MineShaft Flat Campground

[Sam]

Hi all,

Making sure that Mineshaft flat indeed exists. It is on basically no maps. To my knowledge it is located off fish creek trail to north fork meadows trail and about .5 miles down this trail.

Water sources are .3 mi further or at Lodgepole springs. Can anyone confirm this is a water source that is reliable right now?

We plan to go up South fork trail around dry lake and fish creek to mine shaft campground for our day 1!

 

Going around the loop the second day.. is there a reliable water source down the san bernadino divide peak trail to South fork trail (without really detouring?)

Appreciate the help!

Thank you!

[sfabre194]

On my Tom Harris map it shows Mineshaft flat Campground just passed the junction with Mineshaft Saddle. Now I’ve never been there, but it looks like a dry camp on top of a small mountain.  It’s on the same trail that goes to Big Tree camp.

[MikeH]

Water at Lodgepole would be reliable.

Here is Hikin’ Jim’s Caltopo.  Mine Shaft Flat is #23 in the left pane.  Zoom in to find Mine Shaft Flat Campground

https://caltopo.com/m/0P77

It is off the North Fork Meadows trail as you suspected, but your assumption of .3 to Lodgepole is not correct.  From Fish Creek Saddle, it would be approx .3 miles to Lodgepole, but from Mine Shaft Flat, you’d have to backtrack to FC Saddle and then down to Lodgepole

On the map, there appears to be a water source farther past MS Flat labeled Mineshaft Spring/ North Fork Spring.  I’ve never been down that way so hopefully someone will be along to let you know if those are reliable water sources or not.

[Ranger Lon]

Refer to Hikin Jim’s CalTopo (He listed it in his reply to the High Creek post about a month ago) rather than the Tom Harrison in this case. Tom Harrison has misplaced Mineshaft Flats camp – it is a little further away from Mineshaft Saddle and the Cal Topo has a better location for the camp. The water back there is in the Northfork creek mentioned above just a short distance from the camp. We don’t get a lot of trail reports from back there, but the general outlook I have gotten from over the past 7 years is that the water runs fairly reliable until sometime around mid to late summer. If you plan to go there after the end of July, you will want to know about other water sources in case you need them. Again the CalTopo does a good job of indicating the creek locations, but you’ll want to reach out to this forum (or SGWA or SocalHikers Facebook groups) again for any updates that we or other hikers can give you.

You can get to Mineshaft Flats either by way of the Fish Creek trail to Fish Creek Saddle, then to Mineshaft Saddle and then down the Mineshaft/Big Tree trail, OR you can get there via South Fork to Dry Lake and take the route through Trail Flats to Mineshaft Saddle and so forth.

Nearby water at Lodgepole Spring should be reliable until the end of summer. Fish Creek (near Fish Creek camp) should be OK until the end of summer.

Hope that helps.

[Sam]

Thanks everyone, very helpful!

We were going for lodgepole springs for water definitely. But just in case the springs past mine shaft (but as mentioned not many updates here)

@mike sorry! you are correct, i may have typed that wrong. .3 miles from mine shaft towards big tree to a water source.

[Author]

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