Kergon Mine Field Trip Report

30 miles northeast of Bakersfield in the southern Sierra Nevadas lies the Kergon Mine, one of two uranium mines briefly active in the 50's. The mine is off Kern River Road, easily accessible from Highway 178, on the steep south side of the canyon. You can find the location on the BLM's Site Mapper. Since Topozone became a fee site, I used TerraServer to print out a topo map, and found it poor at best. The short path up to the mine is 4.3 miles west of Sandy Flat Campground, and is blocked by mounds of dirt and boulders. Spray painted on Kern River Road is "USA", right in front of where you want to park.
The trail is obvious, as it is used by horseback riders, and it will take you all of 4 minutes to be right at the mine complex. The main adit has been sealed, though there is a bat gate. I found the bat gate half covered by decomposed granite, so I shoveled it out the best I could with my gem scoop. Next trip I'll bring a shovel. Just to the right of the adit huge boulders have pealed off the cut, and the cracks above you look like their gonna drop even more at any moment. That's okay, because that's not where the collecting is.
There are two places to collect uranium minerals at the mine - Charley's Cut and the A Cut. Charley's Cut is west of the adit, while the A Cut is above it. Charley's Cut is where I spent most of my time. There is a couple of feet of fill on top of the granodiorite you need to get at. You want to find iron stained fractures, and then look for bright yellow autunite covering the sides. The autunite is the radioactive ore (.08 to .60 mgs per hour). I found carnotite and limonite also. I was hoping to find some of the clear botryoidal opal that fluoresces green there, but was unsuccessful. There is also supposed to be garnets at this site.
There is a pegmatite below and above the mine. The feldspar section have very shiny crystals, and the quartz areas have tiny schorl tourmaline crystals and biotite mica. Areas of the granodiorite are thick with the biotite mica. Other areas of it have malfic inclusions, black ovals that are harder than the surrounding rock, and point the flow direction.
I did find two trash dumps, and collected a few old 7-Up cans. My favorite is a Del Monte root beer can! You had to use an old time bottle opener to drink these sodas.
The mine is easy to get to, and there are several places nearby with calm sections of the Kern River to swim in. The other uranium mine is the nearby Miracle Mine, and there are several tungsten mines nearby to explore as well.