Gold Eagle mine
The Gold Eagle and Bonanza mines were run as one mine and were on the opposite end of town. Both mines together produced huge amounts of gold. They produced 400 LB ingots to discourage theft. We have discovered over a dozen shafts around this vicinity and they most likely all connect below ground.
They seem to go in a straight line under the hills.
Some structures remain
You can see the bonanza mine from the Golden Eagle in the shot below
Sadly Most of the shafts are well capped and secure. These are the main shafts.
They are located here
However there are exceptions to the capped off masses. These are very explorable.
33.67757 N 113.58496 W
and right next to it
Which looked quite good to explore with a rope and gear.
There were about 5 more capped shafts on this hill
We did find one explorable shaft. However Greg got jumping cactus in his hands. These are VERY PAINFUL and you can only pull them out with pliers. VERY unpleasant, however we have dealt with them before and I had pliers.
Dave thinking about jumping cactus
Not too far from these was a massive open pit operation. It was filled with left overs from cyanide operations and other chemicals. This whole area is fenced off but the fencing is VERY old and mostly broken. Avoid this location at 33.68406 N 113.58248 w
You dont wanna go for a dip in this pond.
Also all around this location are piles of obviously toxic stuff. My guess is Cyanide dumped on these rocks.
Strangely there is a shaft smack dab in the middle of this and is crusted over with nasty looking chemicals. It also has water at the bottom. This must lead to the other shafts.
Overall.... nothing to really explore in this group without a rope and a more extensive exploration.
Half way between Gold Eagle and Bonanza is a well preserved shaft. No tailings either. This tends to support the idea that there is a long shaft between all these mines.
This is literally in the middle of a field. This has to be a access point to other shafts.
This is very explorable with ropes but has water far below
This does reinforce that possibly all hese mines are connected below ground. This would be awesome to explore in the future as there is quite a distance between the mines and we have found shafts all along this line of sight below
We did have a interesting side trip. We were searching various roads and took a path rather then a road and we ended up scraping the sides of Greg's truck up REAL BAD. But he looks at it as battle scars.
So remember in the desert where every growing thing has barbs don't drive thru them.
And FINALLY....
Dave brought a kite. He was determined to fly a kite to entertain the ghosts. We tired it off and let it fly after we left.
The town of Salome was the town that fed this mine. History and stuff. It is a town of like 3 people. It still looks stuck in that era. We were going to eat here but they had already closed up shop. The Museum was actually probably fun and talked about the mines.
