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An awesome site here! You guys have really been busy. I thought I would take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Jeremiah, and I have lived here in the great state of Utah all my life - and there is no better place in the contiguous United States 
I have always loved spending time exploring wild Utah, and take every opportuinty to get out of the office and find adventure. One of my intense interests is Utah's mining history, and since it is being bulldozed and backfilled and wiped from the face of the earth at an astonishing rate, I have focused much of my recent outdoor time visiting and revisiting these sites. I have been to many of the locations discussed in the forums, and I can't get over the fact that others share this niche interest!
It seems like there is a great deal of push and pull regarding the "reclamation" of abandoned properties. Personally I believe that there are numerous sites that pose a risk to some segments of the outdoor public; ATV riders and drunken weekend adventurers for example, and should be rendered safe(er). There is a collection of vertical shafts near the Five Mile Pass ATV area that were grated over in the mid 90's for good reason, some of those workings decend over 600' straight down and had nothing more than barbed wire fencing around the loose collar before cement foundations and rebar were installed over them. Some of you may have peered thru the grate over the Sunshine Mine and seen the back end of the Willey's Jeep that protrudes from it's wedged perch 60' down the vertical shaft - a reminder that poor judgement and dangerous sites can make for great poster children for the cause of obliterating every square inch of historcal workings across the state.
On the other hand there are perfectly harmless, tiny horizontal exploratory sites that I have seen gated or blasted - at an average gate cost of $2,000.00 (in their current design) you might think there were more dangerous sites to gate than the equivalent of a 100' deep stone broom closet. I recall riding up Butterfield Canyon as a young boy and "panning for gold" in the waste rock pile below one of Kennecott's drainage adits, and exploring a nearby small adit. The dark, the smell, the sense of adventure and history - I was hooked. Kennecott has since blasted that site and redistributed the waste rock piles.
I was very unhappy to hear that there was a proposal to blast or gate the caves / ancient workings down in Kanab - there are greater hazards to be found in my panrty than in those little caves. Someone seems to have an agenda.
Well, I fear that I have rambled on too long. The bottom line is that I am thrilled to find this tremendous resource and to know that there are others out there that would rather spend a weekend exploring Utah's history first-hand than sit at home getting a radiation burn from their plasma TV!
Good to find you all and I look forward to a great summer of exploration!
Jeremiah
I have always loved spending time exploring wild Utah, and take every opportuinty to get out of the office and find adventure. One of my intense interests is Utah's mining history, and since it is being bulldozed and backfilled and wiped from the face of the earth at an astonishing rate, I have focused much of my recent outdoor time visiting and revisiting these sites. I have been to many of the locations discussed in the forums, and I can't get over the fact that others share this niche interest! It seems like there is a great deal of push and pull regarding the "reclamation" of abandoned properties. Personally I believe that there are numerous sites that pose a risk to some segments of the outdoor public; ATV riders and drunken weekend adventurers for example, and should be rendered safe(er). There is a collection of vertical shafts near the Five Mile Pass ATV area that were grated over in the mid 90's for good reason, some of those workings decend over 600' straight down and had nothing more than barbed wire fencing around the loose collar before cement foundations and rebar were installed over them. Some of you may have peered thru the grate over the Sunshine Mine and seen the back end of the Willey's Jeep that protrudes from it's wedged perch 60' down the vertical shaft - a reminder that poor judgement and dangerous sites can make for great poster children for the cause of obliterating every square inch of historcal workings across the state.
On the other hand there are perfectly harmless, tiny horizontal exploratory sites that I have seen gated or blasted - at an average gate cost of $2,000.00 (in their current design) you might think there were more dangerous sites to gate than the equivalent of a 100' deep stone broom closet. I recall riding up Butterfield Canyon as a young boy and "panning for gold" in the waste rock pile below one of Kennecott's drainage adits, and exploring a nearby small adit. The dark, the smell, the sense of adventure and history - I was hooked. Kennecott has since blasted that site and redistributed the waste rock piles.
I was very unhappy to hear that there was a proposal to blast or gate the caves / ancient workings down in Kanab - there are greater hazards to be found in my panrty than in those little caves. Someone seems to have an agenda.
Well, I fear that I have rambled on too long. The bottom line is that I am thrilled to find this tremendous resource and to know that there are others out there that would rather spend a weekend exploring Utah's history first-hand than sit at home getting a radiation burn from their plasma TV!
Good to find you all and I look forward to a great summer of exploration!
Jeremiah
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