Hike to Victoria Mine and the Lost Cabin - Organ Pipe National Monument

On Sunday morning, March 12, our dear friends George and Nan and Gaila and Dick all departed, headed their separate ways on further adventures.  We didn't get as early a start as we would have liked, but saying goodbye to friends is more important, so we moved fast to get to the trailhead as early as we could, knowing it would be a four hour hike in 90F sun.  We drove the 20 miles or so down to Organ Pipe National Monument and essayed an 8.5 mile hike to see the Arizona Mine site and the Lost Cabin site.  The Organ Pipe National Monument brochure told us that we could find mining ruins and the remains of an old stone storehouse at the Arizona Mine, and more mining ruins and the remains of a stone cabin at Lost Cabin.  That was good enough for us!

The following history of the Victoria Mine is taken from Victoria Mine," by Ken Shroyer, posted at https://organpipehistory.com/orpi-a-z/the-victoria-mine/:

"Beginning in the 1890s, the Victoria Mine was the center of ... sporadic mining of gold and silver in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument region. While the most extensive efforts occurred between the 1890s and the 1910s, periodic mining efforts took place through 1976, operating under a special use permit from the National Park Service. With the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument being designated by the park service as a wilderness area, all mining ceased after 1976.

"The early development of the Victoria Mine was politically tied to the Ortega hacienda at Santo Domingo, Mexico. Cipriano Ortega, a Mexican national and businessman acquired the mine in 1880.  It is estimated that $80,000 of silver ore was mined under Ortega’s operations through 1899.  During Ortega’s ownership the mine was known as the “La Americana” mine. Milul Levey, an American businessman with ties to Ortega, purchased the mine in 1899. Levey would rename the mine “La Victoria” in honor of Victoria Leon, the wife of Levey’s storekeeper. Levey and subsequent owners, however, extracted only another $40,000 of silver ore, partly because of the high water table of the area and the technical problems associated with sinking the shaft below it.

"Even after the prohibition on mining, the Victoria Mine and its colorful history did not simply vanish.  In 1978, Victoria Mine was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as one of the oldest prospecting sites in southwest Arizona.  Although it originally started out as a Mexican venture, it became a symbol of one of the first American enterprises to penetrate this part of the inhospitable Sonoran Desert. The Victoria Mine’s total output represents a small percentage of Arizona’s total gold and silver output. Yet its significance rests in its effect on the region’s early settlement and the site’s potential for the artifacts, objects, and structures left over from the mine’s productive years to yield information about the desert mining era."

Here's our traditional trailhead photo, with the eponymous organ pipe cactus in the background:

David loves to photograph flowers, but relatively few of them make our blog entries unless they are special.  The prize winner for this hike was this photo of a Fairy Duster's feathery blooms:

Kathy, on the other hand, can't resist those unique Saguaro.  Here, David stares up in amazement at his tall friend:

The stone work on this trail was superb.  Steps were laid into the slopes and stonework was laid to channel rainwater away from the trail.  David tries one of the steps on for size:

About halfway into our hike - a little over 2 miles, we reached the site of the Victoria Mine.  Kathy examines what is left of the stone storehouse, which was in remarkably good shape with wooden window sills intact:

Some mining equipment remained strewn around the site:

Volcanic and seismic activity caused quartz and precious metals to be deposited in the cracks in uplifted schist (old bedrock).  Kathy found this specimen that showed how the copper mineral gets deposited with quartz:

After exploring the Victoria Mine, we continued, up an old mine road, over a saddle in the mountains in which the mining shafts had been dug, back into a circular valley ringed in the ore-rich mountains. We spotted this ocotillo resting in the sun with his organ pipe cactus buddies, and the ridge of mountains in the background:

Eventually, we reached the Lost Cabin ruins.  Finding shade in the interesting rock outcropping pictured further below, we were eating our lunch when this little fellow scampered over to see what we were doing:

From our lunch seats, we could look down on the Lost Cabin.  It is in a state of much greater decay than the Victoria Mine storehouse is, but still sits dramatically on a rise in the foothills, adjacent to what must have been the mine workings of its occupants:

Here is a view of the very unusual pink granite rock formation that rose in the foothills, probably lifted up from bedrock, but eroded into relatively smooth, rounded shapes, partly by the seepage and freezing of water in cracks, and partly by erosion from wind and water on the surfaces:

As we turned back down the trail to return from the Lost Cabin, we looked back for a final view of the ruins and the mountain behind them:

By the time we headed back the trail, it had gotten very hot - nearly 90F as predicted - and we moved deliberately and quickly without pausing for photos as often as we had earlier in the morning.  We did pause to catch a view of these two Saguaro standing as gate keepers at the top of hill where the trail passes between them.

We thanked the cactus guardians for letting us enter their realm and hope that we can get back to this area soon to explore more of the mysteries of the Ajo Mountains.