Deep
Local gives insight to the inner workings of mines and what was left behind in the mountains
Editor's note: The following account occurred while in the company of an experienced and educated individual, who has asked to be referenced by his nickname. Please note that exploring or even entering abandoned mines is extremely dangerous, as invisible and unexpected hazards exist.
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The opening of the adit is unobtrusive. It's easy to assume countless hunters and explorers had traipsed right by without a sideways glance. But beyond the moldy, green timbers that shroud the opening near Juneau's south side, beyond the pitch blackness within, is a mine shaft that extends nearly a half-mile into the mountain - one that miners cut by hand during the winter months of 1930 and 1931.
And we were going in, Walt and I.
"Walt," as his friends call him, is all he'd let me write. And really, that's all you need to know. Because what's most interesting about him is not his full name but his hobby.
It's one he pursues carefully and one he shares with few. What he does is not illegal, unless the abandoned mine is privately held, but it is frowned upon by agencies, such as the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, who are concerned with public safety.
"So, right around the portal, we try to touch as little as possible on the way in," he says. "It's a limbo game. You'll feel it when you're in there - when it's not so dangerous. The original entrance was probably out here ... but it's now all caved."
This was an "exploratory" adit with about a quarter-mile of crosscuts, branches off the main shaft, and had never been fully mined, unlike the famed A.J. or the Treadwell mines of the time. According to a Bureau of Mines report, a year after the adit was dug the project was dropped. No further work was done and no significant amounts of gold were discovered.
But we are not in search of gold this day, at least not like the miners who built it. We're here to experience Walt's passion - to explore what prospectors left behind and to uncover the mysteries of their work. He's rewarded through the effort it takes to get there, both physically and mentally. And after weeks of research, days of hiking and persistence in spite of fears of the unkown, Walt is rewarded with the discovery of a humble entrance, a little slice of history and is intrigued with the mysteries within. Walt guesses he's located around 50 abandoned mines in the Juneau area, and has entered about 40 of them.
"I admire, with great respect, the immense amount of work that the remnants of the mines represent," he says. "I relate to the miners' burning desire to explore the wilderness and (I understand) their dreams to provide for themselves and family through hard, physical work and determination. Don't get me wrong, I don't hold a fairy-tale impression. I just envy their time in history."
Walking inside this shaft sounds like water splashing in a bathtub. The air smells like oilcloth and musk. The only recent visitors seem to be porcupines who've left droppings in large clustered piles near the entrance. Opportunistic fungus grows up out of the scat like gray hairs on an old man's head. The shaft forms a near-perfect arch over us and the walls, dripping and waterlogged, look deceptively firm. A thick layer of blasting soot, pulverized rock that is now mud, covers every surface and oozes to the touch. Above, the ceiling of the shaft rose to seven feet in some areas and was wide enough throughout for two grown men to stand side-by-side.
We walk deeper. My nerves itch.
"What was the mortality rate among miners?" I ask.
"High," he replies.
My stomach churns. He's right. The United States Department of Labor Mining Safety and Health Administration reported that from 1936 to 1940 there were 1,546 reported mining related deaths in the country. There were more than 80,000 injuries. I turn around and see nothing but black. The light from the entrance is gone.
"If you start to get sleepy let me know," he says.
His concern stems from the possible presence of "dead air" - air that contains poisonous gasses and compounds that have leached from decomposing timbers, various bacteria or the mixture of metals in the rock. It can exist in adits and abandoned mines such as this. Often, victims realize it's presence too late.
We walk deeper, with Walt educating me as we go.
"See this," he says touching the wall, "this is a Bureau sample area. They come in and lay a tarp down and take a chip sample all the way across this vein. You can see it's solid quartz all the way across."
He estimated the vein to be at least six feet wide.
"Obviously the guys that dug this tunnel were not very impressed with this," he says.
He pointed out rusted hangers on which workers hung lights. Based on the even spacing and time period that the mine was built, we guessed lighting was a string of electrical lights as opposed to lanterns. We peer into cylindrical holes where tamping rods would have stuffed dynamite. I hope there's nothing left behind.
We walk deeper. It's been an hour since we left the opening and Walt guesses we're not even half-way to the end of the adit.
He pauses again.
"Each rock has a different color and smell," he says, scrubbing the blasting muck aside. "This gold color is most likely pyrite (fool's gold)."
Walt's exploration of each abandoned mine is predictable. It's neither hurried or slow, but instead a steady saunter with interspersed pauses to examine a relic or rock.
Walt drops his pack in a puddle at our feet and pulls out his rock hammer.
"Watch your eyes," he says. "Sometimes the flying shards of quartz cut."
The pounding begins and it echoes like gunshots down the tunnel. Sparks fly and, fittingly, the pulverized quartz smells like gun smoke.
"I can only imagine that the adits were hard to breathe in," Walt said. "Oxygen being in short supply following the detonation of explosives and a bunch of heavy-breathing men."
He lets me examine the newly exposed quartz. It's as white as freshly fallen snow and sparkles like hoarfrost.
We walk deeper. We hike in and out of crosscuts, where miners explored to the left and right of the main tunnel, breathing deeply where running water breaks though a crack in the ceiling and hurry past two cave-ins and an elderly set of timber supports.
Then we reach it. The face.
The tunnel opens up into a room filled with signatures.
"E.D. Loomis," one reads. "March 5, 1939."
Another: "Burlington, Washington, 1936."
They were written in perfect cursive, Walt guesses, by miners visiting after the tunnel was complete. The writing stands out in deep black despite the years. At the time, soot from the headlamps was the best writing tool the miners had on hand.
Various other visitors had also left their mark. Beer cans, fluorescent graffiti and hot pink Bureau tape littered the area. But relics remained. A rusted bolt the size of a softball protruded from the wall. Remnants of "poor boy" rails (wooden rails with strips of steel, instead of solid metal, for the ore carts) lay partially submerged in the puddles.
Walt just smiles. It's here, he says, that he's in his element. "I like being out. I like getting dirty and scratched up, it just makes me feel like I have gone somewhere or done something that required more than the average effort. I like to search for things that are hard to find and I like to persist in spite of my fears. In the end, it's all part of a way to learn from experience the skills that I want and need to be self-sufficient and capable in the wild."
We've walked as deep as we can. We turn around and as we hike the few miles back to civilization I feel giddy with endorphins. At that moment I get it - the exploration of anything new, remote and slightly dangerous is like extreme skiing, parasailing or free-climbing - there's an intrigue to the thrill.
• Outdoors editor Abby Lowell can be contacted at 523-2271 or abby.lowell@juneauempire.com.