T-Dub'ing to the Betty Lee Mine and Shooting Super Stallions

 I woke near Sunrise and caught the sun as it crested the horizon:

The plan today was to go nearer the Copper Mountains that are roughly 8 miles to the south and check out the Betty Lee Mine therein.

The mountains themselves were OK, not much in terms of majestic scenery or such, pretty much a larger/longer version of Baker Peaks next to the campsite:

From the signpost labeled F7, one takes one of the sub-trails towards the southwest and following the sign for the mine, arrives after roughly 2.5 to 3 miles.  The trail wasn't too bad, quite rocky in some spots but nothing Yagi couldn't handle in spite of her rider.

Soon enough we arrived at what I called the "parking lot".  There would be about .5 miles of hiking with an accompanying climb of about 5 floors according to the health app on my iPhone.

The direction you head into from the "parking lot"

The trail wasn't as well marked as I would like, in fact I lost it a few times and ended up going up and down boulders strewn about the dry creek that formed this gulch.  The .5 miles or so took me about 30 minutes each way in the mid-morning sun, a light sweat was developed by yours truly due to the warm weather.

Maybe halfway there, a view of the gulch/draw one needs to negotiate to get to the mine entrances:

A view back towards where I left Yagi....

As I neared the mine entrances, I could spot discarded/rusty metal objects and pipes that used to be part of the mine's infrastructure.

Finally, I got to the first mine entrance.  It was pretty easy to spot since it had remnants of a small railway which they must have used to cart the ore and dirt out of the mine:

Around the bend above, you come onto the entrance to the mine.  Surprisingly, it's not closed off to the public with bars or some similar obstacle.  

Old mines usually being death traps, I did not go in.

Across a very small ravine, there laid another mine entrance nearby:

I returned the way I hiked in, found the real trail on the way out, not much better but smaller boulders anyways to negotiate.

On the ride back to camp, I took the wrong road back and ended up correcting myself by going cross-country for a bit.  This led to the below discovery of old bombs which actually were located pretty close to where the old armored vehicles are!

Pretty sure, I hope, the Air Force rendered these inert

I got back around Noon and spent the next 3-4 hours resting in the URRV's shade and shooting pics of a couple of Marine Corps Super Stallion CH-53E (I think) Helicopters doing some training which centered mainly on landings and takeoffs under dusty/blind conditions.

My puny 200mm telephoto lens didn't get too many good shots but sometimes the choppers came close enough:

Around 4PM, the choppers had left so I got on Fiona and headed out to the border of Block C area for a picture of the border sign:

Then I headed back the 2 miles or so back to the campsite and headed up the hill where the telcom antennas are for pictures:

While I was up there, the choppers came back and I got some shots of them doing their sandy conditions landing training.  Must be quite "exciting" landing such a machine while not being able to see a damn thing due to the dust!

Another picture of Uma from the hill top

As sunset approached, I left the hilltop and rode the short distance to where I'd found a good spot with hills to pose Fiona: