The Ochre Trail Bridge – My Favorite Westerns

The Ochre Trail … The Paint Pots

Wilderness / Taylor Davis

… we find a tangled mess of timber in the stream.

Spring runoff must be spectacular here.
Finally … the Paint Pots
2 small green ponds and a Paint Pot (right).

Ever seen a green pond like this?
And that’s not the reflection from the trees.
A unique environment.

There’s the Paint Pot.

The Ochre Paint Pot spring.

One day to be a choke cone?

Heading back …

The Ochre Trail … The Choke Cones

What are Choke Cones you might ask?

Sign says:

CHOKED CONE

This “choked” cone resulted from the accumulation
of iron oxide or hydroxide around the rim of a pool.
As the rim grew, the pool deepened. The increased
pressure of water in the pool became greater than the
force of water in the spring causing the spring to
seek a new outlet. When this happened, the pot
eventually dried up, forming a “choked” cone.The Kootenay Choke Cones appear to be of little or no interest to anybody
as I could find no images and little information about them on the net.
We, ourselves, marched blithely past them like cityslicker robots
without taking a photo.
The image above is stolen off the wonderful Google Maps.
So I hope I’m not boring everybody to death with this stuff.

BUT!
just in case you ARE interested at all …
check this out.

Just click on the link below.
Voila! – the entire virtual Kootenay Paint Pots Hike !!!!

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Paint+Pots/@51.1699915,-116.1476117,2a,90y,272.44h,94.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1snWQZmcmTjOlDRsnhvAiqSg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x537755c63211911d:0xb516823821a23dd7!8m2!3d51.1701032!4d-116.1472925

And you can do it must faster than we did.

Incredible.

Next:
At the Pots

The Ochre Trail … Ye Olde Ochre Mine

Changes / Gordon Lightfoot (written by Phil Ochs)

“Don’t it always seem to go
that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”
Big Yellow Taxi / Joni Mitchell / 1970

The next thing you see on Ye Olde Ochre Trail is

Ye Olde (abandoned) Ochre Mine.

Check the map …

A bit of History:

The Ochre Mine / Kootenay National Park

“In the early 1900s, mineral claims were issued, and
extensive mining of the iron oxide deposits in the marsh below
the springs occurred for use as a pigment in paint manufacture.
The Paint Pots site was incorporated into Kootenay National Park
when it was formed in 1920 at which point
mining activity halted.”

Mining operation was “halted in 1920”
– the miners were kicked out of the Park.
But it’s a sure bet though that paint companies soon found out
how to creating any colour anyway – including Ochre –
and thus ended the demand for natural Ochre.

At the Ochre Mine site you’ll see these 2 (almost unreadable) signs.

It shows that the Park folks once cared about this site.

That’s not apparent now.

Yesterday’s garbage is tomorrow’s treasure.

There are now worrying signs of neglect.
Apart from the poor condition of the signs
we see much abuse of the old mining equipment
which is just strewn about the area – open to obvious abuse.

Some already has graffiti on it.

Soon much of this will simply be taken by people
– or destroyed.

Lost forever.

Who knows what is already missing?

Nor is there any information on how Ochre mining was done?
We can see this old equipment, but how was it used?
We don’t know.

Found some of this nearby.
I’m guessing this would have been the final mining product.
Dried Ochre.
Golden yes …
But it does not glitter.
Once somebody’s dream?
In the palm of my hand.
Next:
To the Paint Pots

The Ochre Trail …

Golden Slumbers / Mindy Gledhill

I admit I didn’t really expect much.
Thought it would just be a nice easy hike.
But it proved to be something else.

The Ochre Trail

The first thing you see is the
The Fancy Bridge and Creek.Look at that thing!?? You could drive a tank across that.
But also look at that creek. I’m betting at certain times of the year
this creek is pretty well impassable – especially at Spring runoff.
And it’s likely that previous bridges were washed away.
So they built this amazing thing.