GNU III, Naught a lot of Success

Day 3 dawned and after how bloody hot day 2 was I made a serious change of plans. Today was supposed to be my voyage into Nevada to find an old mining site named Atlanta. It is located approximately 90 miles from Milford with 2/3's being dirt road. 3 hours there, 3 back. The temp was 95 at noon Saturday and I honestly didn't wanna drive that long in that hot of weather. So, I guess a return trip is in order. So, I found another town on my list and headed west to find it. Shauntie was built on numerous mine claims in the area around 1870. Supposedly there was a processing mill there, post office, hotels and saloons. The town thrived until it burned down in 1876.  

 It was quickly rebuilt and lasted another year before the mines began to play out. As fast as it was built, it emptied out even quicker. A few mines were reopened in 1910 and produced low grade ore till around 1920. This time the exodus was permanent. Residents of Milford visited the old town and took everything they could  leaving concrete foundations and stuff they couldn't use.  

 What I found, which was not a lot, were some rock retaining walls, a couple of foundations, some wood piles and 1 mine. The GPS showed no mines and actually placed Shauntie on top of the ridge above the rock piles. Apparently there is not a road into the town. The area I found was very steep and rocky and I tried to find a way up to the top but I failed. I need to get on Google Earth and see what I can see  for the return trip. No mines showed up but as I was driving along dirt roads, I came across a fairly good sized one that I visited. 

 As I said before, this wasn't showing as a mine on my GPS so I have no idea what it was called. It was a good sized mine with the headframe still kind of standing over the entrance. Sorta, because it looks as if someone had pulled it out towards the tailings. The shaft was not strait down but on about a 60° angle. If my body wasn't so screwed up I could have entered this one with out a lot of difficulty. 

 I really should have brought my laptop with me but I have trust issues with hotel cleaners. My cell service was poor to nothing. I could not send out texts or calls for that matter but every once in a while a stray text would come through. I did have wifi at the hotel but trying to look at Google earth on my phone wasn't very easy. Needless to say, the laptop is coming on my next trip. 

Plus having it with me would have let me write these blogs the night they happened instead of a week later. After I left the mine, I followed just about every dirt road I could find looking for all this activity of the Shauntie area. I didn't find a thing. Well, that's a lie, I did encounter the herd of elk in the foto above. Now you would think with all the trips I take to the mountains I would have seen a million elk. Nope. This was the first herd of elk I have ever seen in the wild. I have seen a million deer, antelope, moose, but elk and bear have avoided me. Now its time to find the bear. Jeep on my friends!