I meet up with Dan and Sharon to hike up to the seldom-visited King Midas mine. It was mainly worked around the WWII era, which is a bit later than many of the others in the region. The tramway was a highlight of the hike for me. It is 3,000 ft long and over 1,000 ft in vertical height. Some of this double rope tram is still here, but at least the power cable is missing. We saw pieces of a buried cable in the canyon bottom.
The mine and canyon cut into some beautiful marbles of the complex Crystal Springs geologic formation. The area is stark, harsh, and wonderfully desolate in that Death Valley kind of way.
