Mine Tailings Picture of the Week

With this posting, we’ve completed this month’s photo excursion of Castle Hot Springs Road. The detour north of State Route 74 started with almost prairie-like flat desert adjacent to the Wickenburg range. Then the road ascended into the Buckhorn Range with a magnificent view of the Bradshaw’s. Next, our back road dropped down to Castle Creek through the Hieroglyphic Mountains past the hot springs resort. Finally, we returned to asphalt at Lake Pleasant where we saw vast groves of saguaros growing on the mountain slopes (I put that in my mental filing cabinet for a future outing).

There was one scene along the way that wasn’t quite ripe enough to shoot when I first drove by it, so I wanted to backtrack and see if it improved with the warm afternoon sun. It did, and it is this week’s featured image which I call Mine Tailings.

Mine Tailings - Tailings comprised of red soil caught my eye because of the color and erosion pattern.
Mine Tailings – Tailings comprised of red soil caught my eye because of the color and erosion pattern.

I don’t know if there are an inordinate number of mines in Yavapai County, but it seems like they’re everywhere. A few hearty souls—that either suffer from unrelenting gold fever or have nothing better to do—still work the claims, but most of the mines are abandoned. When the ore runs dry, the prospectors move on in search of the next elusive bonanza. Because there’s no economic incentive to restore the claim, abandoned mines are left unposted and are often dangerous. Just this year, rescuers have pulled a couple of people trapped in mine shafts. It’s a growing Arizona problem.

One of the tells of an old mine is the tailings. As prospectors tunnel into a mountainside, they have to remove the diggings and pile them somewhere. In massive operations, fleets of trucks build hundred-foot-tall dikes, like the one that used to line Highway 60 in Miami, Arizona. But with smaller claims of one or two men, they will fill a wheelbarrow and walk it outside and dump it over the edge, building a tailings dump; the deeper the mine, the bigger the tailings.

The thing that makes the tailings in this week’s photo interesting to me is that they’re red, and the late afternoon sun exaggerates that color. The red against the blue sky vibrates my eyeballs. There’s more that we can learn from the image, like how old it is. The erosion patterns are deep from many seasons of heavy rain, and its fan pattern is reminiscent of what you see in the Painted Desert. In both cases, water easily cut through soft soil. Finally, dirt and rock that comes out of a shaft is well below the topsoil level, so it’s not rich in nutrients. Here, the desert Mesquite has begun to colonize the hillside, so the soil contains some organic material already.

You can see a larger version of Mine Tailings on its Web Page by clicking here. Be sure to come back next week when we set off for another adventure exploring Arizona’s back roads.

Until next time — jw

Big Hell’s Gate Picture of the Week

Castle Hot Springs Road’s loop north of Arizona State Route 74 passes three small desert mountain ranges. Driving the road from west to east, first, we skirt the Wickenburg Range, which you can see out of the driver-side window. Shortly after that, the highway began to weave through the Buckhorn Range and past the picture stops, about which I wrote the last two weeks. Just around the bend from the AD Wash Gap, our back road climbs a sharp grade to a ridgeline—the highest point along our journey. There are great views once we reach the top, so a photography stop is imperative.

It was hard to decide where to look when I got out of the truck because there was so much to see. To the north are Castle Creek Basin, Sheep Mountains, and the Bradshaw’s on the distant horizon. This was the only image I took and brought home on my first visit. Of course, I shot with film then and was stingy about wasting it.

View From The Ridge–you can see the Sheep and Bradshaw Mountains in the north from the high point along the Castle Hot Springs Road.

If you turn around and face south, however, you have a great view of Hells Canyon Wilderness and our third range of mountains—the Hieroglyphic Mountains. The Castle Hot Springs Road encircles the wilderness and even passes through a corner along its eastern flank. From this viewpoint, you can see into it and feel like you could reach out and touch it; you can’t get there from here (thanks again, Yogi). Because the wilderness area abuts private property on its north and east sides, you have to hike in on trails from the south or west. Here, there are signs clearly stating, “No Trespassing. No Hunting. No Hiking. Don’t even think about it.”

Big Hell's Gate--An excelent view into the Hell's Canyon Wilderness area with Big Hell's Gate in front of Hellgate Mountain.
Big Hell’s Gate–An excellent view into the Hell’s Canyon Wilderness area with Big Hell’s Gate posing in front of Hellgate Mountain.

I took this week’s picture from this ridge, about halfway back down the hill, to avoid telephone lines. There are several 3000′ peaks in Hells Canyon Wilderness, Governor’s Peak, Garfias Mountain, and the one seen here—Hellgate Mountain. They surround a Burro Flat basin that provides solitude isolated from metropolitan Phoenix.

The gap in the basalt ridge is Big Hell’s Gate, which is the same Bitter Creek ground away we drove through two weeks ago. The creek flows through the gap, then off to the left, gouging another slot called Little Hells Gate. I’ve not been fortunate enough to have seen or photographed it, but maybe someday. As they say in car racing, “As long as there’s movement, there’s hope.

Click here to see a larger version of Big Hells Gate on its Web Page. Be sure to return next week when we see another beautiful stop I made on my Castle Hot Spring Road outing.

Until next time — jw