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Before I start I'd like to thank Miah for all his hard work and for letting us trash his equipment every time we have an event.
On Wednesday December 31st we had a New Years Party in the Ophir Hill mine. This party was a huge success and everyone who came had a great time. We will hopefully be having another similar mine camping event this sometime this year.
Miah was the first one to arrive on Wednesday, he spent most of the afternoon welding his little haulage cart and getting all the cooking and sleeping gear hauled deep into the mine to the blue room. While Miah was working Leonard and John Ault showed up for a little while to move some rocks, but they did not stay for the party. Later in the afternoon Mike, Crystal, and Derek arrived and packed the rest of the gear into the mine and got things set up.
When the rest of the crew arrived Crystal cooked New York Steaks and everyone dined on a buffet of spinach and artichoke dip, a cheese ball, shrimp, chips and dip, roasted almonds, and other assorted goodies. After dinner most of the group went exploring on the two levels above the bridge in the big lake room. I showed up while everyone was exploring and I snuck around in the dark for a while trying to scare everyone. After everyone wandered back to the blue room we got set up to celebrate the new year with fireworks, party hats, and those annoying noise maker things. With Roberts guidance we took dozens of glowsticks and broke them open throwing dozens of tiny stars on the walls. Well actually, quite a bit of the glow ended up on us instead of the tunnels. It is a crazy experience walking around in the mine with thousands of glowing specks as the only light source. I want to try this again next time we camp in a mine! After the glowing mine adventure we went to sleep. The mine was cool during the night, about 45 degrees with a chilly breeze blowing in from the haulage tunnel. I expected some sort of ambient mine noise, wood creaking or water dripping or something, but it was very quiet with snores being the only noise all night.
In the morning Robert woke everyone up and Miah made his classic egg, bacon, and potatoes breakfast. With full stomachs and big smiles and a thirst for exploration we started the day. Half the group went with Mike/Robert and the other half went with Miah and I. I'm not completely sure what Mike's group did, so I will just cover the exploration that my group did. My group consisted of Crystal, Miah, David, Mike Z, Steve, and Shawn. We stated out in the Blue room and climbed up Crystals incline to the top where the old winch is. From the winch room we took a left and climbed up the stope to the "Shortcut" into Mikes ore cart room. From the ore cart we took a right out into another stope past the old rotting ladder and up into the "Big Casino". We followed the Big Casino vein up the tailings into the Wild Delirium campsite and down into the giant Wild Delirium stope. We spent quite a bit of time in the stope looking around and checking out a few ladders at the bottom of the stope. Mikes group joined us at this point and we took a break to eat some snacks. After the break Brent and Jeff joined our group and we continued exploring up in the Wild Delirium. I climbed down a collapsed ore shoot and discovered some large stopes then I headed back up and we explored some upper parts of the Wild Delirium. When we worked our way back over to the wild Delirium campsite Steve and I climbed down a ladder that Mike and I had been thinking about checking out a couple weeks before. The ladder was great for the first twelve feet until it disappeared completely and we had to scramble down the wall the rest of the way to the ground. Miah and Mike Z followed us down the ladder after we determined it was fairly safe. Shawn, Crystal, Brent, David, and Jeff took the collapsed ore shoot way that I had taken earlier and met us in the middle of the lower stopes. I thought the area looked very familiar and shawn thought the same thing, It was Miah who finally helped us to realize that we were sitting on the top of a familiar incline with an old boiler in it and a very stinky smell. We climbed down the incline to the point that we had previously entered on a trip a few months earlier. We decided to find out what was further down on the incline and we came across a dumping point in the middle of the incline that dropped into an ore shoot. The shoot was covered with old boards and we stopped to determine how structurally sound they were when, to our surprise, Robert popped out further down on the incline! I thought he had wandered up into the upper workings and we had somehow stumbled into his group, but when asked about our location he told us that we were just across from the access tunnel to the blue room! What a suprise this was, I thought we were in a completely different section of the mine. This was good news for Miah, he was craving a sandwich, he promptly led the way and we walked down the last 50 feet of the incline and into the blue room. We studied the map during lunch and decided the incline we had just come down was the old main incline.
After lunch Robert met back up with us after he took his group out of the mine and he volunteered to pull Mike Z's car out of the snow. Shawn and Steve decided to leave soon after Robert and Tanya left with Mike Z. The rest of us decided to find out where the water level was down in the main incline by the hoist in the back of the mine. It was a bit of a challenge to get down the incline in all the mud and humidity, but we made it all the way down to the 1200 foot level of the mine. David went down near the water to confirm where it was while the rest of us checked out a short side tunnel off to the right of the incline. There is a small dam down there in another side tunnel with a couple feet of water in it that we did not check out. Miah and I shimmied up a pipe into a tunnel in the ceiling of the inline and we found 1300 paces worth of very muddy tunnels up there. After Miah and I rejoined the group we all headed back to big room to pack up. With Miah's ingenuity and a few faulty ratchet straps we managed to get all the gear hitched up to the back of Miah's ATV. It was quite a site to see the the ATV with a trailer hitched to it and Miahs little utility mine cart tied to the trailer. With a few stops to put the cart back on the track and pump up flat tires we made it successfully out of the mine.
I'm glad we were able to get so much exploring done and discover some interesting time saving connections. With the knowledge that we now have of the old main incline and its connections to the upper stopes it is now possible to get almost anywhere in the upper parts of the mine in half the time. Thanks again to all who helped make this trip a success!
VIDEO HERE
Still waiting for pictures
On Wednesday December 31st we had a New Years Party in the Ophir Hill mine. This party was a huge success and everyone who came had a great time. We will hopefully be having another similar mine camping event this sometime this year.
Miah was the first one to arrive on Wednesday, he spent most of the afternoon welding his little haulage cart and getting all the cooking and sleeping gear hauled deep into the mine to the blue room. While Miah was working Leonard and John Ault showed up for a little while to move some rocks, but they did not stay for the party. Later in the afternoon Mike, Crystal, and Derek arrived and packed the rest of the gear into the mine and got things set up.
When the rest of the crew arrived Crystal cooked New York Steaks and everyone dined on a buffet of spinach and artichoke dip, a cheese ball, shrimp, chips and dip, roasted almonds, and other assorted goodies. After dinner most of the group went exploring on the two levels above the bridge in the big lake room. I showed up while everyone was exploring and I snuck around in the dark for a while trying to scare everyone. After everyone wandered back to the blue room we got set up to celebrate the new year with fireworks, party hats, and those annoying noise maker things. With Roberts guidance we took dozens of glowsticks and broke them open throwing dozens of tiny stars on the walls. Well actually, quite a bit of the glow ended up on us instead of the tunnels. It is a crazy experience walking around in the mine with thousands of glowing specks as the only light source. I want to try this again next time we camp in a mine! After the glowing mine adventure we went to sleep. The mine was cool during the night, about 45 degrees with a chilly breeze blowing in from the haulage tunnel. I expected some sort of ambient mine noise, wood creaking or water dripping or something, but it was very quiet with snores being the only noise all night.
In the morning Robert woke everyone up and Miah made his classic egg, bacon, and potatoes breakfast. With full stomachs and big smiles and a thirst for exploration we started the day. Half the group went with Mike/Robert and the other half went with Miah and I. I'm not completely sure what Mike's group did, so I will just cover the exploration that my group did. My group consisted of Crystal, Miah, David, Mike Z, Steve, and Shawn. We stated out in the Blue room and climbed up Crystals incline to the top where the old winch is. From the winch room we took a left and climbed up the stope to the "Shortcut" into Mikes ore cart room. From the ore cart we took a right out into another stope past the old rotting ladder and up into the "Big Casino". We followed the Big Casino vein up the tailings into the Wild Delirium campsite and down into the giant Wild Delirium stope. We spent quite a bit of time in the stope looking around and checking out a few ladders at the bottom of the stope. Mikes group joined us at this point and we took a break to eat some snacks. After the break Brent and Jeff joined our group and we continued exploring up in the Wild Delirium. I climbed down a collapsed ore shoot and discovered some large stopes then I headed back up and we explored some upper parts of the Wild Delirium. When we worked our way back over to the wild Delirium campsite Steve and I climbed down a ladder that Mike and I had been thinking about checking out a couple weeks before. The ladder was great for the first twelve feet until it disappeared completely and we had to scramble down the wall the rest of the way to the ground. Miah and Mike Z followed us down the ladder after we determined it was fairly safe. Shawn, Crystal, Brent, David, and Jeff took the collapsed ore shoot way that I had taken earlier and met us in the middle of the lower stopes. I thought the area looked very familiar and shawn thought the same thing, It was Miah who finally helped us to realize that we were sitting on the top of a familiar incline with an old boiler in it and a very stinky smell. We climbed down the incline to the point that we had previously entered on a trip a few months earlier. We decided to find out what was further down on the incline and we came across a dumping point in the middle of the incline that dropped into an ore shoot. The shoot was covered with old boards and we stopped to determine how structurally sound they were when, to our surprise, Robert popped out further down on the incline! I thought he had wandered up into the upper workings and we had somehow stumbled into his group, but when asked about our location he told us that we were just across from the access tunnel to the blue room! What a suprise this was, I thought we were in a completely different section of the mine. This was good news for Miah, he was craving a sandwich, he promptly led the way and we walked down the last 50 feet of the incline and into the blue room. We studied the map during lunch and decided the incline we had just come down was the old main incline.
After lunch Robert met back up with us after he took his group out of the mine and he volunteered to pull Mike Z's car out of the snow. Shawn and Steve decided to leave soon after Robert and Tanya left with Mike Z. The rest of us decided to find out where the water level was down in the main incline by the hoist in the back of the mine. It was a bit of a challenge to get down the incline in all the mud and humidity, but we made it all the way down to the 1200 foot level of the mine. David went down near the water to confirm where it was while the rest of us checked out a short side tunnel off to the right of the incline. There is a small dam down there in another side tunnel with a couple feet of water in it that we did not check out. Miah and I shimmied up a pipe into a tunnel in the ceiling of the inline and we found 1300 paces worth of very muddy tunnels up there. After Miah and I rejoined the group we all headed back to big room to pack up. With Miah's ingenuity and a few faulty ratchet straps we managed to get all the gear hitched up to the back of Miah's ATV. It was quite a site to see the the ATV with a trailer hitched to it and Miahs little utility mine cart tied to the trailer. With a few stops to put the cart back on the track and pump up flat tires we made it successfully out of the mine.
I'm glad we were able to get so much exploring done and discover some interesting time saving connections. With the knowledge that we now have of the old main incline and its connections to the upper stopes it is now possible to get almost anywhere in the upper parts of the mine in half the time. Thanks again to all who helped make this trip a success!
VIDEO HERE
Still waiting for pictures
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