What is this? (Photo by Chris Waldmann)
I was sent this photo by hiker Chris who was wondering what it could be.
It looks like a 45-gal drum covered in concrete with a door. It was spotted in the proximity of a little-used trail in the Pigeon Mountain/Thunderstone Quarry/Dead Man’s Flats area. There is lots of plant growth on top of the concrete, so it has apparently been there for a long time.
Where is it?
In the prologue to the 2013-2014 ski season, I posted a “Picnic table challenge,” whereby readers were asked to name the locations of various picnic tables next to ski trails. They were all winter pictures, of course, so to put a twist on it, below is a summer photo of a popular picnic table sent to me by one of our stalwart trip reporters, Doug Connery. Do you know where it is? It has been moved slightly from its usual winter location. (Hint: It’s at the intersection of two popular trails)
Where is the location of this picnic table? Photo by Doug Connery
It is an explosives magazine. Used to store explosives at mines and quarrys.
And the pickinic table is at the junction of Elk Pass and Blueberry Hill, Booboo.
It is the hatch from Lost.
I’m guessing some sort of emergency hideout to protect workers in case of forest fires. I believe the National Park service used to install them where remote workers were based, and the area around Dead Man’s used to be in Banff/Rocky Mountain Park.
There used to be a similar structure near the quarry below Yamnuska. It was marked Explosives, probably used to hold dynamite for use at the quarry.