The Andrew Curtis Tungsten Mine

Post by **HikeUp** » Wed Oct 18, 2023 6:29 am

jeko1034 wrote: I’m down to go back! It was definitely a memorable trip but it’s also super gnarly of a hike up that wash. No trail and just boulder hopping for miles while completely exposed. @charlescurtis1984 wanna join us?

March 2009, there was an excellent road all the way up the canyon to the mine! I turned around about 1/2 mile below the mine because I didn't want to bother the people that were there (they passed me in a blue pickup while I was walking down the road from Cow Cyn Saddle).

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Post by **Uncle Rico** » Wed Oct 18, 2023 6:29 am

Whew! For a moment there, I thought maybe I'd breached some protocol on forum decorum.

David R · Post by **David R** » Wed Oct 18, 2023 9:33 am

I think a video of me next to the highest grade tungsten in the world would really trend well on Only Fans.

Brianc · Post by **Brianc** » Tue Jun 11, 2024 6:23 pm

This area has always intrigued me . I have not been up there for 12 years. The under video camera surveillance sign off of cattle canyon trail has been there forever, before wifi. B.S. if one thinks a cable was run all the way up to Glendora ridge road for camera. What about the mysterious "property owners" of Thompson ranch or Widman ranch. They would be like 100 years old. Maybe if anyone was up there they are just squatters growing. I wonder how come the owner of Tungsten mine lets the vehicles on property rot and not sell them. People who own places like these, have money and it is clearly documented. My theory is its the haunted house story. "Don't go there, the boggie man will get you".

Matthew · Post by **Matthew** » Tue Jun 11, 2024 6:54 pm

Brianc wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2024 6:23 pm This area has always intrigued me . I have not been up there for 12 years. The under video camera surveillance sign off of cattle canyon trail has been there forever, before wifi. B.S. if one thinks a cable was run all the way up to Glendora ridge road for camera. What about the mysterious "property owners" of Thompson ranch or Widman ranch. They would be like 100 years old. Maybe if anyone was up there they are just squatters growing. I wonder how come the owner of Tungsten mine lets the vehicles on property rot and not sell them. People who own places like these, have money and it is clearly documented. My theory is its the haunted house story. "Don't go there, the boggie man will get you".

Not quite sure but you can just walk through there and avoid all private property if you're paranoid, android.

Brianc · Post by **Brianc** » Tue Jun 11, 2024 7:20 pm

It's been over 4 years that you reported on this area. I have never been able to find proof of ownership of these ranches.

Matthew · Post by **Matthew** » Tue Jun 11, 2024 7:34 pm

Brianc wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2024 7:20 pm It's been over 4 years that you reported on this area. I have never been able to find proof of ownership of these ranches.

Use this: https://app.regrid.com/us?utm_campaign= ... t=property

also the LA County assessor map will have that info: https://maps.assessor.lacounty.gov/m/

Ze Hiker · Post by **Ze Hiker** » Sun Jun 30, 2024 6:04 am

I love these threads with people bringing their unique historical experiences!

Matthew · Post by **Matthew** » Sun Jun 30, 2024 9:48 am

Ze Hiker wrote: Sun Jun 30, 2024 6:04 am I love these threads with people bringing their unique historical experiences!

It's the whole reason why we keep exploring!

Sewellymon · Post by **Sewellymon** » Sun Jun 30, 2024 6:40 pm

I used to hike and camp above Widman Ranch in Coldwater Canyon all the time in the late 70's.

On this thread a few years ago, the mine owner Charles Curtis chimned in. I actually called him soon after just to get a sense for what is going on.
I do not think he will be starting operations back up again? Lots of FS roadblocks, etc.

rdwieting · Post by **rdwieting** » Wed Oct 09, 2024 7:26 pm

Fascinating for sure. My BIL has stories about weekends during his teen years in the '60s working at his "dad's gold mine" up Jail Canyon in the Panamints.

Kkelsey · Post by **Kkelsey** » Mon Apr 21, 2025 10:05 am

Hello! Thank you for posting this, this was my grandfathers mine. He died a few years ago and the mine claim was never renewed by my uncle whom he left the claim to. The road regularly was washed out by floods and he would repave them. The ranch you trespass to get to the road used to be his as well. All the roads past the gate were made by my grandfather. The entire road to the mine was made by him. The ranch used to be our families RV park called RV Baldy, you may be able to find info on it as well. Reach out to my email; kelseykeagan@gmail.com if you have any more questions!
Cheers!

Matthew · Post by **Matthew** » Mon Apr 21, 2025 1:21 pm

Kkelsey wrote: Mon Apr 21, 2025 10:05 am Hello! Thank you for posting this, this was my grandfathers mine. He died a few years ago and the mine claim was never renewed by my uncle whom he left the claim to. The road regularly was washed out by floods and he would repave them. The ranch you trespass to get to the road used to be his as well. All the roads past the gate were made by my grandfather. The entire road to the mine was made by him. The ranch used to be our families RV park called RV Baldy, you may be able to find info on it as well. Reach out to my email; kelseykeagan@gmail.com if you have any more questions!
Cheers!

Thank you so so much for the information! I will be sure to reach out to you eventually

minexplorer207 · Post by **minexplorer207** » Sat Aug 30, 2025 8:13 pm

Just made the trip up to the mine a few weeks ago. My group ended up biking from the sunset peak south trailhead until the bottom of the wash, and the rest of the hike was on foot. We did see some of the vehicles uploaded in the original posts.

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The hike was very long and very hot.

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At last we finally made it to the site.

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I have lots more pictures and various drone footages so if anyone is curious I can share more shots of specific locations.
Cheers!

Matthew · Post by **Matthew** » Sun Aug 31, 2025 10:52 am

Duuuuude! I’m gonna digest these photos a bit later but that’s amazing that it’s that destroyed after the fire and floods. Impressive pics man!

minexplorer207 · Post by **minexplorer207** » Sun Aug 31, 2025 9:13 pm

No way, the legend himself responded! It's great to hear from the guy who inspired the whole trek. We were unable to find the break room with the expired coffee and such, where exactly was that? I thought we searched every building and we scoured the place on satellite imagery but maybe we missed it? If you remember where it was that would be very helpful and give us quite a bit of closure.

Matthew · Post by **Matthew** » Mon Sep 01, 2025 6:55 am

minexplorer207 wrote: Sun Aug 31, 2025 9:13 pm No way, the legend himself responded! It's great to hear from the guy who inspired the whole trek. We were unable to find the break room with the expired coffee and such, where exactly was that? I thought we searched every building and we scoured the place on satellite imagery but maybe we missed it? If you remember where it was that would be very helpful and give us quite a bit of closure.

Yo! I wanna go back there and check it out post fire to see how much stuff has been buried. I believe the office got crushed because I remember it being to the right of the generators. if you’re on instagram, send me a message so we can connect and plan something! @maaatthewjackson

Matthew · Post by **Matthew** » Mon Sep 01, 2025 7:02 am

I don’t know how I didn’t look at that drone photo closer enough but the whole office building is under all the debris just to the left of the rusted stairs that’s above the conveyors. If you look at google earths previous satellite dates, you’ll see a building that over time got covered in debris.

That’s insane…

Post by **Taco** » Mon Sep 01, 2025 9:17 am

I just wanna see the ridge to the east. Very steep face. Didja take any photos of that?

Post by **dima** » Mon Sep 01, 2025 9:59 am

I want to know about the ranch by the gate and the ranch down at the river. Does it look like they survived the fire and are still populated?

minexplorer207 · Post by **minexplorer207** » Mon Sep 01, 2025 9:22 pm

Hi everyone! https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipP ... ZXNlZ3bTVR will take you to an album containing a lot more pictures and all of the drone footage from our excursion. I wasn't exactly sure what you wanted to see regarding the ridge to the east, but I hope there is some drone footage which can get what you want. We didn't hike up to the mine entrance as we were exhausted, but there is some footage of the drone flying up to the opening and poking above it for a minute. I biked pretty fast past the ranch by the gate and didn't get a good look, but my friend recalls that it all looked burned down except for possibly an RV. I'm also not exactly sure of any ranch down at the river, we might not have gone that way. This was our route: https://caltopo.com/m/3P6C66Q. Interestingly, on the bike ride down the fire road to the wash, we saw a smaller car/atv that looked as if it was used to get down to the wash and back. Despite this, there was no other sign of any recent activity.

minexplorer207 · Post by **minexplorer207** » Tue Dec 30, 2025 2:55 pm

Hi everyone! I decided to take another trip back to the Andrew Curtis Tungsten Mine after being back in town for a few weeks and realizing that I missed quite the mines themselves on my last trip. This was definitely the hardest hike I've attempted in a while, totaling 21.89 miles and 5,980ft of elevation gain. We got on the trail at 8:30am and did not get back to the car until almost 1:30am.

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The trail was much more green compared to the last time we went, and we're definitely starting to see some growth after the fire. When biking past the ranch at the beginning, it was completely bare except for an empty, unattached trailer with nothing on it. No sign of an RV like last time, or anything remotely inhabitable. Again, we didn't go into the ranch or look too hard but it looked pretty desolate to us.

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The trail was a also lot more wet than the last time we attempted, so it was nice to have access to fresh water that we could purify as we went. It was very interesting to see fresh tire tracks in the dirt, so there is definitely still activity on that road. We weren't sure if it was current property owners or maybe county officials on the fire road. There were also signs of small, man made dams near the streams in order to limit the flow of water on the fire road. We also found a work truck that was parked on the fire road that was not there in April during our last visit.

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After making it down to the wash, the "small" stream from last time started to look more like a rapid, making it very time consuming to cross. Using a drone to scout out ahead, it was clear we would have to cross this river at least 15 times before making it to the mine site.

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It took us almost two hours to get to the site because of how difficult it was to cross the streams, especially with our bags. The vehicles on the way up didn't look too different than last time, just had some ground shifted around.

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By the time we made it to the site, the sun was almost setting so we did not explore too much around. Most of the structures were similarly intact compared to April, except for the slight flooding.

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After a quick lunch/dinner break, we decided it was time to explore the mines themselves. It was very difficult to access them, as crucial parts of the access road leading up to the mine had been washed away. We used a drone to scout out the best route, and began climbing up to the remaining parts of the road. I had only been able to confirm the location of one mine with my drone in the past, but we actually stumbled upon a second, lower mine on accident during our journey to the originally spotted mine. This mine seemed flooded at the beginning, but once getting inside was not too bad.

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The mine was a straight shot back, maybe 200ft deep. There was nothing too notable in this mine besides wiring and what looked to be maybe one old "dud" stick of dynamite, although we weren't sure and stayed far away from it. There was a lot of water leaking from the ceiling, and the very end of the mine seemed flooded and we could not continue to go farther back. It seemed as if it did continue and turn back, but we weren't able to confirm this. Maybe in the future when there isn't as much water leakage I would be able to send a drone back to explore the rest of the mine, but that was not happening today. All of the video footage from this mine will be in the google photos link at the end. After exiting the mine, we continued up the access road to the big mine.

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This mine was much better ventilated than the last mine.
Almost immediately we were greeted with old mining tools everywhere, included hard hats, masks, high-vis jackets, and pickaxes. This was a multi-level mine. We weren't sure if this was mold or a fungus, but the air seemed relatively still and "sporey" so we decided to make our time in the mine quick as we were without masks.

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If anyone is able to identify the white matter, I would be very curious to know what it was. We also ran into these "cave crickets" but ultimately weren't sure what they were.

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We climbed up to the second level of the mine and poked our head around, but it was a similar size to the first mine. Maybe 150-200ft long on both levels.

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After exiting the mine, we were surprised with this gorgeous sunset view, but we still knew we had another six hours or so of hiking in the dark before we were done with our adventure.

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As promised, here's the link to the collection of photos and footage. There are some long drone videos that are pretty shaky because today it was used as a scouting tool more than a way to get nice videos, but I still fly over most of the site and the entrance to the upper mine. Thanks for reading!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/HxNB2goWusqKnH916

minexplorer207 · Post by **minexplorer207** » Tue Dec 30, 2025 2:58 pm

Taco wrote: Mon Sep 01, 2025 9:17 am I just wanna see the ridge to the east. Very steep face. Didja take any photos of that?

I know this is a late reply, but if you're talking about the north-western side of Lookout Peak, we actually did get a ton of drone footage (on the google photos link) of the two approaches that we thought would be most accessible. We were debating trying to climb that on our way out instead of walking back through the wash, but ultimately decided against it. It looks very steep, rocky, and loose, and the sun would have completely set before we would have been able to summit it.

Matthew · Post by **Matthew** » Tue Dec 30, 2025 3:13 pm

What an astronomically brutal hike!!!!!!! 6000 gain, 22 miles of distance, and 17 hours of hiking is crazy as hell. I have never seen the inside of that mine so it's super cool seeing all that video. Hell yeah dude!