ghosts

As I've been looking for things to do this summer (besides our trip to Disneyland in June) I've thought of some interesting hikes and adventures around my town. Looking up on the internet I've located some old ghost towns within 50 miles of where I live and with the help of Google Maps have located them. I like going into old mines and towns looking for cool things long forgotten. I like to learn about the history behind the towns and what made people abandon them. Since Utah has been inhabited by pesky Mormons for over 100 years, there are plenty of old boom towns that once saw great activity and then saw decline for one reason or another.

I've been to a few towns and ruins before, but its been a long time, and I didn't do any research beforehand to know what I was looking at. All of this started when I was younger and went hiking up in Millcreek canyon by my family's cabin. There was an old silver mine that had last seen activity in the 70's and early 80's. When I was younger, the doors to the mine had always been locked. That didn't stop us from hiking there, and one time the door had been opened and allowed us to explore inside the mine about 100 yards. Graffiti dating back to the late 1800's and names of the miners dotted the walls. An old Mining car, and other tools were there, the remains of an old refrigerator and a tractor that someone had rigged to pull mine carts still remained in the shed. Sadly an avalanche had destroyed what remained of the shed and its tools a year later, and the last time i went to go to the mine the Forest Service had foamed the mouth of the entrance shut.

There was another mine that we hiked to in the Millcreek area called Baker's mine. I was told that a fire had burned down the mining operation there. Evidently there was a hotel there at one time way up in the mountains. The only way to get there was a serious day hike and even when I went, it was really hard to find. Here's a link to information and some old pictures of the area: http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ut/bakermine.html.
The entrance to the mine looks like it had been covered a few times. I'm sure bushes and over growth make finding the entrance near impossible today. But telltale signs of mining can give it away: slag runoff, and jagged rock pieces. When I went back 10 years ago there was a small opening I had to crawl through. The mine itself goes into the mountain about 50 yards in two directions, both leading to cave ins. Really muddy, and the old wooden supports looked questionable. Not much else remains of this old iron mine.

So what am I going to do? I'm going to buy a metal detector and revisit some ghost towns and mining areas to see if I can find some relics of the past, indicators of how these people lived and what their lives might have been like. There are some areas that I've wanted to explore that are only accessible in the summer once the snow has melted. It'll be fun, and I'll take pictures of everything. From what I've seen already, people have been able to dig up all sorts of interesting things that show what these mining communities were like over 100 years ago. The towns and sites I'm going to explore probably don't see very many visitors, so there's a good chance at finding something interesting.