Driving towards Del Norte on FSR 380, I stopped at the ghost town of Summitville, an old mining town. There are abandoned, weathering old structures here and some old mine equipment in a parking area that overlooks the current modern mining operation.
I had previously passed through here with my son and DIL, having lunch in the parking area, but I had not browsed around the abandoned structures. So today I walked around with my iPhone getting a few images of this historic site.
The lumber planks on some of the sidewalls of these old buildings had weathered to a wonderful patina.
There are remnants of the original tarpaper covering, held in place by rusty nails, on the outside walls.
I was intrigued by the weathered patina on the exposed lumber on the exterior walls of these old buildings.
It must have been cold in these old buildings in the winter here, as there did not appear to be any insulation in the walls or ceilings, just tarpaper covered exterior walls.
At least the residents and workers here had good views of the mountains, which were probably much more attractive in those old days before the pine bark beetles killed so many of the evergreens.
Imagine how this might look with healthy evergreens around, rather than the beetle killed trees.
The attractive, colorful weathered patina on the wood planks appears to be on mostly the sides facing a southeasterly direction, while all the other sides have mostly a grey patina.
Note that the structure above has some colorful patina on a wall facing northwesterly, but most of the color is on the southeasterly wall.
That’s all for now,
Ken
If only those abandoned buildings could talk. Imagine the stories they would have to tell!
Yes, it would be good to hear about the miners that lived and worked in the mines there.
Wonderful place and post and now it is on my bucket list. I looked it up and it is about 5 hours away. Your captures are great with lots of texture in the weathered wood. Was the forest service road in good shape?
Thanks for your comment, Denise. The FSR was is fair shape, mostly washboarding, but easily passable even in an ordinary passenger vehicle. The roughest part of the road seemed to be a section just after the paved road out of Del Norte ends. There is a narrow, one lane interval near the mine, fortunately I did not meet any other vehicles on that short, one lane section.
Thanks! We have a jeep. Where is your home-base if I may ask?
My home is in Rockwall, TX, just east of Dallas. That means that I have to drive long distances to get to the places, where I prefer to explore and shoot.