Bergeson Prospect May, 2004

Route Information

Since it was still pretty early in the year, we thought it would be a good time to bag some more of the lower-level mines that we had not gotten to yet around the US-2 corridor. After our Grand Central trip a few weeks ago, we drove up the Money Creek road for a ways to the latest washout and checked it out. Driving out, we figured that some time in the near future, we would try to find the Bergeson Prospect, a mine located not too far above the road, still on the good side of the washout.

The "Tyvek Mansion" marks the start of the Money Creek road

We met as usual on a Saturday morning, and the familiar drive put us at the Money Creek exit, where we turned at the Tyvek Mansion up the Money Creek road. We set the odometer to zero and drove on. The road had just been newly graded, and was rough, muddy and rocky. At the 2 mile mark, we started to look for the access road on the right to the mine. Nothing. Just past 2.1 miles, we did notice a rough footpath straight up into the steep greenery from below the road. We stopped to check it out. One of us confirmed that this did indeed climb up to intersect an old overgrown road bed above. We turned around, parked and unloaded our stuff. The elevation here was about 1390'.

We turned around, parked and got our stuff ready

the climb up was steep, first in loose dirt, then though the mossy forest. Then the route broke out onto an old brushy road bed. Here we turned left and followed it up the hill. After a few minutes, it became hard to follow. Here the road switched back to the right, and several downed trees made it more difficult to see.

We followed the old overgrown road that climbed up the hillside

We kept going up to the right now, and as the road made a gradual left turn, we could see an old barrel in the woods. We stumbled over to it, but nothing else was around. The barrel was locked by a cable around an old root. Just one of the many mysteries one can find deep in the cascade mountains.

The old road passed by this large monolithic block

The route now was very easy to follow, as the road bed was well defined. It took a sharper left turn after a while, and at about 1600' we passed by a large monolith rock in the middle of the road. A creek could be heard in the distance. As we rested, we felt that the mine had to be close, at the advertised elevation of 1760'.

Crossing the little creek that runs by the mine (center)

Sure enough, a few feet more put us near the now loud creek. The road turned up to the right, and here we could see the mountaineous heap of the mine dump in front of us. We climbed up the loose rocks (an easier way might be up around to the right) and found ourselves overlooking the small creek running past a huge downed log over the dark Bergeson adit. We crossed the creek, and climbed up to the mine area, and set our stuff down. Our altimeter showed the elevation to be 1710'. Close enough.

We had no idea of the past purpose of this artifact

A huge tree had fallen over the creek towards the mine. As it started to sprinkle, we moved our equipment under the tree to keep dry. Just to the left a ways was a large square metal thing (with a round hole in the middle) that someone had obviously dug up recently and lifted up to put on display. We inspected it, but had no idea of it's past purpose.

To the right of the mine, the small creek flowed, supplied from a small waterfall on the hillside above. A branch of this creek was causing a problem with the mine, as it tended to drain into the adit. We had heard that individuals had been working last year to drain the mine, and their work was evident as we could see a trench that had been dug in front of the adit. Part of the problem was also from landslides above that had deposited dirt in front of the mine. We saw some improvements that could be made, and suddenly our purpose in life at that moment became clear. We had to get this mine draining! We started to clear out the creekbed to get the water flowing away from the mine. We also improved the flow from the mine by clearing the lower part of the trench where the stream flowed over/under a log.

We worked on clearing out the small stream in front of the mine...

... so it wouldn't flow down and into the mine

Deep water inside the mine and a hole in the rubber boot

After about 20 minutes, we had lowered the level of the water in the trench by 6 inches or so. Not bad. A grub hoe or shovel would have been better. Oops. Now one of us had lost his glasses out of a pocket while working around the stream. He went down to the mine dump looking for them. Nope, they were nowhere to be found. While he was doing that, the other had aggravated a back injury lifting heavy rocks and logs, and sat down in misery, cursing quietly. Our unexplainable obsession would cost us a pair of glasses and an injured back, but it was worth it. We had drained the mine by 6 inches!

After a while, we decided to explore the mine now that the water level was a little lower. The level was just below knee level, almost to our boot tops. Yuck. The first one of us went in slowly, and after a few feet he found out that he had a hole somewhere low in his boot, resulting in cold mine water pouring in. More bad luck! There was no end to the deeper water that we could see, as we shined our lights back into the tunnel. Water, darkness, and ventilation pipes suspended from the top of the tunnel. We packed it in at this point, making plans already for another destination in the area. We will return to the Bergeson Prospect some time in the future, with some better tools (and new boots).

References:

• Discovering Washington's Historic Mines - Oso Publishing. Bergeson Prospect information.