Grand Central Mine May, 2005

Warm weather was forcast for Sunday, so I decided to take a short trip up the West Fork Miller river road since I hadn't been there for a few years. The morning went quickly, as I hiked up the old roadbed a few miles and checked out what the snow levels looked like. The road had a few new washout areas undoubtedly due to the fall storms of 2003. I noodled around some areas, took pictures and made notes for future trips. Back at the truck, I ate a quick bite and then drove back into the 'town' of Miller River and up the Money Creek road towards the parking area for the Grand Central mine.

The route to the Grand Central is up through open second growth forest

The plan now was to meet up with Jimbo and the gang, a group of fellow mine enthusiasts for a trip to the Grand Central. I was a little early, and sat in the back of the truck looking at the large trees beside the road here, and listened to the loud creek below. It's pretty easy to find the spot to park for the Grand Central - drive up the Money Creek road for about 1/2 mile until the concrete bridge (elev 980'), take a left here and continue up the rough 4x4 road for about 1/2 mile until about elev 1160' and a turnout area on the right.

Evidence of logging is present all up the hillside to the mine

After a while I decided to just go ahead and tackle the route slowly, so I left a note back at the truck and started up. The route now is pretty easy to follow, with a definitive boot track and occasional flagging. I took it slow, and took a few detours to look at the stumps of the large hemlocks that had been logged a while back. Many of them had notches cut for springboards (on the downhill side), and very flat tops. I concluded that maybe this hillside had been logged sometime back in the first half of the 1900's by crosscut saw.

A hundred feet or so below the mine are some old rails

As one gets further up the slope, the path makes it's way over what appears to be the dump material from the mine. If you correctly angle a little to the right, you will suddenly appear in front of the main Grand Central adit. If you veer too far right on the way up, you might see some of the old mine rails that now stick out from the debris about 100 feet below the mine.

Climbing along the steep cliffs to the Discovery Adit

I took my time taking pictures and finally made the last traverse to the Grand Central adit. Just then I could see the gang steaming up the slope off to the right as I looked down. A few quick shouts indicated that they were going to check out the small discovery adit up and to the east of the main adit. I crossed over and met the group just below the steep cliffs above.

The Discovery Adit is just northeast of the main adit about a few hundred feet, and a little higher. One can get to it by traversing over, and climbing up along some awesome steep rock walls on the left, up to a cleft that looks like (and probably is) a natural cave.

In the Discovery adit, inspecting the minerals in the walls above

Here I met Jimbo, Les, and a few assorted kids. All were well equipped for some mine exploration. We climbed up the steep loose rock into the "Discovery Adit", possibly the first spot that prospecting occurred on the property. A newish looking hand-built ladder stands in the adit or cave (possibly placed by rockhounds), and it didn't look like much production work was done here. We stayed for a short time looking around. It is a strange prospect, only about 10-20 feet deep, and very high walls that come together at the top.

We were ready now for the main adit, so we downclimbed a little, and traversed along the wooded hillside to the main Grand Central tunnel. Without much ado, everyone got their equipment out and got ready to go in the mine. The kids went in first and waited at the caved area for the adults who seemed a little slower to get going. In no time though, everyone was in and setting a good pace down the main tunnel.

We made a group attack on the main Grand Central mine tunnel

We each took turns squirming through the opening into the larger stoped area. There was a huge slab that partially blocked the way, serrated on one edge. We commented that if it rolled a little, we would be trapped. A few sets of eyes kept checking back at the slab periodically.

With quite a crowd in the mine, there was plenty of light inside

With so many of us in the mine, we could see pretty good with multiple lights going. The winze looked like the water level was down compared to last year. We could see a ladder dropping down out of sight. Jimbo told of an earlier trip where they had tried to measure the depth of the winze (with a rope), but were unsucessful due to the angle that the winze bent down at. One side of the winze had an eyebolt, and a close-up photo shows some kind of support for a windlass, possibly.

We concluded that this small adit was just an abandoned prospect

The rest of the group explored the remaining tunnel, and I retreated past the serrated slab back into the crosscut part of the tunnel. After a while, the others slowly crawled through the hole near the caved area, and we all made our way back outside to daylight. We stood around and talked for a while, and tried to barter for more jerky from the reluctant jerky-owner.

Before heading down, we took one more climb up the hillside to visit a smaller adit, not as far over as the discovery adit, but about the same elevation. This looked like a later effort, as we could see orange det cord dissapearing into the rubble in front. A discussion about the adit concluded that it was not caved, but just a short prospect that was abandoned after a short time.

After this, we all plodded down the hillside, following the faint trail and flags again. It seemed like we could see the trucks after only about 10 minutes or so. We had a cold drink and rested a few minutes before splitting up, Jimbo and the gang were off to another mine, and I headed off home.

References:

• Discovering Washington's Historic Mines - Oso Publishing. Grand Central Mine information.
• NWUE Grand Central trip report - Additional information and photos of the Grand Central Mine.