Mohawk Mine January, 2003

Route Information

Occasionally we meet in the mornings east of Sultan a few miles, at the Chevron/Burger King combo joint. It has some parking, gas, food, and a restroom - just about everything you might need before a day in the mountains. On this Saturday in January, the place was teeming with people, kids mostly, as it was a designated point for catching some ski buses to Stevens Pass. They were even selling lift tickets inside the store.

The place we met was teeming with kids catching the ski bus

The Chevron Mini-mart had it's usual group of men holding court around a large table, drinking coffee and talking - undoubtedly local Sultanites. In the past, this 'koffee klatch' held a monopoly on the one-holer restroom in the back, which had a locking door. It never failed - one chair at the large table would be empty, and the restroom would be locked for an eternity. We almost stopped meeting at that location, because of that inconvenience. Now, we are happy to report that the restroom has been remodeled and can accommodate up to three people.

The ski bus had just loaded and was heading to Stevens Pass

Outside, a group of crows were attacking a dropped bagel in the parking lot. We loaded one vehicle and started up the highway with the sun breaking through the morning fog.

Since the winter snowfall had been very minimal to the point, we were going to see how far we could get up the Miller River road and do some low-level exploring in the area. A call had been made the day before to the Skykomish Ranger Station, and they assured us that "the Miller River road was clear to the Lake Dorothy trailhead." From experience, we knew this would mean one of two things:

• the road was clear of snow all the way to the Lake Dorothy trailhead, or
• there was snow on the road

We drove past the closed Money Creek campground, and past the little town of Miller River. The road was a little icy. Shortly before the Miller River campground, some spotty snow covered the road. As we arrived at the campground, it looked like the road had been plowed prior up to the campground, and we had to jump the truck over a small barrier of snow on the road. The snow now was covering the road, with bare ruts for the tires. After about 1/2 mile, the ruts became snow and ice filled. We continued for a while, and turned around and parked at a wide spot on the shoulder. A short hike up the road revealed the parking area for the West Fork road.

The West Fork road would not be our route this day however. We used it as a reference, and backtracked the way we came .25 miles or so, which put us back at the truck. We decided to try to find the route to the "Mohawk Mine", which started up the hillside on the west side of the road. Just down from the truck was a sizable creekbed, now dry, where the path to the mine starts. A large culvert marks the spot as well (about 1270' elevation). We tramped up through the crusty snow along the right side of the creek, catching glimpses of a beaten tread in the vegetation here and there. For a few minutes it was just guesswork, and a few flags hanging from limbs guided us up.

The trail climbed the hillside in the mossy forest

After a few minutes the snow all but disappeared from the hillside and the trail. The creek, which was mysteriously dry by the road, could now be heard rushing off to the left. The tread was easy to follow now, and we steadily climbed the hillside in the cool morning air.

We could now hear the sounds of a waterfall, which would be the location of the Mohawk Mine. Soon we came upon a flat spot for a tent, and an old tarp which covered what looked to be firewood. We climbed a few feet higher, and could then see the main adit of the mine just ahead in a solid rock outcrop on the hillside. The elevation of the main adit is about 1580'. Below the mine was the creek, and plunging into it was a sizable waterfall. It had only taken us about 15 minutes to get here from the road.

In front of the main Mohawk mine adit

The mine seemed to be the site of an active claim, and in front of it was standing a post with a claim notice in a rusty can/baby food jar. It was jammed in pretty good, and we didn't open it. We rested for a while, and got out our lights to go into the mine.

We ducked into the mine over some boards that allowed passage over some mud and water. There were some newish pieces of plywood stacked around haphazardly, and we noticed candle stubs strategically placed at spots along the tunnel. The floor of the mine was generally dry.

Further evidence of the active claim were these tools

After about 50 feet, we came upon a stash of tools including a large wheelbarrow obviously the property of whoever held the claim here. We didn't disturb anything, and did not pick around in the mine as this would not have been too cool, and also somewhat illegal. There were signs of small excavations in the sides of the tunnel in spots, and we finally made our way to the uninteresting end of the mine after about 250 feet or so. Having seen enough, we backtracked out into the daylight again.

Supposedly there were 4 adits in the area around the falls. A quick look above and below the main adit did not reveal any more. We struggled down the hillside towards the waterfall, passing through the front of a large overhanging slab in the steep rock cliff. As we neared the stream, we could see that there was another mine opening on the other side of the creek, just below the waterfall. With some difficulty, we made it to the edge of the creek, and managed to get across over the slick broken up log jam which had obviously been tossed over the waterfall.

Looking out of adit 2, Mohawk Falls crashing outsite

Mohawk Falls must be impressive with a large volume of water flowing over it in the spring. On this day there was a good amount for mid-winter, probably because it had been so mild lately. One can get wet from the spray at the 2nd adit near the base of the falls.

We noticed that someone had been digging in adit 2

There was another similar claim notice outside of the second adit. We went in quickly, and noticed that this tunnel did not extend very far into the hillside. There was a branch of the tunnel, and some newer looking digging inside. One of us wore his pack into the tunnel and got it incredibly muddy. Outside, we scanned quickly for any other signs of mines, but didn't see any.

We enjoyed the falls for a while at close range before starting down. It had warmed up during the morning, but was still quite dark on the hillside. We decided to stay on the south side of the creek and start down toward the road. This was easy in the open forest, but soon we could see that much crawling over blowdowns would be necessary to keep decending here. We crossed the creek at a inconvenient point and found the trail on the north side again. In a few minutes we were back at the road.

References:

• Discovering Washington's Historic Mines - Oso Publishing. Mohawk Mine information.