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The Chicken Run 2003
I call it the "Chicken Run" because of the number of people who "Chickened-out" on account of the rain.
Let me list them for later scorn ( he he) David J., Dennis J., Woody, and Dave J-son. Meanwhile back at the ranch Gary W. was sleeping 'till after 9AM! Gary was not afraid of the rain, just of the morning sunlight. Last time Dave and Dennis and myself camped out near Tip Top we got rained out the whole weekend!
My daughter and I met Mike at the spot at 8AM. We hung out until about 8:30 and had a few good laughs. At 8:35 we locked the hubs and headed into the mountains. It was a bit rainy here and there and the landscape was beautiful and dark with the cloud cover.
We kept on the road and entered the town of Tip Top and stopped at the Assay Office, Brewery, Beer Hall, and Restaurant ( what's left of them after 120 years ). The picture only shows the Brewery, parts of the Beer Hall are standing also. We stopped and talked at bit and kept on moving. We soon had passed through the main part of Tip Top and neared the corral which would soon be followed by a turn up the mountain to Packer. There are many ruins in Tip Top, about 40 remains of buildings, numerous mines, etc.
About a third of the way up to Packer we stopped at the old 76 wheel, talked for about an hour, and I showed Mike an area with sparse mineralization where we had found gold before. The road is a bit steep going up to Packer and narrow also, but I have never had any problems in the Jeep and Mike's truck made the drive smoothly. It's not as bad as from Oro Belle to The Senator Highway into Crown King, it's much, much better. I have heard many people make comparisons, but I'm not sure they have ever taken both roads. Oro Belle is a bad road, Packer is not.
We saddled up and began the ascent to Packer. A novice 4-wheeler may have some problems with road articulation. We got to the top and entered Packer. In the picture at left you can see the cabins down the hill.
We checked out the cabins and the old small hay barn, well and windmill.
We stayed in Packer for an hour or so having some good laughs and good conversation. It began to hail and lightly snow so we decided to head down the mountain.
On the way down we stopped at a mineral stringer that is nice. The sky was getting dark all around us so we decided to head over to Swilling Gulch. When we rounded the first corner at the turn off to Swilling Gulch we decided not to make the climb at the road was all big rocks and a bit loose here and there. It is more of a quad or "full locker" road. You could do it in a stock 4X4 like we were driving, but you would be pushing your luck on the road getting worse and maybe getting stuck somewhere near Gold Hill. I like to enter that area from near Columbia as the road is much more friendly.
We stopped at a spot and planned on doing a little beeping with the detectors. My daughter had just woke up from a nap and was in no mood to look for gold. Mike got his SD out and hit the wash and I worked on getting my daughter happy again. Hey, I'm grumpy too when I wake up from a good nap. I soon had her smiling, we played with the toy horses a bit and decided to take a little walk. We walked up a small hill and threw some rocks and talked about all the pretty colors of rocks and plants. I got lucky and found a nice knife on top of the hill someone had dropped. Finders keepers.
Mike returned from beeping. He found some trash targets but no gold. We watched the sunset and talked for an hour or so. It's amazing to watch the colors the sky turns at sunset in the desert.
We packed up and headed out, stopping for a few last pictures. You can see Mike's excellent Mac GPS system on his laptop in the picture below. I look like a grump in the picture below. I was smiling all day and as happy as could be. I had just sat down and the flash on the camera timer went off. Mike and I had a great time and I hope we can do it again real soon. Just maybe next time, we'll get a little gold...
Rod