Just a short run this morning with our friend Larry. We'd noticed some old prospects dug into a hillside of one of the trails up a wash not far from our home so we decided to check them out. According to our information from the Arizona Department of Mines and Mineral Resources, there were quite a few claims at one time in this specific area filed by people looking for gold. I don't know how successful they were or which of these mines might have produced gold, but there sure wasn't any evidence of it today. The old mines didn't look very inviting, none of them were cut into hard rock, just tunnels dug into the mountainside. Some had old timbers used for shoring, and some had experienced cave-ins sometime in the past, at any rate, we didn't feel comfortable enough to venture too far into their dark interiors. The old miners had to be a hearty lot, imagine crawling up the side of a mountain and saying, "let's dig here." We couldn't help but wonder what might have lay beyond the cave-ins, I suppose we'll never know.
If was a beautiful day, clear and cool with a slight breeze, perfect for a nice, comfy Jeep run. The hillside is carved with old mining prospects
Here's an old bat outside one of the mines
This one was dug into fairly soft rocky dirt
The shoring of old wood and rotted beams didn't
do much to prevent the ceiling from collapsing
No gold, just rocks and dirt...darnit
I guess this cave-in will keep us
from finding what lays beyond
There's Roosevelt Lake
The group of buildings in the valley foreground is where we live.
Here's an old bat outside one of the mines
