Mine in Rock Canyon?

[iamsquat]

man...we should have gone up there together...I went with a friend of mine and we ended up taking the wrong trail up passing the mine on the level below the mine...which was a major disappointment. Oh well...Andy and I are going to go sometime soon possibly. You should come up again with us. It would be fun to get a few more people there.

[andy]

James and I got up to Buckley's last Saturday with offroadcmpr and one of our friends from our hall. It sure is one heck of a hike up there, and I think we pretty much explored the whole thing in about the time it took us to get up there. It is quite different from the other ones I've been in – the ceilings are usually between 5 and 2 feet, as opposed to 7 and 8 in the Ophir, War Eagle, Columbia, etc. The ladder is still in good shape. We noticed that people had been visiting from various halls in our freshman housing complex since 1962. We saw both entrances. There's quite a bit of animal dung throughout the mine. We're not certain if it was bat or rodent droppings, but once again, it's something I haven't seen in other mines.
All in all, it was a successful trip. It's a neat mine – I'm glad we got up there. Furthermore, I took more accurate coordinates. They are:
40º16.139'
111º37.010'
Those should be accurate to within 30 feet. It looked like the approximate coordinates were off by almost half a mile.

Andy

EDIT: We only really saw two levels, but Kurt said the inventory mentioned four. Maybe they're not as clearly distinguished as levels in other mines? Or did we miss half the mine?

[offroadcmpr]

There was one pit on the first level that we did not really explore. It was the one where we had to crawl to get to it. There was some webbing that someone had used so it looks like someone at some time had tried it.

We seemed to have explored the most easily gotten too parts, but there were a couple of pits that would have required ropework to get down safely. Maybe next time.

[Mike]

Great writeup, Andy. How would you feel about starting a wiki entry on it?

[jasonbx]

Whatever animal droppings there were probably weren't bats unless a lot of them are in the mine most of the year--I was surprised how small bat droppings were when I was shown by an expert last year. (Think about grass seeds for a size reference, probably wouldn't notice them if you weren't looking.)

Pack rats are a pretty common animal in caves and mines around Utah. From high elevation out into the Great Basin, that is by far the most common animal droppings I have encountered.

[offroadcmpr]

It was most likely rats. It was fairly large, maybe pea size up elongated. And I did find something that looked like a nest, or at least something had brought up small twigs and such. Last time I checked bats don't do that.

[Stuart]

Yeah, definitely Pack Rats or Wood Rats or whatever you prefer to call them. They make multi-generation nests that can get pretty big. If you have been around them enough you can recognize their smell instantly when you enter a mine that they inhabit.

[Mark1955]

Speaking of animal droppings one of the most amazing places I've been in is Hidden Cave near Fallon, NV. You want bat dung... it's probably 40 feet thick in this cave. The dung has over the centuries burried everything from the soot layer from the original Crater Lake Volcano Explosion to hundreds of Indian artifacts. You can see an area thats been excavated and shows the over 10,000 years of different layers accumulated. The smell can get overwhelming inside on a hot day. This area of Nevada is a do not miss... Many petroglyphs, large Pony Express Station ruins, the "Singing Sand Dune", Nuclear blast test site, Wonderstone Mountain and Blue Mountain are but short drives from each other. The people in this area are also very friendly and that makes it all the more fun. All in all an extremely worthwile area to visit. Not to mention that there are still many accessable mines in the general area.

http://anthro.amnh.org/anthropology/research/hidden.htm

http://www.cmdrmark.com/HiddenCv.html

Mark

[Mikezauner]

ooo. sounds like a road trip to me. now to find the time and money.

[Mark1955]

If anyone wants to get a group trip going there let me know... I'd love to go back and I know where all sorts of stuff is atl having done service work over there in Fallon and Winnemucca for the last 7 years and had many weekends to prowl around...

Mark

[cherokeepilot85]

Monarch (Buckley) mine including Map

My wife and I got up to the Monarch (Buckley) mine yesterday. We explored all of the lower level workings except for what may have been the Bonneville tunnel, because there was a cave in and we were running out of time. We also climbed the ladder to the upper level and did some mineral inventory along with exploring much but not all of what workings there are.

offroadcmpr - you said that you had seen a lot of white crystals and such (especially on the ceiling) and were wondering what it was. From what we saw and tested, much of the white minerals are calcite but there was some smithsonite crystals as well. The smithsonite is white, gray, and purple.

I have made maps of both levels, because of time I wasn't able to explore and map out the entire workings but a majority of them are mapped. I am not sure but I think we may have found the beginning of the Bonneville tunnel but didn't get to explore very deep into it (it is supposed to be one mile long).

The coordinates to the mine entrance, +/- 21 feet (decimal degrees format):
40.268812
111.616869

Here are the maps, you will need to click the thumbnail
and when the page loads click the image again to see
full size which can be clicked on to zoom in:

[img][/img]
[img][/img]

[Mike]

Great writeup Craig. Glad to see others with a great interest for mines. Interesting maps. I've yet to make it up to Buckley, starting to look like I need to make an effort to get up there.

Will you be visiting the Hidden Treasure with us next month?

[cherokeepilot85]

Fish-

Glad you liked the maps, they are rough but it gives you an idea.

Yeah, both my wife and I are RSVP for the trip to the Ophir Hill and Hidden Treasure mines next month.
We are really excited to visit the Hidden Treasure mine we here it has some great mineralogy in it.

[Mike]

Glad to see you are interested in minerals. The Hidden Treasure mine offers more minerals variety than any mine Ive ever been to. While they are Extremely difficult to reach, they are worth every drop of sweat, and every danger, that are required to reach the mineralization zones.

[Stuart]

Welcome to the site Craig!
If the Bonneville tunnel is indeed a mile long it looks like I really do need to get up there and check it out I always assumed the Buckley was just a very small mine, but have been proved differently by the many posts on this thread.

The minerals in the Hidden Treasure are indeed world class, but not to worry getting to them is not quite so drastic as the Fish puts it. (Last time he went down there he was really sick so it was a terrible experience for him )