Things have been a little diffucult as of late, and I have not posted in a while. We decided to take a day off and spend a little time in the woods. Idaho has a rich history of gold mining, and we have a lot of that history not far from us. Hundreds of old mines are hidden in valleys an hills at the end of overgrown trails that were once wagon roads. I have been researching one old mine that was reported (About 40 years ago) to still have some buildings left standing, Around here, if a building had a tin roof instead of wood roof, there is better chance of it not rotting to the ground in the snowy winters of the high country. I hoped this would be the case on this one.
I knew about where the old road would take off from the single track dirt main road. After driving by the area a couple times we decided that the overgrown, rocky, washed out mess that lead into the booonies had to be the one, It is roads like this one that gives the four wheel drive truck the "Idaho Pin Stripe" treatment on the paint job.
After three milles of "Road" we saw some old lumber and sheet metal along the pucker path we were driving on. Nancy had had just about enough of this goat path by this time, and she was wanting to bail out. I took this photo of one of the nice streaches of our route.
[attachment 95564 P6200052.JPG]
We went around the hill and a switch back and were rewarded with the first building, still standing!
[attachment 95559 P6200015.JPG]
Up the hill a way was some old mine structures still in place.
[attachment 95562 P6200019.JPG]
The road got a lot worse here, so I unloaded the four-wheeler out of the truck and left Nancy sitting in the shade while I went on up trails to see what else was left. I took this photo from the top of a huge pile of mine tailings. It was a nice day in the woods.
[attachment 95566 P6200057.JPG]
After a fun ride though the washed out maze of trails I came upon this old bunk house that the 25 or so miners stayed in during the days of operation, What a cool old fixer-upper for someone!
[attachment 95563 P6200044.JPG]
There were overgrown paths leading out of the bunkhouse area to the mine and other areas that could be interesting to hunt. I think this could be a good place to swing the coil around. Oh, I did detect a little. We were just exploring this area and we did not detect very much, but we did manage to find some interesting things, like this half.
[attachment 95569 half.jpg]
I was very pleased that so much of the buildings were still there, and the hunting potential for this place is something to think about. We had a great day together up there. The wild flowers were in bloom and the air smelled like pine and honey. I took a lot of pictures. One the way home we had a nice steak dinner in an old logiging town. I would love to get Elson back here again for a trip up to this place. What ya say Buddy? You up for some more white knuckle trips in the Idaho mountains?
HH DC
I knew about where the old road would take off from the single track dirt main road. After driving by the area a couple times we decided that the overgrown, rocky, washed out mess that lead into the booonies had to be the one, It is roads like this one that gives the four wheel drive truck the "Idaho Pin Stripe" treatment on the paint job.
After three milles of "Road" we saw some old lumber and sheet metal along the pucker path we were driving on. Nancy had had just about enough of this goat path by this time, and she was wanting to bail out. I took this photo of one of the nice streaches of our route.
[attachment 95564 P6200052.JPG]
We went around the hill and a switch back and were rewarded with the first building, still standing!
[attachment 95559 P6200015.JPG]
Up the hill a way was some old mine structures still in place.
[attachment 95562 P6200019.JPG]
The road got a lot worse here, so I unloaded the four-wheeler out of the truck and left Nancy sitting in the shade while I went on up trails to see what else was left. I took this photo from the top of a huge pile of mine tailings. It was a nice day in the woods.
[attachment 95566 P6200057.JPG]
After a fun ride though the washed out maze of trails I came upon this old bunk house that the 25 or so miners stayed in during the days of operation, What a cool old fixer-upper for someone!
[attachment 95563 P6200044.JPG]
There were overgrown paths leading out of the bunkhouse area to the mine and other areas that could be interesting to hunt. I think this could be a good place to swing the coil around. Oh, I did detect a little. We were just exploring this area and we did not detect very much, but we did manage to find some interesting things, like this half.
[attachment 95569 half.jpg]
I was very pleased that so much of the buildings were still there, and the hunting potential for this place is something to think about. We had a great day together up there. The wild flowers were in bloom and the air smelled like pine and honey. I took a lot of pictures. One the way home we had a nice steak dinner in an old logiging town. I would love to get Elson back here again for a trip up to this place. What ya say Buddy? You up for some more white knuckle trips in the Idaho mountains?
HH DC