After a crappy day of skiing on Saturday, Mrs. Admin and I grabbed the dogs and headed out for a couple of days of car camping in the San Rafael Swell.
This time we ventured to an area of the Swell that's new to me, just south of I-70 called Copper Globe. It's the site of an interesting copper mine that operated from 1900-1905, but more about that later. This part of the Swell is a high desert region, where the area's trademark sandstone is dotted with pinion and cedar trees.
We got a late start, and left I-70 somewhere around 3 p.m. and headed south. The guide book was perhaps a bit optimistic about the road, which was more suited to the numerous ATVs on it than a 4x4. One particularly hairy spot I thought might stop us in our tracks, but on the second attempt we managed to get up the shelf and on southward.
My original plan had been to continue on to Link Flats to camp at the Red Canyon overlook, but there was one drop on the road about a mile before our destination that I wasn't convinced I'd easily negotiate on the way back out, so we turned back and ended up in the pinon trees about a mile due east of the mine. Complete solitude during the busy Memorial Day Weekend.
En route to the mine, a memorial tucked into the trees tells the story of Henry Jensen.
Now, a bit about the mine. It was a father-son operation. Shortly after starting to pull ore from the mine, they realized that the ore was crap and not worth carting all the way out of there. So they got the bright idea to build a smelter on site, then haul the refined copper out instead. They gathered wood to fuel the smelter and began building the structure. However, when they ran out of fire brick they decided to finish it with building brick instead. You see where this is going...the smelter collapsed almost immediately. In its five years in operation, the Copper Globe Mine never extracted anything of any value.
When we got back to I-70 we made a slight detour to the Eagle Canyon overlook.
The boys by now had endured a hot and dusty weekend, so we decided to detour home via the San Rafael Bridge to give them a chance to swim. Somewhere along the way, however, the camera settings changed and unfortunately those pictures are 640x480.
We then headed home, but cresting the top of Spanish Fork Canyon on US-6 near Thistle Junction, traffic came to an immediate halt. The stopped lineup continued as far as the eye could see into the canyon itself. Figuring that there must've been an accident in the construction zone within the canyon, and given the size and speed of the backup, we decided that detouring 75 miles or so south through Mt. Pleasant and Moroni actually made more sense. Of course, no sooner did we turn south on US-89 than the check engine light illuminated on the truck. We still managed to limp home on misfiring cylinders.
Nonetheless, another terrific weekend in the desert!
This time we ventured to an area of the Swell that's new to me, just south of I-70 called Copper Globe. It's the site of an interesting copper mine that operated from 1900-1905, but more about that later. This part of the Swell is a high desert region, where the area's trademark sandstone is dotted with pinion and cedar trees.
We got a late start, and left I-70 somewhere around 3 p.m. and headed south. The guide book was perhaps a bit optimistic about the road, which was more suited to the numerous ATVs on it than a 4x4. One particularly hairy spot I thought might stop us in our tracks, but on the second attempt we managed to get up the shelf and on southward.
My original plan had been to continue on to Link Flats to camp at the Red Canyon overlook, but there was one drop on the road about a mile before our destination that I wasn't convinced I'd easily negotiate on the way back out, so we turned back and ended up in the pinon trees about a mile due east of the mine. Complete solitude during the busy Memorial Day Weekend.
En route to the mine, a memorial tucked into the trees tells the story of Henry Jensen.
Now, a bit about the mine. It was a father-son operation. Shortly after starting to pull ore from the mine, they realized that the ore was crap and not worth carting all the way out of there. So they got the bright idea to build a smelter on site, then haul the refined copper out instead. They gathered wood to fuel the smelter and began building the structure. However, when they ran out of fire brick they decided to finish it with building brick instead. You see where this is going...the smelter collapsed almost immediately. In its five years in operation, the Copper Globe Mine never extracted anything of any value.
When we got back to I-70 we made a slight detour to the Eagle Canyon overlook.
The boys by now had endured a hot and dusty weekend, so we decided to detour home via the San Rafael Bridge to give them a chance to swim. Somewhere along the way, however, the camera settings changed and unfortunately those pictures are 640x480.
We then headed home, but cresting the top of Spanish Fork Canyon on US-6 near Thistle Junction, traffic came to an immediate halt. The stopped lineup continued as far as the eye could see into the canyon itself. Figuring that there must've been an accident in the construction zone within the canyon, and given the size and speed of the backup, we decided that detouring 75 miles or so south through Mt. Pleasant and Moroni actually made more sense. Of course, no sooner did we turn south on US-89 than the check engine light illuminated on the truck. We still managed to limp home on misfiring cylinders.
Nonetheless, another terrific weekend in the desert!