A Year Long Dream

Trey and I spent the last two days of our Colorado trip exploring abandoned mines. On Saturday morning, we went to the largest mine that Matt and I had explored when he was in town on the previous 4th of July (Matt's Visit Part I). Trey and I spent over an hour underground exploring all the tunnels of the two level mine. We experienced the same location of bad air that Matt and I had found the previous year. When we climbed over and down a pile of rocks, our candle went out and wouldn't re-light. We had to turn around there, but my curiosity is still piqued about what might be beyond that section of bad air. I'll have to save that for another adventure.

We spent the rest of the day searching for other mines in the area that we could explore. Unfortunately, we didn't find any. The ones that we found that hadn't collapsed had been gated by the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety (don't get me started on them). Next time we'll have to search a little further from the beaten path (the rental Fiesta limited us to decent roads).

We had decided to save the biggest adventure for last. Sunday morning, we woke up early to head up the mountain above the cabin. I've known about a vertical mine shaft near the ridge of the mountain for a long time now. Almost exactly one year ago, Matt and I tried to climb down into the mine using a rope ladder and safety systems that he and I had made. We made several trips up and down the mountain between the cabin and the mine over the course of the week, one of them lugging our 80 lb rope ladder to the top, before finally attempting to climb down into it. I only made it about 20 feet down into the mine before deciding that our rope ladder just wasn't a safe system for climbing down into a vertical mine shaft.

Over the past year, since failing to climb down into that mine shaft, I've thought about it almost every day. I've spent a lot of time researching and planning the right way to explore vertical mine shafts. Since moving to Portland, I've gradually been collecting the proper equipment, learning the necessary skills (part of the motivation for my mountaineering class was that some of those skills would transfer to vertical mine exploration), and practicing climbing up and down a rope from my back porch. I knew I'd finally have the opportunity to use these skills when Trey told me just a week before the trip that he was coming, too (I wasn't going to explore any mines by myself).

In the days leading up to Sunday morning, however, I questioned the sanity of my plan. Was rappelling 100 feet into an abandoned mine shaft really a good idea? Would we dislodge rotting timbers or loose rocks that would crash down on top of us, or worse, cause a collapse? If something went wrong while we were down there, would there be any hope for rescue? I certainly didn't consider it to be safe, but I couldn't make a decision until I saw the mine again.

When Trey and I reached the ridge of the mountain Sunday morning and examined the entrance to the mine (there was a short horizontal tunnel before the vertical shaft) and the collar of the vertical shaft, I still had doubts about whether we should rappel down into it. I decided that if I didn't, I would regret it as soon as I left Colorado and I would continue to think about it every day until I actually did it.

So, Trey and I began to set up our anchor system, tying lengths of rope and webbing to two different trees outside of the mine (unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of our anchor setup). We then divided the climbing rope into two sections, one about 150' long to drop down into the shaft and rappel on and a second about 50' long as a safety rope for the person at the top of the shaft to attach to (we'd decided that we shouldn't both be in the mine at the same time, that someone should remain at the top, in case something did go wrong). Both sections of rope were attached independently to the power point of our anchor system. Here's a view of our climbing ropes going out the entrance of the mine to our anchors.


After double checking each other's harnesses, the rope, and the anchor system, I slowly lowered myself over the edge of the collar, into the vertical shaft. I took my time lowering myself down, examining the collar and the top of the shaft as I went. About 20 feet down, the shaft opened up, into a large cavern, following a vein to my left and right (I was expecting this, having gotten this far the previous year). I continued to lower myself another 20 feet, until I meet the steeply sloping wall (the first 40 or so feet of the shaft were vertical until it met the angle of the vein, which was at about an 85° slope). By this point, it was clear that we weren't really in a shaft, which would have been used simply as a secondary entrance or air shaft, but that we were in what appeared to be a stope. The cavern continued further than I could see in either direction and there was much more rock missing from underground than could be found in any of the nearby tailings.

Using my feet and knees to keep myself away from the wall, I continued to lower myself and in another 30 feet was out of sight of the top of the shaft. From there, I could see what appeared to be the bottom of the shaft 30 to 40 feet below me. I lowered myself the remaining 30 feet to a point where I could take my weight off the rope, where the angle of the rock had decreases to 60-70°. About 15 feet below me was the bottom of the shaft, full of rock and wood. To my left, the stope continued further than I could see and to my right, a small horizontal shaft ran beneath the stope. I disconnected from the rope and climbed into the shaft.

The shaft only traveled about 20 feet before it looked like it had been back filled with small rocks (they were too level to have been a collapse). I left the small candle that I had with me burning at the end of the shaft (more on that later) and returned to the rope. I didn't spend long looking around the bottom of the vertical shaft before I decided it didn't go anywhere and started my climb up the rope. Climbing up the rope at altitude, pressing against a slick rock wall was much more difficult than hanging from my porch, but after ten minutes, I'd made the 100 foot climb back to the top of the shaft.

After climbing out of the mine and back to safety, I told Trey that it had been both the "dumbest and scariest" thing that I had ever done (even more so than skydiving) and that I didn't think he should do it. Of course, the decision was his, and he decided the adventure was worth it. I helped him attach the descender to the rope and climb down over the edge of the collar, then watched as he slowly lowered himself into the darkness. I took lots of pictures.


Here you can just see his light about 70 feet down, just before he disappeared below the sloping roof of rock. There's still another 30 feet to the bottom of the shaft.


We had been communicating during his entire descent, but when he explored the small horizontal shaft near the bottom, I called his name several times with no response. I had a brief moment of dread, fearing the worst might have happened, and started planning my rescue.

Luckily, a louder yell from me elicited a response, and I relaxed, knowing that he was back at the vertical shaft, ready to make his way back up the rope. Apparently, I took enough pictures of him climbing up to animate:


Now that we'd both been able to explore the mine and made it out safely, we had to hustle down to the cabin to get it cleaned and pack for our flights that evening. Our trip to Colorado had proven very successful, and I'd accomplished a year long goal. And I have new plans for my next trip...



For those still curious about why I left the candle burning in the horizontal shaft at the bottom of the mine:
There is another abandoned mine with a horizontal shaft almost exactly 100 feet directly below the entrance to the vertical shaft. When Matt and I explored that mine the previous year, we discovered that at the furthest point back, there is a collapse. However, there is a small gap in the rocks through which you can see that on the other side of the collapse is a large opening (Trey reminded me that this might simple be the void left by the collapsed rock). There is also a strong breeze blowing through the gap, both of which add up to convince me that the horizontal shaft connects to the vertical shaft.

Trey and I went into the horizontal shaft on our way down from the vertical shaft we'd just explored and turned our headlamps off when we reached the collapse, hoping to see the soft glow of a burning candle through the gap in the rocks. We didn't. I'm still convinced that the two shafts were part of the same mine. I might not have placed the candle at the right opening. There was much more space in the vertical shaft than we could see or safely explore.

Update: I finally had time to go through my GoPro footage. It's not great because it was way too dark in the mine for the camera. I wish I had brought a still camera down with me.