Weather:  Moderate temperatures (low 90's) that day in the valley, a few clouds in the sky.
Present were:  Ron, K7RJ;  Brett, N7KG and wife Tina, KD7YVE;  Mike, K7DOU;  Gordon, K7HFV;  Clint, KA7OEI.
Destination:  To the "Donkey Engine" at the Prince of Wales Mine at the top of Silver Fork of Big Cottonwood Canyon, via Little Cottonwood Canyon.
Question of the day:  "Didn't we need to find the trail in the worst possible way?"
Total distance:   3.39 miles, round trip
Times:  Depart vehicle:  1857;  Ron, Mike and I found the main trail:  1918;  Reached junction with trail from the west:  1927;  Turned left below Grizzly Gulch to head to the pass at the top of Silver Fork:  1941;  Reached Silver Fork Pass:  1951;  Reached Prince of Wales Mine:  2004;  Went to pass overlooking Honeycomb fork:  2018;  Reach pass:  2027;  Left pass:  2041;  Returned to mine to take pictures:  2043:  Left mine to rejoin group:  2049;  Reached turnoff below Grizzly Gulch:  2102;  Returned to junction with trail from west:  2115;  Return to car:  2130
Altitudes in feet ASL (approx.) from GPS:  Vehicle:  9240;  Junction with trail from the west:  9460;  "Left turn" below Grizzly Gulch:  9740;  Pass at top of Silver Fork:  10050;  Prince of Wales Mine:  10120;  Pass above the mine:  10210
Elevation gain/loss (approx.):  970 ft.
Local sunset on this date:  8:32 PM - (We've lost 9 minutes of daylight since last week - about 30 minutes of sunlight since the solstice.)
 

Images (398-1136k each, .JPG):

• IMG02722 - Ron, Mike and Gordon on the old mining road below Grizzly Gulch - on the steep part.  (Brett and Tina may be seen in the background, farther down the trail.)
• IMG02723 - The Pfeifferhorn, as seen from the pass at the top of Silver Fork. #2724 is a zoomed-in view of the same.
• IMG02727 - Ron and Mike at the pass above the Prince of Wales mine.  Ron was, at that moment, talking to his wife Elaine (N7BDZ) who was across the country.
• IMG02730 - An odd conglomeration of plant life observed hugging the cliff behind the mine overlooking Honeycomb fork.  This appears to be some sort of flowering plant that has made its home in a pocket of moss.
• IMG02733 - Across the canyon, the clouds being underlit by the setting sun.
• IMG02734 - Across the top of Silver Fork and to the west:  The setting sun. Similar is #2739
• IMG02736 - The entire group:  Tina, Brett, Gordon, Ron, Mike and Clint. #2737 shows another attempt at taking a group picture - but several of the group (can you guess who?) began waving and dancing as soon as the camera's shutter opened for the 1-second exposure.
• IMG02740 - A view to the east, across the top of Honeycomb Fork, from the pass above the mine.  Clayton Peak is in the middle.
• IMG02741 - In silhouette, the remains of the 40 horsepower steam hoist (the "donkey engine") at the Prince of Wales mine.

Additional pictures:

• prince_of_wales_2005_pano2d1 (2.5 meg) - A panoramic view from the Prince of Wales Mine, 15 minutes after sunset.  (Very large image - it may not display properly on all browsers.)
• prince_of_wales_2005_pano3b (2.2 meg) - A wide-angle shot of the steam engine and the north and south vertical shafts.  (Very large image - it may not display properly on all browsers.)

Maps/profiles:

Note that GPS elevation data is sometimes a bit "ratty" due to frequent blockage and degradation of the satellite signal, particularly when the track is oriented to the north.

• The elevation profile of the hike
• A detailed map with the GPS track of the hike (plus surrounding landmarks)

With the waning daylight, we decided that this particular trip was a good fit between wanting something that was high elevation (cool) yet not so long that we would run out of daylight before getting to the destination.  Additionally, this trail follows old mining roads and is fairly well-defined, making it pretty safe and easy to follow in twilight or by flashlight.

In the past, we have usually parked near the Alta city offices and gone past them, up the road, and then traversed along the old mining road into the mouth of Grizzly Gulch.  Gordon suggested, this time, that we intercept the trail slightly higher up the Albion Basin road.  The problem was that none of us had started from there before and had only vaguely remembered the trailhead being present, passing it on past trips to Albion Basin.  Gordon remembered that it was "Just past the last house..." so we drove up the road, passed the last house, not seeing an obvious trailhead, and soon we knew that we'd gone too far.  At this point, we turned around, parked along the road where we'd seen people taking pictures of and in the large field of wildflowers, and presumed that if we started up and toward the fork that we knew led to our destination, we would eventually cross the trail.

I started up the hill, followed by Ron and Mike, while Gordon, Brett and Tina stayed a bit lower.  As we traversed, Gordon found the trail first all of us (eventually, with varying degrees of difficulty...) intercepted the well-established trail up the fork to Grizzly Gulch.  The high path that Ron, Mike and I took crossed several abandoned mine portals, but did not intercept the trail until we dropped down, following a vague game trail and losing some of our gained elevation, and joined it.  (This explains the "question of the day...)

Proceeding along the trail (which seemed also to be the maintenance road for the powerlines that cross Twin Lakes pass, if not an old mining road) we joined the road that came along the other side of the canyon (the trail more familiar to us) and, after noting this junction, we proceeded up Grizzly Gulch.  Just before entering the Gulch, our path veered to the left and followed the road that led to the head of Silver Fork.  At this point, one follows the trail to the right (and up) to get to the remnants of the Prince of Wales mine.

There are two parallel roads that lead to the "Donkey Engine" (a 40 horsepower steam engine used to operate the mine hoist) and either one will lead to the mine, although the lower one requires a slight climb at the far end.  The mine shafts themselves have been covered with grates (as they are vertical pits that have vertical drops of between 40 and 60 feet onto rubble) to prevent any hapless soul from falling into them.  Apparently, a hoist was present in both shafts (possibly counterbalancing each other) but only the southern shaft has any evidence of the hoist rope's sheaves remaining.

Shortly after reaching the site of the mine (and staring into the vertical shafts) the group reconvened on a pass just above (and to the south) of the mine, overlooking Honeycomb Fork.  From this vantage point we watched the warm colors of the waning sun playing against the clouds that were in the west as well as taking the requisite group pictures.

A few minutes after sunset, the group departed and I returned to the mine to take a few pictures, catching up with the group again a few minutes later.  Because of our experience on the way up, we had made careful mental notes of the junction at which we were to turn to follow back the trail up which we had come.  Following the trail back down, we easily followed it back down to the main road to Albion Basin and noted its location (by the "last house" - near a "Dip" sign) and that if we'd driven a few hundred feet further back down the road, we would have likely spotted it.

Gordon and I had ridden up with Ron in his topless, doorless Jeep and experienced a bracing cool wind on the way down.  After returning to our traditional meeting place, Gordon, Mike and I wandered over to our traditional Dime Lime at the TGI Friday's at the Cottonwood Mall.
 

The Prince of Wales mine was largely developed after 1870 by the Walker brothers, who also owned the claim to the Wellington tunnel (just down the hill below the Prince of Wales mine in the clearing near the top of Silver Fork where remnants of a 20 horsepower steam engine may be seen) and constructed a pipeline of more than a mile in length, mostly underground, to feed the steam engine at both locations.  The source of water were some springs in Grizzly Gulch (just below Twin Lakes Pass) with the pipeline going up the slope and then following the contour across to the pass at the top of Silver Fork, the entire system being fed by a 15 horsepower steam-driven pump at the spring.  Apparently, the entire roadway from Grizzly Gulch to the pass at the top of Silver Fork had been covered by a snowshed to protect it from avalanches - a length of approximately 1800 feet.  What remains of the Prince of Wales mine are pieces of the 40 horsepower steam engine that drove the mine hoist.  Originally, this machinery was housed in a 20 by 50 foot two-story building (with the engine in the lower level) that completely covered both shafts and provided protection against the frequent snowslides from above.

This mine was also tied in with the Wellington Tunnel (the one just below it) as well as the Annie and Antelope Tunnels (also owned by the Walkers) in Honeycomb fork and some remnants of this road can still be followed as it winds around and drops into Honeycomb.

The Prince of Wales mine was one of the more successful of the mines in the Wasatch, operating in one form or another until the mid 1930's and its main product was Galena (lead sulfate) as well as lead carbonates such as Cerussite, and various copper-bearing minerals such as Malachite.

Comments:

• Some of these images - particularly those taken near the time of sunset-  are fairly strongly cast yellow/orange.  This is due to the atmosphere being very hazy because of large fires in the western U.S.
• If you want one (or more) of these images and wish some sort of adjustment (color, brightness, exposure, etc.) please let me know:  All of these image have been processed in some way.
• These images are in chronological order.
• No-one ever said that all of these images (or any of them) were good.  Some of them may have definite focus/exposure "issues."
• EXIF data is present for most of the images, showing time, date, and precise exposure conditions.  Recent versions of Irfanview will show this in the "View->Image Information->EXIF" tab.  Note that cropping/noise reduction required the use of another program which may have removed some/most of this EXIF data.
• Images suffixed with "h" (if any) are half-size.  This was done for images that were somewhat out of focus (due to misfocus or camera/subject movement associated with long shutter times) or those that required some extra noise reduction and had lost some detail anyway.
• All images taken using a Sigma SD-10 camera and were taken using the 18-50mm zoom lens, except as noted in the EXIF data.

Go to the 2005 Wednesday Night Hike page, or main Wednesday Night Hike index page.