Chemung and Masonic abandoned California gold mines

I visited Masonic and Chemung mines - two old abandoned gold rush era mines in Mono County, east California. It was an 1½ hour drive up a 15 mile dirt road to get there, with just latitude and longitude coordinates for my GPS to follow. And when I got there I found this old upturned car and a large propane gas cylinder both full of bullet holes (hundreds of them) – someone had been using them for target practice, with numerous empty shell casings everywhere. Not a great photo artistically, but it shows the number of bullet holes:

I wandered in cautiously, hoping I wouldn’t alarm the hillbilly who might be living there with a machine gun for protection. Luckily, no one there.

Here is another car at the same location. Not quite so many bullet holes:

See the full gallery of the Chemumg and Masonic abandoned gold mines.