William-NM
New member
I know you've all been on the edge of your seats wondering 'What is William up to? Has he been back out to the ghost towns?'. 
Yes, I headed out for an attempt to get to an old mining camp near the one that was off limits the other week. It involved another fairly hair raising drive down the creek bed, but the old Plymouth is getting used to that. The good news is that the area was accessible, no warning signs or claims. I did a quick check along the creek where I parked and just found some hunter/camper junk. Fired up the GPS and started hiking up the hill. Found an overgrown road with some clearings here and there, but no obvious homesites.
Further up, I came across the cabin in the pics. If I was a realtor, the ad would read something like; 'Great starter home, low down payment, bad credit no problem, Great Views and established plantings.' (if you like catclaw!!). I gave myself a half hour to sniff around, but just came up with lots of rusty circa 1930s-1950s? cans and such. I did find a medium sized excavation above the cabin. I wanted to get to the GPS coords that I had for the town (really, a mining camp, but had a post office for a few years), so I kept on hiking. Got to the coordinates, and found myself on a hillside with no sign of habitation. So, I set a waypoint, dumped the equipment and circled around, finding only minimal signs of human activity like rusty buckets here and there, and found a test hole.
Went back and picked up the equipment and meandered back toward the car, as the light was fading. So, I had a great hike on a beautiful day, didn't so much as hear a car all day, and got the heart rate up for a while. I have since identified a nearby spot that may have been the camp site -- I'm planning to go back and check it and circle around the old cabin some more, maybe do some iron clean up around it in hopes of unearthing a find or two.
Just thought you might enjoy some photos during the quiet of winter...
p.s. - in the second to last photo, that's the Tyrone, NM open pit mine in the distance.
Yes, I headed out for an attempt to get to an old mining camp near the one that was off limits the other week. It involved another fairly hair raising drive down the creek bed, but the old Plymouth is getting used to that. The good news is that the area was accessible, no warning signs or claims. I did a quick check along the creek where I parked and just found some hunter/camper junk. Fired up the GPS and started hiking up the hill. Found an overgrown road with some clearings here and there, but no obvious homesites.
Further up, I came across the cabin in the pics. If I was a realtor, the ad would read something like; 'Great starter home, low down payment, bad credit no problem, Great Views and established plantings.' (if you like catclaw!!). I gave myself a half hour to sniff around, but just came up with lots of rusty circa 1930s-1950s? cans and such. I did find a medium sized excavation above the cabin. I wanted to get to the GPS coords that I had for the town (really, a mining camp, but had a post office for a few years), so I kept on hiking. Got to the coordinates, and found myself on a hillside with no sign of habitation. So, I set a waypoint, dumped the equipment and circled around, finding only minimal signs of human activity like rusty buckets here and there, and found a test hole.
Went back and picked up the equipment and meandered back toward the car, as the light was fading. So, I had a great hike on a beautiful day, didn't so much as hear a car all day, and got the heart rate up for a while. I have since identified a nearby spot that may have been the camp site -- I'm planning to go back and check it and circle around the old cabin some more, maybe do some iron clean up around it in hopes of unearthing a find or two.
Just thought you might enjoy some photos during the quiet of winter...
p.s. - in the second to last photo, that's the Tyrone, NM open pit mine in the distance.