New mine

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Matt Knutzen on September 8, 2009 at 9:36pm

Any Luck?

Permalink Reply by Richard on September 8, 2009 at 10:30pm

Weather was dreadful, we painted my family room instead!

Permalink Reply by Richard on September 15, 2009 at 11:19am

House is going on the market Friday (9/18) with an open house Sat and Sun. So Melody and I are headed out of town to find 2 new mines. Not tanks on this trip just scouting!

Permalink Reply by Brian Wiederspan on February 2, 2010 at 12:59pm

Just a quick update...

We're in the early logistical planning stages for this dive.

The mine is a long ways (a few hours away) and is very remote, so will likely be a long weekend camping trip.

Tentatively planning for early May.

Permalink Reply by Richard on February 2, 2010 at 2:46pm

Hwy 20 typically opens between late March and early May. I am planning on heading over there to find it as soon as the Hwy opens, although I may wait a couple extra weeks to make sure the snow's melted outside of Concunully/Winthrop where the mine is. Actual dive plan is to drive over to Winthrop on May 14th. Scope it out and dive the shallowest tunnel on the afternoon of the 14th. Dive 2x more on Saturday the 15th. Then drive home on the 16th.

There is a 2nd mine over there, but its on private land and I haven't written to the owners asking for permission to access it yet.

Permalink Reply by Richard on May 2, 2010 at 9:16pm

Found it with the dogs Saturday.

There are other adits and shafts associated with this mine complex too.

Permalink Reply by Richard on May 16, 2010 at 10:29pm

Nick and I dove it Saturday. Its freakin cold, 38F on my gauge and 39F on his. We did maybe a ~350ft penetration which was not "cave diving" as you might think of cave diving. We had some serious buoyancy issues because we couldn't see the floor, the ceiling, or our gauges. Imagine diving in a latte.

We turned when I ran into some wood that I couldn't see (with my mask). Turning around, I thought my primary light had gone out. Nick had to hand over hand his way out; unable to see or feel the #18 line despite dual 50W video lights still being on.

Max depth 22ft, time 9mins. The worst part is that it have been dropping below the oxidized rust layer. The only way we can imagine accessing this mine is to bring an actual 5/16" rope and clip into it - british style. Then crawl in on the floor. There's no way to see or consider how stable the structure is unfortunately. There was more tunnel to "see" beyond where we turned, just not sure its worth the effort to attempt in rope crawling style. Its not safe to dive "swimming" with mere cave line since you can't see it nor feel it with dry gloves either - and you swim into the walls/ceiling/floor pretty easily anyway.

Nick has a bunch of stills and some video although the camera was never really about to focus in the latte colored water. The other tunnel in this mine was blocked off when they closed it. There's ~5-6ft of clearer water but no passage under that.

I'm working on getting access to another mine which may have better vis, and a flooded mining town.

Permalink Reply by Lynne Flaherty on May 17, 2010 at 9:27am

That sounds like a seriously spooky dive!

For some reason, the thought of a cave-in has never bothered me, but mines make me very nervous (about their stability). I can't imagine trying to crawl into one in zero viz. You guys are either very brave or entirely crazy!

Permalink Reply by Richard on May 17, 2010 at 11:04am

There's very little shoring in the dry parts (~100ft of tunnels before the water meets the roofline) so stability seemed fine. The parent rock is gneiss not some crumbly sandstone. I actually think the rock was more stable than MX limestone. The rusty silt was just unbelievable tho. We did a night dive at Harper (in Puget Sound) after we got back in what people are calling "3ft" vis right now and that was downright dreamy, esp given that is was 12deg F warmer too.

Permalink Reply by Nick Ambrose on May 18, 2010 at 8:23am

I've definitely had funner dives .... When Richard turned the dive, I took a few kicks, then brought my hand that I thought had the line up to my face...it came up empty (NOT a good feeling)

Thankfully I could just make out Richards light, and managed to trace his hand to the reel and then double-handed the line (and camera) on the way home. Spent a fair bit of time kicking the ceiling on the way back as depth was probably less than 7 feet but almost impossible to judge/control buoyancy....

Made diving in the lake like a walk in the park!

Guessing we won't be back unless we bring a full unit of the CDG....

Lynne Flaherty said:

That sounds like a seriously spooky dive!

For some reason, the thought of a cave-in has never bothered me, but mines make me very nervous (about their stability). I can't imagine trying to crawl into one in zero viz. You guys are either very brave or entirely crazy!