Dog Snot On My Windshield: Ivanhoe mine shaft

Saturday, January 30, 2021

Ivanhoe mine shaft

The rain forecasted for yesterday never came. The storm stayed north of us.

Ellen and I ended up not hiking the Cottonwood Peak route the hiking club had on today's schedule. Rod was now not leading it after his wife Cassie came down with a cold. In case that turned out to be the coronavirus, though, he opted to stay home and let SteveS lead the hike. Rod told me Steve still had the intent on hiking Cottonwood Peak. After the deep snow up Thompson saddle on Wednesday (6786'), I was in no mood to posthole to 7100'. My Merrell boots are still wet from that hike and I need to get new gaiters as well. When Ellen told me she was exhausted after attempting to hike up Huachuca Peak on Friday with Rob (they didn't make it to the peak because of high snow drifts), she told me she needed to take it easy today. And that made it easy for me to bow out, too. We will bag Cottonwood Peak another time, when conditions are more favorable and it is more of a hike and not a physical strain.

I didn't have any concrete plans for today other than to take the dogs somewhere snow-free but cool. I had stuff to do in the kitchen, and I certainly have a lot of cleaning to do in the living room, but for today I just wanted to get out and enjoy the 50F sunny weather. I then thought of exploring the Gold Hill area some more--there are plenty of mines I could explore--and when Susan asked me at 10:30am if I was hiking anywhere, I suggested the Gold Hill area. It's hilly but not challenging, and hopefully there would be some water in the drainages after last week's storm.

This hike gave me the opportunity to try out my new sand-colored Keen Explore Vent Mid hiking boots, made from mostly breathable mesh best suited for non-snowy terrain. I like Keen shoes because they always fit me nicely; there is no "wearing in" time with Keens. These are also light, with grippy rubber soles. These are replacing my Clorts.

By noon we were on our way to the trailhead, driving in convoy fashion with five happy dogs in tow. We saw one woman and a dog start ahead of us on the trail, but we never saw her on the trail.

The trail felt damp the entire way. The color was still a monotone khaki, though, with no improvement here after the rain. I'm sure this area got hit hard with snow, but the only snow left now is in shady spots on the northern slopes. We started on the unmarked trail I went on the last time I explored Patio Peak earlier this month, but when we got to a hilltop on the main road and saw the water in the drainage below, we decided to bushwhack down the hill so that the dogs had water. It was such a contrast to be in the drainage; it was much more appealing to the eye.

The drainage adds some contrast to an otherwise dull trail to Patio Peak. The drainage curves in a southerly direction, travels around the rocky mounds, and then connects with an easterly road that then connects to the main road to Patio Peak. I may take the group up this route when I lead the March 6th hike to the peak, creating a loop hike with some diversity.

The dogs concurred with this decision to follow the drainage and we could tell they were having fun. Zeke stayed close by but the other dogs were busy chasing each other, running up and down the rocky hillsides, in between ocotillos and cow patties. Despite the many cow patties, we didn't see any cows, just crazed birds and a few daring desert hares. Some of the water holes were deep enough for Hansel to swim in, and he took advantage of that to stay cool.

The farther south we walked in this drainage, the more interesting the rock formations became. Amazing how energized the area now looked after some moisture, despite no shade trees. The conglomarate rock appeared to have some fossiled wood in it. And farther on we found big boulders with geodes protruding from them, eroded smoothly from monsoonal rains over the millennia. We were in a hidden paradise! Even Susan suggested I should lead a hike here with the group now that we have explored the path. I'd love to explore this area even more once the ocotillo go into bloom in early March. I hope we get a few more intense rains, too, to make that happen.

We could see the mine tailings once we had a clear view of the south. The tailings were our destination, a two-mile hike from where we had parked. We stayed in the drainage as it meandered south, then took an old mining road up to where the tailings were. We walked around the fenced-off shaft that I learned later was the old Ivanhoe mine shaft drilled in 1922 to a depth of 375'. Despite the large tailings and the flat top by the shaft, we didn't find anything else. All the structures have been torn down and no relics remain. I did see what looked to be more smaller mines higher up the hillside, but we opted to leave those for another day to explore.

We rested on our return walk back in the drainange, sitting on shaded rocks and noticing the boulder we were by. The giant boulder was full of geods! I picked up some trash here, all of which originated in Mexico.

We went back along the drainage to stay near water, but then saw another ATV trail going up a hillside. My tracker showed that trail would lead us to the main trail we started on, so we looped back to the cars via the "high water trail" with views of the Warren mine and the homes off Yuma Trail, where we parked.

We had hiked just under five miles in 2.5 hours, and an elevation gain of just 763 feet. I had accidentally turned my tracker off for a good half mile before noticing the error, so the official recording ended up with 4.4 miles. (We had hiked 2.6 miles to and around the mine shaft before turning around)

https://www.bisbeeminingandminerals.com/ivanhoe-copper-company-?fbclid=IwAR0bGkRmcsjGy5gUv9UQM211P26KBKu47SM_HbOF4JeA7p42_NGDw6lnh4U