A friend of mine who used to lurk on the ihc-digest probably wouldn't mind my telling you about a trail that he sent me on that turned out to be one of the best things I had ever done. Just on the Lone Pine side of Keeler on the Owens Lake is the remains of a settlement called Swansea. From Swansea, you can follow a trail to the top of the Inyos to where the remains of the tram that brought salt from the salt lake in Saline Valley over the top of the Inyos and down to Owens Lake. From the tram peak you follow the mountain crest to come out at Cerro Gordo, one of the richest silver mines in the West. Cerro Gordo was being restored by a wonderful couple, Jody and Mike. Jody had inherited the whole Cerro Gordo area from a relative and she and Mike had done an incredibly huge amount of work there. Jody, to our dismay, got cancer, and in spite of her strength and will, died from it. If Mike or the caretaker is there they will probably allow you to look around and maybe give you a talk about Cerro Gordo's history. From Cerro Gordo you can drop down over the back of the Inyos and into the Saline Valley, or if it is late in the day, and you like great-light photography, go down the front of the valley and down into Keeler.

Click on the small images to see the photo of Jody Stewart, former owner of Cerro Gordo with Wanda and Nicholas (I apologize for the quality of the scan, but Jody looks good backlit, and backlighting makes for difficult scans): Jody and her husband Mike standing on the porch of the small museum with the restored house in which they live in the background; or on the last image to see a photo of Jody's step-aunt(or something like that) who was living in Cerro Gordo when we went up there for the first time, shown here with John Marsh, legendary painter of the west.