Hiking and exploring backcountry locations of the Western United States.
Stamp mills!
Late autumn of 2017 found us tracking down a very unusual stamp mill high in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. 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 exist in the wild, so we were very interested in finding it.
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This scenic ruined mill site was built in the late 1890s and never saw ore from its namesake, the San Juan Chief mine. It is the second mill to be built on this site. In 1900, it had 2 roasting furnaces and 15 stamps.
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The Sound Democrat Mill is an awesome find and one of the highlights of the San Juan Mountains. The mine was first discovered in 1899. Gold and silver ore from the mine was packed on mules over a 13,000 ft ridge to the Sunnyside Mill in Eureka Gulch.
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In 1872, William “Billy” Spurr and James Bryant discovered the Trapper lode high in a cirque on Lion Mountain. News of the silver strike spread and soon other miners staked claims all over the mountainside. The barren slope got its name when a prospector thought he saw a mountain lion high up on the hillside. Turns out it was a white mule, but the name stuck.
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Much about the history of Skidoo has already been written in various books and online, so I will only give a brief summary here:
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