Horseshoe Mines May, 2006

Word on the streets lately was that the old Horseshoe Mines outside of North Bend were worth looking at, with the old campsite and junk laying around. Since last year we had planned on going up there, and it seemed like it would be a good early season trip since it wasn't too high up in the hills. A Saturday in early May was picked, and we met up at the old gated road off of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River road.

We would first have to hike up the old Granite Creek road

The weather that day wasn't great, but it wasn't too bad either - typical May weather in the Cascades. The first part of the hike would be about 3 miles up the old Granite Creek road, now gated. The road was in good shape, and we hiked up together slowly, as it was pretty steep in spots and we were in normal early year physical condition. We would later wish that we had pushed bikes up the road.

After about 2.5 miles we crossed over Granite Creek on a bridge

After about and hour and a half we reached the old log bridge that spanned Granite Creek at the 2.5 mile mark. We stopped here to take and extended rest and photo ops. Here we looked at the map and made some mental notes about where the bridge was in relation to the mines up the hillside on the right. Our jump-off point was still a ways away, and with GPS in hand we continued up the road.

After some hunting, we finally found a suitable tree to cross on

After about 2 hours of hiking up the old road, the GPS starting telling us that we were reaching our waypoint on the road that we would use to leave the road, cross the creek and climb to the mines. We stopped here and surveyed for a second, one of us finally pointing out what would be our route down to the creek.

We now climbed up the open wooded hillside towards the mines

The Horseshoe Mines lay over the creek and somewhere up the hillside above us. We bashed for a few minutes down to the creek, and slowly made our way up the creek looking for a good tree to cross the creek on - the creek being just a little to rough to wade across. By some miracle, we happened upon a fresh looking hemlock that now spanned the creek. We started across.

Once on the other side, we plunged up the hillside in the open forest. Travel was pretty good here, but we had no idea really where we were going, except straight up. After about 10 minutes we found ourselves out on an old roadbed, which we followed up to the right for a little while. Just after a small bridge that was out, we headed up thought the woods again, virtually lost.

At the end of the faint trail we found remnants of the old camp

Except that one of us had been here before, and apparently had a very good feel for where we were. Soon a faint path was pointed out that headed upwards, which we followed. This was the old trail to the campsite and ruins of the miner's cabins. Sure enough, after about 10 more minutes we came to a spot littered with old iron arifacts and building remains. We spent some time here searching around for old stuff, finding some cool old beer cans and even the remains of a dainty teapot. It began to rain.

After about 20 minutes, we came upon the first Horseshoe adit

Time to find the mines. From the site of the old camp, we followed a faint path up and across the hillside. It was a pretty good trail to begin with, and one of us commented on that very fact. This caused the Gods of Mine Hunting to become very angry, and the trail was lost immediately. It didn't really matter - we continued to stagger along the hillside in the rain.

Horseshoe #1 was blasted out of a solid looking rock face

As we rounded a corner, we could see the digging that probably is the prospect shown on the USGS Topo. There is a small waste rock pile below it as well. Just beyond this at about 2800' is the first Horseshoe adit. We quickly got out our lights and went into the mine to get out of the rain.

Looking down towards the portal of Horseshoe Mine #1

Horseshoe #1 is about 90 feet deep, in pretty solid rock, except for a spot near the portal that looks like loose rock has come down from above. It continued uninterestingly to the end, where we stopped and took some pictures before leaving. Outside, the rain seemed to let up for the moment. We decided to push on and traverse over to the second adit.

We spent time inside Horseshoe #2 picking away for some rock samples

Again there was a faint trail that we were able to follow for a while. The map says that the NE adit (#2) is about 750 feet NE of the SE adit (which we called #1). It started to rain pretty hard again, and there seemed to be more downfall to climb over. After about 20 minutes, one of us somehow wandered over past a large downfall and announced that they had located the mine. Another needle in the haystack found!

Looking out at the rain from the portal of Horseshoe #2

Horseshoe #2 supposedly was dug using different methods than Horseshoe #1, and it did look different. The portal was rounder, and the tunnel walls a little more carved out. In addition, the rock texture looked different and more mineralized inside. We started inside, and found that the mine was a little more interesting with some shoring and rock hunting potential. There was evidence that rock hounds had been here before us. The tunnel ended after about 180 feet.

Since it was still raining somewhat, the idea of traversing back to the camp site and down to the creek wasn't too appealing. The forest hillside was pretty open, so we decided to just plod diagonally downhill in a northernly direction to hit the creek at the spot that the bridge crossed. The ground was soft so it wasn't too bad on the knees. After about 1/2 hour we crossed a minor gully that shows on the map, and plopped out right by the bridge! Our navigating today had been aided by some serious luck!

The slog down the road was painful, but at least it was downhill. We talked about bikes on this part. After about an hour we made it back to the trucks and civilization.

References:

• Discovering Washington's Historic Mines - Oso Publishing. Horseshoe Mine information.