Great Mine At The Top Of A Desert Mountain

I don’t know why abandoned mines always must be on the tops of mountains and require a strenuous hike to reach, but that consistently seems to be the case. When it’s a great mine like this one though, I don’t mind all that much. Of course, any of the suffering involved in adventuring and exploring beats being stuck in a miserable, futile existence. This particular abandoned mine was discovered in the late 1800s, but was not developed until the early 1900s. I have seen conflicting reports on whether the primary mineral mined here was lead or silver. Suffice it to say, there was an abundance of galena! Interestingly - at least to me - is that much of the host rock for that galena is limestone in this mine. I didn’t see any sign of a bunkhouse on top of the mountain and so, presumably, the miners made their daily commute in a tram bucket. That would’ve been a hell of a way to commute to work up in the mountains… While we were stopped for lunch a bighorn sheep made his appearance next to the fir