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| A little ice from the recent storm remains in shaded areas. |
Dinner? |
A lone burro is having a snack. |
The dual boilers of Clair Camp. Brick thieves and vandals have all but ruined one of them. |
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| One of the upper mine adits. |
A dangerous looking stope off the right of the tunnel entrance. |
Not the safest looking mine I have been in. |
Oh ya! This looks inviting... |
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| Tabby has been instructed to stay outside. |
A look down at the crumbling camp. It never stood a chance being in the middle of a popular route. |
Lepidium (Nate) and his wife Riannah stand at the main ore hopper of the mill. Riannah is a direct decendant of the Clairs. |
The main camp cookstove. Riannah's grandmother cooked for the whole camp here. The cook house is caving in around it. |
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| This looks like the powder magazine. It has dual steel doors. |
Inside we see that it is caving in. |
Another weak looking adit. |
This one has signatures and dates from the person working here. These mines were worked as recently as the early 80s. |
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| Another adit with a stacked stone entrance. |
We start to encounter a little snow as we climb further up the side of the canyon. |
I have abandonned the truck and started hiking because of snow. Bill has continued on. |
Bill coming back down from the snow after a little detour to another one of the upper mines. |
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| As I hike down a different road to meet up with Bill I notice parts of the tram are still intact. |
An old stove along the side of the road makes me wonder a bit. |
Was it dropped off due to a breakdown and never recovered? |
The foundation of what used to be a two stamp mill. (lower right) |
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| A closer look at the boiler. |
The 2 stamp mill foundation and the pit for the huge flywheel. |
More of the stacked stone foundations. One of the stamps lies in the upper right. |
The drive belt pullys for the mill. |
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| Close up of one of the stamps. |
Bill and Manfred (from Germany) talk about how cool the World Beater Cabin is during lunch. |
The Crapper. |
Some one has stolen the solar panel from the World Beater Cabin. |
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| The World Beater Cabin is one of the Adopt-A-Cabins. |
Bill continues the loop while I turn back because of snow. Along the way I spot the ruins of a rock sturcture. |
Christmas Eve in Ballarat. |
Good friends and a good camp fire thanks to Bill! Christmas eve was great! |
