Thursday, July 21, 2016

Monday, July 18, 2016: DENVER GULCH, MINERAL POINT, LOWER ENGINEER



The Denver Gulch can be reached from an unmarked side trail off California Trail.  I cannot find any info about it, but there is an amazing amount of old mining equipment to be found here.  Once again, we only encountered one Jeep all day and they were lost. 

  

  
  
And summer would not be complete without the sheep herder!
Those white dots are sheep, thousands and thousands of sheep:
  


Next stop, Mineral Point off of the Lower Engineer Trail.  There is a two story structure that now has boarded up windows.  We used to be able to go up there (guessing it is no longer safe).

 Lots of mining went on here.  
There is an ore crusher and some wooden tanks.

 


  


Our trail leader for the day, who shall remain unamed, Charles, decided it would be a good idea if we took Lower Engineer (known to be extremely rough & difficult) only as far as the turn off to Poughkeepsie (extreme to the max) and come back.  Well, we were thankful to be in the back of this caravan.  Hearing on the radios, that the Jeeps were getting into some difficult situations and there was no room to turn around, we were able to turn and backtrack.  The rest of the group had to take Lower Engineer all the way to the highway.  Lots of scrapes on the skid plates, but everyone made it back to camp safely.   Did see some nice flowers along the way!  

  
  
   

  

  

  

  




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