May 31, 2016; Don & Suzanne; 8 miles roundtrip, in-and-out hike Music: "Orinoco Flow" from the "Watermark" album by Enya
1 Where we hiked
2 GPS track from the hike (green track); where we hiked last week (bright red track), AZT passage 01 (yelllow).
3 GPS track for the hike superimposed on Google Earth.
4 This hike, we parked where we exited the AZT last week
5 We begin the hike
6 Very quickly we come to the boundary of the Miller Peak Wilderness.
7 Starting into the wilderness
8 A nice place for a horse camp.
9 Some of this trail (the part that was coverd by a Ponderosa Pine canopy) had a couple of inches of long pine needles covering it.
10 In the areas of spring seeps the grass was very green.
11 Part of this trail follows an old mining road.
12 Suzanne spotted a wild turkey hen ahead of us. We were approaching from downwind and were able to get close enough for some telephoto shots.
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14 When she finally spotted us, she started heading for the bushes up the sides of the canyon we were in.
15 We came across a lot of old artifacts from previous mining activity.
16 This man-made wall was a curious sight. Some one put in a lot of work. Presumably it was intended to keep the stream in its banks.
17 We thought we spotted an old mining adit, but either it had filled in over the years or it had never been.
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23 On up the trail we found two signs, this one giving trail infromation....
24 And this one pointing out the side trail to the Copper Glance Mine which we were hunting. This mine was started and run by the hell-fire and damnation preacher that started the town of Sunnyside that we visited last week.
25 About a quarter to half a mile up this trail we find some artifacts of past activity.
26 Some kind of structure - we could not tell whether it was an old miners cabin or a covering for an old mine. We never did find a mine opening that was supposed to exist in this vicinity nearly 100 years ago.
27 Nearby was a Jumex can. Jumex is brand of very popular fruit drinks in Mexico and the Hispanic populations in the SW US. This can had been there a few years. Probably an item discarded by illegal migrants, coyotes or drug runners coming across the border and heading north. The Border Patrol considers this a prime area for this type of activity. We didn't see any signs of recent activity - not that we were complaining.
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29 We explored nearby and noticed this post with a shoe perched on top. Curious.
30 And a dump for more Jumex cans among other items.
31 Some cactus wild flowers add a little beauty to the surrounds.
32 One last picture before we set out for the car about 4 miles back down the same trail. It was a hard hike for us, since we have not had any long hikes in recenty weeks. The total distance covered was 8 miles roundtrip with an elevation net gain of about 1400 feet. we started at about 5500 ft and turned around at over 7000 feet.
