Pine Creek Canyon

Pine Creek Canyon is about as rugged as it gets in the Eastern Sierra. This is a place where a person could lose his life real fast in a fall or rock slide; there are places right off the trail that are death defying, It takes a sure foot and steady nerve to negotiate the trails of Pine Creek Canyon. The trailhead is 10 miles north of Bishop and about eight miles west of U.S. 395. The road passes through spectacular scenery on both sides with large granite and rust-colored shale and slate mountains jutting up. At the mouth of the canyon is the little village of Rovana, which gets its name from an amalgam of Round Valley and the Vanadium Ranch. Rovana was 1940’s housing for the miners who worked in the Union Carbide mine up at the trailhead. Many a Bishop local grew up with fond memories of Rovana.

At the trailhead I notice that things are still semi-primitive. No paved parking lot or permanent facilities are in existence. The trail goes right through the entrance to the pack station and heads for Pine Creek and Italy passes. A side trail goes up into an entirely different canyon to Gable Lakes. The old switchback road opposite the mine goes up to Morgan Lakes. Brian and Danika Berner are the owners of Pine Creek Pack Station. They are carrying on a tradition that goes back to the 1920’s and 30’s, when mules were used to pack in supplies to the tungsten mines and carry out ore. The tram towers that surround the canyon are a testament to what men and mules can do, and how they constructed the wooden towers in impossible places. Brian and Danika are long time Eastern Sierra locals who are wise, love the mountains and have respect for the environment. They come from an old, great Crowley Lake family.

The trail leaves the pack station and works its way up through a jungle of aspens, firs, and riparian plants. After about a half mile it joins the old mine road that climbs the steep hillside to the upper Brownstone mines. This trail is hot and killer in summer, and anyone who goes up after 11 a.m. is asking for heatstroke. There is very little shade, and dogs will expire. The road finally turns into a trail and traverses under the high tungsten mines. The scenery up this trail is absolutely mind-drooling insane. Waterfalls and multi-colored striated peaks are everywhere. It is rough and rugged and the steps are too high. This is not an easy hike that leads to Pine Lake and beyond. But what trail in the Sierra is?

In 1980 on a hike over Italy Pass from Pine Lake, I remember going through Granite Park and seeing these choice little creeks meandering down through perfectly manicured grassy meadows. The sand was white and the water had a pure bluish tint. Colorful flowers were popping up all over the place like a Galen Rowell photo. This place was heaven! I can still see the snapshot in my mind, and the wonderful thing is that the snapshot is no different today. My old buddy Slim Nevins, the Forest Service packer, told me he used to pack mules over Italy Pass when he owned Pine Creek Pack Station in the1950’s. There is no way a stock user could do that today. Those old guys, like Art Schober from Bishop, made trails and packed into places that are unbelievable. I consider it a great thrill to find these old trails that those men made that have gone back into history. Their legacy is a wonderful one that is cherished by their families to this day.

Italy Pass was stark, Italy Lake was stark, and I just wanted to get down through the Hilgard Branch into the forest at Bear Creek. Now I was deep into the west side of the Sierra. Deep into a comfortable scene of smooth granite, streams and forests. Places where many a native person had been long before me as evidenced by the artifacts they left on the ground. It was sweet, but I knew I had to go back over the hill and head for home.

That was just one way to go. I was going to hike up to Gable Lakes on a side trail. This trail goes up a steep rocky slope that has the look of avalanches, rock slides and flash floods. It has been closed before due to rock slides. I stood beneath a rock outcrop on this trail one time and watched slides come down on each side of me. It was too much and would have been instant death if not for the rock outcropping. The mountains are always unstable, and a slide can happen at any time for any reason.

Off the Gable Lakes Trail are tram towers that carried ore in cars from the mines in the sky to the mill at the bottom. These towers that were built out of heavy timbers and packed in on mules, seem to hang out in space. The tram line was very scary to work on, because it is so high off the ground and had to be maintained year round.

Old miners like Jesus and Marcello, who worked at the Union Carbide Mine in the 60’s told stories about guys riding the tram cars up the hill, when they were coming back from town drunk. The tram cars would get sideways in a wind and jump the rail when it snowed heavily. Sometimes the guys were in the cars when this happened.

Jesus loved to tell stories about the buses that ran up the steep switchback road to the upper Pine Creek mines. Before the switchbacks were constructed they used to drive all the way around through Rock Creek Lake. “Most guys only lasted about a week riding the old gray bus up and down those switchbacks each day. One time in winter the bus started spinning wheels with chains on and rolled back ready to go off the hill. One pine tree saved our lives, and it was the only one on the road,” Jesus said, adding that a lot of guys quit after that.

No story about Pine Creek can be told without mentioning the tungsten mines. Joe Kurtak tells the story in his wonderful book, Mine in the Sky. This is a story about how a steel hardener called tungsten helped win WWII. Now the mine sits idle and waits for the future to claim it. I for one am glad to see it defunct, because it used to smell awful, like rotten eggs, back in the old days, when they were still milling the ore. You could smell it all the way up at 11,000 feet, and it would make you sick hiking back down to the trailhead.

It sure is amazing how time can change things for the better or worse. The old man from the wilderness asked me to share this message with you. He said to take time out to reflect on Nature, because she is the wise teacher. Besides wisdom and respect this is what the mountains have taught me: 1. When the sky looks real ominous and black, she means business. Get off the mountain if you can. 2. Never camp under a large dead tree, because a wind could come from out of nowhere and take you out in your tent. It doesn’t even have to be a wind, as the tree could fall from old age. 3. Never camp in a wash because a flash flood could roll through. I have come across abandoned camps where the tenants fled during a storm at night. They don’t bother to retrieve their camping gear, because they are too busy telling horror stories at home. Stick a bear into that scenario and we are really having fun. Can you imagine a bunch of people yelling and running out of their tents in a rain storm in the middle of the night chased by a bear?

Speaking of bears that reminds me of the time I was out camping with the wilderness crew from Mammoth. My old trail partner, Sue Farley, was there among other notables. Sue is a woman after my own heart. She has been there, done that, can do it all, and then some. I knew that I had pitched my tent too close to the other folks at camp, when I had to get up in the middle of the night. The dogs went off, the flashlights came on, and someone said, “It’s a bear!” Then I heard Sue say, “That’s no bear; it’s a bare ass in the woods!”

Well, it sure has been a lot of fun sharing with you some stories about one of my favorite places in the Eastern Sierra: Pine Creek. Until I write again, I hope you find happiness along the trail of life.

Champion Spark Plug Mine

A very unique ghost town exists in the White Mountains near Bishop, California in the Eastern Sierra. What makes it most unusual is that it is on the honor system-nobody lives there and volunteers keep an eye on the place. Visitors are expected to be on their best behavior, but incidents of vandalism have occurred and buildings maliciously burned down. Yet, the old mining camp is still in great shape thanks to the efforts of people like Don and Margy Fraser, who worked hard to keep the camp alive.

The Spark Plug Mine is accessed off Hwy 6 about 20 miles north of the town of Bishop at the White Mountain Ranch Road.  Due to problems that the rancher was having, the old road in to the mine was moved from the pump house at the end of the pavement to one third of a mile up on the left. This road is rocky and rough and requires four wheel drive toward the end. A quarter mile before the trailhead a scary four wheel drive road goes to an upper parking area that is only a mile walk from the site. The heat can make the lower trail a miserable experience in summer.

Everything had to be packed into the Spark Plug Mine on mules as no road was ever constructed all the way to the cabins. Ernest Kinney, who recently passed away, told stories of how he helped his dad, Spray, pack mules to the camp in the 1930’s. The mules had to pack heavy equipment in and heavy sacks of ore out. They even devised special swivel saddles to transport long telephone poles around turns on the trail.

It was an amazing operation where all cargo was handled four to six times before reaching the train that ran down by the highway. First, they had to load the mules for the trip down and off load the ore sacks onto trucks. The trucks then drove down to the rail line to switch the ore over for delivery to Detroit. Nothing was easy or fast in those days, but it sure beat having to haul out the ore in wagons like their predecessors did.   

The thing that made the Spark Plug Mine essential and worth all the effort was that the sillimanite/andalucite ore was used to make a superior spark plug for the Champion Company. Both autos and planes used that type of plug in those days.

It was a dentist named Dr. Joseph Jeffery who discovered the claim while looking for a substance to make better teeth out of. That began a mining operation that would last from 1919-1945 and employ a lot of people. They purchased the White Mountain Ranch to provide food and staples for the men and animals. They produced electricity from a Pelton Wheel in an adjacent canyon and tried to maintain a self-sufficient operation.

Robert Boyle had this to say about his illustrious relative,  ” I am researching Dr. Joseph Jeffery who is my great cousin? His brother and brother-in-law formed the Jeffery-Dewitt Insulator Company that operated in Michigan and West Viginia. His first patent for spark plugs was filed in 1906 while he and his brother owned the Reliance Automobile Company in San Francisco. By 1919 he was solely involved with Champion Porcelain Company. Around 1902 he was involved with the SOUTH YUBA Mine which I am still trying to get more information on. I am also trying to trace my great uncle to the operation; Eustase Boyle. My father told me stories of how he had made fortunes and lost them…”

LLewellyn Edson Jeffery contacted me next.  He wrote, “I was named after my grandfather. My great grandfather is Dr. Joseph A. Jeffery. My father, Arthur Benjamin Jeffery, used to tell me stories about the Jeffery-DeWitt/Champion connection. And he often spoke with great reverence about his aunt Muriel J. Woodhouse: her husband, Charles D. Woodhouse (senior), was a well known mineralogist who was also involved for quite some time with the Champion mine at White Mountain and in association with Jeffery-DeWitt.I haven’t been able to find out anything about the DeWitt family, and not much about my grandfather (my namesake) or my father’s aunt Muriel. I managed to wait too long to try to contact Charles D. Woodhouse, Jr. who, sadly, passed away in September, 2000.”

From out of the mine shaft comes another lost relative  from Tucson, Arizona, to add this,  “My Name is David Dewitt Jeffery. I am the grandson of Benjamin Alfred Jeffery who was Dr. Joseph Arthur Jeffery’s Brother. My Grandmother was Saida Kern Dewitt better known to her grandchildren as “Deda”. She was Mortimer Dewitt’s sister. My Father was Benjamin Dewitt Jeffery who also worked for the Champion Spark Plug company in the late 30’s and 40’s.”

The Spark Plug Mine is about the coolest place a true adventurer would ever want to go. Not only is the hike exciting with ten inch wide death defying sections along the trail, but the cabins are set up with amenities like a deck for watching the sun set over the grand Sierra at cocktail hour. No reservations are required-no pool, no phone, yes pets.

In winter, rugged individuals stay over at the camp to ski up to White Mountain Peak. Some people have been doing it for years since they were kids visiting with their parents. It is a deluxe Spartan experience where the dog’s water bowl usually freezes solid by morning.

Along with the well-kept cabins there is a small museum and tool shed on site. Some people take artifacts while others bring new ones to share. This sort of thing is just unheard of in old mining camps and so far the remoteness of the place has saved it.

No more are the sounds of pack strings heard plodding along the trail with their chains jingling-mules snorting and blowing under the heavy load of groaning leather packs.

This is a story of how a place of hard work and toil became a place of recreation and leisure. It’s totally amazing how that could happen in our modern world.