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This week, we decided to go to Silver Fork.
When I arrived at the parking lot, I was surprised to see Elaine Jones (Ron's much better half...) there, chatting amongst those who had already gathered. With the snowmelt seemingly accelerating, we felt brave enough to try a fairly high-elevation destination, and Silver Fork seemed to be the popular choice. One factor that may have influenced our choice was Chris's admonition, in a croaky voice, over the air (he couldn't come, due to the recent acquisition of a virus...) that we not go anywhere fun!
After some vehicle-shuffling (the parking lot was above its capacity, so as the drivers pulled out, those who weren't taking their cars slid into the spot) we piled into vehicles and headed up-canyon to the Solitude Ski Resort parking lot, and knowing that the gate was going to be closed long before we were likely to return, we parked along the main road. Making the long traverse of the parking lot to the trailhead, we noticed a sheriff patrolling the area: We must have looked rather harmless, as he paid us no attention, despite the fact that there were signs warning that the area was closed after 7pm.
Past the west-ish end of the parking lot, we made our way along the dirt path that, eventually, intersected another dirt access road: Here, we made a decision to turn left and follow the road up rather than drop down and follow the asphalt - a decision that put us on the path into Honeycomb Fork. It was decided that not only was this a destination that several of the party had not previously visited (except, perhaps, on skis in the winter) but also that it was a bit shorter than the trek to the top of Silver fork - something favored by Tim, who had done Dromedary Peak the weekend before and Gordon, who was still trying to recover from the descent of Beartrap Fork from last week's hike. There was also consideration made to Elaine, who had not hiked much this season and wisely decided not to attempt to overtax her knee and ankle.
The road curved, following the contour of the mouth of Silver Fork, and eventually reached the bottom of a ski lift. There, we paused for the obligatory group picture as we figured that Elaine might head back before making it to the destination. We also puzzled over why there were huge blocks of Styrofoam and bales of straw near the lift, until Mike pointed out that these were likely present to keep the snow and ice under the lift's unloading area from melting - not to mention to raise the level of the ground somewhat to make disembarking the chair easier. We also noticed an upside-down mounted 2.4 GHz antenna (see picture #1101 above) mounted to the lift house and we wondered why it would have been mounted in such a way.
Just past the lift is the mouth of Honeycomb Fork, a tributary of Silver Fork. Following the trail upwards, we soon came across the intersecting trail that, we are reasonably sure, connects with the trail at the bottom of Silver Fork. Just up from this is a large meadow area that, at the time, was putting on quite a nice, colorful show of wildflowers and it was there that we spotted an unfamiliar-looking flower (see picture #1104, above). Continuing upwards, the trail (the old mining road, actually) becomes rather rocky, more-resembling a series of random stone steps instead of a path as it ducks under a canopy of trees. At this point, Elaine decided that this was as far as she should go, as coming down such a rocky path in the twilight probably wasn't a good idea, so she turned around, having gotten most of the way to the intended destination: As she left, we wished her a happy birthday, with our present being that we didn't sing to her! On her way down, she passed Gordon, who was both looking at the scenery (and probably taking a few pictures of the wildflowers) and taking it a bit easy, favoring his knee.
The rest of us ambled ever upwards along the rocky road, eventually breaking out of the trees in sight of several mine dumps. Following the road just a bit higher, we arrived at the remnants of the Woodlawn mine where we wandered around for a few minutes looking at the ruins of the old cabins. We eventually made our way up to the most-intact cabin in the area (the four walls are mostly standing) where we decided to hang out, eat some snacks, and watch the alpenglow on the surrounding honeycomb cliffs.
Via radio, we kept in touch with Elaine, who was most of the way back to her car by now, and Gordon, who was keeping his own pace: At about this time, Gordon had decided that his arrival at the upper meadow, in sight of the old mines, was his destination for the evening, and was going to start heading down. As the shadows lengthened, we did a bit more looking around, looking at the mine portal and some of the other building ruins in the area, before careening down the sides of one of the dumps and returning to the old mining road to follow it down.
Just past the upper clearing, we'd noticed another trail that pealed off to the right (as we were headed downhill) and wondered if this path was any better then the rocky remains of the road that we'd followed up: Our question was soon answered when Gordon appeared on the radio, mentioning that he'd followed this path and that it did, in fact, seem, to avoid that section of road. Because we were below the junction, we didn't change our course, but remained interested to see what Gordon's experience was. At about the time we broke out of the trees (where the rocky section ended) Gordon appeared on the radio again, reporting that while the trail bypassed the rough part - with about the same steepness, but with dirt instead of boulders to traverse - it seemed to be becoming less distinct and didn't seem to obviously head toward the main trail, so he dropped down into the bottom of the canyon, crossed the meadow area, and rejoined the trail: Sure enough, we soon caught sight of him some distance ahead of us, just before he disappeared into the trees at about the point where the trail spur that dropped into Silver Fork intersected.
That was the last time that we saw Gordon - For a while, at least...
We continued down the trail in the gloaming, passing the ski lift, following the road, and then taking the cutoff that led to the far end of the Solitude parking lot. As we headed east, we noticed the nearly-full moon, flanked to the left by Jupiter, rising from behind the mountains, so we stopped to look at it and (attempt to) take pictures. While we were doing this, Gordon appeared on the radio, saying that he'd taken a wrong turn somewhere and asked if he could be picked up along the highway, as he was planning to walk out along the roads among the cabins. After taking more pictures, we continued across the parking lot and noticed a striking scene of the floodlit buildings backgrounded by the rising moon, so we stopped to take even more pictures. Gordon appeared on the radio again, saying that he believed that he'd figured out where he'd gone wrong and that he was now, he was fairly certain, on his way on the trail that we'd traveled only a few minutes before. Eventually, we saw a tell-tale green light bobbing around amongst the soon-to-be assembled ski lift components that were at the west end of the parking lot, and Gordon appeared.
Finally having regrouped, we piled into our cars and headed down the canyon. In addition to the headlight-mesmerized deer, we also saw a large moose standing alongside the road - the first moose that most of us had seen this year. We finally arrived, without incident, at the parking lot at the mouth of the canyon where we went our separate ways.
(And no, Chris, we didn't have any fun at all!)
According to Keller, Honeycomb Fork, like Alta, is no stranger to disasters, with several people having been killed in avalanches that swept down, including a large one in January of 1875 that killed the Superintended of the Annie Tunnel, and at least one more avalanche in March of 1877. Note: The Annie Tunnel is, apparently, connected to the Prince of Wales Mine, and is likely the source of the dump pile across the canyon (toward the west) from the Woodlawn Mine.
While the big mining boom in the Solitude area occurred in the 1870's, the remnants seen up the Honeycomb Fork of Silver Fork (near the Solitude Ski resort) are mostly those of the Woodlawn mine. Excavation of this mine began at around 1900 and continued intermittently until the 1940s. In 1915, the Kentucky mine (the portal of which, from what I can tell, appears known as the "Alta Tunnel" - which is the mine that one passes not too far up Silver Fork and is a source of water) was begun to excavate minerals as well as to provide drainage to the Woodlawn and other nearby mines.The primary minerals of the Woodlawn mine are lead ores, such as Galena and Cerussite, Pyrite, as well as other Manganese and Iron-based minerals.
A very interesting page concerning a court case relating to water rights to mine discharges may be read here. This case has a brief history of some of the relevant mines, as well as some interesting insight into the geology of the area.
The Utah Mine Locations page of the Trainweb site give the location of many of the mines in the area.
Some of the above information is from the book "The Lady in the Ore Bucket" by Charles Keller.
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