Haunted camera

May 1st, 2009

So this last weekend, I went on a three day backpacking trip with my family to a place called the Champion Sparkplug mine, near Bishop CA. The views were gorgeous, the wine delicious, and the nights bitterly cold. Everything a good camping trip is supposed to be.

This place is amazing. It’s an abandoned mining camp from the 1920’s. It’ s like a secret ghost town. You have to hike a good four miles in to get to the actual lower camp- but we cheated and used quads to get to the main trail head. From there to the camp was only two dicey miles mostly uphill. All of the Miner cabins are still standing, complete with pot bellied stoves and wooden plank floors.

Water comes from a spring and can be carried to a working camp kitchen complete with cast iron wood stove as well as a few white gas stoves from the 1950’s thoughtfully left by other campers. The miner’s cabins themselves have beds and even some linens. Everything is just as it looked in the mines hayday during the 1920’s. Even the glass windows are intact from the turn of the century.

During the day we took a 4 mile day hike up to the high camp that contained the mine itself. My family has always had a pension for crawling around in old mines, but this thing was massive. The tunnels were wide and cold, damp with old air. I strapped on my headlamp and wandered around a bit only to find more open mine shafts and twisting tunnels in every direction. Afraid of getting lost I turned back to find the daylight.

At night the stars were crisp and clear, and the air  very still. One night, before a light snowfall I started getting crazy weird vibes from the place. It occurred to me that mining is usually a very dangerous proposition, and that most likely, several men had died in the camp.

Then, this happened to my camera. Streaky, blurry, muddled photos. Maybe it was the rocky hike in, but part of me likes to think that it was the resident ghosts I felt roaming around that turned my camera into something from the twilight zone.

Unfortunately, those ghosts haven’t left my camera, and now ny six year old friend has finally given up the ghost. Looks like I’m in the market for a new camera.