Friday – April 10, 2015
Victoria Mine
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
Why, Arizona
We awoke to another beautiful, sunny day. The temperature reached 83 degrees, with light winds and a clear blue sky above. A perfect day for a hike to the Victoria Mine. This is a 4.5-mile round trip hike that takes the visitor to a abandoned silver mine. The trail is based on historic roads that connected several mines in the Puerto Blanco Mountains.
The trail to the Victoria Mine is a moderately easy hike. It traverses through several ravines and dry wash areas, so it required a fair amount of aerobic exercise to hike up and down the ravines before reaching the mine.
The remnants of a stone cabin remain, along with four mineshafts that have been sealed off with a rectangular steel structure. The mineshafts have been fitted with about a 4-foot diameter plastic tube to accommodate the sizeable bat populations that inhabit these mines.
We shared a nice picnic lunch, in the shade of the stone cabin, with another senior citizen hiker (Ron) from Seattle, Washington. He was a veteran visitor to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and shared with us several stories of his past adventures to this marvelous place.
We returned to our campsite in the late afternoon, spent from our hiking journey, and relaxed in our lounge chairs with a soothing cup of Hills Bros. Cappuccino Egnlish Toffee. Life is good!
Tomorrow another adventure begins.
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