A good motto that covers photography, too.
When speaking of California ghost towns, one always hears of Bodie, California. Everyone has photographs of Bodie. I wanted something a bit different, so I was happy to find this ghost town, almost by accident. I saw a video of jet planes flying through the Panamint Valley on the internet. I did a google search to find the Panamint Valley was located at the southern end of the Owens Valley. It was too far from our base camp of Bishop to conveniently photograph. But while making this determination I "discovered" the ghost town of Cerro Gordo. A little more digging showed that Cerro Gordo might be a good photo opportunity. Further research showed it was quite a climb (about 4,000 feet) above the nearest town. The road was in very good shape for a dirt road and we saw why. Just above Cerro Gordo we could see a cell phone tower. All the road improvements were made for easy maintenance access to the cell tower.
The Road to Cerro Gordo
Cerro Gordo was abandoned and untouched for decades because in pre-cell phone days it was so unreachable. It came into the hands of some people that wanted to restore and preserve it. They put their money and efforts into making the town presentable to the public. In terms of abandoned industrial sites there was quite a bit of equipment and hand tools still around to see. The caretaker took us around for about an hour explaining the realities of the silver and lead miners in the town. We then went about and photographed undisturbed for several hours.
The Mine Head
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