West Hunter Canyon mines

It was early afternoon and I get a text from Ellen asking if I were interested in joining her up West Hunter Canyon.  I agreed to join her since Susan was busy selling one of her husband's trucks and couldn't join me on a walk. I took Sadie and Zeke.  I had just been up the canyon with Susan a week or so earlier, but what I didn't count one was a busy trailhead parking lot.  There were five cars already there when I pulled up.

The Forest Service has closed off Carr Canyon Road and the picnic area, to prevent people from gathering in this time of coronavirus infections.  Now people are exploring lesser-used canyons.  Many were up West Hunter looking for crystals.  I didn't bring a backpack or water for the dogs since there's water in the canyon for them and we would be only hiking around three miles or less.

Ellen had never been up this canyon before so I took her to the old homestead and then up an illegal trail that ends 0.5 mile up a steep hillside.  We came across a covering of periwinkle, perhaps flowers left over from the homestead. She, being a caver, noticed a few mine tailings off the trail, so I agreed to join her in exploring it.  The dogs were in agreement so we went into the mine.  The shaft curved to the right and then ended around the corner, with some kind of black device standing there.  Ellen didn't recognize what it was.  It looked like a heating device.  Illegal border crossers will use mines as shelter at night, but there was no indication of abandoned clothing here.

We didn't stay long in the mine.  We turned around at the end and existed and continued up the steep trail only to come across another mine.  This higher mine was less accessible and we did not explore it.

We turned around at the end of the trail, where a fallen pine tree crosses the trail.  The old Mexican blanket on top of a upturned branch is no longer there. We skidded along the steep hillside, but the thick prickly shrubbery kept us from wanting to explore more and we descended back on the trail

We met a group of four hikers here near Hunter Springs.  Sadie didn't want to bushwhack so we had no option but to go back via the trail.

We explored a few more trails but turned around when they faded.  I didn't want to explore anymore as I still  had to walk the other two dogs later.  Ellen and I had hiked 2.84 miles .

Two hours later I took all four dogs down the maintenance road.  It was in the 60s and perfect for the dogs to walk in, especially for Minne and the pond.  But smoke further north had me intrigued,  Was someone burning brush or was that another fire? When I got closer I saw a Forest Service fire truck.  A man on his ATV had come up and told me that this was not a practice round or a  controlled burn, and another FS worker said this was the second time in two weeks that someone has set fire in this area.  It was breezy out and there were a few hotspots still burning, but now I knew there were fire fighters keeping the fire under control.  I didn't want to endanger my dogs' paws so I returned to the car.  We had done another 2.48 miles.