Leftover Ridge Hike

Clara and I went on a lovely hike on Sobrante (Spanish for "leftover") Ridge this morning. It threatened to rain the whole time, but only started sprinkling at the end. We found a fun swing, some cool manzanitas, and a geocache.

Molly on Course with GirlVentures

More Molly. Here's pictures from her adventure with GirlVentures over the summer. Many adventures were had. And apparently lots of Sriracha sauce was consumed.
Photos are all courtesy of GirlVentures.

Trinity Alps Trip - Part 7 - Grand National Mine

Part of the trail to Tangle Blue Lake is called the Grand National Trail. If you follow that, you get to a location marked as the Grand National Mine. Which seems like a rather out-sized name for anything in this area. But I was intrigued and wanted to see if we could make it (or even find it, since the trail is not marked and clearly not well used).

We did manage to follow the trail to part of the mine remnants. I did some reading later and I'm not convinced we made it to the main part of the mine, but we certainly found some parts of it! There were lots of artifacts (again, trash), including a sink, stove, bedframes, oil cans, buckets, and on and on. And wood from some fallen structures. And what we thought might have been mine shafts straight down into the ground, but now I'm not sure. There were some remnants of structures that seemed to be falling into big holes in the ground, so it was either a mine or a basement falling in. We decided not to test the integrity of the structures. And there was a stream that had some wood and stones across it... that maybe had something to do with the mine?

Based on the maps I looked at later, the location of the mine was another half mile or so beyond these artifacts. Or, maybe I read the maps wrong. Or maybe the maps were wrong. There certainly does not seem to be many folks going there, so we could all be wrong!

According to information put out by the Trinity Lake Revitalization Alliance, the mine produced "about 1,500 ounces of gold, 2,200 ounces of silver, and 1,900 pounds of copper" in the 1930's. 

Trinity Alps Trip - Part 6 - Hike out

We planned on staying three nights, but with the flat tire and the need to pick Clara up at a specific time, we decided to be a bit conservative and hike out after two nights, car camp the third night, and have a bit more wiggle room to get the tire fixed and back to the Bay Area in time to get Clara from camp. 

In the end it all worked out and we had enough time (and energy) to take a detour up to the Grand National Mine (that's the next post). Plus, we found some fun artifacts (aka trash) on the way out. Zach remembered drinking Shasta Creme Soda when he was a kid, although I think this can is even older than that since it didn't have a pull tab. 

Trinity Alps Trip - Part 5 - flowers and campsite

And now for some photos of pretty flowers and beautiful campsites.