hiking the mayflower mine

In what seems to be becoming tradition, or at least habit, we joined Captain Mike for a hike a week ago Sunday (11/01/09 - @#$%^&* computer issues making me post late). He’d enlisted some additional recruits as well: Hope and Sanford, transplants from California who moved to Park City a year ago; Keith, a 76-year old (!) former superintendent for the Mayflower Mine (during the late 1960s); and Keith’s excellent dog, Stacy, a collie mix whom he adopted from the Atacama in Chile. (Stacy is a Chile-dog!) We picked up Captain Mike at his house and joined the rest of the group at the Mayflower Mine parking area outside of Park City, off Utah 40, at the entrance to Glencoe Canyon.


Before we could start hiking, however, we were thoroughly briefed on the area we were about to explore. Keith had brought handouts for everyone, spreadsheets showing the value of the ore extracted from the Mayflower (and other Park City area mines) updated for the closing of precious metal prices as of October 31, 2009. The handouts also detailed the various drain tunnels and vertical shafts for the Park City mines, including the elevation of the portals, the length and depth. H was in spreadsheet-geek heaven with all the data flying around; I confess that I gave up after a while and focused on scratching Stacy behind the ears.

We left the ruined Mayflower buildings behind and made our way up the canyon, pausing now and again for historical and anecdotal tidbits along the way (including at some impressive vertical shafts and a huge wooden baffle used to cool the water for the mine’s air compressors). Stacy moved up and down along the line of people, only stepping into the woods to rustle us up a decent sized young bull moose: she just flushed him onto the trail and didn’t chase or harass him at all, as though she just wanted us to see him. Of course we were too busy gawking to get our cameras out in time for a good photo.

Early lunch was up on top of the Star of Utah dump (a “dump” is an enormous pile of waste rock). We inspected the portal to the Star of Utah adit (now collapsed) and the Park Gelena ventilation shaft. Back in the day, Keith and a coworker used to inspect the shafts and tunnels, climbing under the ground from a lower adit up 800 feet or so and emerging at this Park Gelena ventilation shaft. I’m mildly claustrophobic and just thinking about that gives me shivers.


We kept hiking up (ultimately gaining around 1400 ft. from the point of beginning) under Deer Valley’s Mayflower chairlift, then bushwhacked down into a gulch in search of the Valero mines. We didn’t quite get to those mines – next time, promised Captain Mike – but got fantastic views of Heber City and the Jordanelle Reservoir, a huge man-made lake that resulted from the damming of the Provo River.


The last leg of the hike was an animal trail that started below the ridgeline and then broadened into a jeep trail back to the parking lot. On the way out we found a pile of big bones – probably a moose – that Captain Mike insisted was the remains of the last folks he’d brought out here. After that bushwhacking, such an idea wasn’t so far-fetched.

Ooh! I almost forgot: as we were hiking up through the Glencoe Canyon, through some shady bits, Captain Mike spotted an intriguing print in the snow. We know it wasn’t some big dog because we checked Becky’s paws when we got home – four toes and a pad – while this print clearly has five toes … we think it might have been a BEAR!