Nemo Canyon and the Christmas Gift Mine

The tenth of April in 1908 saw Judge Frank G. Thisse of Skidoo wandering through Nemo Canyon on his way to Harrisburg from Wildrose. In the bottom of this wide valley he encountered silver 1500 feet north of the famed twenty-three mile Skidoo water pipeline. Soon enough, a rustic camp was set up to secure the claim. Silver ore assaying up to $200 per ton (in 1908 dollars) set off a small rush to the area, with neighboring hillsides being marked with claims and developed. Thisse's first claim became titled as the Nemo Mine, and it's eleven claims contained ore assaying up to $3,300 per ton, one of the best silver mines on the country at the time. 

Marble Canyon

In the Southern Cottonwoods is one of the most significant canyons in the Death Valley area. Marble Canyon is a deep canyon that for centuries was the main thoroughfare from the comfortable summer retreats of Hunter Mountain to the sweltering desert below. Marble Canyon shows evidence of use by natives (The Timbsha-Shoshone) and more recent miners. Petroglyphs litter the lower narrows of the canyon and also are marks left by their modern counterparts telling directions and leaving evidence of past existence.
These lowest narrows (said to be the second narrows, which I don't personally agree with. The first narrows start from the time one exits the car just about up to the magnificent bathtub.) are not of Marble, and no marble can be found until the third narrows, much further up canyon. I find this canyon remarkable because it is one of those rare major canyons with no significant dry falls in the canyon bottom, excepting the unclimbable boulder jam just upstream of the bathtub. The third and fourth narrows are both made of marble, striped and banded. In the upper forks of the canyon lies Goldbelt, a gold and talc ghost town dating until as recently as the mid 50s. The story of Goldbelt will be covered in a later post most likely.

Butte Valley: Geologist Cabin

The Geologist's Cabin is one of the most picturesque and popular places in Death Valley. It was built in the 1930's, most believe by Asa Russell (of Russell's Camp Fame) or by a park Geologist. None are quite sure who built it, but the NPS Historic Resource Study tells that Russel built it according to his own word, so that is the law of the land. Russel built it in the 1930s and developed the spring below (Anvil Spring) in a stone-lined cistern and planted grapes there, which he claims to have had much success with. The spring is as flowing as it ever was, and the ground is quite muddy nearly all the way to the base of the cabin. The once-proud cottonwood tree is now dead and no more than a bare log sticking out of the verdant brush, but is quite photogenic when ravens perch on its scraggly limb.

The cabin itself is built of stone with two windows overlooking the expansive valley down below. It appears to have had three doors at different times, one of which contains the water system, another contains shelves and a small window. The cabin is frequented by off-roaders as an overnight stop and as a result the parking area has become dry rutted. In late 2013, the MIB (a cabin maintenance program, not a government agency) built a new outhouse above the cabin without the authority of the park service and of their own accord. Much controversy has been raised by various individuals and groups how in years future the septic plume could pollute the potable water below. Regardless of the outhouse, the Geologist Cabin will likely be a photogenic and comfortable spot for years to come.

Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Panorama from the outhouse

Hunter Mountain Odds and Ends No. 1

Hunter Mountain is a prominent plateau-like mountain in the Cottonwood Mountains that is a pleasant retreat away from the desert below. Much of it is piñon pine forest and holds a fair snowpack much of the winter. In November of 2013 there was several feet of snow on Lee Flat and Hidden Valley,  and drifts were as deep as five feet in some places. The amount of snow on the top of Hunter Mountain is not known but likely greater than either of the aforementioned places. Hunter Mountain is a large granite block that was uplifted long ago and is one of my favorite places in the park, for the springs are abundant and well flowing. The area of Hunter Mountain is steeped in history, as its been used for cattle grazing since the 1870s, when Hunter Cabin was built. This post lists some of the odds and ends of Hunter Mountain exploration.

Death Valley Pictographs #1

This site was not difficult to reach, though took painstaking hours of research to find. I'll leave the location out of this one, it is vandalism free and is a very special place. Be sure to leave no trace.

All of these pictos are in red pigment,  and while there are glyphs over a small area, the pictos only in this small cave on the edge of a stark valley. The cave is in some sort of marble I think, and is essentially a boulder pile but is large enough to stay twenty degrees cooler than the outside air. I crawled through some of the smaller cracks inside to yield no further art. Enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them. Many were enhanced to better show the pigments.

Artifacts should be left where they are. It is illegal to remove them.

Keystone Mine Camp

Up Goler Canyon there lies a large mine camp. It was a gold mine, which is higher up on the mountain and was not visited on this trip in spring of 2014. This gold mine was originally developed by the famed Carl Mengel in his days in the region, but it was sold to the Monte Cristo Mines company in 1935 and renamed the Lotus Mine. It was worked on and off into the 80s, when most of the modern mines closed in south Death Valley. There were two arial tramways constructed, and there is a lot of cool junk lying around the site. Some of the rocks in this canyon are around 1.8 Billion years old. Just up the canyon is a very pretty pink rhyolite intrusion. 2016 UPDATE: Work is being done to reopen this mine. Someone is now on site most of the time.

Spring Break 2014 Overview

The entire report will be divided into individual sections, but this is an overview.

Beginning the trip, we drove over to Butte Valley via Goler Canyon from Searles Valley. We stopped at the Newman Cabin, Gold Spur cableway, Keystone Mine camp, and Mengel Pass. Once in Butte Valley, we hit all the cabins; starting with Stella's (also called Mengel's, Anderson's, and Greater View Cabin), then we went to Russel Camp. Unfortunately people were setting up camp there and we didn't lurk around and invade their space. Finally we went to Geologist Cabin at Anvil Spring. I was amazed at how rutted the road and parking at Geologist was; it suffered heavily from overuse and subsequent erosion. Anyway, the new and controversial outhouse is far enough away that it didn't impede views of the cabin and butte together, so we were able to enjoy the solitude of the lonesome stone cabin.