Monday 01-25

A week ago we took Becky, Dennis, Missy and Junior, on a ride into the Plomosa Mountains. See blog entry for Sunday Jan 17.
While we were there we passed an area with lots of roads and mines. We were running late so decided to come back to explore the area at a later date.

Yesterday we took B&D and Suzanne and Roy out there.
We started off around 10:00 and drove out Sunkist Road to Plomosa Rd. where we turned right and drove a little passed mile post 7 then turned off the highway and into the foothills. After a few miles we came to the mining area. We stopped to investigate some stone walls

(Remember to click on the pictures to enlarge them)

and concrete foundations.

Its hard to tell for sure what the buildings were used for. Some must have been housing and others were no doubt processing structures.
We followed several rough tracks into the hills and found some mines to explore.

This shaft went back into the mountain over 100 feet. At the end it split into three shafts, one straight down ,one to the right and one to the left.

This is the first mine that Patti has been in that wasn't part of a tour.

We drove on and found some more man made caves.
This one looked like it might have been a talc mine as there was several seams of talc in the walls.

There was a flat area near the entrance to the cave so we stopped here for lunch.

After lunch we started the drive home. We passed a large arch

and some vertical shafts. This one was very deep.

This horizontal shaft was a little too scary to explore

After several dead ends and false trails

we got on the track that goes by the Climax Mine. This is the road that we couldn't find the last time we were out here.
We got home around 5:30.
I was tired and didn't want to cook so Patti and I were going to just go to Carl's JR for a burger but Becky and Dennis invited us to join them for grilled chicken. Thanks B&D it was great.