On his first full day there, Matt and I hiked up the mountain behind the cabin to explore the old mining ruins. I found out that Matt was as intrigued about old mines as I was, which really set the pace for the rest of the week. The first mine we came to was filled with about two feet of water, which had prevented me from ever going into it before. We decided to hike back to the cabin to get a couple pairs of fishing waders so we could explore it. That mine ended up only going back into the mountain 20 yards or so, but the waders proved to be an indispensable tool for the rest of the week.
Further up the mountain, we explored two more mines, both of which I had been in before. The first one went into the mountain quite a ways, but I had never been past a section of fallen rock. Matt and I decided to venture past it and discovered that the mine was about twice as big as I had originally thought. At the back of the mine is a collapsed section with a gap between a few large rocks. Through the gap we could see a large opening and another drift that looked like it went further into the mountain. That view kept us intrigued for the rest of Matt's trip. Near the back of that mine there was also the beginning of another level that we checked out, but that didn't go more than ten yards into the mountain before ending. Before the week was over, we would explore this mine several more times. This is a picture of me after climbing up to check out the second level during one of our later visits.
The last mine we explored that day was 100 feet higher on the mountain than the previous mine, near the ridge of the mountain. It had an adit that went into the mountain about 15 yards, then opened up into a small room. Near the back of the room, a few boards covered the opening to a shaft that went straight down for about 50 feet then continued down at an angle further than we could see. We became obsessed with this shaft because it led directly toward where we thought we saw the opening through the gap in the rocks at the end of the previous mine we had explored. We also think that that shaft has probably not been explored by many people (if any) since the mine was abandoned.
During our hike down the mountain, back to the cabin, we talked about the possibilities of what we might find if we could get down that shaft. We started brainstorming ways to get down it.
On our way down the mountain, an older man walking with his dog passed us. He stopped and asked if we were geologist. Matt and I grinned and told him that we were just explorers. The man turned out to be a geologist and had gathered from the waders hanging from our backpacks that we had been exploring mines. He told us that he sometimes explored mines as favors to friends with them on their property. To my surprise, the man didn't lecture us on the dangers of exploring old mines, but went on to give us several tips about safely exploring the mines. He first recommended that we wear helmets. He mentioned that old mines are a favorite den for many animals in the area, most notably mountain lions. He also explained the dangers of "bad air" in mines. I had heard about bad air before, but had dismissed it as a concern only for active mines. It turns out that there are a number of factors, such as rotting wood, water, and CO2 displacing oxygen that can cause the air in mines to be dangerous if there isn't enough fresh air flow through the mine. The man recommended that we carry a candle with us through the mines.
We decided that if we were going to explore mire mines, we would do it as safely as possible. From his suggestions, we started wearing snowboarding helmets into the mines (which saved us from a lot of bruises on our heads), carried my can of bear spray into the opening of the mines ready to spray at any unfriendly animal we might run across, and bought a candle for the lead person to carry as we walked through the mines. When we got home that evening, we did a lot of research on exploring abandoned mines and confirmed everything that the man had told us. I also researched accidents and deaths related to abandoned mines and discovered there are relatively few deaths of people intentionally exploring mines with the proper preparation. Interestingly, the vast majority of deaths attributed to abandoned mines are actually drowning deaths in quarries.
With our new information and growing curiosity we started developing a plan that would allow us to safely climb down and back up the vertical shaft. We knew the proper way to do it would be using climbing equipment; harnesses, climbing rope, descent devices, and ascent devices. But, given our lack of experience and the high cost of all the equipment we'd need, we designed a different system.
We decided to build a 70 foot long rope ladder, something that we were both comfortable climbing, that we could lower down the shaft and simply climb up and down. For a safety, we bought a climbing harness and two carabiners (those were a contribution from Shannon, who works at REI). Two small sections of rope attached the carabiners the the harness. One carabiner would be attached to each of the ropes running down the sides of the rope ladder. As we climbed, we would move one carabiner at a time to the other side of the next rung. That way, we would always be attached to the ladder. If we slipped or fell from the ladder, the harness and carabiner system would catch us and prevent us from falling to the bottom of the shaft.
Matt and I went to Lowe's and Walmart Wednesday evening to buy all our supplies. We bought three 100 foot lengths of rope, each with a 250 lb working load (and break strengths significantly higher than that), three sixteen foot long 2x4s for the ladder rungs, some cordage to lower our supplies down, and a candle to check for bad air.
It rained Wednesday evening, so we had to wait anxiously until Thursday morning to begin building our rope ladder. First thing in the morning, we began construction. We cut all the 2x4s into 12 inch sections, then drilled a hole near each end of the rung.
We then had to slide each of the 45 rungs up the entire length of rope and tie a figure 8 stopper knot below the hole. We spaced the rungs 18 inches apart using a length of 2x4 as a guide.
One half done, the other half to go.
We finished the ladder and set off to test it before lunch time on Thursday. We decided to test it on the steepest cliff we could find near the cabin. The hardest part about the test was hauling a 60-70 lb ladder up the side of the mountain to get to the cliff. After attaching the ladder to a sturdy tree and lowering it over the edge of the cliff, we each practiced climbing up and down it, using the harness safety system we had built.
The biggest thing we noticed during out test was that the rope we used stretched a lot when we put our weight on it. Instead of being 18 inches apart, the rungs become closer to 24 inches apart. Overall though, the test went well and we were ready to put our ladder to use and find out what treasures might lie at the bottom of the shaft. But, to our dismay strong thunderstorms rolled through that afternoon and kept us indoors until the following morning.
We threw all our gear into the back of Matt's truck Friday morning and set off toward the mine. When we got to the road to Guanella Pass, though, it was closed for several hours for construction. We decided to pack all our gear on our backs and hike up the mountain to the mine, roughly a two mile hike. Shannon came with us that morning to stay above the hole in case anything happened while we were down there. She hiked up with two backpacks while Matt and I each carried a backpack with our waders attached and the ladder hung across our shoulders from an old copper pipe (the pipe bent and nearly broke under the weight of the ladder).
On one steep section of the hike, Matt carried the ladder on his back like a backpack, but it was much too heavy to carry like that the entire two miles.
We had to take frequent breaks, but after about an hour, we finally made it to the mine. After a short break, we started setting up for our descent. The first step was to send a tealight down the shaft to check for bad air. We put it in a plastic cup attached to the utility cord we bought and lowered it down the shaft until it hit ground. The candle stayed lit the entire way down so we decided the air was good enough that we'd try climbing down.
We tied the ladder to a sturdy tree outside of the mine, then lowered it down the shaft. After several nervous minutes of looking down the shaft with the ladder hanging down it and debating about the safety of the entire setup, we decided we weren't comfortable climbing down the ladder with only $20 worth of rope supporting us, even with our harness safety system. If for some reason the rope ladder broke, we would fall, along with the ladder, to the bottom of the shaft.
We hadn't given up, yet, but we decided to make some sort of independent safety system so that if the ladder broke, we wouldn't fall to the bottom of the shaft. We decided that connecting tow straps that we already owned to another tree outside of the mine and connecting them directly to our harness would be a fail-safe method to keep us from hitting the bottom of the shaft. If the ladder broke, the tow straps would catch us after a maximum fall of about 20 feet, something rock climbers regularly endure. Our tow straps had working loads ranging from 10,000 to 27,000 lbs, so we were much more comfortable knowing that they couldn't break under our load. But, we wouldn't be able to get them up the mountain until the next morning, so we had to wait another day to satisfy our curiosity about the mine shaft. What was down there and would we be able to make it down to find out?
On our way back down the mountain, we decided to stop and check out a mine opening that I had discovered last fall but had never been in. That turned out to be a gold mine (literally and figuratively). When we got to the entrance, we stood outside, bear spray in hand, and threw a couple rocks in to rouse any animal that might be inside before we walked in. That way, we would meet them in the open, rather than in a confined mine adit. We heard the rocks plop into water and immediately went back to put on the waders that we had been lugging around. This time, we walked down into the entrance of the mine. I was in front, bear spray in one hand and candle in the other, with Matt behind me holding a bright flashlight over my shoulder (We both wore headlamps on our helmets, but his SureFire was many times brighter than either of those). After several minutes of walking slowly through the front of the adit, yelling and making noise to check for any animals, we put away the bear spray and started our exploration. It turned out to be the largest mine we had explored yet, going straight back into the mountain thousands of feet (it's hard to know for sure, but we guessed between 0.3 and 0.5 miles). About halfway between the entrance and the end of the adit was a raise. Looking up, we could see that the shaft was very large and extended beyond the range of our flashlights. We were very curious about it, but there were several large, rotting logs supporting a lot of rock along the raise that we didn't want to disturb while climbing up it. We decided that the risk of causing a collapse and being trapped were not worth whatever we might find up the raise.
Near the back of the mine was a crosscut that only went about 30 yards before being blocked by either a collapse or just a dead end. It was difficult to tell because we were walking through knee deep mud in an area that had rotten logs fallen around the floor. It appeared to be a popular mine to explore. Several people had used candles to burn their initials into the wall.
Here's a picture of us in our mine exploring gear, candle in hand.
That turned out to be the best mine we had explored yet, but piqued our curiosity for other mines.
The next morning, we headed back to the mine with the vertical shaft for another attempt at a descent into the shaft. This time we drove Matt's truck up the 4 wheel drive road with our tow straps and an extra 100 feet of rope and additional carabiner that we had bought. We attached the tow straps to a tree outside of the mine and prepared to climb down the ladder. Once again at the last minute, we decided we wanted one more safety mechanism in case the ladder broke. Neither of us were too excited about a 20 foot fall in the event that the ladder broke. So, we used the new 100 foot length of rope we bought as a third, independent safety system. We tied alpine butterflies every three feet in the rope. We would attach one of the carabiners to a lower alpine butterfly each time we went down a rung on the ladder. That way, if the ladder broke, that rope would catch us after falling a maximum of three feet. We still connected the tow straps in case anything went really wrong.
Though I was still very nervous, I was confident in our safety systems and after all our hard work, I was determined to climb down the shaft. I pulled on the harness, hooked all the carabiners to their respective safety ropes, then lowered myself into the shaft, slowly putting all of my weight onto the homemade rope ladder. The ladder didn't break, but as we expected, the ropes stretched even more under my weight.
Slowly, but surely, I climbed down the ladder. I had to stop on each rung (which were now more than two feet apart) and move each of the three carabiners with one hand while hanging onto the ladder with the other. The shaft had a collar (a square section with logs holding dirt back, keeping it from falling or collapsing into the shaft) for the first ten feet, which the ladder rested against that made climbing down easier. After the collar ended, the shaft opened up into a large cavern and I was climbing the ladder in open air. At this point, climbing had become very challenging and tiresome. After each rung I went down, I had to pull myself toward the ladder with one arm while I repositioned each of the three carabiners with the other. After making it down 20 feet and seeing that I had about 40 feet left before reaching what looked like solid ground, I decided that despite our confidence in the system we had built, it was very difficult to use and climbing the rope ladder in open space was much more challenging than it had been two days ago climbing with it resting against a not-quite-vertical cliff. I decided to head back up.
After all that work, we didn't get to explore the mine and never found out if that shaft connected to the adit we had explored earlier. But we had a lot of fun building and testing the ladder and exploring other mines in the area. We decided that the right way to explore the shaft is with the proper gear and experience, which we plan on one day getting.
