North Fork Duchesne River Rock Wall Mine
During the recent oil-boom in the Uinta Basin, it wasn't unusual for oil company geologists to hike into the back country. During the closing days of those prosperous times, two company men came upon a mine tunnel of ancient appearance, along the North Fork, and not far down country from where DeFa found gold. If you drive up the North Fork, you will see towering cliff's on both sides of the canyon, and it was high upon one of those ledges that they found a place where stones had been carefully fitted together to make a rock wall, a wall which was obviously man-made. Their investigation disclosed that wall concealed an old tunnel portal. Behind that wall they uncovered timbers which had once been a portal set, but for some reason beyond their understanding, the tunnel beyond that portal had been painstakingly filled tight with stones and soil. Bear in mind that there is very little soil on those cliffs, so that it had to be carried there from far down the canyon. Wondering why anyone would have gone to such great labor to hide whatever lay beyond, they began the slow process of digging out those ancient digĀgings. With time to work only when their employment permitted, their excavation made slow progress. It came to an end when they were transferred to a more promisĀing oil exploration area.
If you would like to take over their work at that old tunnel, just take a drive up the North Fork. Watch for a turnout where you can see a small mine dump low on the west side of the canyon, across the river. If you scan the opposite (east) side of the canyon with binoculars, you can spot their diggings high on a rocky point of land, just above some natural caves. Of course there might not be anything of value in that old mine; yet one can't help but wonder who someone filled it with rock and dirt and then built a rock wall to conceal it further if they weren't trying to hide something. Let me know what you find!--Faded Footprints, pg. 76