Of all the hikes I'd planned for the few hours I'd be in the Funeral Mountains, my anticipation was highest for my journey to the King Midas gold mine.
There isn't anything particularly special about the Gold Midas mine itself. It's not a very large mine. There aren't many artifacts left to investigate. Getting there is nearly impossible. Rather, it was the hike - climbing just more than 1,700 feet of elevation in a smidge over two miles - that had me excited to go.
And I was excited about the hike mostly due to the King Midas being in an adjacent canyon to the Keane Wonder Mine. I'd climbed my way through that canyon a couple years before, and the geology there was spectacular!
I hoped I'd be in for the same treat this time, and I was about to find out.
As I approached the trailhead, a cloudy sky added a bit of drama, as if the jagged flanks of the Funeral Mountains weren't enticing on their own.
Almost immediately I picked up an old miner's trail.
Having spent more time than I'd expected wandering around Chloride Cliffs earlier in the morning, I was pushing my pace as I entered the mouth of the canyon. It was nearly 1:00pm - giving me only about three-and-a-half hours before sunset - and I was sure I'd be returning in the dark after such a grueling hike and mine exploration. Still, I was almost immediately distracted as I spotted something unusual hidden behind an outcropping of rocky conglomerate.
A good place for a little privacy. This century-old outhouse was still in great shape!
I'd already taken care of business before embarking on my hike, so after a few photos, I continued up the wash. As with many canyons, the mouth of King Midas started reasonably wide, allowing dramatic views deep into the Funeral Mountains. Soon though, the walls would work their way closer and closer together, squeezing me into narrow passages ground smooth by the water and stone that carved them over millions of years.
Seeing the folds of the canyon and the layers of color - even under cloudy skies - was exciting.
An old barrel of Penn-Rolene, which was sold at the time - fittingly - as "The King of Motor Oil."
Cable spool used to string the aerial tramway.
The first narrowing.
My biggest problem when I'm tight on time is me. I'm generally quite good - to a fault, sometimes - about staying on task or having the willpower to carry through with some meaningless commitment. But, put me in the middle of a pile of rocks with a camera, and suddenly I have a hard time making forward progress at more than a snail's pace. Or, rather, a desert tortoise'. Though, I still have yet to see one of those, so they must be faster than I am.
"Rainbow adit." I definitely would have dug there, too, given all those colors.
Deeper and deeper.
Soon enough, the canyon itself began to conspire against me. No longer were the rocks various shades of the same baby-poop-brown that only a desert-lover finds calming. Suddenly there were brilliant white outcroppings of polished marble lining the base of the wash.
Out of place.
Polished chute.
King of the small fall.
Eventually, I pushed past these time traps, only to catch a distant glimpse of the aerial tramway hundreds of feet above my head. At the time, I thought the trail continued in the wash until it reached the mine, and I thought to myself, "I wish I were up there so I could check it out in person," a clear indication that I had no idea where the trail went or an understanding of what suffering I was destined to endure. Instead, I noticed a rusty old truck in the wash and wandered over to check it out.
My first glimpse of the aerial tramway.
On old Ford Model A, its engine pillaged to power the winch still bolted to timbers in front of the mine.
Looking ahead, I could see the canyon constrict once again. "Push through," I urged my desires, figuring that if I at least got to the mine by sunset, I'd have a better sense of the route down in the dark.
And then, pulling out my pocket mainframe to mark the location of the Model A, I noticed that I was off the trail. Not far off the trail - only a couple hundred feet - but the trail clearly turned left on the topo map, where there was only a steep canyon wall. The canyon had been so pleasurable to this point that a big part of me hoped that I'd somehow made a mistake in my mapping, but still, I wandered in the direction of my track to see if there was an old miner's trail that left the wash.
In fact, there was! This is a common occurrence in Death Valley canyons, where washes are passable until they aren't. Even a 10-foot dry fall can mean the end of the road, but 100-foot monsters are equally common. Figuring that the miners would have taken the easiest route they could, I pulled up my big boy pants and began to climb.
I climbed and climbed. And climbed. The canyon wall here was nearly vertical and the switchbacks varied from steeper-than-they-should-be to who-needs-a-switchback-when-you-can-go-straight-up. I gained almost 1000 feet in less than half a mile. My legs, turning to jelly, screamed for a break.
I stopped long enough to enjoy the view behind me.
Ahead, it still seemed I was climbing out of the canyon for no reason at all.
By the time I was done climbing, that first aerial tram tower was several hundred feet below the trail. Glancing down, I considered trying to work my way to that tower, but instead pushed on just a little further until I was standing next to the first of four more towers I'd encounter. Each was anchored to the hillside and still supported the cable that transported carts full of gold, silver, and lead-rich ore down to the loading ramp in the wash.
A rudimentary tower.
The main cable, now securely strapped to the channel.
NPS has been here, stabilizing the timbers and tramway.
A second tower, similar to the first.
Here, the ore carts would transfer from the cable to the rail in order to make the turn, then back onto the cable for the rest of the trip down. (photo: Guy Starbuck)
If you can't follow the big cable overhead, they left a small cairn to show the way.
After reaching the fourth tower, I stopped to catch my breath. Somehow - even with all the distracting towers between me and the bottom of the canyon, I'd managed to make good time over the mile of trail where I'd left the wash. However, as my eyes swept around the final curve of the canyon wall, I had a hard time making out where the trail could possibly exist. Instead, of a narrow ledge, this portion of the trail appeared to be a series of slide chutes, funneling passersby down slippery slopes and to certain pain.
The final run to the mine. But where is the trail?
Tentatively placing one foot in front of the next, I forced myself to continue. Remarkably, I still had 90 minutes of daylight remaining, and I knew that this was a section of trail that I'd need to do - both ways - before dark. And then, 700 feet before the workings, the trail disappeared entirely. Here, the canyon wall was composed of loose dirt rather than stone, and with no maintenance in the preceding 75 years, the trail had simply washed away. I had a decision to make: call it a day or try to make it across a 100-foot stretch of super-sketchy terrain.
Pulling out my satellite messenger, I sent one of my three preset messages to @mrs.turbodb:
I am hiking and OK but doing something tricky, notify SAR if you don't hear from me within 1 hour.
I'm not sure that I was mentally OK - and I certainly didn't feel OK - as I tried to dig my fingers and toes into the damp, slippery surface to find any sort of purchase. As each appendage would begin to slip, I'd push another into the surface a little further ahead, always trying to keep three of my four limbs in contact with the ground at any given time. Surely more quickly than it seemed at the time, I eventually made it across the washed out area, thankful for the narrow trail that still clung to the canyon wall from that point to the workings. But it was still too soon to send my follow-up message; I had to get back first.
And that meant I was on the clock as I checked out what was left of the Gold Midas mine.
This amazing, shiny rock was almost iridescent as I passed it on the way to the mine.
The first adit was the smallest, sporting a bed frame at the entrance. (left) | Not very deep. (top right) | Yellow and white precipitate crystals covered the interior surfaces of the rock. (bottom right)
The second adit - only a couple dozen feet from the first - was a little larger. Like the first, it wasn't much, but there were a few artifacts to admire and a colorful stope room at the rear, water dripping down the rock walls.
A slightly larger opening.
The old ventilation blower and pressure tank. (left) | A pressure gauge. (right)
Box-jointed side of a dynamite box and an old piston head.
A colorful back room, but not the main working.
Most interestingly, there was an old letter, screwed to a board. Written by one Michael Harris to his son Jim, both of whom worked the hillsides of the Gold Midas mine. It described the work Michael had done at the mine while Jim was attending Sacramento Junior College and majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Jim placed this copy of the letter at the mine - "for only a few brave people to read" - in July, 1983.
A letter from Michael Harris to his son Jim Harris on January 16, 1950. For the full text of the letter, see A Letter from Father to Son | A Lasting Memorial to Michael Joseph Harris.
While I thought the letter was amazing - and I took several photos with different settings and cameras in order to ensure I ended up with the best shot possible - I knew I couldn't spend too much time reading it while @mrs.turbodb was waiting for my "I'm not dead" message as I headed back down the trail. But before I could do that, I needed to check out the upper anchor for the aerial tramway and what turned out to be the location of the main working of the mine, now collapsed.
This old engine and winch were described in Michael's letter, the engine pilfered from the old Model A in the wash!
An early hybrid. Started with gasoline, then run on diesel.
Quite the wiring job. And hey, I know where these came from! (Champion Spark Plug Mine)
This bright little baby barrel cactus was growing in the rock just outside the inclined shaft of the main working.
By now, nearly 40 minutes had elapsed since I'd first messaged about my sketchy final push to the mine, and it was time to get going. The good news was that I still had plenty of time before sunset. The bad news was that - as I headed the opposite direction - my weak side was to the hill. That was more a comfort issue than anything - nothing about this required immense strength - and in the end, the availability of footsteps to use on the return trip outweighed any discomfort caused by direction.
Sending my follow-up message to @mrs.turbodb, I set off down the trail, double-timing it as her response - "Welcome back!" - came in. I smiled - realizing that she'd thought I'd been underground - knowing that she would think my actual actions were more stupider.
Looking down into the part of the canyon I'd missed on the high trail, I hoped I'd have time to investigate once I was back in the wash.
I arrived back at the old Model A, a little before 4:00pm, and with a decision to make. I could head back to the trailhead and likely arrive at the Tacoma just before sunset, or I could head up canyon to explore the whitewashed walls, and get back sometime later. Any regular reader knows that I didn't spend long making this silly decision, and soon I was hiking uphill again, sure that at some point I'd find a dry fall blocking my path.
An old roller (left) and aerial tram cart (right) that I quickly encountered in the wash.
If the lower wash had been an amazing geological experience, the upper part of the wash was even better. Only a hundred feet up the canyon, my eye was drawn to not one, but two oddities within a dozen feet of each other.
This S-shaped fold was enormous, perhaps ten feet tall and 20 feet long!
Even more interesting was this entirely natural yonic inclusion. If Native Americans had found this, they surely would have embellished it!
Almost immediately the canyon walls closed in, the white marble and quartzite gleaming under reflected late afternoon light. I knew I'd made the right choice; I was in for a treat!
Look what's coming.
Into the narrows.
Marble "V."
Around the bend.
I clearly wasn't the first to admire these stretches of white rock. At one constriction, where the surface was smooth and even, several sets of initials had been carved into the stone. None seemed to be those of Michael or Jim Harris, though they were still a fun find.
HLG | 1944
After about a mile of meandering between magnificent marble walls, I found myself face to face - literally I suppose - with an unclimbable 40-foot tall dry fall. Glancing around - and probably still a little overconfident from my success at the mine - I determined that the fall could be bypassed on either side by scrambling 75 feet up the still-steep canyon walls a few hundred feet below the fall. Unfortunately, that wasn't something I was keen to do with my daylight minutes waning, even though I really wanted to get to what I was sure would be a much larger fall - perhaps in marble - just above it.
So, a little dejected, I turned around.
Back into the marble corridor.
Where the green grass grows.
As is often the case, my decision to turn around - while perhaps initially deflating for my ego - was a blessing in disguise. As I neared the entrance to the marble narrows, the sun - stuck behind clouds for much of the day - punched through, just over the horizon and turned the brown canyon walls a brilliant gold.
Perfect light.
Twenty minutes later, the sun now below the horizon, I reached the mouth of the canyon just as the clouds caught fire. Streaming across the sky above Telescope Peak, and reflected in the shallow depths of a wet Badwater Basin, it was the perfect way to end such a wonderful day.
King Midas sunset.
I'd cover the final mile to the trailhead as light faded from the sky. At the Tacoma, I'd enjoy my last bowl of cereal on the trip, having gone through nearly a gallon of milk and an entire box of Wheat Chex. It was time to find camp, and revel in horizontal rest.
Epilogue
There are a few things from this hike that I want to mention, as if I haven't made readers suffer enough with my storytelling.
Along this hike, I ran into this interesting rock "alignment" on the ground. Surrounded by a wooden frame - that I believe was added later to protect it - I have no idea what it is. If anyone has a clue, I'd love to hear it. Mining related? Native American?
What is this Rock Art?
Doing a bit more research on this mine upon my return, I came across this YouTube video created in 2021. Largely narrated by Jim Harris - the last surviving miner of the Gold Midas mine - it was fun to listen to his description of working the mine in the early 1940s with his father, and to hear him describe many of the artifacts I found along the hike!
Don't miss the letter from Michael Harris to his son Jim. These bits of history are what make places like the Gold Midas Mine so special. We have so few of them for most mines, and the opportunity to read A Letter from Father to Son, and the son's memorial to his father many years later, should not be missed:
The Whole Story
