Apex Mine June, 2005

"Nooooooooooooo!" suddenly rang out below me that calm afternoon, as we were climbing up the impossibly steep Apex mine dump above the sheer cliffs. In a micro second, many thoughts went through my mind - visions of my partner that day cartwheeling down the hill, would I be able to get to his body, the lonely hike back to the truck, the inevitable phone calls to the relatives... I looked behind me and saw that Kent still was clinging to the steep rocky slope. "What happened?" I called down to him, and a few seconds later the answer came back - "I dropped my big piece of gold!"

Charred wood and metal artifacts mark the lower tram terminal location

I had been partway up the route to the Apex Mine last year, after first taking a short trip to the San Francisco Mine. I was turned back after a while due to a combination of rain, impending darkness, and being alone. On our way to the Snowy Damon Mine, we also took a little detour down to the millsite ruins and took photos in the snow. From what little I saw, the route and attendant workings were very interesting and a full day would be needed. This day came about in June, a day that both Kent and I decided to take off from work.

This huge diesel engine used to power the tramway from the Apex

The drive up that morning to the parking spot on Money Creek road went pretty quick. The weather was just OK, warm enough, but with some clouds that were hanging around above the valley. We loaded up our equipment, and took off slowly down the steep trail from the road. After a few minutes, this trail runs into a flat grade that might have been the old railroad grade down Money Creek before a road was built. A right turn on this brought us in sight of the lower tram terminal ruins.

The history of the Apex is actually one of the more interesting in the area. One of the first (and biggest) ventures around, a narrow-gauge rail was laid all the way from the town of Miller River (known as Berlin in the early 1900's) to the lower tram terminal. Alledgedly, the locomotive slid down the rails on one of the first trips up the line, and derailed near Berlin never to be resurrected. Later, the empty rail cars were pulled up each time to the tram terminal by beasts of burden, and left to coast down the line full to the bunkers in town.

The old puncheon road made this part of the route pleasant

The Apex lower tram terminal ruins are dominated by the huge diesel engine on a concrete base, that used to power the tram buckets up and down from the Apex Mine high up the hillside. The building remains were burned at one point, and the charred timbers lay in disarray. Also at this site was milling machinery, and one sees this in remains of old wheels and machinery parts. It is not known if any of the milling equipment was ever used for the Apex ore.

We looked around the ruins and took pictures for a while, and followed the trail down to the creek. The creek now was just a rock-hop across, and after crossing we climbed up the steep wooded back for 30 feet or so. Here was the remains of the old puncheon road (one can follow the route down to the creek, and see the old bridge remains where it crossed the creek, and made a turn down to the lower tram terminal). We turned left and made our way along the old road.

Soon the road passes the mid-tram station on the left

10 minutes or so put us at the tramway mid-station. This is a conspicuous area on the left side of the puncheon road, with some burnt timbers and excavated dirt. Not much remains here, but if one snoops around, some tramway station hardware can be found. At this point, if the weather is clear one can backtrack on the road a ways and see the upper tram terminal - the location of the lower adit and building sites.

At this point, the trail (now) heads more uphill and does not retain the look of the puncheon road. Climbing a while, we reached a more open area of brush, and made our way into a basin. The trail here was still pretty good but rough. Soon the trail crossed a small talus field, where we stopped to rest and take in the view down the basin and valley. Starting up again, the trail took a surprise turn to the right, and we climbed up a steep brushy hillside, going in the opposite direction that we expected.

The trail was still good, but a brushy climb into the basin

The brush soon gave way to more of an alpine forest. A tree was passed with initials carved in it by a miner. After more than an hour from the mid-tram station, we finally broke into the open, the trail lost temporarily in talus and meadow. Kent made a beeline for the pass above, and quickly oriented us to where we were, which was somewhat of a mystery at the moment.

Contrary to DWHM vol 1, the route had not brought us under any mine dump, and we certainly had not climbed anything resembling a dump to this point. Above was the basin containing the upper adits, the dump material there evident. Down and to the left was the small lake that supplied water to the mining camp. Kent spotted some building ruins in the direction of the basin, so we started throught the brush and small trees towards it.

An old flattened cabin stood at 3800', below the upper Apex adits

After a short traverse and descent, we made the old ruins in a few minutes. It was clear that this once was a cabin or upper camp for the adits above. In addition to some newer looking garbage, there were some old rusty bedframes that used to hold sleeping miners. At some point, someone must have been annoyed by the insects. We knew the feeling - not many long breaks were being taken due to the congregating bugs. The cabin was not very interesting, so we continued climbing slightly as we traversed the basin towards the tailing piles ahead.

The basin holding the upper adits of the Apex Mine is not very attractive. The lowest part of the cirque contains a small lake, now just a shallow creek flowing through mud. Above the lake was talus and seemingly millions of old logs and branches laying on the rock. Above was brush and finally cliffy vertical country. Without the historical significance of the mine, the area might not merit a trip on beauty alone. In a few more minutes, we made it to the lowest tailings pile, a large flat area littered with some old artifacts, elevation about 3870'. Close by was a collapsed adit that we could peer into.

Making the discovery of the caved adit #3, lowest in the basin

The collapsed adit as designated as adit #3, with #2 and #1 up above somewhere. There was no way to gain entry even if we wanted to, and we were satisfied with poking around the tailings pile looking at junk and finding some nice mineral samples.

After a while, we decided to see how the climb was up to the upper adits. Finding it incredibly steep and loose, we went up one at a time, climbing a couple hundred feet up slowly until we started running into some wooden remains of a landing and associated mine garbage. A peek below a small water flow revealed what must be the Apex adit #2, cut into the obvious vein material in the gully. It looked to be open and accessible.

The upper Apex adits lay somewhere above in this steep rocky gully

One can slip inside the adit, getting a little wet from the drips above. We could see that the water line usually is a foot or 2 higher, but due to the dry spring, almost no water remained on the tunnel floor. An old rusty barrel was sitting about 20 feet in, and we could see some old timbers and planks on the floor beyond that. Of course we had to see what was inside the barrel.

We could see an old barrel and timbers inside the portal

Beyond the barrel the floor of the tunnel consisted of old timbers. We didn't continue at this point - this part of the mine is extremely dangerous! Past this point, the miners "stoped out", or dug out all the ore vertically between several levels, and backfilled some sections with rock partitioned with timbers. Below the timbered floor is vertical air. We didn't think of going any further.

We made our way across the small dried-up lakebed

Back outside, we poked around the rocks and found some good pieces of "gold". We looked briefly up the rest of the gully towards the highest portal (adit #1) but did not have enough interest to climb up to see if it was open. With gold in hand, we made our way down the loose dump material, skiing down part of it to the lower landing.

Next was to find the lowest portals and main campsite. We hopped down the talus towards the bottom of the basin, and within a few minutes came down to the small lake, which normally probably would have more water in it. Crossing it towards the outlet, we came upon a small spring and wooden frame, which must have been the water source for the camp somewhere below. We also saw some evidence of pipes which carried the water, broken now.

This photo, taken from Adit 4 shows the snub tunnel culvert

Our intent was to get to the lowest workings of the Apex Mine, which were located about 200 feet below the lake, in the creekbed of Milwaukee Creek. We started following the outflow of the creek downwards. Soon it was evident that this idea was not a good one, as the creek became steep, rocky and wet. We bailed, and did an annoying steep bushwhack back up to "Apex Pass", where we rested for a while and consulted maps.

We managed to squeeze into the culvert and short snub tunnel

We took a compass reading, and started downhill in an easterly direction, climbing down open slopes and talus. As if by magic, after about 10 minutes we slid down onto what had been probably the path leading to the lowest adit, #4. We turned right and carefully made our way towards the gulch where we could see a large smashed culvert and the creek beyond.

An old railbed led us over to the upper tram terminal area

Adit #4, the main haulage tunnel for the operation was no more - slides had completely obliterated it. There is still some elaborate cribbing in the creekbed just below where the portal would have been, along with some other artifacts. The gulch below was incredibly steep and dangerous. Just to get to this location we had to scamper over a loose dirt area overhanging many feet of air.

From the upper tram terminal, looking back towards the gulch

In recent years an effort was made to open up the main haulage tunnel by digging a snub tunnel into the hillside and around, intersecting the old collapsed tunnel. A large culvert sits "protecting" the snub tunnel, but is now crushed by huge slabs of rock that have fallen from above. We managed to squeeze into it, and make our way around the roomy left-turning tunnel, which ends at a blank wall, some 90 feet in. Some say plans are in the works still to revive this effort.

A crude stove sat inside the culvert which was erected as a shelter

Outside the snub tunnel, we backtracked a ways and followed the old rail bed which was used to carry the ore to the main campsite and upper tram terminal. Here we found another large culvert (both were flown in, probably in the 1960's or 70's). Just beyond the culvert was a flat area with much wreckage - this was the site of the upper tram terminal and associated buildings. Many artifacts litter the area here, and waste rock spills over and down the hillside below.

After looking around the wreckage, we decided that there ought to be route down from here, and started down the steep dump material. We descended a hundred feet or so but the hillside only got steeper. We lost some of our precious gold in this foolish endevor. Our only solution was to climb back up and backtrack to where the trail hit the pass above. The trail down was nice, somewhat tedious though the brush, and good again along the old puncheon road. It was a long day, and beverages were consumed upon reaching the truck.

References:

• Discovering Washington's Historic Mines - Oso Publishing. Apex Mine information.
• Geology and Mineral Resources of King County - V.E. Livingston. A section on the Apex Mine.
• DGER Apex Mine Report - Washington State Dept. Geology and Earth Resources report (zipped PDF.)