Damon & Pythias Mine November, 2004

With the winter of 2004 starting off so mild, we discussed bagging one more mine before ths snow really piled up. Unfortunately, the opportunity to get out didn't materialize until Thanksgiving weekend. Tentative plans were made for the that Saturday.

We parked on the side of the Money Creek road at about 2700'

Meanwhile, winter had advanced the week before Thanksgiving. Snow now blanketed the Cascades, and more precipitation was forecast that weekend. It would be touch and go whether we would encounter snow or rain, so we entertained some fallback plans and made the best of it.

Hiking through the snow near the Damon mine cutoff road

We had been talking about getting back to the Damon & Pythais mine to explore it further, but it had never happened since we first explored part of it a few years ago. Since the mine lies right off the Money Creek road, we had discussed saving this for a future rainy day backup plan some time. In fact, the mine would make a great snow trip. With this in mind, we met quickly east of Sultan, and were soon exiting at the now familiar Money Creek exit off US 2.

The deep snow made the last climb to the mine portal tough

The Money Creek road was in fine shape, and no hint of snow for a few miles. Then we began to see it on the trees, and then at the bottom of the switchbacks (at about 5 miles) about an inch or so covered the road surface. We continued up the switchbacks, gaining elevation and climbing up into a winter wonderland. At the top of the switchbacks was about 4" of untracked snow on the road, so we decided to quit while we were ahead and park the truck. The elevation there was about 2700', and after we parked it began snowing again.

We ate lunch "inside" whilst it snowed quite hard outside

We started post-holing our way up the road, with the snow blowing awkwardly in our faces. We kept a pretty good pace, and covered the mile or so of distance to Lake Elizabeth in about 20 minutes. The lake was completely covered with snow, and small animal tracks crossed the road at points.

A short distance past the lake was the short cutoff road on the left angling up to the Damon & Pythias Mine. We climbed up the old road and soon came to the open area below the adit. It sure looked different that it did back a few years ago. It also looked like someone had rolled the old culvert down the hill a ways. We walked through the culvert and plowed through the steeper deep snow up to the adit. The culvert at the adit provided a nice shelter from the snow. We rested for a while here and ate lunch.

To explore the mine, one must step past the old gates...

And walk down the long tunnel next to old ventilation pipes...

Where the first right drift shows some recent stope work

An aside on the "condition" of the mine and surrounding area: the proximity to the road makes this mine an unfortunate target, in more ways than one. When there is no snow, the Damon & Pythias is a complete disaster of garbage, beer cans, bottles, shotgun shells and bullet casings. Even inside the mine as we could see now - were bullet casings (would someone actually shoot a rifle in a mine?) and a multitude of beer cans and bottles. Graffitti from some idiot named Tom Wilson shows that he spelled his name wrong after drinking a can of Budweiser. All throughout the mine tunnels as we would soon see, was a constant litter of beer cans, bottles, and garbage.

We came to a large air receiver tank at the Damon Vein drift

Development at the Damon & Pythias Mine probably started around the late 1890's along with other ventures nearby in the Money Creek area. Most reference maps of the mine show a long crosscut penetrating in a northerly direction, with two major drift intersections at right angles (following the Damon and Priestly "veins"). However, some work in the mine was done possibly as late as the 1970's, because a parallel drift each way is encountered about 500 feet in that doesn't show in the earlier maps. The right drift here extends about 50' where some stoping was done. The left drift extends about 40' and shows some rockfall but nothing else interesting.

There was an ore chute and wooden structure 900 feet in

At about 900 feet from the portal, we reached the major intersection of the Damon vein. Here was a large air receiver tank standing upright complete with plumbing. To the right was an ore chute and a large wooden structure that allowed access at one time to a raise above. According to other sources, this structure and ore chute were probably remains of the work done in the 1970's. The view up the raise where the ore was mined was impressive. Our lights couldn't reach the top, which we estimated was a couple hundred feet of inclined workings.

We climbed up one of the ladders to get a better view. One could climb onto a platform and possibly higher onto the wooden structure, but we didn't want to risk the whole thing coming down like a house of cards. It looked sturdy though, but we were happy with the view from below.

Past the wooden structure, the right drift went back about 200 feet and ended uninterestingly. We made our way back to the ore chute again. One of us looked back towards the portal, and made a comment about a moving light coming towards us - finally, we were going to encounter ghosts of miners from the past! We stood quietly, frozen to the spot, until it became obvious that one of the "ghosts" was using an LED headlamp. Soon the humans made their way to us, and we were somewhat surprised to meet a man and his two sons exploring the mine on such a snowy day. We chatted for a few minutes, and then split up in the mine down different drifts. We didn't see them again.

At the structure, a raise went upwards a few hundred feet

One of us climbed the old ladder to get a better view...

...But it was tough to see all the way up the raise

The left drift following the Damon vein in the easterly direction is about 600 long. We followed that next, and it seemed to be much longer, following the old tracks around corners, past occasional piles of rock fall and finally to the end. At intermittent points, we could see that a little bit of stope work had been done in this part of the tunnel, and some old ladders still remained from this work.

Occasionally we would see old ladders from work long ago

We retraced our steps back to the main intersection of the Damon vein, near the old ore chute again. We then started down the main crosscut towards the back of the mine. Shortly we came to an old thick rusty iron door that was once used to "lock" the back part of the mine. Creepy! We were glad to find out that the door could not be closed all the way (or locked) any longer. We squeezed through and made our way back further, wondering what the real reason behind the door was.

We came to an old creepy iron door and squeezed our way through

Just beyond a pile of thin cable, we came to the end of the main crosscut tunnel (approximately 1400 feet from the portal). There was the intersection again of two drifts each way, these were created by the miners following the "Priestly Vein". There had been plans to extend the main crosscut much further, only 10 or 20 feet of progress was made.

This was a shot somewhere deep in one of the tunnels

The Priestly vein drifted about 150 feet to the right (southwest), and 300 feet to the right (northeast). We followed each tunnel to it's respective end, not finding anything interesting. It seemed like there was more rockfall here, and tunnels were not as wide or high. Now that we had explored every tunnel (and had been in the mine over an hour now), we decided it was time to get out.

[see the Damon & Pythias Mine sketch map for an idea of what the tunnels look like]

We made some soup at the portal under the culvert, rested for a while, and packed our gear up. The father and sons had left a while before us. It had stopped snowing now, and looked nice out with some blue patches of sky. We trudged back down our path to the main road, and were surprised to see tire tracks going past the mine cutoff road. This road is a popular recreation area, even when the snow starts piling up! As we hiked down the Money Creek road to the truck, a Ford Explorer snuck up behind us, almost silent on the snowy road. We jumped out of the way and it passed, the passengers giving us a wave.

References:

• Discovering Washington's Historic Mines - Oso Publishing. Damon & Pythias Mine information.
• Geology and Mineral Resources of King County - V.E. Livingston. A good section on the Damon & Pythias Mine, with a (outdated) map.
• Mineral Resources of the Alpine Lakes Study Area (1975 Addition) - Gualtieri and others. A section on Money Creek mining claims including the Damon & Pythias.