Information sign at the Cardiff Fork trailhead.
Click on image for a larger version.

Images (.JPG format):

• IMG04954 - A view up-canyon from near the trailhead, showing the clouds swirling about the peak.
• IMG04955 - Mike, inspecting flowers.  #4959b is a close-up of these flowers - believed to be a relative of the Sticky Geranium (possibly a hybrid between the Sticky Geranium and Richardson's Geranium.)  #4962b is the flower of a Monkshood, found a short distance up the trail from the Geranium.  Sorry for the odd-looking pictures:  A combination of the darkness from the weather and the fact that the flowers were swaying in the wind made getting sharp pictures difficult, so I had to de-motion-blur them after the fact.
  
• IMG04963 - Mike, dropping down to the stream just below Doughnut Falls.
• IMG04966 - A view upstream toward the falls.  A considerable amount of rock has fallen into the watercourse from the wall bounding the west side of the stream (on the right-hand side of the picture.)
• IMG04969 - Another view of the debris across the watercourse, with the "Doughnut" visible near the top of the picture.
• IMG04973 - The "Doughnut" itself.  Water can just be seen exiting the doughnut in the shade below the water's entry point.
• IMG04977 - More of the cloud-obscured head of the canyon.
• IMG04979 - A fairly young bull moose, happily grazing as we walked past.  #4983 is similar.
• IMG04985 - A wide-field view of the upper portion of Cardiff Fork, showing the dumps from the Howell and Meadow tunnels.  The Cardiff ore bins are just visible behind the trees.
• IMG04986 - Gordon and Mike, with the Cardiff ore bin in the background.  #4989 shows the remains of the now-collapsed Howell Tunnel portal.
  
• IMG04991a - The remains of the Cardiff Bunkhouse.  #4993 shows the pedestal that covers the Beefsteak Raise just north of the bunkhouse - a vertical shaft with a hoist that allowed easy winter access of the mine from the bunkhouse.  #4994 shows the interior of the structure, with #4995 providing a closer view of the remains of the boiler.
  
• IMG04998 - The obligatory group picture.  L->R:  Mike, Gordon, Bruce, Clint.

• No panoramas this week - too dark.
  

• A detailed map with the GPS track of the hike (plus surrounding landmarks, 1.18 Meg)
• The elevation profile of the hike - This shows the ups and downs of the trail.  Later in the evening, the satellite geometry worsened (there were practically no GPS satellites to the North of us - a somewhat unusual situation) and 3D elevation data became really spotty during the return trip.
  

On this fine day, there were black clouds with lightning obscuring the Oquirrhs and the occasional raindrop on the windshield on the way over to the parking lot.  Whilst en-route, Chris called Gordon on the radio and explained that he wasn't going to make it this evening - something about a wife's birthday that day.  He also entreated Gordon not to "go anywhere fun."  Gordon assured him that this may not be a problem.

I arrived at the parking lot immediately after Gordon, and Mike (who'd arrived only a minute or so earlier) was talking to the Wasatch Mountain Club group and determined that they were going to Snake Creek Pass - an ideal location, we thought, to see lightning.  A few minutes later, Bruce called on the radio and announced that he was on his way - clearly another victim of impaired judgment...

After dismissing a few choices (I'd heard mention of Grandeur Peak, Beartrap Fork, Twin Lakes Pass, and Cardiff Fork) we headed up canyon - still undecided - until Mike's car swerved to the right just past the terminal moraine in Big Cottonwood and headed in the direction of Mill-D South, a.k.a. Cardiff Fork.  On the drive in, we noted that the signs stated that the gates would close at 10 pm, thus setting a goal in our minds for a return time.  We also discussed what we'd heard about Doughnut Falls - and that was that it had fallen - so we decided that this was a good excuse to check that out, too.

Getting out of the cars, we noticed that it was overcast - with clouds swirling about some of the higher peaks - and very slightly sprinkling.  Gordon had previously expressed concern that he wasn't certain that he'd gotten all of his gear (including rain gear) together, but as it turned out, the rain was light enough that none of us bothered to do anything about it.  While it was fairly cool, the humidity was high enough that there wasn't a problem with that, either.

After 20 minutes or so, we arrived at what was left of Doughnut Falls.  I hadn't been there for about 15 years, and it looked considerably different:  The trail along the west side of the stream was mostly absent and, on the east side, there was a visible path that headed steeply upwards.  Clearly, there had been considerable rockfall since I'd last been there, but as a quick climb partway up the east side of the stream confirmed, water was still flowing into a hole and out, onto the rocks below.  It seemed as though the reports of the death of Doughnut Falls had been greatly exaggerated.

Rejoining the road, already in progress, we continued up the canyon, noting a very large avalanche run-out zone not too far above the falls:  Judging by the weathered condition of the trees that had been cut to clear the road and the general decay of the detritus at the bottom of the canyon, it had clearly happened several years ago.  One possible source of this debris was the avalanche occurred in this area on January 6, 2003 - an incident that swept a man 800 feet down the mountain and buried him in the snow:  Fortunately, this incident was witnessed by other skiers, who managed to rescue him in time (using rescue beacons) so he ended up only black and blue (and cold) from the incident.

A bit farther up the trail, we observed a moose, happily grazing, so he seemed to pay us little heed.  Still farther up, we noticed what appeared to be a small group of people, seeming to be camping on the Price Tunnel mine dump.  Before too much longer, we arrived at the Howell Tunnel transfer station.  Bruce recalled having been up there in the early 80's when the bridge over the watercourse - and the remains of a boarding house - was still somewhat intact.  Today, the only obvious remains of the bridge is a truss sticking partway out of the mud at the bottom of the gorge, just upstream from the ore bin.

Bruce remembered having seen the remains of a building slightly above the ore bins, so we headed up the road to look for them.  After a few minutes, we spotted it, just down from the road, along a largely-obscured path that headed downhill.  We couldn't help but notice that to the north of the building was a blue metal pedestal sticking up out of the ground:  Bruce surmised that it was the now-secured entrance of one of the mine portals and a brief look at Keller's book indicates that it indeed likely to be portal of the Beefsteak Raise - a vertical shaft that, no doubt, was originally covered by a hoist to provide easy access by the miners in the winter.  Indeed, in the general vicinity of the pedestal, one can see a lot of rotting dimensional lumber, no doubt remnants of the original raise.

By this time, we decided that we should head down in order to (possibly) get back to the parking lot before the official 10pm gate-closing time.  While traversing the same portion of road on which we had previously seen the bull moose, we were peering in the dark, trying to decide if one of the dark shapes we were looking at was, in fact a moose.  Suddenly, we heard the thump of hooves and we soon saw a cow moose galloping in our general direction, followed closely by a calf.  At first we were somewhat startled, but it soon became clear that they were staying parallel to the road, about 50 feet downhill, and simply passed by.  The rest of the trip was uneventful and we somehow managed to find one of the side-trails that connected the old mining road to the well-traveled Doughnut Falls trail.

We returned to the parking lot a few minutes before 10pm and, save for a large pickup truck sitting there with its lights on, were the last ones there.  The trip down-canyon was noteworthy only because there was a bull moose standing along the road (in the general area of Mineral Fork, I believe) - but interestingly, there were relatively few deer to be seen.  Upon arrival at the parking lot, we staggered to our respective vehicles and went our separate ways, forgoing a Dime Lime this time.

About the Cardiff Mine and surrounding area:

The Cardiff Mine area was worked into the 50's or 60's - largely by Desdemona Beeson - one of the few female mining engineers in Utah.  Lead (mainly from  Galena and Cerussite) and some silver ores were the main products of the mines in Cardiff fork.  Above the remnants of the buildings is the Baby McKee mine - near which the remains of a steam boiler may be seen.  This portal seems to be connected in some way to the Howell Tunnel located across the canyon (on the west side) from the Cardiff mine.

The Utah Mine Locations page of the Trainweb site give the location of many of the mines in the area.

According to Keller, a 1/2 ton chunk of Galena was dragged out of the Mill-D South Fork in 1871, with the first claim having been filed in the area the previous year.  Despite the initial hype, the flurry of activity fizzled until a large body of Galena was discovered at what was called the Carbonate Mine in 1876 and by the following January, shipments were reported to be 1200 ore sacks daily.  Gradually, the output of the mine dropped - either due to lower ore prices, or lack of enthusiasm by the owners - and by 1880, it was being leased and worked only intermittently.  It wasn't until 1908 that operations resumed with the installation of a 4000-foot long, 8-tower gravity tramway on the east side - but this operation fizzled again and after 1910, operations at the Carbonate mine seemed to have stopped for good by 1916.

It wasn't until 1906 that the Cardiff Mining and Milling company came into existence, taking over a number of claims farther up the south fork, the name being the Welsh hometown of several of the company's principals.  In many ways, this was quite a modern mine, originally getting power via Park City in 1910 and telephone service soon after.  Further improvements included a better road and a large bunkhouse above the mine - probably the one that we visited.  In 1911, work was started on a long tunnel to reach an ore body that had previously been discovered - but was uneconomical due to large amounts of water.  Eventually, in 1914, a large ore body was reached and the mine began to prosper economically.  With the increase in traffic due to ore shipments, the water quality in the canyon suffered - both from the use of a lot of horses to transport the material, as well as erosion from such activity.  Several schemes were tried which included the use of transfer stations, tractors with trailer, and large trucks, but it wasn't until 1921 that enough improvements had been made to the machinery and roads that they stopped using horses altogether.

The Cardiff Mining and Milling Company paid handsome dividends early on, but these gradually dwindled, with the last one being paid in 1924, with the company ceasing to operate in 1928.  After this, various lessees operated the mine until the 1960's, with a connection being made between the Cardiff Ore body and the Wasatch Drain Tunnel in Mineral Fork being established in 1955.

Comments:

• 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.
• Because all of the images were originally taken stored in raw binary format, they have been down-processed to .JPG for web posting:  If requested, different color/contrast/brightness may be applied and/or higher-quality uncompressed versions may be available for most of these images.
• 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 numbered 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.
• If you took some pictures of the hike and send them to me, I'll post them - and give you the blame!
  

We last went here in 2005 - click here to read about that hike.

Go to the 2007 Wednesday Night Hike page, or main Wednesday Night Hike page or the Wednesday Night Hike Cross-Index page