Welcome to Ridgecrest: Cottonwood Charcoal Kilns

It's challenging (as opposed to relaxing) to get through a long weekend with young children. Yesterday, the midpoint of the weekend, we were pretty stumped for an activity. Later this month there will start to be "doings" in and around Ridgecrest, but this weekend, no. "Is there anything you've been wanting to see?" Rocket Boy asked me, somewhat desperately.

I racked my brain. "How about those charcoal kilns that we always see the sign for on 395?" We're always on the way to somewhere else when we see the sign and don't have time to stop. Although the kilns didn't sound all that interesting, they weren't very far away, so we decided to pay them a visit. To get there, you drive 5-10 miles (I wasn't paying attention) past Olancha (so maybe 60-65 miles north of Ridgecrest). A short distance past Cartago, there's a sign and a dirt road, which we turned on. Just after you get onto the dirt road, there's this plaque, explaining the kilns (if you click on the photo, you should be able to read the text).

We drove a ways further, and then suddenly, around a bend, here were two kilns. We had been expecting something like the well-preserved charcoal kilns in Death Valley, so these were a bit of a disappointment.

There's a fence around them, with barbed wire -- but the gate was open. That's so typical of the desert, I can't even tell you. So we went in and looked around.

The kilns were used to process wood chopped down in these mountains:

and then the charcoal thus formed was taken across the Owens Lake (which used to have water in it) to the mines at Cerro Gordo, to keep the silver and lead smelters going. We're talking 1870s, I believe.

The kilns are right next to an old railroad track, so we drove and walked along it for a ways. Rocket Boy took this photo from atop a section of track looking toward me and the boos -- we're right next to the remains of an old railroad bridge.