Justice Mine July, 2004

We finally got around to looking around at Monte Cristo. There really is no reason that we shouldn't have gotten up there earlier, it really is an interesting old ghost town, although you have to use your imagination as to what it was like in the late 1890's. We had heard and read about all the mines there, and it seemed like the Justice Mine would be a good "first" there, because it was reportedly pretty safe, and not hard to get to. And the plan to get up there just stalled, along with everything else in late 2003.

A view of the Justice Mine dump from the Glacier Basin trail

Fast forward to June 2004, a quick solo trip up to Monte Cristo. A mountain bike was acquired, and a brief lull in work activity afforded a day off in late June. The bike ride up the gated road was uneventful, although somewhat painful. After almost an hour, the townsite was reached. After a little exploring around the townsite, and correct trail was followed up towards Glacier Basin. The day had turned out beautiful, and hot.

As soon as the trail breaks out of the woods, one can see the Justice Mine dump up and to the right. According to DWHM, one should cut off as soon as a washout is reached on the trail. This washout is very obvious, after about 20 minutes of hiking (3200'). Above the trail, one can squeeze through the trees into a field of brush below the mine dump. Plowing through the brush was awkward, since it seemed to be on top of talus. In a few minutes the bottom of the Justice Mine dump was attained.

Part way up the dump, Glacier Creek falls in background

The mine dump material was loose, and tended to slide. The right side going up near the vegetation seemed to offer the best footing. Boy was it hot! After about 40 minutes of climbing and resting, the ledge holding the mine got near, as well as the small cascade of water that emanated from the mine. Soon there was a faint bootpath on the right side of the water cascade, below the cliffs. This was followed for a ways, then some rock ledges just below the mine were scaled to the adit area. Whew! A long rest was in order just outside the adit, where cool air from the mine offered some relief from the heat.

Resting by the cool air that was coming out of the mine

An initial effort was made to explore the conditions inside the mine. Generally it looked like the footing would be fairly dry, although it was pretty drippy throughout. The first drift on the right was ignored because it was assumed to be short (this would be proved wrong later), and progress was made obout 450 feet down the main tunnel to where two drifts intersect at right angles. This was far enough for a solo trip this day, and the drippy tunnel was left for the bright sunlight. It only took about 20 minutes to go down the mine dump to the trail, and a few more minutes to stroll into the townsite. More people were showing up at this time, and the bike ride out was refreshing.

A couple of weeks passed, and finally we scheduled a wet Saturday to ride up to Monte Cristo to more thoroughly explore the Justice Mine. The drive up was pretty quick, except for a bad experience trying to get out of the Lake Stevens McDonalds back to the main road. At Barlow Pass, we got our bikes and packs ready. As we rode toward the gate, a Forest Service truck was parked, and ranger was conveniently opening the gate for us to ride through. "Where are you headed?" the ranger demanded. "We're going to the Justice Mine" says we, to which he questioned - "Have you ever been there?" When we answered "Yep", he nodded and went on with his business. Well, good for him. The Forest Service should know who's going where and going what. We proceeded to speed down the first part of the road.

The bike ride in that day was cool and cloudy, and we stopped a few times to take pictures and fool around with the movie mode on our cameras. In about 45 minutes we peddled up to the townsite sign, and locked the bikes. We strolled into the townsite taking in some of the artifacts, and goofed around of the old locomotive turntable for a while. The townsite host seemed to be locked away in the cabin with a warm fire going in the stove. We proceeded up old Dumas street, and took pictures of some of the old sites of houses, and staged a complex and confusing movie drama at the Peabody Garage. At the trailhead, we read solemnly about the Feces Alert.

A member resting in front of the solitary Twin Bridge

A tourist posing in front of an old lodge sign

We took some time and goofed around on the old loco turntable

We moved up the Glacier Basin trail through the woods, stopped occasionally to look at some old ruins, and amazingly enough, the remains of some of the actual tramway buckets from the Comet Mine, strewn around in the woods after the cable had been salvaged. The trail then came into the open and was brushy. We proceeded to get soaked. In a few more minutes, we reached the washout in the trail and prepared to climb off on the route to the Justice Mine dump. Like clockwork, the rain started. Very hard.

We plowed through the wet brush up to the Justice Mine dump

Wet already from the trail and now the rain, the thick brush seemed to get us even wetter. Fortunately, there was a faint trail now through the brush from previous explorers, and we followed that up towards the mine dump. Suddenly, loud screams and flailing arm movements were seen from the member in the lead, evidently a reaction to the wet brush and rain that soaked us. This temporary insanity continued for a few minutes until the mine dump was within a few feet. He then returned somewhat to normal as we started the climb up the steep loose slope. Again, the right side facing up was favored.

There were a few rock ledges to scramble up to the mine

Not too long after climbing the dump, another fine ore specimen was found. This one was huge, the size of a small bowling ball with a sparkling halo of sulfides around it. It was too heavy to carry up, so we fashioned some sticks to stand up and mark it's location. By now the rain had let up, and we slowly completed the climb up to the cliffs below the mine. Angling over to the stream emitting from the adit, we scrambled carefully up the rock ledges to the adit area. We stashed our packs just inside the adit and decided to eat lunch, serenaded by classic rock tunes of course.

Since it had started raining, we decided to gear up and go in after a while. This time we had some powerful lights, and extra batteries for what would prove to be a long mine exploration. As soon as we entered, we took the right drift, expecting it to be a short tunnel. Wrong. It turned out to be more complicated than expected. [See the Justice Mine sketch for a sketch and pictures of the mine layout.] We clunked and jumped around on boards over wet sections, and came to an intersection. To the left was a curious wooden structure, almost like a little bridge. Beyond it was deeper water. Back to the drift, we weaved for a ways and then came to a "T". On either side were ore chutes, and piles of rubble from them and/or caved sections. We went as far as we were comfortable. We also didn't have rubber boots, and past the ore chutes was some deeper water. We retraced our steps back to the main crosscut.

We started down the right side drift, immediately beyond the portal

One branch of the tunnel had this funny little bridge thing in it

One of the ore chutes, with material and somewhat deep water beyond

This manway enabled the miners to climb up into the stope area

Now we followed the main tunnel back about 450 feet to where we hit a "T". Actually, beyond the "T" the tunnel went about 100 feet past some old timbers and junk, and ended. We then turned right and followed that drift. Drippy. After about 100 feet we encountered an ore chute. The ore chute seemed to be there to collect the efforts from the stope work above. Further down the tunnel we encountered another ore chute. An old ladder stood by, and we were amazed when we looked up past the ladder - it led to another ladder higher up climbing what seemed to be wooden scaffolding hundreds of feet up into the stope. Our lights wouldn't even reach the top! And to think the workers here probably worked with candles.

The shoring overhead here looked like a real mine

We made our way along the tunnel and finally came to the end about 150 feet past the ladders. We turned around and returned to the "T". Here were two sets of ore cart rails curving to each arm of the "T". We started on down the left side. This looked like a real mine, with cool timbers overhead. Soon the entire roof of the tunnel was covered with planking, and we figured with some peeking that the area above was stoped out again.

The tunnel here was dammed by the ore chute, turning us back

As we continued, we were aware of the steadily increasing water noise. There was a good sized stream running along the left side of the tunnel here, and it was obvious that whatever was up further was contributing to the volume of water. Soon enough, we got to another ore chute, and coming down the ore chute was a waterfall. There was also much material from the chute on the floor of the tunnel, and this caused the tunnel to dam up water behind it. Hip waders might be needed here. This was as far as we would go, and after taking pictures we plodded back to the "T", and then out the long crosscut to the portal. We had been in the mine for almost an hour! The outside air felt warm even though it was still raining.

We tried our hand at Mine Dump Skiing, an old miner pasttime

Just inside the portal, we rested and had a snack. Then the "Cheezit Disaster" occurred, a serious bag-spillage of Cheezits just inside the mine. Bummer! Not wanting later mine visitors to see the Cheezit carnage, the offending units were flung into the swift stream that left the mine. Yee Haw! A Cheezit white-water rafting race! We ran out to the edge outside the mine, and stood like mouth-breathing louts cheering the Cheezits on, watching them race down the mine dump stream.

After the race, we packed up and started down. It started raining hard. The dump was steep, but we tried our hand at "Mine Dump Skiing", sliding down the loose dump material in our boots and steering with slight edge control. Mine Dump Skiing had been a favorite pastime of the Monte Cristo miners, and many organized races had taken place in the area. Typically, the winner would receive a free haircut and shave from the local barber.

Our hike out was quick but wet. The townsite host was still shut away in the warm cabin with the stove going full blast. The bike ride out was nice.

References:

• Discovering Washington's Historic Mines - Oso Publishing. Justice Mine information.
• DGER Justice Mine Report - Washington State Dept. Geology and Earth Resources report (big PDF.)