Yah, twas a great day for Jeeping, part 1

 Last years adventure to the 3 corner area of Utah, Idaho and Nevada brought the discovery of another mining district in that area. The area is or was home to the Park Valley mining district. At that time, we were out of time to explore so it got put off until now, well yesterday actually, but you get the idea. The trip started at 8:00 am sharp and we headed west into the unknown. Our last trip 2 weeks ago to the area was rained out and it looked pretty certain to do the same today. The rain followed us to Snowville then disappeared for the day. We crossed into Idaho and went east on Birch Creek road. Well, it was muddy as hell and with not a lot of options, we retired back to the main road. I then decided to try the original road we tried 2 weeks ago and see how it went. It hasn't been driven on for ages, but it wasn't a mud-fest like the main road.  

 We headed east and the adventure began. Our first surprises of the day were the old army truck above as well as Mr. Snake, who was asleep under the door that had fallen off. I wonder how an old military truck ended up out in BFE? There isn't much left of it and the ID plates had all corroded away to nothing so we were unable to even tell what year it was. Someone must have wanted parts off of it years ago because it is basically cut in half behind the cab. I went on Google Earth last night and you can actually see this truck if you know what to look for. As I have said, this trail is pretty much unused. There are spot where it disappears and you have to guess where to go. This led to some kick ass wheeling until we finally arrived back on Birch Creek road. The area where they merge was perfect and we again headed east to our first stop, the Peg Leg mine.  

 The turn off to the Peg Leg is easy to miss. Thank heavens for the GPS. The road is barely visible and even then it looks like a hiking trail. We turned onto the trail and followed it for a bit. By this time we had crossed back into Utah and we headed north until we hit the border fence. The road dog legged east and wound down a slight draw to the mine site. I would be willing to bet that the entrance to said mine is in Utah, but the treasure was under Idaho. To our extreme disappointment, there wasn't much of anything left. The entrances, as you can see by these 2 fotos are caved in.  

 I am willing to give odds that there are still ore carts buried under the mountain. We did find some old track in the debris pile so I'm thinking there could be some carts in there somewhere. Like the mine in the Devils Playground area, this mine is also up a trail where trying to take some sort of tractor to dig it out would be damn near impossible. You know, I really want an old ore cart. They look so cool sitting out in front of houses and I might even be tempted to plant flowers in one......... maybe.

 Once we finished exploring that area, we left the Peg Leg and headed on to another mine on the map. Before we could get to it, this old cabin appeared on the hillside and it was just begging to be explored. We followed the trail up the hill and wound our way to the old site. Not a lot of people visit this cabin I am thinking. The sage brush around it was 4 feet high and even the trail was overgrown. It is a large cabin and considering it has to be over 100 years old, it's in fairly good shape. As we explored the GPS kicked out the name of this mine area as the Dolly Clark mine. For reasons I have yet to discover, this mine is not in the Park Valley district but in the Ashcroft Mining district. The mine produced silver in some quantity before its demise.  

Research on the Dolly Clark has led to nothing. It was a silver mine but that's about it. Some surveys say it is an underground mine and inaccessible due to water. I have no idea on the water issue. I am still not far enough along to go hiking steep mountains so this one will have to wait to be explored further. So far the day had been been great. We did some gnarly kick-ass Jeepin' and found 2 new mines. What would the rest of the day bring????  Jeep on my friends!