The Live Oak Mine is located up Keystone Canyon on the eastern side of the New York Mountains in Mojave National Preserve. We drove right up to the mine in December of 2017 despite accounts that it was only walk-able. Not everyone in our party made the drive as there were some tricky spots. I had thought there might have been open adits from other forums I had read but no such luck.
Collapsed
The main adit with ore cart tracks was collapsed so we hiked further up the canyon to two more adits that were also collapsed. There was a ton of fresh lumber up there and someone has been restoring/stabilizing the cabin and other structures recently. Not much history but I do know the mine only operated briefly in 1951 yielding a small amount of ore from a 300′ tunnel containing mostly copper, lead and trace gold.
Camping
We didn’t camp in the area but several fire rings exist on the ride up the canyon from Ivanpah Road if you look carefully.
1 Comment
great job getting up there, nice photos! if you go again, if you stay in the main canyon and continue up there are a couple adits at the top of Keystone as well, not very exciting and they look like maybe they are caved in .. they smell like sulfur very strongly. A small piece of rail and other equipment up there too.