Spring Mines

At the top of Hoyt Canyon there is an old shaft timbered with pine poles notched to fit at their corners, not unlike the notched walls of a log cabin. They are green with moss and nearly rotted through, but it is still evident that whoever put them in place was a real timberman, a miner who took pride in his work. A few logs from a fallen cabin are just above that shaft, and there are strange signs cut into large aspen trees nearby. John Young knew of that old digging, for he claimed it as Spring Mine #1. That claim name can still be seen carved into an aspen tree, near where the roads from Hoyt Canyon and Wide Hollow meet. Although Young filed his claim to that shaft, there is no evidence that he ever attempted to pump any of the icy water from it or do any real development work. In July 1993, mineral claims on that shaft were filed by Harry Ayala and Lonnie Mayhew. After an especially hard winter, that shaft was nearly filled with snow water, but they made a camp there and began to pump it dry. They have recovered some good ore samples by probing its depths, but like Young, they too are being harassed by the Forest Service, which agency will not allow them to camp at their claim. To live in the valley and drive into those mountains every day is time consuming and not economically feasible. If they are ever allowed to pump that shaft dry, it will be interesting to see what will be found in its depths.--Faded Footprints, pg. 59

There is also another filled in shaft just north of the Spring Mine and two more just east that are covered real well. To the west there is more ancient diggings filled in by time. I think there were at least four different shafts within 300 yards on that vein at one time. I have seen where that vein exposes itself in another three locations up to four miles away from the spring mine location.--Grady from an Internet forum.