

Here is a photo from two years ago of me from the same place.  What is noticeable in the photo from two years ago is that there were new windows installed!  Vinyl.   Yech.  Not only was somebody making this into their own private getaway but they did it in a tacky way.  The good news is that the window was no longer there this year.

Two years ago this window was on the other side of the cabin:



It is the opening behind Vicky in this photograph from today's hike.  In other words, that window was removed also.

Two years ago someone had brought in a keg.

It has also been removed:

So, we give the archeology department an A for what they did to try to keep the cabin in its original form.  That was pleasing to see.

The hike back up the mountain:

We marched right up!  We had to get to the top of the mountain behind Vicky:

Here is a closer view of the area we hiked up to:

and a photo of Vicky toward the top:

A great day in the Mojave National Preserve.  Tomorrow we leave for Mesa, AZ, to meet up with Kathy and Bill.