Doing Travel right, spend money on good quality experiences. In this case a jeep tour.
Here is Hal, our fascinating guide. Yes, that hat is a Vietnam Vet Purple Heart hat. Turns out, he has 5 Purple Hearts, 4 for gunshots, 1 for bayonet wound – although he won that fight. His stories were fascinating, what a life. Anyway, I’d like to concentrate on the tour. Hal says he’s writing books, who knows, listening to his stories was incredible.
The charcoal kilns. Not many people get here because one needs a solid 4 wheel drive. Up a steep canyon. So here is the story. In the mid 19th. century, mining of all types was the rage. In order to extract ore from the slag, one needed charcoal because it will burn at a higher temperature. To make charcoal, one must burn wood slowly without much oxygen so it doesn’t just burn, but becomes charcoal.
The kilns are up in the mountains, and snow was plentiful. I asked Hal if this technology was from the natives. I knew the answer, but waited for him – no, they never knew about charcoal – let’s be honest – they were basically stone-age people. The miners brought in a Swedish expert who built these over 170 years ago, and look how beautiful they are, its’ not just the shape. In creating things, humans try and include beauty – well, not our moderns – they are anti- beauty.
Building an arch needs a keystone, on the other side there is another opening higher up, another way to load in the wood. The inside is completely blackened, from the smoldering smoke.
Remains of the old ‘office’. Once production stopped, they removed all the wood that had been used in the building and just the stone foundation remains.
Not a clear picture, Joel is holding a piece of snow.
Thank goodness this picture came out much better. You can see how thick the walls are, buy looking in at the doorway. Yes, it’s cold up here.
Interesting protrusions. I’m wondering if they are there to keep birds and animals off.
A plant has taken root. These are so well built, that this is rare, you’d think that much more erosion would be happening.
I took a lot of pictures, couldn’t help myself.
We parked right before this ice. I was very careful where I walked, falling down wasn’t an option.
We were high enough that looking down the canyon I could see over one mountain range to the high Sierras. That is the part of the range with Mt. Whitney. The highest point in continental US, later that day I’d be standing at the lowest point.
Up here we have trees, higher up, they will disappear, lower down they will as well. This was just the first part of the jeep trip, more to come.
Leah