Tip Top Mine 2.5 - 3.5

Primarily a silver-mining town, Tip Top had a post office from August 12, 1880, until February 14, 1895. The town was founded after Jack Moore and Bill Corning struck a significant lode of silver in 1875.

The nearby ghost town of Gillett was the original mill site for the ore from the Tip Top mine.

Tip Top at its peak had over 500 residents and was one of the largest towns in Arizona at the time.

The ruins shown here are purported to be an old brewery.

A note about the rating on this trail:  The road from I-17 to Tip Top Mine has a maximum difficulty rating of 2.5.  The road westbound from Tip top is very slow, rocky and bumpy.  It also has two steep and loose downhill stretches we are rating at 3.5.  We were running quite late and did not take time to really analyze the hills so they may be only a strong 3.0.  They would be more difficult if done uphill in an easterly direction.

There is a GPS/gpx file at the bottom of the page.

Perhaps a brewery

There is a 3.0 rated spur leading uphill to a headframe for the mine.  There is one fairly difficult ledge on this road.  The headframe appears to have rails that might have been used as rails to haul loads of ore to the surface.  We could not figure out how they handled the ore at the surface.

​Also an old boiler at the same level.

Headframe at end of spur road

Boiler near headframe

There is an old jeep pickup in the wash near the headrig.  More remains along the main road in the valley.

Not all Jeeps that go up to the headrig come back down

Remains along main road

Updated 2017.

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tip_top_mine_access_road_2.5_-_3.5.gpx
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