Ghosts of the Past: The Simpson Mine (Part 3)

 Happy Halloween! 

Continuing from the last blog entry, this is the same room I showed the newspaper article. I am standing with my back to where the newspaper was.

A room nearby that had some beds in it. One thing to think about is how did these people live during the winter?! There were heaters used, but being up at almost ten thousand feet on a mountain side can be very cold. I walked around these rooms and some were pitch black and spooky. You can see what I am talking about if you watch the video.

These buildings had more machinery in them for use with the mine.

For example, this is what is in the building above:

I do not recall the gate being up last time I was there. I believe this has been added to keep people away from the mining hole that appeared to be collapsing some and sinking...the best I can describe it...from last time I was there.

Okay! I want to emphasize that this series of blogs about this mine was to build to this GoPro video. It is long at about 23 minutes. So you might want to save it until you have the right time to watch it all at once. If you have a fast connection, can watch it at 4K on a bigger TV screen, then I would suggest turning off the lights and enjoy. Originally, I had music playing through most of the video, but decided it did not work. So, I hope you enjoy this video as much as I did making it:

The Ghost Mine Above Lee Vining 2.0 (Youtube)

I will keep the prior video up which might be a good thing seeing how this one had a different weather condition to it. Tomorrow I will link to an unlisted video for the drive down. My unlisted videos are sort of "throw away" videos that I put up as extras, but do not put as much time into nor care as much about. Kind of like Blu-Rays or Dvds that have extras on them.

Ghosts of the Past: The Simpson Mine (Part 2)

 Continuing my "Ghosts" series with part two of the Simpson Mine. In the past most of my pictures were showing the exteriors of the mine. This time I wanted to show more of the insides of the structures. 

The following building is the lower building of two others. This structure is connected by stairs.

As you can see here the stairs lead into darker rooms. The first room is a bathroom and shower area. 

Then after some more stairs there are a bunch of open rooms. 

I assume that this would be living quarters or recreation rooms for some of the workers. 

The following is in a totally different building below than this building I am showing, but it has an odd story. I ran across this newspaper from circa 1990ish someone appeared to be reading. 

It was a twilight zone moment for me because it was talking about a high school game three hundred miles away near my home. At where I am typing this out right now I am within walking distance of both the schools and the stadium it was played out. It is always weird to me when two things that appear to have no connection to each other create a coincidence like that. 

This is the room I found the paper in. The newspaper was being used, by that article above was put aside as if someone was reading it. The Twilight Zone theme was playing in my head.

Again, if you have want to watch the drive to the mine go here:

Offroad Drive (Ascending Log Cabin Mine Road)

I will continue this in Part 3 tomorrow. 

Ghosts of the Past: The Simpson Mine (Part 1)

We are a few days within Halloween so I decided to get this part up of the "Ghosts of the Past" series. Again, this is another area I have shown on this blog before. The emphasis is really on the GoPro video that will be public on Oct. 31st., but I do have a lot of pictures I want to show so let's go...

I have talked about the history of the Simpson mine before so I will not do that here, but link to a blog I did before that talks about it below. The deal with this mine it is on a mountain above the town of Lee Vining and Mono Lake. It is really isolated, and the time I was there I was the only one exploring the mine. Getting to the mine is difficult because you do need a 4-wheel drive or high clearance vehicle. This year was a little tougher because of the snow melt that made the roads a lot messier at certain places.

When I arrived the weather was overcast, and it would start raining on the way down. I was sort of disappointed at the time, but then realized it would probably be the best atmosphere for a Halloween video. I walked down the road and soon came across the main structure of the mine.

Turning to my right:

The following pictures emphasize part of the main structure:

Notice the part of the structure that is lifted up:

This would be the inside. In the video I walk all the way up and back. I was careful, but wondered how dangerous it really was. It appeared safe for what I do. Standard disclaimer that I am not responsible for what others do. If someone does go up this thing make sure someone else is nearby. 

I walked further down the road. There is a series of buildings that are connected on the left side that I entered. That will be the next blog entry.

One of things I did was take GoPro video of the drive up to the mine. This video is almost twenty minutes long. It covers just about all of the drive except for a minute or so. If you are into offroad driving videos here it is:

Offroad Drive (Ascending Log Cabin Mine Road)

The Ghost Mine Above Lee Vining (Blog with the history of the Simpson Mine)

The Ghost Mine Above Lee Vining

The Ghost of Christmas Past appears to have shown up for this video:



1)The Log Cabin Mine

So, it had been about nine years since I had been back to this mine. I’ll link to what I did then below, but this mine was one of my early blog entries going back to 2006. Over the years I have had some feedback about it or someone asking me if I had heard of this mine using a different name. I had known of it as the Simpson Mine which goes back a hundred years to the surname of who had the rights to the mine.

Over 40 years ago the Boy Scouts of America were given the property. So, one of the names I had been given was “The Boy Scout Mine”. Finally, “The Log Cabin Mine” is what it is known as today.

I knew the basic history of this mining area, but these names threw me off a little when people would ask me about it. There are signs off of Tioga Pass with those names, but I just wasn't making the connection and just had forgotten when people would ask me using those names. In any case, they all refer to the same place.

You can find more pictures I took here if you care to see more of them:

The Log Cabin Mine (Flickr)

Let me give you the quick version of this mine’s history.

Since the mine is a little out of the way from civilization on a rough road and at almost 10,000 ft. it does not get too many visitors. It’s protected by the government so that’s why it is still mostly intact with a lot of “junk” lying around. No, one cannot take anything.

It was the most productive gold mine in California from 1910 until World War 2. At that time the operations had to stop since gold was not allowed to be mined since silver, iron, and zinc were needed for the war effort. After the war the gold standard kept the price of gold so low that the expenses to keep the mine going outweighed any chance of making a profit. The mine was maintained with hope the day would come that the price of gold would go up. The property was eventually given to the Boy Scouts. During Nixon’s presidency the gold standard was lifted, but none of the companies that leased the mine from the Boy Scouts ever were successful. The U.S. Forest Service acquired the property in 1991, but there is still gold there.

My original blog entries on this one can be found here:
The Simpson Mine

If you have more interest in this one then a really easy to read book can be found on Amazon:
Gold Mine in the Sky

2)Blog Year in Review 2014

This is the lowest output I have ever had for this blog with only six entries this year. I could have even had one less had I thought I did not need to address the new e-mail issue. This is the way I like it these days. I want to focus on quality and not rush projects.

This was the first year I don’t think I ever went out actively looking for some movie location to go to. There are some spots that I want to visit, but that is a matter of being inspired to do that and hoping the conditions are right for that.

Even hiking this year was a let down. The Death Valley hike I posted about on Halloween was probably the highlight of the year for me, but I intended to do some others. One of the big problems I had was Yosemite was on fire again! It’s really frustrating to do all this planning over months to a year in advance and then that happens while I am there. I actually did do an easy mountain climb, but it’s not worth posting since the smoke was really bad when viewing from the top. I intended to go back and do it again, but then Yosemite had another fire so I just gave up.

So, I am kind of glad 2014 is over in this regard. When the conditions were that bad I just had to put my interests into other things. I believe I will have a little more activity in 2015 on here.

So, until then have a Happy New Year!

The music from Incompetech.com that used for the video is Tempting Secrets and Satiate.

The Simpson Mine Part 2

(GPS: N 37 58.746, W 119 10.577)

This is the main structure at the Simpson Mine. It was definitely interesting to see this at a higher altitude.

The Simpson Mine Part 1

(GPS: N 37 58.746, W 119 10.577)

After my hike to the previous entries area, I walked about five minutes to the northwest to the Simpson Mine. It is one of those areas that remains somewhat a secret in the High Sierra. As I mentioned in the last entry the people in the town of Lee Vining tell me they do not like too many people going up there because they are concerned about the dirt road being destroyed by vehicles. The other thing is people are concerned about the artifacts being stolen by thieves. The area is protected by the U.S. Government so do not even try.

The area reminds me a bit of Bodie ghost town. A lot of the structures have stood the test of time through the years of harsh weather conditions. Originally gold was found up here around 1890. Although a claim was filed later, a man named Jim Simpson purchased the mine around 1910. Simpson along with his brothers worked on the mine as much as they could, but during the rough winter months they had to stop. Eventually, the mine was purchased by different companies a few times. Most of what is seen now is what remains during the 1930's era.
I took a lot of pictures of the area. What I have posted here are some of the complete structures away from the main building. I will do a write up of the main building with pictures in the next entry.