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Eastern Sierra and Mono Country

Eastern Sierra Nevada and Mono Country of California

19 posts

Bennettville Ghost Camp

Bennettville Ghost Camp

Bennettville (once called Tioga) was a small mine camp with that typical ghost town story of boom and bust of a big strike that never panned out. Part of the Tioga Mining District, Bennettville was built to support one mine, the Great Sierra, and its famed Sheepherder lode. They believed

Par Value Mill

Par Value Mill

Late autumn of 2017 found us tracking down a very unusual stamp mill high in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. The mill was a unique hammer design called a Pratt Ideal Stamp Mill. Very few of these mills were ever put into use, and even fewer (if any!) still

Summit Mine

Summit Mine

High up in the spires of the Sierra Nevada, there lies a hidden and seldom visited mine. To reach it, you have to follow a steep trail that threads its way across jagged granodiorite cliffs with views of the old mining camp of Lundy, a thousand feet below. Once the

Owens Valley Three Stamp Mill

Owens Valley Three Stamp Mill

In 2013, I stopped by a forgotten and overlooked three-stamp mill in the backcountry of Owens Valley. It seems like even the locals don’t know it exists. Besides being off the beaten path, the stamp mill is unusual in that it had only three stamps instead of the typical

Lakeview Mine

Lakeview Mine

Over the summer of 2013, I took a trip to the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains and hiked up to the Lakeview Mine. Located at timberline, 10,650 ft up, the mine sits on a ridge overlooking a dramatic landscape of glacially carved cirques, granitic spires, and alpine lakes. It was

Montague Mine Cabin

Montague Mine Cabin

In 2011, we took a rough 4WD trip up to the top of the Sweetwater Mountains to see the Montague Mine Cabin. The mines in the area were active in the 1880s, but there isn't much left of them today. The cabin is in better condition but is

Don Alvadore Mine

Don Alvadore Mine

The Don Alvadore Mine is a single adit and stope 500 feet up on a cliff above Lundy Canyon. The old trail to the mine is overgrown and hard to follow in places these days. I couldn’t find much on the history or production of the mine, but it