Overview

Monarch Canyon is a nice, 1.1-mile hike down a rugged canyon to a spring in the Death Valley Wilderness Area. The route passes several historical mining structures along the way, including a well-preserved single-stamp mill operation.

Monarch Mill is a stamp mill and an ore chute that cling to the south side of Monarch Canyon. The miners built a long wooden chute that starts on a bench high above the mill and runs down over the cliff to a hopper just above the mill. They poured ore down chute into a hopper. The chute and hopper are in pretty good shape, and much of the stamp mill remains intact. There is a fair bit of ore in the chute too, but I didn't see any big chunks of gold -- lots of mica, but no gold.

Presented here are photos of Monarch Mill. For a detailed description of the route, including directions, maps, GPS coordinates, and photos, see Monarch Canyon.