Explorer Blog - Arizona Abandoned Mine Exploration

Traces

By:D.S.

Something about the desert draws adventurers; they are the vast empty spaces of the world that hold the same mystery now that they did millenia ago. Even today explorers who venture beyond the outlying borders and deep into desert occasionally disappear, never to be heard from again. They take with them the story of what happened and those left behind can only speculate on what they might have seen.

By:D.S.

Occasionally a trace of their passing is discovered and we can learn something of their fate. More often than not more questions get asked than answers given. The desert offers only silence.

Making our way up a remote desert canyon towards an old mining district I noticed a small shard of ceramic lying face up in a dry stream bed. The ceramic upon close examination revealed itself to be a piece of fine china painted with blue floral pattern. It had the cracked patina of antique pottery. It was unquestionably an unusual find in the vast wilderness around us.

As our hike continued we began to find more pieces of matching china. After a while it became clear that the pieces were not from a single piece but what had once been an entire set. By the time we reached the end of the canyon we had amassed a collection of hundreds of pieces. The apparently handpainted works were exquisite. It was difficult to determine when the pieces had originally reached this place but that they had experienced at least several floods of the canyon was evident from their spread over a mile and the depth at which several were buried.

Our imagination ran wild trying to explain its presence here. I envisioned that long ago the miners here had struck a vein of untold wealth. Deep below the surface they lived like kings and dined only on the finest china. Eventually when the vein played out, they left, content to let any trace of their secrets crumble to dust.

By:D.S.