Monte Cristo Ghost Town — Saturday, Sep. 27, 2025

We got to the trailhead 9. We just missed getting the last spot in the lot, but joined a handful of cars parked on the road. The river is super low, and someone marked a path with flagging starting at the outhouse which leads you across and totally avoid the log bridge. Everything was fine at the campground--our site had plenty of logs to sit on and a nice flat pad. There were a couple other tents farther down, but it felt like we were on our own.
Day 1 we set off to find the Justice Mine. The path was easy to find, and someone put some ropes up near the top of the tailings pile. One was tied to a small tree, but was solid.  I chickened out before that and sat on the extremely wobby rocks and looked for pyrite and interesting rocks while my companions went up and found the mine. They peered in, but didn't enter. My husband said he wished he had a helmet and gloves for navigating the tailings.
Afterwards, we tried to look for mines up 76 Gulch. I'd heard there was a trail going up that way, but we didn't find much. But the woods were open and full of gorgeous mushrooms. We discovered Peabody Rock and then ran into a huge patch of devil's club that prevented further passage. Note to those reading Discovering Washington's Historic Mines: Most of the directions seem to be out of date since the cleanup massively changed the landscape. I wasn't relying on it for directions, but it was nice to have for all the historical info on the area.
The weather was beautiful, the leaves are turning, it was a lovely outing.  
Day 2 we went up to Glacier Basin (see separate trip report) It was smoky, but tolerable. It took us six hours to do our excursion. We got back to camp, packed up, and got back to the trailhead at 5:30. We managed to pack in a lot of adventure for a single weekend.