Click on this link to interact with a topo map with the mines marked.

The marker on the bottom left, “E”, indicates Allison Mine, which we had an extremely successful and fun journey up to in January. Stanley Miller mine “F” certainly has my attention, but being so far from a trailhead I will wait until good night temperatures to do it has an overnighter up the East Fork. Marker “A” indicates the Baldora Mine. It can be accessed from the same Heaton Flat trail that is used for access to Allison mine, as well as link up to the strenuously climb up the south ridge of Iron Mountain. From the end of the trail at the Coldwater/Allison saddle, there is a Coldwater Canyon trail that leads down to – you guessed it – Coldwater Canyon.

From there, any trails on the topo map will be nonexistent. Those trails are so old that they have totally been overgrown by now. However, I have heard access to Baldora mine up Dry Gulch is not too bad of a cross country expedition. I cannot say the same for the two abandoned mines further up.

So for now, we’ll stick with trying to get to Baldora mine. The Heaton Flat trail is tough but not ridiculous, ~ 3000 ft gain in 4.5 miles. We’ll then descend 500 ft or so, and then end up climbing about 1000 ft to get to the mine.

One the way back, there will be some elevation gain but it should be less than 1000 ft. So in total, I estimate

Distance: 14 miles
Gain:4500-5000 ft gain
Terrain: use trail, cross-country, BRUSH (wear pants)
Difficulty: 8.5/10

I imagine the most difficult portions of this hike being the end exploring around the mine…which people do not have to do. And I have no idea how much of the old machinery is left – likely much less than what we saw at Allison Mine. But remember, it is the journey not the destination!

Tentative elevation profile from the saddle to the mine:

My plan is to take the ridge to the west of Bailey Canyon up. That’s it. Here’s my intended path:

The gain is about 2850′ in only 2 miles! That’s some pretty serious gain. But the only thing that concerns me though is the steep incline right before the one mile mark. Not sure of what kind of terrain this is going to be either. This part looks like a loose scramble up. But we’ll see.

I figure for the first 6 miles up to Villager, it should take a good 4.5 hours including breaks and pictures. That gives me a pace of about 1.5 mph to cover the 5000′ gain.

Heading up to Rabbit Peak should be a little quicker. The downhills should help somewhat. I’m guessing that my pace on the uphills would be 1.5 mph and ~2.5 on the downhills. Breaking up the mileage and gain (1800′ total) in half with 2 miles up and 2 down, that gives me 1.33 hours up and .8 of an hour down. Once again, adding in breaks and camera time, about another 45 minutes. Time is ~3 hours.

Total time to Villager is 4.5 hours. Rabbit is 3 hours. So 7.5 hours total to Rabbit.

Heading back should be somewhat easier. The hard part is going to be the knobs along the way back to Villager. Again, breaking up the mileage gives 2 miles with each mile having ~600′ gain. Ascent pace is 1.5 mph which again gives a time of 1.33 hours. Descent at ~2.5 mph will give the same time of .8 of an hour on the downhill. Factor in some extra time for fatigue, I would add in another 45 minutes. Time to Villager is ~3 hours.

The descent down from Villager is a good 5000′ descent in 6 miles again. The downhill will be a little tougher because of the steepness. So I’m guessing an average pace of 2 mph. Add in 30 minutes for breaks gives a good 3.5 hours back to the car.

This is how it works out:

Our plan is to start at 5:30am. That means I’ll be back to the cars by 7:30pm. Just in time for dinner!

Hydration Requirements

I’ve been thinking about this most. Using past experience as a guide, on a cool day hike with a 5000′ gain, fluid consumption is about 3 liters. Using that as sort of a baseline, I came to these conclusions:

8 liters is a whole lot of fluid. A liter of water weighs in at 2.11 lbs. The same should go the same for Gatorade since their bottles come in at 946mL. So I’m just going with 2.11 lbs. per liter of fluids. The weight I can expect in my pack equals 16.88 lbs! Damn, that’s going to be heavy.

But I also plan on water drops after Villager. Perhaps dropping a liter or two at the first knob.

Food

Now comes the good stuff. Good but weighty. I’ve been thinking of what to pack for lunch and snacks. For lunch, this is what I was thinking…

Lots of basil pesto fusilli pasta with sun dried tomatoes. That’s for the summit of Villager. I was thinking something lighter for Rabbit. Perhaps a small sandwich and left overs of my fusilli. Oh and a couple of Capri Suns.

In regards to snacks or “along the trail” food, I’m going to stick with my tried and true Clif bars. This should help give me a small boost hopefully.

Miscellaneous Equipment

These are some extras that I intend to bring along:

> Headlamp + extra batteries: starting early morning and returning early evening will result in some dark walking. I don’t plan on walking into some cactus or other thorny bushes.
> First aid kit: should I happen across a thorny bush, then I should be prepared to patch myself up.
> Knife: why not?
> Camera.
> Zip ties: handy little things.
> Hiking pole: this should help on the downhills.
> Socks: relevant information is 1 minute in.

I also intend on keeping a log to track this. Hopefully I keep up with it and don’t get distracted by my hate of nature while on the trail.