EISPIRATEN

A little while ago, Paul asked about a mystery road in Valley Forge Canyon. So I had this topic in the back of my mind until yesterday, when Willie and I contemplated alternative adventures after being stopped in Woodwardia Canyon by a waterfall obstacle. I suggested going down Valley Forge Canyon instead and trying to solve one of the great mysteries of our time.

The turnout for the mystery road is at mile marker 40.50 on the ACH beyond Red Box. If you drive to the next turnout, you get a nice panoramic of the whole canyon with the old road visible on the right.



We descended the overgrown road, whose bed was in good shape until the final segment after a right turn in a side gully. Here the road became rutted and populated with some thriving yucca, which forced us onto the slope a couple times.



We lost all trace of a road about fifty feet above the main canyon floor. Here some metal debris and pipes had been left behind.



Flowing water could be heard. We looked for an easy way down. Our route ended up requiring a bit of gymnastics to get off the bank and into the stream bed.



You should probably be comfortable with class 3 scrambling if you attempt this hike.

Immediately we discovered the purpose of the old road. Clearly it had been used to haul in supplies to build a pump house and install water tanks.







The pump house contained an F.E. Myers & Bro. water pump and a GE induction motor. Based on its serial number, the motor was manufactured in January of 1947. A nearby wooden utility pole had supplied the power to run the motor. Why were they pumping water at the head of Valley Forge Canyon in the '50s? Maybe they were trying to establish a year-round supply for cabins in the canyon.

So, solving one mystery led to yet another mystery.

We continued down the narrow canyon. It contained plenty of deadfall to avoid or climb over and under. Some stretches had neat cascades and small pools.





Not far below the water tanks, a waterfall stood in our way. It was approximately thirty feet high with a bypass on the right.





Periodically we noticed flat benches along the banks. I surmised that these could have been cabin locations, or spots prepared for cabins that were never built. One bench contained many scattered boulders, which possibly had formed a retaining wall or foundation now destroyed.



Another location still contained a couple rock walls.



We also detected signs of the old trail, but only small bits still exist, and they are in bad shape.



At some point the trail might have been a road, given the fact that we found this old tire in there.



In general, the scrambling was slow, and we had a few encounters with poison oak. Also, the ants decided to come out in force. But lots of beautiful watery scenery distracted us from the messy stuff.







After a couple hours we made it to the West Fork, took a meal break at Valley Forge Camp, and walked the fire road to Red Box saddle.

What happened in Woodwardia?

dima wrote: What happened in Woodwardia?

We headed down from the bridge and quickly came upon a large waterfall in a narrow slot. We couldn't find a safe bypass and scrambled back up to the road. I might put together a separate report later. But I'm waiting on some information related to another discovery in there.

I guess the only thing that makes sense is that there is a spring there and they were planning to pump water down to Valley Forge.

I was poking around some of this area and a few other spots near by this weekend. I found remnants of an oil burning stove, a knife, small glass bottles, and a few other relics. I got some video and a few pictures, but didn't post video from this spot. I'll share some images although I didn't get everything. It's not obvious how I can respond in quotes to part of the text from what you posted (do I just delete everything else?), but you can clearly see that the small rock structure is the same as one of the ones you shared. I was surprised to find this up that tributary since it wasn't obvious that there'd be any road coming from above or up from below. There was a bear trail that minimized the bushwhacking needed to access the ruins. I didn't go all the way up, but I may head up a little further in the future. I haven't really been in this area much since the Bobcat Fire even though much of it reopened a while back.

The road from above is clearly seen in the magic high-resolution DEM map:
No clear roads or trails below that. Were you looking for something specific? Or are you exploring every single canyon?

Wow, that DEM really does a good job at highlighting the road. I went down from Redbox to the West Fork Trail Camp with plans to make my way out to Cogswell since I haven't been out that way from above since before the Bobcat Fire, but when I got to the trail camp I didn't really feel like bushwhacking ~7-8 miles so I just went back up but poked around some of the tributaries. I was surprised to see these ruins out here. I also found the cabins on the trail between Valley Forge and Redbox, which was neat too, but I could see the lower ones from the fire road.

I saw little evidence for any road from below to this tributary, but I suspect these ruins may have been accessible from above at some point as the road at indicates. I saw a few other structures coming down the fire road across the canyon that I didn't recall seeing before the fire. It seems like a neat are to poke around. I have certainly found ruins in some strange places around the San Gabes, but conditions can change pretty quickly over ~100 years. I didn't know about the cabins either so that was a nice surprise. I'd like to do the Cogswell route again sometime, but I need to be in the mood for that sort of thing.

Going to Cogswell, are you just bushwhacking along the river until you get to the reservoir? How do you get out?

Pretty Much, there are no huge drops so it's mostly just saying on then west fork (going back the way I came). Last time I went it was a little overgrown in parts and very very dry. I have some pictures I actually pulled up recently. There was pretty much nothing in the reservoir. I think this was Fall 2018, but I had been in summer 2016 or 2017 before I lived here when I was visiting the spot with a friend (I don't remember the year), and there was a bunch of water then. I know that there's a lot more water flowing now, so I kind of want to check it out again. I've seen some drone flights over it too recently.

Here's the dam. I was confused about the reservoir (I just wasn't seeing any water), but it was all dry except for a small pubble. The soil was a little moist in parts. I had been from below before and had seem much more water in the past. Here's one of the west fork canyon once it clears up a little.

carl swindle wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2024 12:16 pm I was poking around some of this area and a few other spots near by this weekend. I found remnants of an oil burning stove, a knife, small glass bottles, and a few other relics...

Super cool

carl swindle wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2024 12:16 pmIt's not obvious how I can respond in quotes to part of the text from what you posted (do I just delete everything else?)...

Yes, you hit the "quote" reply and delete whatever bits you don't want between the quote tags. It's pretty straightforward when you're replying to one quote. It's trickier when you reply to a quote within a quote and have multiple quote tags to deal with. If you mess up don't worry about it, I can usually figure out what people intended and fix it.

Cool adventures!