Day Trippin’ To The Barry Storm Jade Mine In Joshua Tree National Park

4WD Trip to The Storm Jade Mine

The third time is the charm!
By L. Bremner of DesertUSA.com

Entrance to Black Eagle Road (to right)

This trip has been a year in the making.  Years ago, my dad (Jim) and I tried to get to the Barry Storm Jade Mine twice, but the Black Eagle Road was washed out about 5 or 6 miles in and it had a drop off that we were not sure we could navigate past.  Even if we got down the drop off how would we get up it?  With only one vehicle we didn’t want to risk it.

A few years later we planned a third attempt, but this time armed with two 4WD vehicles.  One of our site contributors, Lara Hartley, joined us on this excursion. A friend of ours joined us on the trip rounding out our group to a total of three.  He has been vying to find some lost treasure somewhere in the desert.   Maybe today would be his lucky day!

Jim had planned various strategies on how we could navigate the drop off during our third attempt.  He’s had a lot of time to plan this trip.  When we reached the wash crossing along Black Eagle Mine Rd. where the drop off was, Jim just stopped the car and stared.  The road had been fixed!  No more drop off in sight.  He was almost disappointed that we didn’t have the challenge of a treacherous hurdle, but relieved that there would be nothing stopping us this time from reaching the mine.

Trailhead to Barry Storm Jade Mine.
Trailhead to Storm Jade Mine.

Using a GPS device Jim tracked our progress and when the map indicated we were close we stopped at what looked like the old road that turns off to the right with a metal gate across part of it.  It was not a maintained road, so we couldn’t drive in.  We packed up our cameras, video equipment, some food and headed up the sandy wash on foot.  About a mile in we realized that we were not in the correct valley.  Even though the GPS said we were near the mine we couldn’t see any evidence of the mine nearby.  After a brief break for lunch we headed back to the cars.

We continued to drive further up the Black Eagle Mine Rd.  About less than 1/2 mile up the road we saw was another gate on the right side with a park stake/marker.  Dad said, “this is it for sure!”

Once again, we parked off of the road and packed up our equipment. With a hike already under our belt we were hoping this one would be a shorter trek.  About 5 minutes into the hike, we knew we were on the right path.  We saw some stakes to the left side of the valley, along the mountainside in the distance.  There were some pieces of low-grade jade scattered about along the route.  It was about 3/4 mile before we reached the Barry Storm jade mine site, maybe even a mile.

Looking up from the road towards the home site and mine with old trailer frame below.

The Storm Jade Mine was a mining claim once owned by Barry Storm.  He was well-known author and prospector.  The book that made his claim to fame was called Thunder Gods Gold (1945), a book about the Lost Dutchman Mine in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona.  His book was made into a movie called “Lust for Gold” by Columbia Pictures (1949) starring Glenn Ford.

In his later years Storm discovered the jade mine which now resides within the Joshua Tree National Park.  I believe it used to be BLM land.  Strom claimed that he found the location of the jade mine while hiking in the desert.  Storm said he saw several flying disc crafts that shined a beam of light on the mountain slope where he later staked a claim.  Storm’s account of the discovery includes him finding Mayan beads and an artifact at the mine location.  This accounts for Storm’s belief that the jade mine was where the Mayans had extracted jade for their jade masks.  This story sits on the shelf with his numerous accounts seeing flying discs and encounters with beings from other places.

Tony at the entrance to the jade mine.

Individuals who knew Storm and who had spent time with him described Storm as being paranoid and eccentric.  How much of what Storm wrote about in his books and included in his stories was real and what was imagined or made up?  Hard to say, but what we do know is that Storm was a great storyteller and that he knew how to get people to believe his tales of flying discs, lost mines and Mayan artifacts.

As I approached the site of the Storm Jade mine, I recognized the shape of an old burned out trailer frame that was entangled with other rusty remnants of Storm’s past home site.  From what I read, the trailer came in after he lived in an 8-foot square, plywood cabin for some time.   He had lived out at the mine for about 10 years.  While I stood there looking over the area I wondered how in the heck he did it.  How did he survive out there in the desert without running water, electricity or any water source nearby?  He obviously had a septic tank in his cabin as the hookups are intact and visible in the shacks cement foundation.  How did it work if there was no running water?  Was there an old well or did he truck water in and fill a water tank up? I left with more questions than I had before this trip.

The mine in the foreground with the claim stake and silver rock pile in far distance.

The cement foundation of Storm’s old shack lies just above the trailer site.  And beyond that is the entrance to the jade mine.  There is a rusty “Keep Out” sign still hanging near the door.  The door had previously been pried open and we were able to walk into the mine tunnel that was more than 50 feet deep.  It is very dark inside the mine, almost pitch black, so we used head lamps to find our way.  Near the end of the mineshaft there is a hole in the ceiling that allowed some light to shine inside the shaft.  This same hole can be seen on the outside of the mine near a storage room where Storm stored his explosives.  This storage area contains another door set above and back from the mine entrance.  You have to walk up the mountain a bit to see it.

The door of the storage room seemed very heavy and it was not open, so we could not explore inside. On top of the storage room there was a stake held up by a pile of silver rocks.  I was wondering if that was the mining claim marker.

I turned and looked down at the valley below.  It was a peaceful place. Storm has his own private desert retreat here. He actively mined and lived at the site during the 1960’s up to the time of his death in 1971. Surprisingly he had many visitors come to the mine during the years he lived there. Storm would charge casual rockhounds and prospectors a fee to collect jade at the mine site.  The jade coming out of the mine had been low grade, so it wasn’t a big strike and it didn’t create a lot of wealth for Storm.

Raw jade blends in with the desert landscape. This piece of jade is orange/brown on the outside, but the chip reveals the green jade inside.

Why did Storm choose to live out in the middle of the desert?  The jade mine production didn’t really justify the sacrifices he made to live away from society and the luxuries of city living for so many years.  Some might speculate that he was hiding from unseen enemies or threats.  The type of enemies that existed only in his own mind colored to life by his creative imagination.

Related Links . . .

Lara Hartley’s Photos and Story About Barry Storm Jade Mine Trip
Article about Jade Mine and Black Eagle Mine
More about Jade
Article about Barry Storm
Video Barry Storm Jade Mine
Black Eagle Mine 4WD Road and The Barry Storm Jade Mine

Getting there . . .

The Barry Storm Jade Mine is located off of the Black Eagle Mine Rd.  The Black Eagle Mine Road is approximately 6.5 miles north of the Cottonwood Visitor’s Center in the south portion of the Joshua Tree National Park.  Take the Black Eagle Mine Rd. for about 8 or 9 miles.  To the right of the road you will see an old metal gate and some stakes that block what used to be the road to the Barry Storm Jade Mine. There is also a point of interest stake marking this entrance.  Don’t confuse it with a lone metal gate about 1/4 of the mile before this point.  The road that leads to the jade mine is no longer a designated road, so you have to park and hike in from this point.  It is about a 2 mile round trip hike on an easy trail to the mine site.  The Black Eagle Mine Rd. road requires 4WD.  Use extreme caution when exploring old mine sites.

Map of Black Eagle Mine Rd. and location of several mines.

3 thoughts on “Day Trippin’ To The Barry Storm Jade Mine In Joshua Tree National Park”

  1. I lived in the LA area from 1967 till 69 working on the Apollo project. My wife and I spent almost every week end during the season camping in Joshua Tree Monument. One day I drove my dirt bike up this path and spotted many claim markers along the way. When I came to see this old prospector with the brightest blue eyes, Barry Storm. He sold mee a piece of jade for $1. Said he saw a streak of gold in it, but didn’t charge me any more. I sat in the trailer and talked with him for a while. Over 50 years ago, remember like yesterday. Great.

  2. Roger M. Moore

    Denny,
    Though we have not seen each other in 49 years, my name is Roger and was in the Boy Scout troop in which your father made a very significant contribution of leadership.
    We Scouts also had the privilege of meeting Barry Storm at his jade mine in Pinto Basin on one of our annual camping trips to that area. When I say “meet”, well, after your father Mr. d’Autremont had driven us up to Barry Storm’s Jade mine within sight of the old Air Stream trailer, he told us emphatically to stay in the car and keep quiet while he walked to the trailer to let Mr. Storm that he was there to visit, and that he had some Boy Scouts with him. We watched intently and quietly as he knocked on the door.
    The door opened and Barry Storm stepped out and shook hands with your father. Mr. Storm had a worn appearing western style hat on his head, a long grizzled beard, and a revolver holstered at the hip. They appeared to talk for a few minutes and jestured a little towards us and the mine. Then Mr. d’Autremont walked back to his car and told us that Mr. Storm had said we could look around the jade mine, and collect any small specimens we wanted, until he came back from talking with Mr. Storm inside the trailer.
    We collected small pieces of several colors of jade, for about half an hour. Then your father came out of the trailer, got us back in his car, and drove us back to camp on the northeast side of Pinto Basin.
    That was our meeting with Barry Storm. Your father was a great man to listen to. He told us of his long friendship with Barry Storm, their trip to the Superstition Mountains in search of the Lost Dutchman Mine.
    Mr. d’Autremont also talked about his own mining and milling experiences in the Pinto Basin area before World War II. He took us to every mine in the area that he deemed safe enough to enter, and enter we did. He knew all their names, their histories, and the names of the men who worked them while he was there.
    “West of Dawn”, by Hugh d’Autremont, is a good read, and is accurate to the stories of the Pinto Basin area gold mining that he told us around the campfires of my youth.
    Thank you, Denny.
    Roger

  3. Denny d'Autremont

    So…my brother, Bill, just told me about this article on good old Barry Storm and told me to look it up on goggle and read it. Very nice article, Lynn. Memories came flooding back like crazy! Did you ever have the priviledge of meeting Barry? Boy, can my brother and I tell you stories. We grew up hearing all about him, and visiting with him and my Dad in Pinto Basin when we were growing up. You see, that book you mentioned in your article that Barry wrote, ‘Thunder Gods Gold’ was basically a rendition of an earlier expedition for the Lost Dutchman’s gold mine in the Supersttion Mountains that he and my father, Hugh d’Autremont, did together in the days before my brother and I were born. We grew up hearing the stories, and making many visits to his Jade mine, spending many nights camping out in the desert and exploring abandoned mines. You see, before the war, my own father had a gold mine himself in Pinto Basin, called the Mary Francis. His partner was Bob Lassiter, another friend of Barry Storm’s. Actually, my Dad wrote a book, also, in his later years, mentioning that expedition with Barry, and another sourjorn to Mexico. I have many pictures of Barry in the old family photo album. Barry used to come ‘into town’ from the desert, and get ‘civilized’ occasionally and would always stay at our house. Us kids would love it, but my Mom really didn’t care to much for it. He was a crusty old character.

    Anyway, let me know if you would like to know more, Lynn.

    Denny d’Autremont

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