Rainy day in Ten Mile Canyon

rginn · Oct 25, 2016

Light drizzle but no snow and up in the 40's this a.m. out hiking in 10 Mile Canyon. About 10,000 miners lived in the canyon and two railroads ran through it back in the mining boom days. An interstate runs through it today. Found part of a really old bighorn skull in the creek bank. Looked over the remains of rock huts built by railroad workers back in the 1800's.

tamrock · Oct 25, 2016

What's the source of all the iron staining of the gravel and skull ? Is there some old underground mine drainage somewhere near by ?

rginn · Oct 25, 2016

There were some tailing piles just west of the skull towards Copper, which were removed when they built I-70, so probably from there in the past. Ten Mile Creek runs on up to Climax and a lot of runoff came from there. Not as bad as it might look, and you'll still see a little iron staining in a few places, but not near as bad as some of the creeks up here. Fish are able to live there anyway.

tamrock · Oct 25, 2016

There was a small mining operation going on by the Clinton Gulch Res. back in the 80s I recall. I keep thinking I'll go have a look around it sometime. It was being worked by some Canadians. The MSHA man told me he did an unannounced inspection on them and caught the guys wearing those goofy 1980s moon boots instead of steel toed rubber boots underground.