New Idria Road

[Max Rockatansky]

For years the New Idria ghost town in the Diablo Range has eluded me.  It seems as though each time I was ready to make a visit attempt on New Idria Road something would happen to my car or the road would be washed out (such as winter 2023).  Circumstances finally fell in my favor this weekend a recent emergency repair contract by San Benito County and a good up to date report on conditions getting to/from New Idria. 

New Idria is a large Mercury mine which operated in the Diablo Range from 1854-1972.  This town has sat derelict for over half a century and yet somehow remains standing.  I view this one of the last true uncivilized places left in central California and more akin to ghost towns I used to visit in Arizona or Nevada. 

Amusingly New Idria Road completely doable on a car until the end of county maintenance at Postmile 20.6 (County Road 107).  From there the road is basically a destroyed mess but it only about a mile further to town site.

https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCwnBm

Strangely the GSV driver actually made it up about Postmile 19.8 this past March.  The unmaintained portion doesn't have any GSV images but there is some from 2016 within the town site.

[pderocco]

For years the New Idria ghost town in the Diablo Range has eluded me.  It seems as though each time I was ready to make a visit attempt on New Idria Road something would happen to my car or the road would be washed out (such as winter 2023).  Circumstances finally fell in my favor this weekend a recent emergency repair contract by San Benito County and a good up to date report on conditions getting to/from New Idria. 

New Idria is a large Mercury mine which operated in the Diablo Range from 1854-1972.  This town has sat derelict for over half a century and yet somehow remains standing.  I view this one of the last true uncivilized places left in central California and more akin to ghost towns I used to visit in Arizona or Nevada. 

Amusingly New Idria Road completely doable on a car until the end of county maintenance at Postmile 20.6 (County Road 107).  From there the road is basically a destroyed mess but it only about a mile further to town site.

https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCwnBm

Strangely the GSV driver actually made it up about Postmile 19.8 this past March.  The unmaintained portion doesn't have any GSV images but there is some from 2016 within the town site.

That happens a lot: the GSV ends at some meaningless point for no obvious reason. I could see it ending at the warning sign you posted elsewhere, but why here?

The aerial imagery from April '23 shows tons of yellow flowers, probably Tickseed or Monolopia. I'll put that road on my bucket list for next spring.

[Max Rockatansky]

FWIW this is the washout from winter 2023:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02ijX67EX6wsWvBif5fvEa7vNtbaFiEJjbmtjvr3a2zMHvsroqcSmrTpVyoQvifrKul&id=100002316712969&mibextid=wwXIfr

San Benito County made emergency repairs in September 2024.  Said repairs basically were just a bunch of dirt fill and a drainage pipe.  The county intends to build a new bridge and submitted CEQA documents this past March:

https://ceqanet.lci.ca.gov/2025030093

As a general this is one of the better New Idria articles I've found:

https://benitolink.com/veins-of-cinnabar-found-by-mistake-helped-define-the-regions-early-economy/

[jander]

I did New Idria road in a rental car 10+ years ago.  We made it all the way into the townsite.  You can also camp and hike in from the Clear Creek management area as well. 

We hit SO MANY locus on Panoche road the front of the car was covered.  When we returned it, the attendant said he had never seen anything like it. 


 

[Max Rockatansky]

The friends who rode with me on this trip actually had driven up through Clear Creek Road to New Idria the previous week.  They had to obtain a BLM permit which gave them the codes of the lockboxes on both ends of the roadway.  Apparently the New Idria gate had been vandalized which required them making their own way around it through the bushes. 

How was that last mile of New Idria Road a decade ago?  I might have been able to get a car through if I was super careful in dry weather.

[jander]

We did New Idrea in a rental Impala.  It was fine, rutted and slow.  There was one small creek (ditch) ford and one place where it was kinda sketchy. I got out to plan my path and make sure I had clearance.  Then past that, at the town line we stopped. If I recall, there was a house on the right and a creek, we walked in from there. I am pretty good with "normal" cars on shitty roads.

I drove a Mustang all the way up Kaiser Aetna road, and another time got a stuck ranger out of the Salt Flats in Utah.

But I know my limits too, noped the fuck out of crossing a stream in the Clear Creek wilderness.  Not worth the risk.

But I did get a rental Sentra stuck in Tahoe.  No matter what I could not climb the road to our ski cabin.  Forward, reverse, nothing. Useless fscking CSV transmission.

[Max Rockatansky]

I found a series which was comprised of attempts to get to New Idira via Clear Creek Road.  The terrain is way more wild from the Clear Creek side:

Attempt 1 (failure)

Attempt 2 (failure)

Attempt 3 (success)

[Max Rockatansky]

Set the blog about New Idria Road and the ghost town to publish today.  Seemed fitting for Halloween given the subject matter of a decaying abandoned town:

https://www.gribblenation.org/2025/10/new-idria-road-to-new-idria-ghost-town.html?m=1

The blog introduction reads:

"New Idria Road is an approximately 21.5-mile rural highway located in the Diablo Range of San Benito County.  From Panoche Road to approximately 20.6 miles to the south the corridor is maintained as the paved San Benito County Road 107.  The remaining 0.9 miles to the New Idria ghost town are no longer maintained and have eroded into a high clearance dirt roadway.  Upon reaching New Idria the roadway continues south as Clear Creek Road which passes through the Bureau of Land Management owned Clear Creek Management Area. 

The New Idria Mercury Mine claim was staked in 1854.  Following the theme set by New Almaden the community and mine of New Idria were named after the famous Slovenian mercury mining town of Idrija.  Following a slow start the mines of New Idria would boom and the community would reach a peak population of approximately 4,000 by 1880.  New Idria Road and Panoche Road were constructed to facilitate stage travel to San Juan Bautista and locales beyond. 

New Idria by World War I was largest producer of mercury in the western hemisphere.  Following World War II, the demand for mercury would begin to decline.  Amid growing environmental concerns over mercury, the mines of New Idria would shutter in 1972.  The town never found a buyer who could repurpose the community and mines in a lasting way.  In the intervening decades New Idria would decline to a ghost town of increasing obscurity due to being located in a remote corner of the Diablo Range. 

New Idria Road in recent years has been subject to numerous washouts.  Storms during winter 2021 took out a bridge over Larious Creek.  Recovery has been slow as emergency repairs were only completed during September 2024."