Heather and I were looking for a chill half-day outing with an opportunity to escape some of the Riverside heat and smog. A few ideas were floated, but I was curious to hike to the Big Horn Mine along Angeles Crest near Mt Baden Powell (3.8 mi round trip 600ft elevation gain), to see what was left of one of southern California's more significant historic underground mines. We had heard many of the mining infrastructure was burned in the destructive 2024 Bridge Fire, but were still interested to see what was left. Since we were in the general area and I had been having a renewed interest in mineral collecting, we would add on a brief look for emerald-green actinolite yard rocks in Wrightwood, and then drive out past Adelanto to look for shortwave UV minerals at the Princess Pat Mine in the Shadow Mountains which I had recently researched.
We left Riverside in the afternoon, setting off on our hike around 3p. The first bit near the trailhead passed through some nice pine forest mixed with some oaks but as we continued to contour around the mountain we entered the desolate burn area for most of the distance. The clearing at least provided nice distant views across the East Fork of the San Gabriel River headwaters, Pine Mountain Ridge, and the backside of Mt San Antonio.
The trail had a pleasant gradient and shade, but was certainly thin and washed out in places as it crossed active landslide areas and snow avalanche/debris flow paths. Along the way there was an interesting adit with spring water flowing out of it (wet feet so I passed on further exploration). Around the corner we soon reached the cliff-clinging frame of the old mine's ore processing building. Nearly all the wood had burned in the 2024 fire but a fresh coat of graffiti had already proliferated. Even as a skeleton of its former self, I enjoyed the vantage looking through a mosaic of picture frames framing the mountain landscape (frontispiece).
Eager to explore the mine a bit, I left Heather to chill out on the concrete slab of the mine building. It is probably safe to say I have never seen so much graffiti in my life! I really did not know what to expect with the mine, expecting a straight tunnel inward for the whole length if anything. It did start this way with mine cart tracks leading me in, but soon the complexity greatly increased, notably with a sloping upward passage branching off the left side that went into an maze of multi-level passageways and looping tunnels. The main passage continued wet. At one place there was some white flowstone forming. Throughout the mine was bizarre rusting straps bracing the passage, unlike that I had seen in any other mine. I probably spent 20-30 minutes exploring at a stiff pace, guessing I had seen at least a half-mile of passage. I later looked up that the mine apparently had over 8000 ft in length mapped at some point with some amount of collapse since, including to an additional entrance. Overall more interesting than I expected but pretty gross with the graffiti and trash.
I returned back to the surface and then we strolled back along the trail. Heather was paying attention and managed to find the spur trail leading towards Vincent's Cabin. I was pretty convinced between the fire and general LA riffraff that there was a near-zero chance of finding a cabin but I was proven wrong when we emerged into a small flat and found a ramshackle structure surrounded by purple lupines. Looking inside, we could see it was fairly recently stabilized with an internal bracing structure constructed in attempts to preserve it. It was a worthwhile detour off the main path that probably most visitors to the mine miss seeing.
Back at the cars, we drove back down the highway to the familiar pullout next to the wash on the bottom end of Wrightwood. This place was also thoroughly changed since my last visit- less so by the Bridge Fire directly and more from the debris flows that tore through the town on Christmas Eve 2025. The wash had been completely bulldozed and reshaped since, which was either good or bad for mineral collecting. Good it turned out. The wash seemed to not have been picked over as we quickly found a backpack's worth of nice specimens with interesting radiating crystals, spending much less time here than I would have thought.
Weighing our Wrightwood food options, we decided to instead gamble on a isolated but well rated Mexican restaurant out in Adelanto. We had to wait a bit for a table but had a nice meal. A little before sunset we drove on to the Princess Pat Mine in the Shadow Mountains along 395 and used the last of the light to get a sense of what to look for. Shortwave really was the standout spectra with some brilliant blue-white galaxies of scheelite mixed with other greens and oranges. Just as the sun set, a full moon rose (oops!), but we still did well finding a bucket of interesting specimens that I later winnowed down to a select shelf. The area had clearly seen plenty of collectors and was comparably picked over compared to my Utah collecting, but nevertheless it was still fun to sort through the dumps for the colorful glows. We stayed until nearly midnight, at least enjoying a smooth traffic-free travel down Cajon Pass. Thanks to Heather for indulging some interesting mineral collecting and mine exploring.
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