Hiking Among the Old Mines

The weather was almost decent yesterday so we decided to get outside. I found Cerrillos State Park on the map, looked it up and it sounded promising. It had a number of trails through the hills where mines remained from the late 1800’s. We stopped at the visitor center and the volunteer there recommended the Escalante and Mirador Trails for a short loop (about two miles) that would take us by three of the old mines.

These were well made and well maintained trails. They were worth our $5 daily fee.

The Cerrillos Hills were formed by magma bubbling up through what had been a sea bottom. As the hot magma came through the calcarious soil above it, it reacted and a number of minerals formed. Erosion has left these minerals close to the surface of the hills.

The first mine we encountered was an iron mine. These mines weren’t what I was expecting. They were all hand dug and the ones that remain are all from a period from 1879 to 1884. This mine would have been profitable only until the railroad came through making it reasonable to transport heavy iron articles. It was only 9 feet deep.

Besides iron the hills had silver, lead, gold, copper, manganese and turquoise. The turquoise was only prized by the native peoples and a few miners who thought it was an indicator of gold.

We hiked by two more mines. This was the Pride of the Camp shaft. I don’t know how deep this one was, it was probably a lead-silver mine.

Some of the shafts in the park are a hundred feet deep, but there was no way to gauge the depth as all of them that are deep enough to present a hazard are now secured, like this. The sign didn’t say how deep it was.

The last mine we saw was the Rosellia Lode. It yielded 30 pounds of manganese per ton of rock and was 19 feet deep. Seems like a hard way to make a living.

The mines were interesting, but the most valuable thing for me was the chance to walk in these hills. This is the view at a knob. At the beginning of the video you see the snow capped Jemez Mountains. Next is the broad Rio Grande Valley and finally the Sandia Mountains. I miss the trees out here, but I love the long vistas.