Quantrell Mine (Feb. 5)

Looking back on Elephant Head, as we near Quantrell Mine

Yes, nice hike! I’m up to 5.5 miles a hike, and maybe a thousand feet elevation gain each hike. Quantrell Mine is the primary hike to Little Elephant Head and Elephant Head, the latter hike being a bit of a bear, up and down two canyons, with feeble trails to within a quarter mile of the top, at which point the trail dissipates and the hiker does what he/she can do to claw his/her way to the summit. Russ and I have done that hike twice, the last time a near killer in the heat of the summer with a limited amount of drinking water. That was a scathing hike. Today we trekked the easy, old man’s version, to Quantrell, fantasizing what it might be to once again be in the kind of shape it would take for me to do the Elephant Head hike. (Now that I give it a little more thought, I don’t think Sierran’s dogs would stand much of a chance doing the Elephant Head trek—I forgot dogs can’t climb sheer rock).

The trail around the first range of hills is barely visible with Elephant Head’s peak in the background

But the Quantrell hike was good and my knee seems to be holding up. It was a beautiful day, blue skies and upper 60’s. Quantrell Mine was established in the early 1900’s primarlly for lead and zinc with traces of gold, silver, and copper. I am under the impression there were Chinese immigrants working the mine, who in my mind, probably made little more than slave wages and were treated not much better than slaves. But, who knows.

“Good, gentle, killer dog, good girl”

Quantrell Mine with Elephant Head in the background

At one time, there was a “road” that was used to get up the mountain and back up into the mine. Now it is just a foot trail remaining, surrounded by weeds and carved into stone. I looked up “Quantrell Mine” on the internet and found an article written in the same spirit I might have written a few years back. In fact, coincidentally, the guy used the name “Rubberboa”. I was thinking, what were the odds. Good photos. I liked the guy’s spirit and his writing style. Then I came across a photo, and I thought, wow, that guy looks a lot like Russ; in fact that particular photo was right where I took a picture of Russ a couple years back. Then, I looked a little closer. Hey, I wrote this article! Who posted it? I guess somebody liked it and put it on the internet. I thought, “now I am a published writer (-: “