EISPIRATEN

This hike sucked? Dima and I wanted to hurt ourselves this saturday so we just wandered off trail looking for mines and almost stepping on rattlesnakes in the blazing heat. If I could compare this experience to last week's hike to Alder Crag, this one was more uncomfortable and painful.
We parked at pinecrest gate at 6:30am and my gracious mother gave us a ride up to Eaton Saddle where we began on the road. We went around mt. lowe and up some gully to look for the first mine.... there was no mine.


We continued on to inspiration point, wandered down 1 man 1 mule which was boring cuz where was the mule? I wanted to see a mule?! so we went back but decided to not go down the idlehour trail but down a 1200ft gully that eventually meets with the idlehour. This wasn't smart. I immediately was bleeding from a jab and a cut on my right hand and shortly after, Dima started gushing blood from his ring finger. This was where we started feeling the pain and despair of our decisions but it doesn't end here. We scrambled down this loose ass gully which eventually produced a little creek! then, I almost stepped on a little rattlesnake that just decided not to use it's rattler that evolution GAVE TO HIM SO THAT HE CAN WARN PEOPLE?!

\\SIDE RANT//
Me: walking along, barely able to see the actual dirt of a dense gully. Carefully placing every step while also trying to maintain balance.
Lazy-ass Snake with a rattler: "I see you coming over here! You need to see me! I don't rattle for NO MAN! Woah, don't step there! I will kill you if you do!"
Me: Notices snake, screams, and jumps away right before placing foot


Anyways, when we eventually met with the idlehour trail, we were relieved to stand on flat ground but we couldn't rest because there was 1 more mine to look for! Did we find a mine? there was no mine....
We pushed on and left trail again to hike up a ridge to look for another mine. This ridge sucked. I immediately took a break on an anthill and got bit everywhere which hurt like hell. We pushed up a bit and then gave up. (my mind is in pain just writing this trip report.) That feeling of lots of sweat mixed with specs of dirt and brush on your skin was starting to happen. It was a blur. Dima set an FA on a boulder that we found. Solid V-Easy slab. Go climb it here: https://www.mountainproject.com/route/1 ... la-shaft-1

oh yeah.... there was no mine

We met with the idlehour trail and ended up in eaton canyon proper where we took a much needed dip in one of the pools. You can visually see the despair in our eyes here. We decided not to stay on trail for long, so we took the canyon bottom to the telephone trail. This part was a blur but it wasn't that bad compared to everything else. The flies were out and the spiders were making webs so I became a webby mess.

We eventually made it to the fireroad and began back to our cars. Dima and I talked about life and the presidential debate. idk, the road was okay i guess. we wished we had bikes. ended the night with connals

oh yeah
there were no mines. we found no mines after all those detours. but was it all for nothing?

to top things off, dima georeferenced our mine map and found that mine was off by maybe 400ish feet, so we will go back one day...

One Man and a Mule was not very popular. Apparently there was a problem with exhaust fumes from the engine. (Seriously, I think I read this in a description somewhere...didn't make it up.)

EDIT:: Here it is, near the end of the article: The One Man and a Mule Railway

Sounds like you had a good time.

It was nice. Really makes you appreciate trails, when you got em.

Well, if I had to miss an adventure, I guess this one was a decent choice!

I've learned the front range in that area is generally brutal when you get off trail... sounds like you have more evidence supporting that theory now...

So you looked for 3 different mines? Were your coordinates off by 400ft for *all* of them?

Matt's trying to find very old mines (which may never have existed, and which may not exist anymore) using very old, and not-entirely-clear maps. I don't think there was an expectation that we would actually find anything on this trip. But we just did a bit more mapping work, and now have a better idea where to look next time. For instance, the below looks like an old hole in the ground, right? Might even be man-made! Doesn't look very exporable, but if that's man-made, then it gives us confidence in the new map!

I don't have a screenshot on me right now but lidar scans confirm this as being a hole!