Honeymoon Mine February, 2006

I had remembered hiking by the old Honeymoon Mine on the trail to Lake Serene back when I was a kid, and it was getting some interest lately from people that knew it existed, but didn't know where it was. A few of us decided that it would be a good winter trip, getting us out of the house for a while.

A few of the guys packed all their worldly belongings for the hike

It had been really cold, but the snow level was still pretty high. We met on that Saturday morning, just outside of Sultan and made the quick drive up to the Lake Serene trailhead. There were a few cars there, it looked like other had the same idea that today would make a great hiking day. It was clear but very cold, and some amazingly hefty loads were packed up. We started out up the old road which was made slippery with ice.

Just below the Lake Serene Mine, above in the rock outcropping

We crunched up the snow to the Lake Serene Mine adit, and got our lights ready. An eager group went deep inside right away. The rest of us went in later. While cold outside, the mine moderated the temperature so that it was noticeably warmer inside. The cool looking dudes met up with the rest of the group near scary raise, and after wondering what was up there, we followed the tunnel past it.

We looked up the raise, and wondered what was up there

The tunnel past the raise went pretty far, oh, a couple hundred feet. At times it was wet enough for us to have to hop around on rocks and the brace against the side of the tunnel to keep dry. At two locations, one could look straight up and see how the miners had dug straight up, possibly trying to locate minerals or maybe intersect the upper tunnel above. The tunnel ended unceremoniously, as usually is the case. We slogged outside again into the cold and packed up.

We grouped up and took the trail over towards the falls

Just east of the Lake Serene Mine, one can follow a cat track up to the memorial site for the 3 fellows that died a number of years ago. The memorial is still there, and looks like it receives periodic maintenance. Behind it is the fern grotto (which is ferny and wet in the summer), no ferns now but instead an impressive showing of icicles. We took some pictures and headed along the old Lake Serene trail, which after a while petered out in the snow.

From this point, we just climbed over the snow and light brush accross the slope, which soon had us intersecting the "new" trail which comes up here and traverses over to Bridal Veil Falls. We grouped up here and followed the trail, with some snow but still trampled pretty well with people hiking recently to see the falls in the cold weather.

The Honeymoon is somewhat hidden in a dark narrow gulch above

The trail now nears the falls area and enters the woods. Near here, a small trickle crossed the trail (icy) from a hidden gulch above. That gulch, we found, contains the Honeymoon Mine. After a few more minutes, one reaches the old cabin remains (cabin was standing 35 years ago) and the steps up to the falls viewpoint. Here we split up and hunted upslope diagonally to the west, and in a matter of minutes, one of the party sounded his whistle as a signal that he found the Honeymoon Mine.

Standing in the back of the Honeymoon mine

The old prospect lies in a dark gully that is kind of hidden from below, with some large fallen trees lying about it. On this day there was a curtain of icicles around the portal. We gathered around it to take pictures and unload our gear. The mine, at about 1600' elevation was only a prospect, and is about 165' deep. We donned helmets and lights, and hopped over the water inside to the relatively dry back of the tunnel. Once outside, we sparked up a couple stoves to make some soup, and passed around some drinks to sip.

Bridal Veil Falls were spectacularly frozen during our visit

We decided to pay the falls a trip, so we made our way down the open wooded hillside to intersect the trail again, angling over to hit the wooden stairs going up. These were very icy, each step had caught a puddle of water which had then frozen solid. Bridal Veil Falls was a spectacular frozen mass of ice and well worth the hike to see in the winter.

A few of us decided to hike out at that point, with a couple more intent on climbing up in the snow to the upper Lake Serene adit. The hike out seemed to go on forever on the icy road, more people were starting up at this point. The others did find the upper adit, after a scary traverse over the frozen slippery gulch that it lies in.

References:

• Discovering Washington's Historic Mines - Oso Publishing. Lake Serene Mine and Honeymoon Mine info.
• 100 Classic Hikes in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness - Mountaineers. Lake Serene trail information.
• Our earlier trip - 2DrX Lake Serene Mine trip in 2001.