#299: An October Rhino Adventure into Pine Creek and Morgan Creek

Here are some photos from our second Rhino trip into Morgan Creek from the Mill at Pine Creek.

Our buddy Lynn Goodfellow owns the mine property, which includes a lot of the land up Morgan Creek, where one of this country’s most productive tungsten mines was located.

We did our first trip up there a few years ago with Lynn in his Razor. Here is a link to the first set of photos from that trip, as well as some background information about the mine.

Also, here are two more posts we did from this trip, here and here.

This, like our first time up there in August of 2010, was an epic trip so we’ll have lots to post here. We got some great GoPro video up there that really gives a look at the steep, rocky terrain we traveled through.

That will be up soon.

For this trip, we had three Rhinos. Part of the crew out here, Tony, Genaro and Brandon, came along. My son Poncho was also here for the trip. We also brought along one of the Eastern Sierra’s bighorn sheep experts, Steve Yeager.

We were hoping to see some sheep on this trip, but they had moved into the higher, less-accessible parts of the canyon that week with the warm weather.

Even though we didn’t find any sheep, it was great having Steve along. He’s led several groups back there (and into all the other sheep habitats around the East Side) to track and photograph them. He even took a National Geographic photography team there once about a decade ago. We hope to hook up with him again soon for another bighorn sheep-tracking adventure.

It was a great trip up to the top of the canyon. We figure we ate lunch somewhere around 12,000 feet, and then drive down to the trail to Morgan Lake.

After a quick walk to the lake, we drove back down to the Pine Creek mill just as the sun was going down. Tom, who has worked at Pine Creek for a long time (and used to run the Mammoth Mountain Chalets), was there to greet us as we pulled in.

We had a fantastic day and I can’t express enough gratitude to Lynn Goodfellow for inviting us up there again. It’s a trip we’ll talk about for years and it wouldn’t be possible without Lynn, Tom, and the crew up there.

We”ll have a lot more from the day on the way. The video is really incredible, it gives a good look into the steepness of the canyon on either side of the road. Check it out in the next few days.

-Dave

 

Here is an old tram to the Shirley Temple Mine on the west side of Mt. Tom. This was taken from the trail up Morgan Creek. We spotted these three on the drive up. Here are the tram towers going up Morgan Creek. That’s the view from the trail looking up into Pine Creek Canyon (on the right). At the top of those switchbacks is the Brownstone Mine. We went up Morgan Creek, just to the right of this photo, but Pine Creek is spectacular on its own. The peak on the left is the Bear Creek Spire. Here is Morgan Lake, looking up toward Morgan Pass. Here is the crew, looking down into one of the mines. Here is the top portal of the Pine Creek Mine, somewhere near 13,000 feet. Here is our lunch spot, where the road goes no further. This one is an iPhone panoramic. Morgan Lake. Here is the view of the mill on the trip back down. Two years ago there were a few other buildings but they were all taken out in an avalanche. Goodfellow cleared out most of the wreckage and that’s how it looks now. We saw a huge herd of deer on the way home it was a great way to end the day. Hopefully we’ll be back up there soon.