The Mine Shaft

On one of our walks looking for a geocache we discovered another old mine site. It’s not hard to do around here! Some mine shafts have been closed with heavy metal bars to protect people from exploring and possibly getting lost or hurt, also to protect habitat for bats who have moved into the mines for hibernation or roost sites. Some mine shafts are just fenced off, and we’re finding a lot of shafts that appear to have just been abandoned.

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This shaft was unique in that it still had rails from the ore cart line descending into the darkness, and right next to them a ladder. Considering that this shaft may be 75 years old or more, we didn’t test the strength or safety of the wood ladder!

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In this picture it appears the shaft is horizontal, but it is almost straight down. The sounds of a rock dropped into the mine shaft took a long time bouncing off the wood and rock walls to fade away!

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