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I've been going to the mines up in Twin Oaks on half a dozen trips by now. It's only an hour away from where I live. My friend Curtis has gone with me a few times, and his fiance's birthday was yesterday, she wanted to go in mines with us last night for her first time ever. So we went =)
Hit up the Amelie mine first, explored all areas till we came to the flooded sections. Got some good video footage of bats swooping everyone.
From there we drove a mile or so around the mountain to the east side and went into 4 other adits which go back about 400 to 800ft each. Some have verticals, a few of which I've been down, and the others I'd still like to see the bottom of.
Jill was having an absolute blast, she loved them from the first 5 mins inside. A few areas I'd drop down on my belly and wiggle back though tiny openings into other more "hidden" areas and she'd just drop down and wiggle in behind. A good sign for someone's first time in!
After we got done with the adits we were gonna take her to for the night, we went up the road a little further to a place I'd passed by several times, but Curtis had found a large "anthill" vertical there a few days ago. There was a large concrete pad above it, and the remains of a headframe on a flat area near the shaft, along with a bunch of what looked like 3/4" steel cable.
I anchored off to an oak tree and dropped a 200ft rope down the shaft. It was about 20ft diameter at the top, and ended up going down 197ft to the plug of dirt that had obviously filled in the lower level. There was still one small drift level that crossed to either side that I was able to check out, as well as two on the way up which had collapsed and had burnt timbers poking out.
Because it was an "anthill" (uncollared), the sides were a bit prone to sloughing off where the rope encountered small overhangs on the way down.
They were watching as best they could from up above. At one point when I was on ascent but still about 170' down, I heard Curtis yell down "HUGE ROCK ON ITS WAY!", so I squeezed in close to the wall and avoided looking up. It whirred past me a moment later, about the size of a basketball, and shattered loudly when it hit the bottom.
From there on up there were only smaller baseball sized and smaller clods that would occasionally come whizzing down.
After reaching the surface, Curtis assisted in hauling me up over the edge and we packed up the gear and headed back home, where we arrived at about 2:30am.
All in all it was a great trip! Curtis I took on his first time to those same mines a few months ago, and Jill and he are both excited to hit up more locations now. What a success!
Hit up the Amelie mine first, explored all areas till we came to the flooded sections. Got some good video footage of bats swooping everyone.
From there we drove a mile or so around the mountain to the east side and went into 4 other adits which go back about 400 to 800ft each. Some have verticals, a few of which I've been down, and the others I'd still like to see the bottom of.
Jill was having an absolute blast, she loved them from the first 5 mins inside. A few areas I'd drop down on my belly and wiggle back though tiny openings into other more "hidden" areas and she'd just drop down and wiggle in behind. A good sign for someone's first time in!
After we got done with the adits we were gonna take her to for the night, we went up the road a little further to a place I'd passed by several times, but Curtis had found a large "anthill" vertical there a few days ago. There was a large concrete pad above it, and the remains of a headframe on a flat area near the shaft, along with a bunch of what looked like 3/4" steel cable.
I anchored off to an oak tree and dropped a 200ft rope down the shaft. It was about 20ft diameter at the top, and ended up going down 197ft to the plug of dirt that had obviously filled in the lower level. There was still one small drift level that crossed to either side that I was able to check out, as well as two on the way up which had collapsed and had burnt timbers poking out.
Because it was an "anthill" (uncollared), the sides were a bit prone to sloughing off where the rope encountered small overhangs on the way down.
They were watching as best they could from up above. At one point when I was on ascent but still about 170' down, I heard Curtis yell down "HUGE ROCK ON ITS WAY!", so I squeezed in close to the wall and avoided looking up. It whirred past me a moment later, about the size of a basketball, and shattered loudly when it hit the bottom.
From there on up there were only smaller baseball sized and smaller clods that would occasionally come whizzing down.
After reaching the surface, Curtis assisted in hauling me up over the edge and we packed up the gear and headed back home, where we arrived at about 2:30am.
All in all it was a great trip! Curtis I took on his first time to those same mines a few months ago, and Jill and he are both excited to hit up more locations now. What a success!
It seems like we've spent a lot of time there, but seeing the photos that the Underground Explorers have posted, there is a lot of mine workings that I haven't been through.
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