CLEAN UP AT KEYNOT MINE April 10-21, 1991 By Steve Smith, Jim Morrison, Ron Jones

Eight of us met Thursday morning on the floor of the Saline Valley near the mouth of Keynot Canyon in the Inyos. From the morning of Thursday April 18 when the 1st helicopter shuttle rose from the floor of Saline Valley, until the following Sunday night near midnight, when the last climber straggled out of Keynot Canyon, a unique and productive desert experiment took place. We met in a joint effort of trail restoration for the 1991 State of California Trail Days effort, a BLM/Inyo Mtns WSA project and to pioneer a descent of Keynot Canyon. Heading the trip was Steve Smith, Chief of Resources for the Ridgecrest BLM office. Andy Tenney, a recreation planner for the BLM was present. They were joined by Jerry Bogqs, a wildlife expert for China Lake NWS: Matt Webb and Mark Smith of "Friends of the Inyo WSA"; Doug, Ron and Jim Morrison, founders of the Desert Survivors organization & Ron Jones of the Sierra Club, DPS. For years the Keynot mine area, abused by illegal mining, has needed clean-up and restoration and the hiking trail improved on the Keynot/Beveridge ridge leading east from Keynot Peak to the Beveridge Trail Cabin. This site has magnificent views of Keynot and Beveridge Canyons, the Snowflake Talc Mine, Saline Valley and the Inyo Crest. This year we were flown by helicopter to the cabin site at 8,200'. That day and the next were spent dismantling 1/2 mile of water pipe leading from Keynot Spring to the mine and depositing the pipe in a massive mine dumpster. We cleaned up the Keynot Spring area and removed much modern debris leaving only artifacts from the historic mining days. We sealed off a mine entrance where cyanide was once stored and Steve camouflaged the massive Fiat-Allis bulldozer with a paint job which blends into the landscape. We also stocked the Beveridge Ridge cabin with emergency food, some donated by Hunt-Wesson. The following two days were to be spent in a descent of Keynot Canyon. Not many people enter into the Inyo Mountains, and fewer yet venture out into the steep and rugged eastern side of the range. The eastern slope is a frontal fault line escarpment which is undergoing rapid vertical uplift which results in the high ridges and deep canyons. Hikers that do enter the area mostly use the old historic mining trails which generally follow ridgelines and avoid the deep canyons with their frequent high dry waterfall obstacles and dense brush. There had been however two known times that climbers had attempted to descend the length of Keynot Canyon. Two people from an early 1980's mining effort at the Keynot mine first attempted the canyon in 1982 and another two people from7 the BLM had attempted it in 1985. Both trips were unsuccessful when the climbers reached high dry waterfalls they could not go down and cliffs they had already descended prevented them from going beck up canyon. Both groups had to be rescued by difficult helicopter airlifts -including use of a military helicopter with hoist cable for one group - after they became stranded deep in the heart of Keynot Canyon.

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