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Dutch Miller Mines
September, 2002 |
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Someone had a grandiose plan at one time, as is evident by the old mine tunnel at Williams Lake. As is the way of many plans sometimes, this one seems to have been abandoned quickly after it had been started. To the casual observer, there doesn't seem to be any hint of what the plan really was about in the first place.
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Williams Lake is a pretty alpine lake located near the head of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie river. It is a nice destination, ringed by meadows, rocks, and a few trees. Above are rock bowls and the higher peaks of the Cascade Crest. As one rounds the north end of the lake (along the maze of rocks, streams and faint paths) the mine workings above the NE shore become obvious. Sitting about 60 feet above the lake is the small mine dump and two rusty mine rails extending down at crazy angles. The tunnel was started where a small granite vertical wall rises above the talus slope.
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The idea behind the Williams Lake workings was more of a recent plan. The miners here were planning on tunneling in quite deep, to reach from below, the rich mineral outcroppings already mined in the basin above. However, the effort was abandoned after 80 feet. The tunnel now is cluttered with some aluminum pipes and scaffolding material (which is handy to walk on) in the shallow water which fills the first part of the mine. Near the back of the tunnel, one can find a remaining relic: A "mucker" that was used to clear the rubble and debris during the tunnel excavation.
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The loader machine (or "mucker") which is present in the Williams Lake adit is known as one of the first successful mining device used to replace human labor in removing the rubble from underground hard-rock blasting. The nickname "mucker" was retained because the machine emulated the movements of the human "mucker," the laborer who removed rubble, or "muck," from underground mines.
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Loaders such as this one were first produced in the late 1930's. They were run entirely by compressed air, requiring 60-125 pounds per square inch of pressure. The air hoses (& lack of any external power source) shows this mucker to be of the same type. As the miners moved the machine forward, the bucket (or scoop as shown in this picture) was capable of removing up to 30 cubic feet of rubble per minute in some cases. When the bucket was full, the miner would operate the bucket drive motor that would move the rubble upward and rearward where it would be flung into the attached ore cart. The loader would then be driven back out the adit, where the contents would be dumped out. An old photo of a mucker in action from 1948 shows the similarity in the machines. A more recent photo depicts a newer loader.
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When did this activity occur at the Williams Lake adit? One possible clue sits on the floor of the tunnel, an old bucket with a Chevron logo on it. This probably held fuel or lubrication for an engine that ran an air compressor outside the mine. Looking at a closeup of the bucket, one can see the "winged V" (for "Victory") in the logo, which Chevron adopted during World War II to show a commitment to the war effort. A guess would place the miners here in the late 1940's or early 1950's.
The mine didn't contain any interesting minerals, and ended abruptly in the solid granite. As we finished inspecting the loader, one 2DrX member noted the fact that the mucker seemed to have the name "Old Pokey" on the side - evidently on the right side of the machine looking towards the back of the tunnel. The other 2DrX member simultaneously experienced one of many equipment failures that would plague this trip (dead headlamp batteries) and this name could not be verified. Much doubt was expressed during the rest of the trip that the mucker indeed had a name, and is still a controversial item to this day.
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Our trip to the Dutch Miller mines started early on a Friday in mid-September. With the promise of good weather, we skipped out of work and drove the rough-and-tumble Middle Fork Snoqualmie road all the way to the end, a 2 hour task from North Bend. At one time, passenger cars could make the drive, now high clearance is certainly desirable. Arriving at the trailhead at around 9:30 am, the valley was still in the shade and cool, offering good hiking conditions.
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While the Middle Fork road is terrible, ironically the Dutch Miller trail is in great shape. A brand-new superstructure crosses Hardscrabble creek within a hundred yards of the trailhead. New turnpike and puncheon have been created all along the trail and the brush has been cut back to a wide distance. Periodically one comes upon piles of new timbers dropped by helicopter which await some new structural fate. These improvements made it easy to make good time, and before long we were making our way up the deep valley, enjoying views to our destination near the Cascade crest.
After an hour or so, the first humans were sighted, a couple coming back from a stay at Williams Lake. "How were the bugs?" we asked. "Not bad" came the reply, giving us some hope for a bug-free trip - "We just made sure we always covered ourselves with repellant" they added. Oh. This was going to be a buggy trip, and this fact was somewhat amazing considering it was mid-September.
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The trail passes a large campsite at about 2.5 miles, and makes a steep climb up the hillside to the high country. Here the going becomes pleasant through meadows at about the 3 mile mark. In one particularly boggy meadow, the old turnpike must be almost 50 years old. We staged our own "100 Hikes Photo" with Iron Cap Mtn in the background. We winded though large boulders and meadows, with our thoughts on lunch. We tried to make it to Pedro Camp for lunch, but gave up on the climb though the woods just before, and plopped down in the pleasant open forest to eat and rest.
Just minutes after resuming our hike, we found ourselves in the open lake-like area that is Pedro Camp, complete with industrial bridge and the informative sign on it that assures rewards will be given for information on anyone that vandalizes it. A bazooka would be necessary to inflict any damage on the Pedro Camp bridge. We pushed on, past the many large tents set up here which we took to belong to the Forest Service rigs we saw at the trailhead.
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The trail past Pedro Camp starts to ascend through open trees and meadows towards Dutch Miller Gap, which can be seen at times through the trees. We started hearing some construction noises, and soon came upon a NYC trail crew, under the supervision of some Forest Service personnel. They were doing some retread work and building some small bridges on this stretch of the trail, which tends to follow watercourses and is seriously eroded in spots. Shortly before the side trail to Williams Lake we saw the old ruins of a cabin to the right of the main trail, unchanged it seems in over 20 years.
Once we got to the short Williams Lake side trail, our luck began to change. Until now the trip was ideal. The first setback was the strange and bizarre "log-birling" event, which left one member almost knee deep in a stream after trying to get water. Many obscenities broke the stillness of the peaceful fall day. Once at Williams Lake, the "curse of the SLR" struck again - this time in the form of dead batteries with no spares on board. The afflicted 2DrX member chose to suffer in silence, after hauling up pounds of non-functional photo equipment. The other member called for exorcism of the camera, and urged repeatedly for the offending item to be thrown off a cliff. Oddly, the only response was a loud rendition of the song "Space Truckin" [play midi] by Deep Purple. Not talking much, we made our way around the west side of the lake and set up a comfortable camp and explored around the lake.
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The next morning we were up early, psyched to hike up past the Williams Lake adit to the Chain Lakes basin. In just a few minutes, we had made our way around the lake and were at the adit that we explored the evening before. We could see that a rough path made it's way to the left of the adit, and up into the open woods on the hillside. The route is easy to follow, and switchbacks nicely up the steep wooded terrain above the lake. In a few spots there were blowdowns, which necessitated climbing over and re-locating the tread. Soon we popped out near the top of the large talus slope which reaches down to Williams lake. From here we took to the rocks and turned North in the obvious direction towards the Chain Lakes basin.
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We climbed up the rocks and over some late snow patches towards the basin, which was behind the headwall that loomed up in front of us. We could see that a mine opening of some sort was visible in this headwall, so we made our way to that immediately. It had taken us about an hour in the morning sun to reach the beginning of the basin. A steep climb up to the adit revealed a short tunnel of about 30 feet. We went in for a few pictures, and collected some nice crystals outside of the adit. We dubbed this adit the "Chain Lakes Adit #1" since we didn't know much about the area. We then climbed up the steep slope, to the top of the headwall where we could see into the lake basin.
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There were a couple people camped on the right side of the headwall, in a nice but barren area. Some nice kitchen "tables" and "benches" were constructed out of some old planks left behind by the mining operation. On the left side of the headwall was the remains of a cabin structure, which part of it was built into the hillside with a fancy rock wall and fireplace. That was all that remained however. The Forest Service had hauled away garbage from this area in previous years. The campers were beginning to stir, so we made our way into the basin and were amazed at the sight in front of us.
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The Chain Lakes basin is a stark, barren location and probably was once beautiful. This is one of the unfortunate cases where 20th century mining practices have devastated a fragile area. From our vantage point, we could see across the largest of the Chain Lakes to where a large tailings pile flowed into the water (also visible from Terraserver as a large backwards "L" shape). As we made our way around the lakes, much iron oxidization could be seen in the small streams flowing between the lakes. Not much in the way of fish or wildlife was seen in the basin that day. As we got nearer to the destruction, we saw that this was the center of activity in the basin, and we dubbed this working "Adit #2"
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Many good mineral samples can be found near Adit #2 (and elsewhere in the basin) although one must be picky as the thought of carrying rocks all the way back is daunting. The mine entrance here was cut as a trench and then adit. There was also a deep water-filled shaft directly in front of the adit #2 entrance. It would be possible to skirt around the shaft to enter the adit, but no margin for error exists if you slip on the loose rock. We passed on this not wanting a nasty bath. An ancient rusty iron wheelbarrow sits in front of the portal. Just above and to the west of the adit and shaft was an old pallet of timbers, and a stack of mine rails. These seem to have been airlifted by helicopter in a later age.
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We climbed the small hill above Adit #2, which was still littered with dump material. There seemed to be evidence of excavation here as well. Sure enough, sitting high above Adit #2 is a deep scary shaft, surrounded by loose rock. It wouldn't take much to slip into it, so we kept our distance. We did get close enough to trundle some large rocks into the abyss however, and the splash below seemed to coincide with the location of the adit, so it is possible that they are connected below the surface.
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Just about anywhere that mineralization outcroppings were visible in the basin, some sort of excavation had occurred. Rockhounds may have been responsible for some, but in other cases large amounts of material had been moved. Near the scary shaft was evidence of an old cabin type structure, now long gone. Further south was some old machinery, and again evidence of an old structure.
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To the west was the last remaining mine to be explored. It is located at the west side of the basin about 20 feet above of the western small tarn. The reddish mine dump from the excavation extends down into the water. This tunnel is wet and boring, only about 25 feet long. We dubbed this one "Adit #3" fittingly. At this point, we walked back towards the head of the basin to the cabin site, and took some last looks at the poor Chain Lakes basin before starting back. The campers were fully packed and heading out at the same time. Hopefully they didn't drink any of the water from the lakes during their stay.
The rock-hopping was tedious back to where the established route could be picked up again, but we were quickly back to our campsite at Williams Lake. The hoards of mosquitoes encouraged us to rapidly pack up our camp and head out. We ate lunch a while later a mile or so downstream from Pedro Camp at a nice spot on the river. The hike out only took a little over 3.5 hours, and all that remained was the bouncy 2 hour drive down the Middle Fork road.
References:
- 100 Hikes in the Alpine Lakes - Mountaineers. Dutch Miller Gap trail information, as well as the LaBohn Gap route.
- Discovering Washington's Historic Mines - Oso Publishing. Dutch Miller Mine information.
- The VTrail site has some information on the Dutch Miller Gap trail.
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