reached by a good trail
leading down from the Keynot Ridge cabin. This cabin was our goal for the
night; but via another trail leading directly from Beveridge.
We soon
reached Beveridge, a relatively accessible camp (a good day hike on use trail
up from the Snow Flake Mine and Saline Valley) which as a result has
deteriorated a lot since I first visited it 15 years ago on a private trip led
by Mark Goebel and June Lane. Still, there's lots to be seen. A nice 4 stamp
mill, boiler., a pelton water wheel, a still standing roofed cabin, stoves and
an elaborate tram and ore handling system. A couple of years ago Steve Smith
led a Friends of the Inyos climb directly down Beveridge Canyon to Saline
Valley which involved the most rose bushes and grapevine brush whacking he had
ever done and some impressive rappels as well.
After exploring the
mining camp with us, John and Carol checked out of the trip as he wasn't
feeling well and Carol was exhausted from the previous day. After spending the
night at Frenchie's Cabin they hiked up the South Fork of Beveridge Canyon past
Goat Spring (reliable water) and followed the use trail south past New York
Butte to spend the night at the Burgess Mine cabin. The next day they walked
the road to Cerro Gorgo mine and their truck. Jerry McDonald from Riverside
would be our capable sweep for the rest of the trip.
Starting from near
the tram line at Beveridge we followed the trail up to the cabin on the Keynot
ridge. It is shown on the New York Butte 7-1/2' Topo, located at 8280 ft. The
Friends of the Inyos have stabilized the cabin, put a new roof on it (using
helicopter to bring in supplies) and keep it stocked with emergency supplies,
food and water and several six packs of beer. We enjoyed the beer and several
of our trip members later sent Steve Smith money to reimburse him for new
supplies. We also found a note from Ron Hudson who was climbing Keynot Peak (an
easy ridge hike from here, passing an old mining timber camp with artifacts
enroute). Ron was retrieving a few items left on the Keynot slopes by Marty
Dickes when she broke a leg while solo hiking shortly before our trip. He
joined us that evening and we were seven people in the party. We finished the
day by exploring the ruins at the Keynot mine and hiking up to Keynot Well (a
reliable water source). Our day #5 was a 10-1/2 mile day with 2650 ft of gain
and 800 ft of loss.
The next day was our intended layover thy when we
were going to climb Keynot and Mount Inyo, but we had already spent that day
snowed in at the Burgess Mine. So we backpacked over again to the Keynot Mine
and |
followed the old ore
tracks (with still functional hand pushed ore carts) to the use trail, obscure
in many places, and out to the flats just below 8,000 feet on the next
ridgeline. Here we were surprised to meet "Mr Mountain Man" of the Inyos, Tom
Budlong (He lives in Los Angeles at 3216 Manderville and attended our last DPS
Banquet). We spent some time visiting and listening to Tom tell us about the
Bee Keeper of McElvoy Canyon (see story in Sage #229, story by Wendall Moyer).
Tom was on his way to meet Steve Smith and his Friends of the Inyos at the
Keynot Ridge cabin.
Just beyond where we met Tom is a short section of
the obscure trail. In fact, the most -obvious trail in this direction goes out
to "Keynot Point" (Point 7742 ft on the Topo). But in the "flats" at about 7900
ft the trail (marked by two short hard-to-see BLM carsonite markers) turns
sharply northwest and slightly uphill and then follows gently downhill for a
mile to a cabin site at 7500 ft. We found a lot of nice artifacts here. By
carefully tracing the faint trail (and passing a threatening 4 foot
rattlesnake) we dropped into McElvoy Canyon at 5700 ft elevation. The canyon
bottom had been recently burned in a accidental fire set by previous hikers and
the vegetation was a mess of soot and charcoal. We thrashed our way through the
burned vegetation and large boulder talus to the impressive site of the
unburned Taylor McElvoy mill. It is not as large a site as Beveridge but there
is more high quality stone work. I thought this the most impressive ruins we
saw on the trip. There is a large "bunkhouse" with several hand made
three-legged stools, a great fireplace but no roof There is a small cache of
emergency food stored here. There is a 5 stamp mill surrounded by extensive
rock walls. There is a steam engine powered by a boiler which drove both the
stamp mill and a small arrastre. There are lots of trails in the area leading
to ore tunnels which fed the mill site.
This day was relatively easy,
involving only 8 miles, 1500 feet of gain and 3600 feet of loss to our camp at
5600 feet. There is lots of running water. That afternoon several of our group
hiked down canyon a mile or so to "The bee keeper's cabin". Lots of brush
enroute and not much to see at the small cabin. That evening at dinner time we
had an impressive short cloudburst that drove us all into our tents.
The next morning Ron Hudson left us to return up to the two carsonite signs
near Keynot Point, over the point and down the old 4WD road to the Saline
Valley and then south to his car at the mouth of Craig Canyon (lots of ingress
and egress points into the Inyos). The six of us |