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UER Forum > Private Boards Index > Minez > Reward: First CA Mine (Viewed 1523 times)
DawnPatrol 


Gender: Female
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Reward: First CA Mine
< on 1/10/2016 1:05 AM >
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I haven't really posted much since I've been in CA, but I have been exploring some mines out here. We've been on a few trips so far, but I'm going to show photos from three separate trips to one mine in Inyo county.


FIRST TRIP:

Therrin, my brother, and I visited Mt. Whitney and decided to visit the Reward mine afterwards because it was in the area and my brother had never been in a mine. Unfortunately by the time we got near the mine is was dark and we got to play 'Where'd the road go?!' all night and get out of the car about every 5 minutes and search for the road with flashlights. After some wrong turns and bad google directions we finally made it close enough to the mine to walk the rest of the way.





The lower level of Reward is large enough to drive a Jeep through and many people have. Unfortunately it doesn't really go anywhere. Therrin and I made the decision to come back though because there were a few winzes we wanted to drop.

On the way out, we got lost several more times and got a flat tire before we made it back to a paved road.

SECOND TRIP:

We decided to go back out to Inyo county and explore around Whiteside mine and then head back over to Reward. We spent the first day checking out a dozen or so small adits near Whiteside. None of them really lead anywhere, but it was still a lot of fun to check out.





Following the logic of 'every road leads somewhere' we followed a long winding bumpy road to it's end and found a small cabin with a little adit behind it.





The view from this place alone was worth the drive...



As the sun set, we made the decision that we definitely wanted enough time to explore around Reward so we drove over to the entrance and camped there for the night.

An overview of the campsite:


This part of Reward is easily accessible to anyone with a 4 wheel drive vehicle who either isn't stupid enough to come at night, or knows the area well. The inside has quite a bit of graffiti in it. While we were getting ready to go to sleep a jeep full of teens drove up with their father. Guess he has visited the mine since he was a kid and wanted to show the kids.

The next morning we decided to go in with our vertical gear and check out a few possibilities. In some places there was nothing to anchor to, but luckily for Therrin and I, there's enough of a weight difference between us to use him as a meat anchor.



Everything we tried was a bust. All of the winzes we dropped were short and lead to places we'd already been. There was only one winze left to try that was at the very back of the mine. The bottom ladder section was burned out, but the rest of the ladders looked like they were in decent condition.

We grabbed a long rope and Therrin began making his way up the ladder section with the rope trailing behind him. He secured the rope to timbers on the way up and had us run the rope through a rack at the bottom as a sort of make-shift belay system in case he fell. It was really more for the preceived concept of safety than anything else...

350ft later Therrin made it to the top and set an anchor so we sent the next person up, and then I went up. Once we were all at the top we took a quick break and continued on.

At the top of the winze there was a small drift with cool air blowing through it. We followed the air until we found ourselves at the bottom of an incline. As we climbed up the incline we hit several different levels with lots of stuff left behind from ore cars, to workbenches, to actual ore. We went through all of the levels until we made our way to the top of the incline which lead to an outside portal.

Squinting in the bright sunlight, trying to figure out where we were, we realized that we had made it to the near top of the other side of the mountain. We decided to go back the way we came and reclaim the gear we'd left along the way.

THIRD TRIP:

One of the most interesting features of this particular mine is the veins of ore that run through it. The mines took out a ridiculous amount of different ores from Reward which is probably where it got it's name. However, there were many areas that had clear silver veins. I forget the name of the rock, but the veins were beautiful blues and greens.



Therrin and I decided we wanted to go back there and look through the rocks a bit more and see if there's anything we missed. He also wanted to take a co-worker out and it was a nice interesting spot we'd already been to.

We decided to skip the 350ft climb this time and just park near the front side of the mine.

There are actually still some pretty large workings outside of the front entrance.

Ore Shoot



It was a bit of a miserable hike to the portal as the sun rose over the mountains. Once we got inside we split up and I went on my own to get a few shots.







We saw some new parts that we missed the first time through the upper portion and after taking a look at some maps another explorer made of the mine it looks like we've still managed to miss a small part of it. It was a really fun explore though. Lots of awesome features in that mine and I was very happy for it to be my first explore out here. While walking around the area we also noticed some adits in the distance, one of which that was fairly large. Might have to make another trip back to the area.




wranglerroadhead 


Location: San Diego/LA
Gender: Male
Total Likes: 73 likes


Safari Kay

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Re: Reward: First CA Mine
< Reply # 1 on 1/10/2016 1:17 AM >
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Posted on Forum: UER Forum
Awesome story and awesome pictures! Thanks for sharing with us. I need to get my butt back out into some mines as soon as I get a bit of free time. The ice climbing season has just kicked off though, so it may be awhile




"It's nothing, only the smellz."
UER Forum > Private Boards Index > Minez > Reward: First CA Mine (Viewed 1523 times)


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