Abandoned Mine Trek, Pt. 1 - Joshua Tree National Park — Abandoned Places, Gold Rush & Route 66 Travel Photography

Gold mining in the area we now call Joshua Tree National Park began in the 1870s. All those crazy rock formations, some of them have quartz veins. Sometimes those quartz veins contained gold. Woot!

The vast majority of the three hundred plus abandoned mine sites in the park have been gated, fenced-off, back-fillled or caved-in by the NPS for the safety of the general public. But they’re still fun to search for as they’ll sometimes have waste-rock piles, old machinery, buildings, ruins and can dumps to poke around in. And once in a very great while, you might find an adit that hasn’t been “made safe.” Those generally just go in a few feet before facing and are more likely exploratory prospects rather than a real mine.

A crisp December morning with no obligations to fulfill. The perfect time to spend a day in the desert, looking for abandoned mines and other cool stuff. What could be better? Here are some of the sites and sights:

I’ll bet this area would have looked even more amazing a few months prior to this photo. All those nolina blooms. Still pretty, and still quite green.

Finding stone building ruins is always like opening the best present you get on your birthday. And the questions they raise. Who built it, what was it used for, what are the stories of things that happened there. This one looks like it had three rooms at one time.

Those are some pretty big waste rock piles!

Can’t really figure out the name, but the date definitely reads “1908.” Probably someone who worked at the mines back in the day.

Why is it that the cool stuff is always way up on the side of a hill that is actually much steeper than it looks in these pictures? Of course you have to go up to check them out! That metal thing with the two wheels is a jaw crusher used to crush ore down in size. The foundation to the right probably held an engine at one time, to power the crusher. And the vat most likely held cyanide, used in processing the gold ore. So with all that stuff up there, there must be a decent size mine up above, but I wasn’t brave enough to climb any higher ☹️.

But plenty of other cool stuff and scenery down in the wash, where the traveling is generally safer.

Big thing on the left, my guess is an air compressor and on the right, an ore cart that has seen better days.

I decided to name this mine the “Trickster” mine. You can see that the front iron gating has been removed, and there are ore cart tracks coming out of the portal! That generally means it was a substantial mine. And since the biggest pile of waste rock in this area sits in front of this mine, it was exciting to see!

Yikes, looking good from this picture, right? But just beyond the shadowy, black maw of this mine adit, it’s well-gated. No going into this one.

Sticking the camera between the rails provides this view. Who knows what lies beyond….

Definitely a bummer. Oh well, them’s the breaks. Onward, the trail continues.

That’s a nice looking prospect over there, but that will have to be investigated on a future trip.

Looking through the grate.

It’s amazing how much work went into building the road that got all the heavy equipment out here. That alone must have take months. This little vein of quartz caught my eye, all kinds of flashy pretty stuff!

Five hours and five miles later, it was time to head on back to the truck and the cold soda waiting patiently in the cooler. Many steps were taken, many photos shot and lots of video in the can. Half the fun is looking through the pictures and video when I get back home, and then putting together a post for my thirteen constant readers to enjoy 😀.

Hope you enjoyed this trip as much as I did, thank you for reading. Stay safe in your adventures and I’ll catchya’ll on the next trip!

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