Jonesville mine, Eska Falls

From Alaska Outdoors Wiki

A nice Family oriented area is the Jonesville Mine area up in Sutton on the Glenn Highway.

Directions: Simply drive out the Glenn Highway pass Palmer into Sutton. Make a left onto Jonesville Road. Go up the hill till the pavement ends. There are two options to turn left. The first left will take you to the lower area where there is plenty of parking or boondocking type camping.

The second left takes you along Slipper lake where ther are two options for camping. The first is a nice pull-in on the East side of slipper lake able to hold about 10 R's with turn around ability. The second is a nice little area for about 5 Rv's on the West end of the lake in the trees. These spots go very fast and you MUST get there on a Thursday afternoon to hold them for your group.

There is also plenty of area on the old Runway to camp or along the hillside.

There is a main road north of the lake that runs 7 miles up the old mine area. There are 3 different side trails to the right of th road that take you to overlooks into the valley below.

To the left there are several. The first about 3 miles up, there is a trail that leads to a nice play area in the mine that is a little over grown with trees but passable. The next is clearly open at the top of the hill that takes you to overlooks back into the Mat river and valley below. Simply beautiful! There is another trail to the left at roads end. Be careful here. As you go into this area where they did a lot of hydraulic mining, don't venture to far. There is a mud pit there that has no bottom! Depending on the time of year, swimming out won't help you! Looks can be very deceiving in this pit.

Eksa Trail: As you drive a little further up Jonesville Road, you'll pass the last of the homes in the area. The road turns rough here and the first left is the trail that heads up to Eska Falls. I found the easy route to the top is once on this trail, take the 3rd Right trail. This will take you to the top with some very nice overlooks into the valley below. Once at the top, make a right and simply work your way thru the varous mud holes, water holes, and muskegg to the falls. Turning left at the top will lead you back down to where you started.

Contuine further down the road into the Coyote Lake rec area. I don't remeber if the little lake there is stocked or not. There is a little riding around in here also.

Pictures coming soon....

Dave