A few years ago we visited JTree and did a hike down the Desert Queen wash to explore some old mining ruins (and be rattled at by a mean snake *shudder*). We never really found the ruins of one of the old encampments, “John’s Camp”. This year we hiked in from the road at the end of the wash to search for John’s Camp again, and this time we were successful (and no rattlers either!) There wasn’t much left other than an old stove, some rusty buckets, a pit cooler, a concrete slab, and what looked like an old dump of tin cans and shattered china. But we found it!
After exploring the John’s Camp area we headed over to the more touristy area of the Wall Street Mill site. There were still a few people out but the Memorial Day crowds were clearing. We strolled through the ruins of old cars, windmills, and the milling site that was used as recently as 1966. The desert isn’t kind to the materials – it looks older than that.
We took another trip into town to see the DaVinci Code and returned to the park just before sunset to explore the Hidden Valley region. David took a look at the bouldering problem Saturday Night Live andd then we wandered around the one-mile Hidden Valley Nature Trail loop, watching the sun set and listening to climbers on the rocks around us.
Photos from the day include several mining relics and a good bit of scenery as well.
