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Trail Guy Led a Hike to Empire in Mineral King

One Saturday a.m., it was raining like crazy in Mineral King. Too bad. We geared up, and headed over to the Sawtooth parking lot to see if there were any hardy souls who wanted to visit the Empire mines. We found 2 people in flip-flops, and said, “Nope, not those shoes”. They knew that but were just checking to see if we were going to proceed as planned. Four others appeared, it stopped raining, and we headed up the Sawtooth/Timber Gap trail. (Okay, you can call it the Monarch/Crystal Lakes trail too if you prefer). We figured that if it started raining again, we could either wait it out or head back down. Day hiking is easy like that.

We began as a group of six and eventually the 2 flip-flop wearers caught up (wearing hiking boots.)

Relics can be found around various historic sites. I don’t know what these things are, but they are interesting.

This is the corner of a tram tender’s cabin. Maybe.

Trail Guy referred to the Mineral King History book by Louise Jackson to figure out some of the historical sites. If you love Mineral King, you need that book! Louise used to lead this hike, but asked Michael to take it this year.

Yep, a tram went through here. It hauled buckets full of ore down to the stamp mill. The ore was quite disappointing, and mining didn’t succeed in Mineral King. Now, we love to look for the relics of the past.

We left the trail and headed up to the old bunk house ruins in the fog.

Alice and I got to talking and climbed a bit too high. That is the ruins of the miners’ bunk house down there. I think it is remarkable that we can stand there in the very spot where these old guys lived while searching for gold. (That’s why I am remarking on it!)

Ick. What sort of relic is this?

Ooh, maybe we should have gone to White Chief so we could be in the sunshine!

To be continued. . .

 

8 Comments

    • Jennifer, it is sort of like beachcombing. Trail Guy finds square nails everywhere we go – he is fantastic at it (magnetizing, perhaps?) 😎

  2. Wimped out. Did not think you would hike in the rain! Next time I will come rain or shine!

    Hugs,
    Melissa

    • Missed you, Melissa!

  3. My dad and grandfather must have hundreds of slides and photos. The joke is he had a lot of dam pictures … actual dams. Photos of places that I do not have a clue where the location is. Some old photos from Felix Foreman (of ‘Foreman 1910’). Lots of beautiful photos of Mineral King landscape.

    • Diane, you are so generous with those photos and I really appreciate it!

  4. I shall send a photo of one of the tram towers.

    • Neato, Diane! How did you get all those wonderful old photos that you share with me?

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