A modified way to Stanley-Miller, and this time we found the mine.

Final Stats:

18 miles, 7500 ft

Click for more stats & gps files

Last August, a bunch of us made the trek up the East Fork to Iron Fork in search of the elusive Stanley-Miller mine. The old “trail” that we followed up was pretty much a disastor waiting to happen, and while we found the cabin ruins and some artifacts, our delusional minds led us chasing ghosts as the actual mine location was nowhere near where we thought we saw it was.

Of course, I knew I had to go back. Now was the time.

That crappy way up was so bad that I actually didn’t mine the idea of hiking up Iron and descending the NW ridge to Stanley-Miller. And who could resist a new cross-country exploration? Well I guess most could resist, as only two others opted for this last-minute proposal. And Mike only had time to summit Iron and turn around, so it was just Winston and I. Winston has previously hiked some brutal ones with me, including the last Stanley-Miller trek and the real (eastern) Yuciapa ridge, so I knew he’d be fine with whatever we had to encounter.

We took about 3.5 hrs to ascent up Iron, and it went by quickly as Mike and I were discussing science & religion. After a nice rest, we began the cross-country descent. First we descending the summit south as usual, and after about 5 minutes we hit the large buckthorn brush patch. Here we wanted to veer west…luckily the south side of the brush was trampled down and made it easy to cross.

The first part of the western ridge was relatively gentle and not too steep. There was a nice area for camping about 1/4 mile away from the south ridge. After that, the ridge got nice a rugged with lots of rock outcroppings which we scrambled over and on the sides of.

After this section we continued west. There seemed to be a decent use trail up to this point…At about 7200′, the west ridge splits into SW and NW components, both of which have been hiked up before, with the SW likely more popular due to the shorter approach. We began our descent down the NW ridge.

I thought the ridge was nice and rugged, but not too bad. Steep with lots of bouldering here and there and avoiding some brush, but not enough to really slow us down. We were making good progress, taking a little over and hour to descend the first 2000′.

Near 6000′ there are couple of navigational issues along with the terrain changing into classic “brushland”. The ridge has turned more northernly and splits into 2 spurs and you must veer off onto the NW spur although the N spur seems like the natural way to go. Soon after, at 5800′, you must veer W to maintain the proper descent. At this point, the brush quickly thickened. It was somewhat annoying but not really that bad, as we could usually find an opening or two to continue switchbacking down.

We also were about 10′ away from this guy. He was not happy

watch out for the rattlers from Zé Apelido on Vimeo.

At about 5200′ there is a benchmark. This signals another route change; we had to turn from heading W to again heading NW. Now we were heading down the ridge that eventually ends up right by the cabin ruins 1000′ below. At 4800′ we crossed a huge pipe, maybe 8″ in diameter. Hmm, I wonder what that could be leading to…The pipe headed more westerly than our NW direction. It’s path seemed covered in brush so we continued our descent NW while knowing eventually we would have to head south to meet up with this pipe (and hopefully the mine) again.

Descending to the elevation 4000′, we traversed south in search of the mine. It took us a bit of time, as initially we travsered about 100 yds and did not see anything so we sat down and studied the map and how far the mine should be. We decided it must be further south (and obviously the pipe was too). I climbed backed up a few 100 ft while Winston traversed across, and when I found the pipe Winston found the pipe, and a bunch of ruins!

There was a bunch of terraced platforms with equipment. Lots of old machinery.

But the mine wasn’t here. We looked around a bit further, and finally found the mine just south of the machinery. Finally!

After passing the ore cart near the entrance, the mine splits into two. You can see the railway on the ground that goes out and over to the machinery.

The two shafts continue back and eventually connect back up into a loop. There are various small spurs, one or two with vertical or “oblique” shafts.

Really cool stuff. This mine was damper than the others – you could see water droplets forming on the ceiling, and the air was misty, although I’m not sure if that was from moisture or also rock debris.

After checking out the mine, we were ready to get off the mountain. We descended down, this time generally following the gully south of the gully we had ascended last time. It was a relatively better, but that’s not saying much. It was better in that there were no “if this rock breaks I’m going to be a crash test dummy” moves, so yeah…Ascent to Stanley-Miller mine is just a pain no matter what.

Getting near the Narrows, I was hoping the water level wouldn’t be too high to cause that much of a problem. My “backup” plan was to follow the old “Wetwater” trail. Then I saw it – literally carved out of a cliff, and preferred to take our chances in the water.

We had about 6 crossings in the Narrows section, a few of which got up to our waists. The current was decently strong in some spots, but it was negotiable. Here’s one pic I got of a shallower crossing:

After reaching the bridge, we were homefree. What an adventure. This hike had a bunch of great things, peak-bagging, cross country travel, rock bouldering, mine exploration, and water crossings. And not many flies.

Okay these mines really are quite inaccessible.

Final Stats:

17 miles, 8000 ft

Click for more stats & gps files

All I gotta say is, mine hikes are really exhausting. Our attempts to reach all the mines around Iron mountain have become increasingly more difficult, to the point that I thought I would reach the final 2 yesterday, and left only reaching one.

The Eagle and Gold Dollar mines are perched high up on the south side of the San Antonio ridge, with the Gold Dollar 1000 ft higher than the Eagle. The lure of these mines came to me when I read the late Hugh Blanchards website about mines (his website is seemingly down now). There he wrote about (cached) the most inaccessible mines, and indicated these two being the most inaccessible of all in the area. Well some that like a challenge will jump at try to reach things that are seemingly hard to access.

To further fuel the fire, I had read John Robinson’s books on San Gabriel mountain history and his small Mines of the San Gabriels. The allure he brought to the history of the gold miners of the East Fork made the potential explorations even more appealing. In speaking about Coldwater Canyon, Robinson talked about

Far above the head of Coldwater Canyon, just under the jagged ridge that connects Iron Mountain with Old Baldy, were the loftiest and most inaccessible gold mines of all – the Gold Dollar and Eagle…how this heavy machinery was hoisted so far up the mountainside defies imagination.

He also mentions the founder of all the mines of Coldwater Canyon (including the Baldora), Charlie Smith, had a spectacular death by having an avalanche slam down on him while in his cabin at the Eagle mine. What would be left?

So we set out at 6:30 with 13 people. Not all would make it all the way, but all would at least visit the Widco / Baldora mine ruins, a big and pleasing hike alone. After hiking the Heaton Flat trail to Coldwater saddle, we descended along the old and partially washed out trail down to Coldwater canyon. Over a year since my last visit, some one has been down here trimming the yuccas, which made the trek a bit easier. The trail is somewhat brushy, but not really that bad.

I went down swiftly to do some “extra” exploration while waiting for the others to get down. Speaking of abandoned things, there once was a trail that climbed up to Big Horn ridge from Coldwater canyon. I found a trace of the old trail on a USGS historical map, so I decided to go check it out. This took some scrambling initially, but in short I do believe I found traces of the trail.

I could only follow in some spots and wanted to continue on to the other side of the ridge (where previous photos indicate a trail), but sadly I did not have the time. However, I am intrigued at the possibility that a lot of this trail could be followed.

Heading back down, I met up with the rest of the group and we headed up Dry Gulch to the Widco and Baldora ruins. We weren’t making great time, and worse yet, there were bugs everywhere! These guys would not leave us alone for the rest of our time in this canyon.

The worse of the hike came during our ascent of the east side of Dry Gulch up to the south ridge I’ll call Gold Dollar ridge. It is extremely steep with almost too soft ground. The climb took more work than normal to balance oneself. Oh and the freaking flies. Flies everywhere. Flies in your face, in your nose, in your eyes, and in your mouth (at least 3 times for me). This just took up more energy. A simple 1000 ft climb seemingly took forever. Of the 13, only 6 decided to not turn around and make it up to the ridgetop. Where there were more flies, damn them!

At this point I knew my initial idea of seeing both mines AND traversing SA ridge to Iron would not happen, but I thought maybe we could still visit both mines. We starting heading north up the ridge but soon ran into a lot of rocky sections, that took up even more time. I could see the group was not feeling the idea of continuing up further, so we stopped and took a short lunch break. I don’t have any good photos of the obstacles ahead of us, but suffice to say it probably would have been easier going down this ridge than up.

Looking at the time, it was already 1 or so, and I felt defeated, thinking that we wouldn’t even have time to visit Eagle mine and we would come away empty handed. But as we started heading back down the ridge, I looked down the SE gully and just decided to go down it, aiming directly for Eagle mine. The terrain seemed pretty good and so a few others followed. And I was really glad we did.

We quickly fell upon the ruins of the Eagle mine. Some of highlights include this massive stamp mill

A lot of other artifacts around the area. Down below, some old cabin ruins (perhaps washed down from the avalanche?). Attached to the mill were a few metal cables going uphill. I climbed up following these to some other machinery. To my left, I noticed some depression in the slope and found the opening to the actual mine!

The shaft started horizontally then turned vertically perhaps 50 ft in:

Very cool stuff. Some shovels and old hammers inside too. After this, we took a long 4 hrs to get back to the parking lot. While we didn’t get to Gold Dollar mine, reaching Eagle mine made it well worth the trek. The combination of ruins and mine shaft make Eagle mine the most interesting one to visit (although Stanley-Miller might match that). As for Gold Dollar, I feel pretty confident that I would rather hike up Iron and over Gunsight Notch to get to it than the way we went. What a day!

Final Stats:

15 miles, 4500 ft (my path)

To paraphrase,

“Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different result.”

East Fork to the Narrows & Stanley Miller Mine at EveryTrail

meetup link and other’s photos and comments

I think there was some insanity in this hike as well. What a hike.

This was part 3 out of 4 in the hiking series “Mines of Iron Mountain”. #1 was Allison Mine, and #2 was Baldora and Widco Mines. I expected this one to be harder than the first two, but even so it was a bit harder than I predicted.

We started off with 9 people hiking up the East Fork around other people heading up to the the bridge. The water level was lower than last time I was there in the spring, so the few crossings were easier and sped up our pace. We made it to the bridge in 2 hrs.

From there, we continued into the Narrows, a section that I don’t think anyone in the group had been to before. I really liked the area, with plenty of watering holes around smooth rock, nice areas to camp, and a little more isolation. Apparently there is a guy named Hobo Dave who resides back here.

So the plan was to get to Stanley-Miller Mine. I can’t say it was a well thought out plan. I studied a map beforehand as well as made gps coordinates and tracks around the area, and I read one Sierra Club trip report that hiked up the west ridge of Iron Mt and passed by Stanley Miller on the way.

If you study the USGS topo map, you’ll see a bunch of trails around the Narrows and Stanley-Miller. The one used in the trip report seemed to be the one ascending from Iron Fork straight up to the mine. The other trails I had heard were non-existent.

Well this certainly was a nonexistant trail to! In fact, I wonder how it could even be considered a trail. We started ascending up, passing up a bit of poison oak (mentioned in the Sierra club TR), and then went up the steep gully formed with lots of steep rock slabs. This was alright for some, but harder for others. One specific spot that had few decent handholds slowed the group down and had some turn around.

Once we got past that obstacle and continued up the rocks, it seemed the “trail path” was going straight into brush. So I decided to veer NE along the rock in hopes to eventually cut across south and avoid the brush. Well, rocks heading NE were even worse. As many of you know, the San Gabriels have some terrible, crumbly rock. Well there I am, climbing up this crap with a nice steep drop to my left on the side of freaking Iron Mt.

Of course I paid attention checking and testing all the holds before I would make a move, but it was unsettling when so many holds would give out. Even large slabs of rock would give out. At point I tested a rock and it came out so quickly I almost lost my balance.

At that point I said ‘screw this’ (actually I said some more colorful things) and cut across south to deal with the brush. I was in the area of the mine, but I couldn’t see anything. The gully was covered in brush. Rudy and I waited for the other 4 to meet up (Hugo, Tim, Winston, & Andy), and they saw on the other side of the gully the chimney from old pictures. We then also thought we saw a mine entrance, and I took a pic of it.

At that point it just seemed we would cut across through some brush and find everything. For some reason, it was harder than it seemed. The brush was annoying but we made it across. The we started ascending, but apparently we ascended to far, so after looking around we descended again, and finally found the cabin ruins along with other artifacts.

The cabin is basically right on top of a ridge along the trail that connects Stanley-Miller to Allison Mine. We did not see a mine right around it. We went over the picture we thought was a mine entrance, and determined based on the trees in the picture it would be higher up. Tired already, we went up a bit again and then I continued up determined to find this SOB. I went up 500 ft or so, but no luck.

At that point we had spent 3-4 hrs up there and were resigned to not seeing the actually mine entrance but happy we did find the mind ruins. We descending down slightly south of our path up, on the other side of the brush which had some loose dirt making for a quicker descent. We connected back up with the rock-slab filled gully near the bottom which took some strong friction/wedge moves to avoids sliding down.

Back at the river, I just dropped my stuff and walked right in. Cooling off never felt better after that hot, brush-filled and exhausting climb. After everyone came down, we headed back.

Along the way back we saw Hobo Dave’s hut. I went over hoping he would be home and explain where the mine entrance was, but no luck.

On the way back past a rock slide we heard some rocks falling, and looked up to see about 8 Bighorn sheep. My first time seeing them!

All in all, it was a great, frustrating, dangerous journey.

Post: Later on, Tim pointed out to me the picture in the LA Gold Mines site. When I looked at that link previously, I thought the picture was just detailing the inside of the mine so I didn’t pay attention carefully. What a moron I am!

The picture shows the location of the mine relative to the chimney and ruins. Apparently the mine is about 100 yds south of the chimney. This means while we were going up and down along the northern side of the ridge, the mine was actually south at the same elevation. Ugh. In hindsight it makes sense since there was an open area around there, but we were focused with the illusion of a mine entrance we thought we saw on the northern side, so we didn’t even consider it.

The best part about this map is the fact that the guy labeled the route we took as the “really stupid way to stanley-miller mine”, and he had a better way. From what I can tell this better way is something he found and not on a map anywhere. Suffice to say, I would agree with him!

So with all the ups and downs I did ~4500 ft for something that should have taken much less. I’m not sure if I feel I have unfinished business with the hike yet…

To Stanley-Miller Mine
Miles: ~15
Elevation Gain: 2000-3000 ft
Terrain: Same as above, PLUS: total cross-country exploration. No trail. Bushwacking. Yuccas, steep loose terrain. Bring protective clothing.

We will be adventuring up the East Fork of the San Gabriel River. But we won’t simply be stopping at the Bridge to Nowhere, about 5 miles up.

Instead, we’ll continue on up to an area less explored. We’ll pass through the Narrows, an area with deep canyons and many nice swimming holes to relax in. Some people may choose to stop and relax here.

For the few that are very adventurous, I will be continuing on to attempt to visit the abandoned Stanley-Miller mine. This is one of the mines around Iron Mt that very few ever get to.

For those who are interested in going that far, you must read our previous trip reports to 2 other mine exploration adventures to get a feel of what it will be like.

Allison Mine

Baldora and Widco Mines

I have no idea how hard exactly it will be to climb up from the riverbed to access the mine. It should only be about 1000-1500 ft above the river, but who knows the navigation difficulties we’ll encounter.

Ideally, I would like someone to lead a hike up to the Bridge / Narrows, and then I would take the few people who are moving quickly up and beyond to the mine.

I do not know how long this will take. Therefore, expect me to move at a brisk pace during the beginning of the day. I will not wait very long for the whole group to catch up. Please agree to stay with at least one other person.