Anniversary Trip: the Vulcan Mine

Given that we had a good camping spot by the dunes with the only tree for miles, we figured we might as well stay another night, and spend the day riding our bikes on nearby dirt roads.  This way we could leave the van behind to hold our spot.

It also gave us an opportunity to leave out the scavenged solar panels we had gotten from a friend to charge up our fridge battery while we rode.

I noticed while perusing the map over breakfast that there was a nearby mine we could ride to.  While the guidebook suggested a specific driving route, I saw that there was another road on my map that looked like it essentially made a beeline from the main road up to the mine rather than backtracking a couple of miles to the suggested road.  The shortcut looked to be a very straight road, going right where we wanted.

Beware of very straight roads.  Especially ones labelled "Pipeline Road".  Even if you think you can see that it goes gently up the alluvial fan to the mine in the base of a nearby mountain. 

Logic to support the above assertion:

(1) Pipeline roads are straight, and rarely make any concession to underlying topography.

(2)  Alluvial fans often have washes coming down them.

(3) You will inevitably find yourself crossing washes, even if you think you are going directly up the fan and therefore shouldn't need to cross any washes.  In reality, you will be going up the fan at a slight angle to the ubiquitous washes and will need to cross all of them.

(4)  Above is true even if you think you can see the entire road all the way up from the bottom.  The landscape is big and the sneaky washes hide from your view.

(5)  Alluvial fans increase in gradient as you go up them.  This increase is more pronounced the further you go up.  Think exponential increase of hill gradient.

(6) Washes are deeper on steeper slopes.  Combined with (5), this means the drops into the washes and the climbs out of the washes get harder the further up the alluvial fan you go (and the more tired you are).

And just for good measure,

(7)  The increasingly evil washes become more frequent the further up you go, so not only is it harder to go across them, but there are also more of them lying in wait to eat you up.

The end result was that our climb started benign, then got gradually steeper with a few washes to cross. The wash crossings continued to escalate in size and frequency until we were stuck on a never-ending series of steep drops followed by steeper climbs back out the other side, all overlaid on top of the general climb.  And when I say steep, I mean in excess of 20% grade on loose sandy dirt by the end of it.  Steep enough that I doesn't want to ride either up or down those bits.  I did a bit of walking, hoping that each section would be the last.  I mean, I could *see* where I was going just up ahead, and any given stretch would look like smooth sailing until right on top of the next wash to cross.  Over and over again.  Sigh.   The top that was "just ahead" was misleadingly far away.  

The climb topped out only about 1000 feet higher than where we started, but it was the toughest 1000 feet ever.

Eventually, we did make it up to the top, went around the corner, and popped out at the Vulcan Mine site.  I was finally allowed to eat lunch :)

After a snack, we poked around a bit on foot.  The Vulcan Mine was one of the richer mines in the area, and unlike many others, was an iron mine with a big pit.

They clearly didn't want people poking around in the pit, so one had to poke one's camera through the fence to get a good picture.

Interesting dense chunks of iron minerals dotted the ground, and numerous concrete foundations of old structures from the mining era peeked out from behind clumps of bushes.  It would actually make an interesting spot to camp.  And people do camp here; we found the usual detritus of broken bottles, as well as a neatly stacked cache of firewood.

We chose to go back down the "long way" -- the suggested route in the book -- and it turned out to actually follow the fall line down the fan, avoiding the worst of the sawtooth wash topography we encountered on the way up.  Perhaps there was a reason it was recommended...

Chad, posing with my bike, just because he could.

There were some bumps and soft spots in the road going down.  Chad rides downhill faster than me, but every now and again I'd catch up to him.  He kept stopping to pick up "treasures" -- lights that clearly had fallen off of people's trucks as they drove up this way previously.  So now we have treasures.

At one point, Chad found a nice full-sized shovel next to a sandy spot in the road.  Someone must have gotten stuck there, and then forgotten to grab their shovel after getting unstuck.  Sadly, that treasure would have been hard to carry on the bike given that we still had about 8 miles back to camp, so we left it to help the next person who might get stuck there. 

As we came down the hill, there was a nice view of the Kelso Dunes.

Looking back up the road from its terminus at the main road.  Despite the "not maintained" sign, this is clearly the way to go if you want to get up to the mine.  Next time I will not be fooled by the pipeline road shortcut.

Back at camp, we found restorative beverages in the cooler, made some dinner, and settled in to watch the sunset over the dunes.

The blurry flying critter is a bat.  You'll have to take my word for it, as he wouldn't sit still for the camera.  He visited us both nights, and was one more fine feature of this area.