Valentine’s Gulch

June 29, 2025

For the second hike of my 2025 Skyline Drive camping trip I drove to Trough Springs Ridge and hiked down into Valentine’s Gulch to check out an old coal mine. This was yet another Google Earth find from so many years ago that I don’t remember when it was or even why I was looking at the imagery in this area. I could see some coal on the ground in the satellite imagery and surmised it was from a mine that was quite old due to the lack of an obvious road leading to it. I hiked down an old pipeline to trail 396, which partially follows an old road. Near the mine I bushwhacked down a steep slope to what must have been the road they hauled the coal out on. This road definitely wasn’t as heavily-constructed as the other one I’d followed down, and judging from the dates carved in the quakies I’d guess the road and coal mine date to the early 1930s.

Following the old pipeline down

View toward Electric Lake

Electric Lake

Mount Nebo

Trail 396

Aspen carving of a nude woman

Randy Livingston, Moroni, Utah, 1982

Another carved woman

Liquor bottles, I think? Probably from the 1930s.

1936

Overgrown road to the coal mine

E.R. and N.R., 1933

I found the coal on the ground and followed it up the steep hill to its source. On the way up was a collapsed structure that, based on its location in the middle of the coal pile, I guessed may have been a tipple or hopper or chute for loading the coal. I passed part of a deer skeleton that I took a photo of but didn’t really think much of in that moment. I started hearing an odd noise–a rhythmic thumping sound like a thud on hollow ground, but it kept getting faster and faster before it eventually stopped, much like when you drop a bouncy ball. The thumping would start up again after a minute or two and then speed up and stop. I got closer to the mine entrance and saw water flowing out and I think I pieced it together. The water must be flowing out of an underground chamber which causes a vacuum to form inside, until air glugs into the chamber to fill the vacuum and makes that sound until the pressure temporarily equalizes, then the cycle repeats.

Coal below the mine

Collapsed structure

Columbine

Partial deer remains

Water flowing out of the mine

I got to the mine entrance and could see a deer skull with the antlers still attached and I had a sudden realization. A mine like this would make a great bear or mountain lion den. Which could explain the remains of deer in the vicinity. I was surpremely creeped out between the eerie sound and the thought of running into a large predator, and I decided to just leave. I really did want to get a closer look into the mine but it didn’t seem worth the risk. I was more nervous here than I had been after seeing an actual bear cub the day before.

Mine opening

Deer skull inside the mine

I retreated back down the hill and poked around below the coal pile where I found a collapsed multi-room cabin. There was a stove and a few other bits of rusting metal but not much else. I checked the nearby trees for any carvings and only found a couple before climbing back up to trail 396 and the truck.

Collapsed cabin

Stove

1932 aspen carving

1933 aspen carving

View down Valentine’s Gulch

Since I was so close I drove a bit further to the top of Monument Peak, the highest point in the county I live in, Carbon County. I ate a little snack there while taking in the views all around before I returned to camp.

The truck at the high point