Allison Mine to Iron Mountain
Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2019 12:43 am
I'm coming out of winter hibernation, and it's time to go climb things again! Yesterday I watched a documentary about the Barkley Marathons, so today I went out and completed a mini-marathon of my own. My route was about 10% of the Barkley race in both distance and gain, yet I'm more than 10% tired. Need more training.
I vaguely recalled that people have tried to summit Iron Mt from the Allison Mine area. Looking at the map, the route is fairly clear: get to the mine somehow, climb up to point 6243 (via a ridge from the S or from the SW), then follow the ridgeline to the peak. Straightforward-enough. I didn't even bother to dig up the old TRs, and started walking at 7:30 this morning.
The water level in the East Fork is higher than usual, and unsurprisingly, the log bridges aren't there anymore. Each crossing requires a wade in the river. The "equipped" crossings have a rope strung across the river to make it easier to not get swept away. Very helpful.
I walked up to the mouth of Allison Gulch, and walked in. Lots of water there too, but more manageable. Looks like this:
You leave the creekbed in an area where the channel opens up
Next to this thing:
What is it? If you pay attention, the trail is clear on the left, complete with a pink flag
The OSM map accurately calls out the trail up to the mine. There are a number of switchbacks, and the trail is in decent shape. It doesn't get a lot of use, and it's easy to make a wrong turn in a few places. But there're a number of cairns and pink flags. And I suspect the various forks simply serve to cut a switchback, and they all go to the same place. Soon I was on top, traversing towards the mine. My visual landmark here is the big square ore hopper at this site. I didn't see it this time, and ended up walking too far: this pair of waterfalls is above the mine site:
Confused, I looked at a map, and blindly went to where it said the adits were. It told me to go somewhere that felt wrong, but sure enough, I arrived at a river of tailings with two clear adits above:
When I walked to the base I discovered that there were several more adits at ground level in this same area. I poked my head into the first few, but they were short, exploratory digs. The next had some rails ending abruptly at a spot where the adit descends
I followed this tunnel to discover that it goes all the way through, and has a second exit. I popped out on the other side of this minor ridge, at the main adit above the ore hopper. The reason I missed this thing on the way up is that it's not standing anymore, and is now comprised of a less obvious pile of rubble
I poked around some more of the shafts. Some of them are quite long, but none are very interesting: no obvious artifacts or any interesting geology inside. These are just a hole in the ground. Eventually I got back to the task at hand. From the first mine site, the slope I would be climbing was visible:
Looks kinda painful, but things often look different when you're standing right on top of them. So I went up to the ridge, found a stable-looking rock slide, and continued the climb
This looks steep, but far less so than what it looked like from across the creek. The rocks in this slide were larger than what I'd call "scree", but still small-enough to move around. If they were just a hair bigger, it'd be perfect. This was good-enough however. A bit above the mine level was another traverse trail with some cut yuccas:
This MIGHT be the old trail to the Stanley-Miller mine. I tried to follow it for a bit, but it was very overgrown. Coming back with this being the goal could be interesting. In any case, I went up. The adits looks like this from above
Eventually the slide I was climbing ended in brush. It looked like the rocks above get uncomfortably steep, so I contoured West towards the SW ridge up to point 6243. Brush was a problem in spots, and the terrain wasn't ideal, but this wasn't terrible. Once on the ridge it's brushy at first, but that clears up at ~ 5000ft:
I'm climbing up the ridge on the left, and you can see the big, final ridge further away on the right. I want to say that one of those bumps is point 7504, and that neither are the peak, but I haven't bothered to check. Before point 6243 some of the brush comes back. This is the final climb to 6243:
From 6243, the climb up to 7504 looks like this:
The beginning of this climb is the brushiest section of the route. Even that isn't terrible, though. There's a clear line in most spots. At about 7200ft the ridge from Stanley-Miller mine comes in.
I've been here before climbing up from Stanley-Miller. Climb to 7504:
Above that you can finally see the peak. And there's some patchy snow (sparse and easily avoidable).
Soon past that I summitted
Took a break, ate some food, and started the long slog back to the car, following the good trail on the South Ridge. From about 4000ft is a pretty good view of the day's route:
The bump on the left is point 6243, and the bump to the right of the notch is point 7504.
My review of this ridge is that it's really not terrible. It's long and steep, as should be expected, given this is Iron Mt. I'd say there was lots and lots of class 2 climbing, with a few class 3 sections. There weren't many of them, and they maybe could be bypassable; I didn't try. Similar with brush: some areas were brushy, but there weren't that many. This route is similar in difficulty to the ascent from Stanley-Miller. I haven't done the North ridge, so ask somebody else about it
Oh, and I looked up the older trip reports:
allison-mine-loop-or-failed-attempt-on- ... t5740.html
https://www.summitpost.org/iron-mountai ... ion/380222
These describe much hairier outings, so YMMV.
I vaguely recalled that people have tried to summit Iron Mt from the Allison Mine area. Looking at the map, the route is fairly clear: get to the mine somehow, climb up to point 6243 (via a ridge from the S or from the SW), then follow the ridgeline to the peak. Straightforward-enough. I didn't even bother to dig up the old TRs, and started walking at 7:30 this morning.
The water level in the East Fork is higher than usual, and unsurprisingly, the log bridges aren't there anymore. Each crossing requires a wade in the river. The "equipped" crossings have a rope strung across the river to make it easier to not get swept away. Very helpful.
I walked up to the mouth of Allison Gulch, and walked in. Lots of water there too, but more manageable. Looks like this:
You leave the creekbed in an area where the channel opens up
Next to this thing:
What is it? If you pay attention, the trail is clear on the left, complete with a pink flag
The OSM map accurately calls out the trail up to the mine. There are a number of switchbacks, and the trail is in decent shape. It doesn't get a lot of use, and it's easy to make a wrong turn in a few places. But there're a number of cairns and pink flags. And I suspect the various forks simply serve to cut a switchback, and they all go to the same place. Soon I was on top, traversing towards the mine. My visual landmark here is the big square ore hopper at this site. I didn't see it this time, and ended up walking too far: this pair of waterfalls is above the mine site:
Confused, I looked at a map, and blindly went to where it said the adits were. It told me to go somewhere that felt wrong, but sure enough, I arrived at a river of tailings with two clear adits above:
When I walked to the base I discovered that there were several more adits at ground level in this same area. I poked my head into the first few, but they were short, exploratory digs. The next had some rails ending abruptly at a spot where the adit descends
I followed this tunnel to discover that it goes all the way through, and has a second exit. I popped out on the other side of this minor ridge, at the main adit above the ore hopper. The reason I missed this thing on the way up is that it's not standing anymore, and is now comprised of a less obvious pile of rubble
I poked around some more of the shafts. Some of them are quite long, but none are very interesting: no obvious artifacts or any interesting geology inside. These are just a hole in the ground. Eventually I got back to the task at hand. From the first mine site, the slope I would be climbing was visible:
Looks kinda painful, but things often look different when you're standing right on top of them. So I went up to the ridge, found a stable-looking rock slide, and continued the climb
This looks steep, but far less so than what it looked like from across the creek. The rocks in this slide were larger than what I'd call "scree", but still small-enough to move around. If they were just a hair bigger, it'd be perfect. This was good-enough however. A bit above the mine level was another traverse trail with some cut yuccas:
This MIGHT be the old trail to the Stanley-Miller mine. I tried to follow it for a bit, but it was very overgrown. Coming back with this being the goal could be interesting. In any case, I went up. The adits looks like this from above
Eventually the slide I was climbing ended in brush. It looked like the rocks above get uncomfortably steep, so I contoured West towards the SW ridge up to point 6243. Brush was a problem in spots, and the terrain wasn't ideal, but this wasn't terrible. Once on the ridge it's brushy at first, but that clears up at ~ 5000ft:
I'm climbing up the ridge on the left, and you can see the big, final ridge further away on the right. I want to say that one of those bumps is point 7504, and that neither are the peak, but I haven't bothered to check. Before point 6243 some of the brush comes back. This is the final climb to 6243:
From 6243, the climb up to 7504 looks like this:
The beginning of this climb is the brushiest section of the route. Even that isn't terrible, though. There's a clear line in most spots. At about 7200ft the ridge from Stanley-Miller mine comes in.
I've been here before climbing up from Stanley-Miller. Climb to 7504:
Above that you can finally see the peak. And there's some patchy snow (sparse and easily avoidable).
Soon past that I summitted
Took a break, ate some food, and started the long slog back to the car, following the good trail on the South Ridge. From about 4000ft is a pretty good view of the day's route:
The bump on the left is point 6243, and the bump to the right of the notch is point 7504.
My review of this ridge is that it's really not terrible. It's long and steep, as should be expected, given this is Iron Mt. I'd say there was lots and lots of class 2 climbing, with a few class 3 sections. There weren't many of them, and they maybe could be bypassable; I didn't try. Similar with brush: some areas were brushy, but there weren't that many. This route is similar in difficulty to the ascent from Stanley-Miller. I haven't done the North ridge, so ask somebody else about it
Oh, and I looked up the older trip reports:
allison-mine-loop-or-failed-attempt-on- ... t5740.html
https://www.summitpost.org/iron-mountai ... ion/380222
These describe much hairier outings, so YMMV.
