Trip report and Bad Air

[XXX Snow]

Today I enter a mine that is part of an huge complex in the cottonwoods. We found the main entrance was reclaimed but there is a another entrance that is still open thanks to the info I obtained from EXPUT. As we enter mine I notice no air flow but we continued to climbed down an incline for about an 100 yards to the main haul tunnel. The mine was very wet with lots of dripping. The first thing we see is a couple of ore carts turn upside down so we were stoked that the mine had artifacts. To me the air seem "thick" so we took out an lighter and it burned fine. The main haul tunnel had tracks and unlike other mines I've been in, it didn't have railroad ties, but it had a wood floor in great shape that the rails where fasten to. The tracks where submerged in 2 to 4 inches of super clear water. The haul tunnel was timber but they weren't in the best of shape and some side walls were caving in, but they were very easy to get around. We proceed down the tunnel about 100 ft and then two of us stayed in one place while the other continue about 100 ft from us. He had to stop because the water was just to deep because of the caves in were holding back the water, he said it looked about 2 to 3 feet deep. When he was scouting thats when we took out the lighter again and check the air but this time we only had a small flame about 2 inches above the base of the lighter. Thats when we yelled to Curtis to turn around to get out of here. We went back to the base of the incline, relit the lighter and it burned fine so we knew it was working right. So we went back up the incline and outside and mark the entrance with a sign saying bad air. The mine had lot of signs of people checking out over the years and I was told that as of last fall people spent 4 to 5 hours down there exploring. I would like to go back in the fall when it dries out with an air monitor.

[ExpUt]

Glad to hear my intel was good. I'm not surprised it had that much water in it... we have had a very wet spring and that is known as a very wet mine too. I've got the workings maps of that mine, needless to say it connects to some VERY big workings on the Little Cottonwood side of the mountain.

The rail is called 'strap rail' among other names. It was much cheaper to do it that way and when steel was at a premium (WWI for example) they didn't have much of an option. Some of the mines in LC have that as well. For some reason I though there was a section in the Sells that way too? Maybe not.

Anyways, really glad you guys didn't have an air issue and made it out safely. Lets plan a day there later this fall to get back up there. I have a friend of a friend that owns property up there and his family still has a key to the gate with legal access... believe me I've tried and tried to get access but each time I end up hiking

[Derek]

We need to go up there with you and our air monitor to check that out again. Let us know when you would like to go back up there and we'll go with you if you don't mind.

[ExpUt]

PS, how was the alternate entrance? Was the climb back up the 45* bad at all??

I was digging through my papers tonight, I have a picture of the bunkhouse standing with workers on the porch in 1916, the beefsteak raise (connecting the bunkhouse to the mine) was built sometime after that. The mine had power around 1910, and soon after even had telephone service. Power came from near Lake Solitude and dropped down to Alta from there. It was worked on a major scale until the teens with horses hauling the ore to the valley, they were replaced by early 4x4 truck making the drive up to the mine 4 and 5 times a day. The mine ceased operation in 1928 but reopened a hanful of times by leasees after that, they were slowed by water which was fixed in 1955 when the Wasatch Drain Tunnel (think the parking lot at Snowbird) connected to the Cardiff although on a much lower elevation. My research seems to indicated that their are two acual mine entrances (besides the beefsteak raise), the major and newer one being ~300 feet below the other? The actual portal seems to have been closed to protect the water supply in the mines below? I always thought the bunkhouse at Cardiff burned down, turns out it was dissassembled and scrapped, some of the material being used on an expansion of the Silver Fork Lodge, how neat is that!

Other mines in the area. Price Mine (water floods the Cardiff Road from time to time), Tar Baby Mine.

I've got a bunch more info, books, maps, etc.

PS, does this look like the mine you entered lower in the canyon that is caved shortly inside?

[RockRacer]

I think I missed the name of this mine??

[Derek]

Name is withheld for protection.