After crossing several arroyos, the deer hunter found himself on a flat shelf overlooking another large arroyo. On the mountain side of this shelf he found a mine shaft. He looked around a bit, but did not go into the shaft because he had no flashlight. However, he did notice something strange in the “Y” of an old cotton wood tree. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be an old Spanish helmet. It must have been placed in the tree limbs and they grew around the helmet locking it into place. He dubbed the place, the Helmet Mine.
It didn't take long to find some old drill bits and a crudely built wrench. He went on to describe the drill bits as being old not modern. The bits showed signs of being hammered into the rock, and the wrench was used to turn the shaft of the bit. In this manner, a hole could be bored into solid rock. This was definitely not a modern hard rock mining operation. He picked up some of the pretty rocks in the tailings pile and started back to the jeep.
Years later, he was showing the rocks to a friend who was an avid rockhound. This friend very quickly identified the rock as being quartz with small wires of gold running through it. If the mine could be located again, it could be mined using modern techniques to produce a handsome profit.
The deer hunter went back to try to find the mine. He found the miner’s shack, but he was never able to relocate the stone house or the cool spring where he had climbed out of the wash. He never located the mine shaft or the helmet wedged into the tree. Eventually, he gave up the quest.
After hearing this story, a treasure hunter remembered he was in this same area several years before. His brother-in-law wanted to retrieve some engine bolts off a wrecked Cessna Air plane that had crashed just below the tree line on the South Peak. He knew about the amethyst mine, but were not able to obtain permission to use their access road to go after the plane wreckage. Therefore, they had to come up from the south side from an old miner’s shack. As he climbed towards the wreckage, he lost sight of his brother-in-law. Somehow, he got side tracked into a smaller tributary filled with cat claw and brush. He stumbled upon a stone house built in the wash with a rather large table. He now searches for the Lost Helmet MIne. He is convinced it is still out there.
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