Hiking through history on Montana Mountain, Yukon, 1991-1995

    This is one of a series of hike reports written from 1991 to 1995 as I was researching the historic mines on Montana Mountain, Yukon, for my first book, "Fractured Veins & Broken Dreams." I carried a notebook, a tape recorder, and a camera on most of the hikes. Photos from each of the hikes have been added.

Dateline: December 31, 2023.

The text of the printed report is in italics.

07:45: with Simon Hutton, left car at foot of Pooley Canyon. Started hiking up the north side of the canyon on an obvious trail.

Tramway stand (3rd from bottom) at 865m, 200 feet from canyon edge.

Tramway stand (4th) at 885m, 150 feet from canyon edge. Stands 5-7 (triple) are on opposite side of canyon, at about 960m. First 5 stands are exactly in straight line.

1050m: the main Vault Mine building appears to be at 1020m.

1160m: pack trail 80m long, 1m wide, quite steep. Grizzly spotted on a slope to the north, nearly 1000m away.

1370m: on pack trail again, not as steep, lots of grizzly tracks.

1490m: Montana Mine can be seen.

11:10: 1555m is the lowest point at which North Pooley Canyon can be hiked around.

11 caribou found just below the Montana.

Spent quite a while photographing the caribou, and 2 ptarmigan that let us get quite close.

1:25: 1200m in South Pooley Canyon. From tape recording: "Surrounded by fucking cliffs again" [laughter from Simon]. "Wading through snow up to our goddamned waists, we're all soaked - luckily its an extremely beautiful day."

2:45: attempting to cross over to south side of Canyon. Found dead mountain goat at the bottom of a slide. We have seen 2 goats together in the past, today only 1 alive.

4:10: 1330m [temperature may have altered reading]. On south side, at the point we started from on our trip last year when we nearly got trapped on the cliffs above the concentrator.

Built a fire and dried out, headed down at 5:00.

The first aerial tramway to the Vault.

The historic Vault silver mine - so near yet so far (there is no way to reach it from this side of the canyon).
Two aerial tramway supports can be seen to the right of the blacksmith shop.