Meandering about the mining area east of Leadville, CO

June 09-12

Sunset on the 9th:

Jun 10: Martha came up with Patrick, my #1 son, for a brief camping visit by them.  Patrick even got some sun!

Morning of the 10th, before the arrival of Martha and Patrick

June 12, Friday

Patrick has work tomorrow so he and Martha drove out of here this morning, headed back to Centennial.

I rode out of the dispersed camping area, which is starting to get full of weekend campers dammit, and rode through the town of Leadville and up Lake County Road 3 back to the area I'd visited with Martha.

Being on Yagi, I was able to negotiate any and all trail that caught my fancy, no issues at all!

First of course was getting to the top of the hill where I'd spotted an interesting structure the last time I was in the area.  Back then, snow had stopped me.

Now, the snow is all gone from the trails so up Yagi and I went.  The tower on the right in the picture below is what I'd seen from the valley floor.

I got onto Lake County Road 1 and meandered in the direction pointed at by a wooden sign stating: Ibex City.

 Mount Elbert through the pine trees

I ended up on top of a nice overlook area, with wooden ruins of old mines, which I assumed was part of this Ibex City that had been alluded to.  No further signage spotted.  Still the view was quite nice from there:

You can walk out on top of one of the mine dumps and see the city of Leadville down below, with Turquoise Lake and of course nearby mountain peaks:

I spotted this neat looking trail going up the side of a nearby mountain:

So of course, Yagi and I went to tackle that trail!  It proved quite rocky in spots but nothing Yagi couldn't handle in spite of my lack of off-road skills.  We made it to the top and here's the view:

That's as far as I went on County Road 1B, I turned around and gingerly made my way back down the mountain back past "Ibex City" and back onto County Road 38.  I meandered about the trails I could see and just pootled around looking for photogenic mining structures, didn't really find too many.

Here's the one mining structure that I felt worth stopping for a picture.  Quite large, and still I'm unsure what function it provided!  I couldn't get much nearer, it was on posted private property.

Eventually, I went back towards Leadville.  Here's the last remaining mural that I'd missed getting a picture of.  I shot it after Martha, Patrick and I visited the Baby Doe Mine yesterday.  No pics by me of that place, it was "ok" but I wasn't feeling it in terms of shooting pics.

Back at camp as I type this, more and more weekend campers keep showing up, some with large dogs which I'm sure will spread their poop all over the place.  I am also sure these people won't pick up after their dogs.

This area is proving too popular, especially on the weekends it seems, I don't think I'll be coming back to this area for camping.