For a few years now I have been interested in checking out Panamint City, a strange twice ghost town accessible via a deceptively hard hike up Surprise Canyon in Panamint Valley. Once billed as the next Comstock Lode (silver megaproducer), it was called the "toughest, rawest, most hard-boiled little hellhole that ever passed for a civilized town". Interesting historic buildings (including some equipped for overnight stays), old mine adits to explore, and a smelter chimney towering at its center like a lighthouse beacon were the main draw or so I thought. It was not until I hiked it that I realized Surprise Canyon itself with its cool spring-fed waters cascading in narrow gorges, colorful wildflowers, swirling butterflies, skittering lizards, thick riparian vegetation contrasting with dusty sage and cacti, and towering walls of varied rocks, was the real star of the show.
We leisurely left Riverside mid-morning with a plan to stop to check out Great Falls of Trona and maybe descend the canyon. Upon arriving I was quite surprised to see the canyon thoroughly flowing with cold water and the last two waterfalls completely filled in with sediment at their bases from a storm a couple months previous. Between not bringing wetsuits and the uncertainty over the conditions of anchors, we opted to pass on a late afternoon descent. After some deliberation we decided to drive on to Panamint Valley and up the fan into Surprise Canyon, parking about a mile short of the trailhead (2080 ft elevation) given the declining road conditions we encountered. Though it was unlikely we would make it as far as Panamint City (8.5 miles), we packed up to spend a couple nights out and started walking at 4:30p. The gradient in the canyon is remarkably consistent and we gained 600 ft in the 1 mile to the trailhead; looking back the 1000 ft elevation of the salt flats at the bottom of Panamint Valley seemed remarkably distant.
Past the trailhead (two cars), the canyon began to narrow with cottonwoods, horsetails, maidenhair ferns, and other riparian vegetation forming a continuous green ribbon in this otherwise desolate place. It took me about a half-mile of cautious rock hopping to realize that dry feet would be completely futile and so I embraced the cool waters soaking my feet. For much of the narrow section, the trail was really just walking in trail-shaped strips of the creek. For a short section of about 500 ft the only real way to make progress was to wade through pools and climb up and around waterfalls- it was incredibly scenic. Just above the narrows was an out-of-place old rusty pickup truck, a surreal reminder that there was a road where we had just come from until a flash flood in 1984 stripped it away and excavated the canyon down to bedrock. Though the canyon opened up, it remained thick with vegetation and a surprising amount of water. As we hiked I could not help but think to myself that it was nearly conceivable that fully half of the biomass in the entirety of Death Valley National Park could be here. We continued past Limekiln Spring, which had an interesting hillside patch of impenetrable wild grapes presumably covering an extensive spring source. We made it nearly to Brewery Spring, finding a rare tent-sized space of flat, sandy ground that seemed like the obvious place to stop for the night. Between the terrain and pace we were keeping, it took us 3 hours to go 3.9 miles. Even after setting camp, the day was not over as I still needed to find a way to get through the impenetrable vegetation to fill up on water, which I succeeded with on my third attempt after about 20 minutes of effort.
The next morning we packed up and continued up the canyon, passing Brewery Spring after a short 500 ft, and then finding a dry wash to walk up for the remainder of the hike. At intervals we found sections of old roadbed to hike on but often it was a matter of finding the least rocky channels of the wash to walk in. We ran into a group of 3 hiking down about a mile from Panamint City, reporting that The Castle should be in good shape and all ours. With that news we detoured up Sourdough Canyon to move our stuff into The Castle, the most lovingly restored (and frankly only borderline livable) cabin in the valley. Looking online most hikers seem to find the Panamint Hilton cabin in downtown Panamint City and assume it is the place to stay, with the hidden Castle generally reserved for those more in the know. The Castle is a rustic cabin of weathered wood with a brick floor and a second adjoining dirt floored room equipped with a stove, kitchen sink, and lots of quirky little add-ons people have made over the years. Outside there is a chair swing mounted on the large patio and a fire ring with a setup for a wood fire heated bath alongside it. Perhaps most impressively of all, water is piped from a spring up the hill ensuring a continuous supply of clean water right at the cabin.
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| The interior of The Castle |
Leaving behind most of our gear, we set off for a few hours of day hiking around the "city", starting with the great sidle trail that branched off from the cabin. From cacti to globe mallows to lupines, flowers were all around. The sidle also gave us great views across the valley of the 1870s chimney for the Panamint Stamp Mill and the more modern 1940-1980s processing facility beyond. We poked our heads into several of the old cabins on the north side of the valley, all in pretty weathered and frankly uninhabitable shape. Beyond we found the large cistern collecting scummy water from a spring up the hill, and then beyond that the few building remnants of Thompson Camp in Water Canyon, which indeed did have flowing water in it. The ridgeline above between South Telescope Peak and Panamint Pass had some interesting cliffs and spires of jointed ignimbrite.
Continuing our tour, we checked out the remnants of "downtown", wondering at the function of the buildings and its past inhabitants. We walked through the Panamint Hilton, the hiker trash version of The Castle. This is clearly extensively visited and stayed at. It was rough and gross with graffiti and rat droppings throughout. Onward we checked out the impressive stonework of the main chimney of the stamp mill, remarkable to still be standing but with some damage that suggested it was not much longer for this world. For now though it was an impressive construction, incredible to still be standing after a century of exposure to harsh environments. Continuing up the hill we checked out the more modern processing facility with an ore chute and conveyor belt feeding barrel crushers, washers, and sieves to sort ore. The wall of Westinghouse electrical boxes clearly indicated the more recent 1970s-ish generation of mining endeavors.
Past the processing facility we dropped packs to check out the horizontal adit near the tailings pile. This turned out to be the Lewis Tunnel, a remarkable dead straight and flat passage that follows no mineralization for 0.4 miles, an bold attempt to intersect the Wyoming Mine's main vein a thousand feet underground. Sketching it out, they must have stopped just short of their target! I have certainly never been underground while being able to see a pinprick of daylight 0.4 miles away.
After exploring the nearby iron doored explosive storage, I convinced Heather to ascend a ridge 250ft to intersect the remnants of the road up to the Wyoming Mine, one of the main producers in the area. First I checked out the lower adit, which had interesting mineralization and many collapses. The mine ended quite strangely, intersecting a fault with void space howling air from above, clearly intersecting the mine levels of the Wyoming Mine but not in a safe way they were interested in continuing to pursue. I spent some time checking out some of the bizarre UV activated mineralization before we continued on up to the mid level adit of the Wyoming Mine at 7400ft elevation. Here Heather hung out at the entrance while I squeezed in past the entrance collapse to explore the mine. Though the main level here was minimal, there was a neat mine cart still on its track, a vertical shaft with broken ladders heading down (presumably intersecting the other mine I explored 300 ft lower), and another shaft heading upward (presumably intersecting the hilltop workings 200 ft above). On the way back down we detoured to check out one of the ore tram towers and then I collected some wood on our way back to the cabin.
Now settling back into our home at The Castle, we set about to collect some more firewood, get started on a campfire and boiler fire, and dinner. Just before sunset a backpacking couple showed up, apparently just barely making it. After some pleasant enough greetings, establishing that we were well situated at the cabin, and encouraging them to have a look around (subtext: and then fuck off), they completely lacked any comprehension of common sense wilderness etiquette, spread their stuff around, put their wet boots next to my fire, and set up their tent less than a stone's throw (trust me I was tempted) away from the cabin. All night they were ever present in our business. Even when we sat in the bathtub enjoying the night sky, they showed up and blazed the fire so that that was all that could be seen. I was furious, livid. Maybe I should have said something to them, but instead I said lots of things half under my breath. This whole wilderness, hours of prepping and looking forward to a relaxing evening, spoiled by the selfish and ignorant. This continued in the morning until they finally left.
In the morning we packed up, tidied, and then set off back down the valley. The 600ft per mile gradient now to our backs, we made much better time descending. Along the way we saw all sorts of lizards and lots of butterflies fluttering about. By the end of our hike I was surprised we did not see any bighorn sheep; it seemed the perfect habitat for them. As we neared the bottom of the narrows section we came across a solo hiker that explained her situation of getting her borrowed truck stuck. Long story short she hiked back out with us, we got her very ill-equipped 2WD truck unstuck, turned around, and parked better before restarting her hike.
Heather and I both appreciated our vehicle was still in the shade of a nearby cliff when we arrived as the temperatures were rising. We drove out then evaluated our options. The South Pass into Saline Valley sounded like it was in particularly terrible shape, which along with the heat, made our planned visit to the Saline Warm Springs less appealing. I suggested maybe we could find a lake-side campspot in the trees and so we drove on to Olancha for the first bit of cellular reception. Despite the lack of snowpack, it soon became clear that virtually everything was still closed for the season. Some other options ruled out, we ended up stopping for a meal in Ridgecrest then driving on home. So overall it was a brief escape that did not turn out like expected in a lot of ways, but I was happy to tick off a visit to Panamint City and to check out one of the more lush oases in Death Valley National Park.
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