Thursday, August 5, 2010

Stonewall Mine

Mission accomplished for the month: I walked a trail I'd never been on before...and I'll be honest, it was a bit of a disappointment.

A girlfriend and I have been wanting to find some old ghost towns in the area--left over from the gold rush days. We thought that the old Stonewall Mine in Descanso, off the 79, looked promising based on what we read about it online. But, like most things on the internet, it proved to be misleading. The "mining town" is little more than a fenced-off hole in the ground. There were a few cool mining tools laying around (behind the fence) and we saw some people riding horses and the views from the trail were pretty OK, but all in all...it should not be classified as a ghost town.

If you decide to go to Stonewall Mine, don't go just to see the mine. You'll see it and be done "exploring" in less than 5 minutes. Go because you want to hike around Cuyamaca Lake or camp in Cuyamaca State Park. It's a calm, slow little place to get away from the rush of the city, and all the oak and pine trees and dried grass reminded me of Northern California. I will go back as a camper, but not as an explorer.





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