Mosiac Canyon and the Charcoal Kilns - Part 1

Friday, Jan. 20 - Day 3 A.M.

Although we haven't seen much sun here, we were blessed with a beautiful sunrise this morning.  Days are short here with the mountains surrounding us.  And it gets very, very cool once the sun sets.  It's usually between 38-42 when we get up in the morning, and most days it's only getting into the 50s, often with some pretty good wind.

Mosaic Canyon

Today was a very full day, lots of points of interest on our agenda.  We headed west from our campground, and our first turnoff was only a few miles down the road, but it involved another hike.  It was called Mosaic Canyon -- a beautiful, narrow canyon with smoothly eroded marble walls.  This got our blood circulating right away.

 The walk into the canyon took us past beautiful rocks in all colors, and the canyon walls were slabs of marble that were just gorgeous.  We wished we could take a slab home for our countertops.  Dave joined us on this walk, and he was glad he did.

  In some places we had to climb a little, or crawl over the rocks, but mostly the trail was pretty good.

And when you climb up, you have to get back down.

Joe kept saying, "wait, wait," so he could get a picture, and Mazie was holding on for dear life so she wouldn't crash into the back of me.  This marble was pretty slick and we thought it safer to slide rather than crawl.  We had a good laugh here.

As we hiked back out of the canyon, we continued to be awed by the beauty of this marble.  In places where people have put their hands to get over some rocks, we could see the discoloration in the rocks caused by the oils from our hands. 

Old Mines, Skidoo

We stopped at several old mines today, they litter the mountainsides.  This one still had some structures, and of course Joe had to drive up to the top.  The park service has been covering these openings in the last couple of years (Obama money) to make it safer, but there are still hundreds that are open, so we were careful.  There's also a lot of old, rusty vehicles left behind.

We found a beautiful marble rock here, and knew Brenda would love it, but we didn't think we could hide it under our t-shirt if we got caught, so we reluctantly left it behind.

Our next stop was another old mine.  A mining shack remained, which was in fairly decent shape, and there was another mine shaft that had been covered with wire.

And maybe another Brenda rock.

 Hiker Joe remembered his walking stick today, and he thought it made it a little easier to walk on his newly-constructed feet.

Next stop was the remains of the old mining town, Skidoo.  Only rubbish was left here, but we saw lots of mine openings and tailings all around.  The sign says there were over 1000 mines in the surrounding hills.

 By now it was snack time, so Joe and Mazie are rummaging in the car for something to feed all of us.  This was a good spot, even for walking Ar'gent.

This was such a full day, and I have so many pictures that I'm going to end this blog for the first half of the day and start a new one for the remaining part of this day.  It was probably our longest day, but we saw a LOT!