Okay, I know, these photos are a little strange. But what you have to understand is that I had read about a place where you can hike to an old hand-hewn log cabin on the East side of Mount Hood. It was built in the early 1900’s by a German immigrant named Tom Kinzel. As a lover of log cabins and history, of course this hike hit my list. But the funny thing I had found when researching this was that Tom Kinzel had also been a miner and had a mine hidden near his cabin. Kinzel was quite the hermit apparently and spent most of the winter in his tiny cabin trapping martens, mining and prospecting the area. He went everywhere on foot and only went to town once to twice a year. My kind of guy I thought! I have to go check this place out. I had also read that this hike is good for seeing my favorite wildflower, the yellow balsamroot. Not long into the hike, I realized I was still too early for the balsamroot as their shoots were barely pushing up through late snow still on the ground. There was not a soul to be found on this trail and it was super pleasant to hike. The word remote does not quite cover how far out this hike is though! Now, when I read about this hike, my main interest was just the cabin. Some of the descriptions I found stated that the mine was hard to find and that, and I quote, “you should absolutely resist the temptation to enter—the roof of the shaft looks quite dangerous.” When I read that, I thought to myself….who me?? I would never enter a dangerous and derelict mine shaft. That would be crazy!
Well, I found the cabin…..it was small, but perfect for one person. It was sadly collapsed by time and snow. Then I of course did some hunting and searching and found the mine just through some snow and up a hill near a creek. Near the mine, I also found one of the best bones for my bone collection….what I think is a huge arm bone from a bear! But I digress. So in the photo at the top, you can see Miss Nova standing in front of the mine entrance. Yup, just a hole in the ground. I had to go in. Tom Kinzel was calling my name. So, I gingerly entered just a tiny way to assess safety, while keeping my pack on in case of collapse so that I had some survival gear with me. The hole was smaller than I thought, but once inside the mine, the shaft opened up hugely and was easily standing height for me. Tom had clearly made this big enough to move a barrow in and out to do his work. Once I was inside, I felt very safe and that there was no danger, so Nova and I went to the very end of the first shaft thinking that was it. The photo on the top was from inside that first shaft looking back to the entrance…..the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel shot. With my single dim flashlight beam aiming at the back of this apparent dead end, I felt something to my right that I could not describe. Almost like something or someone was there. I turned in slow motion, almost screaming out loud, when I realized that this was not a dead end at all, but a very hard right angle to another huge and long shaft. I looked at Nova and said…Oh yeah, we are going to go down shaft number 2. This shaft was slightly shorter and seemed to come to a dead end as well. But at the end of that tunnel, I had the same sense to turn to my right. I suddenly had a fear that the bear bone in my pack would belong to a bear friend in this tunnel and I knew that if my light turned and hit glowing eyeballs, I would scream myself into next century. But when I turned, I luckily only found another shaft at a hard right angle and no one else. So off we went down the 3rd shaft. Toward the end of the third shaft, there was a slight jog to the true dead end. It was surely the coolest place I could imagine in that moment.
My senses were revved up and I was jumpy and on edge inside there for some time. If I could have seen them, I knew my arms would have been covered in goosebumps! I had to work to simmer down, so we decided to play with turning off the flashlight and seeing how long we could stand in utter darkness. The first time was about 1.5 seconds before I think both Nova and I screamed. The next time we made it several minutes and as our eyes adjusted felt that we were seeing stars above us. At this point Nova and I decided to run back and forth to the entrance and back to the end several times to see how long it would take us and if we could do it without lights. Then we used the pedometer to try to see how long the entire shaft system was. Then we felt the rocky walls and goofed off jumping over the puddles and trying to figure out our elevation gain and loss from the entrance to the end. Basically, we did not want to leave and just kept playing around in the tunnel system stalling the inevitable hike out.
I later researched that people don’t really know what Mr. Kinzel pulled out of this mine. Some said nickel. Some said uranium. Some said gold. I don’t know, but I read the final account of Tom’s life and he apparently had come running out of the woods to the local tavern, telling everyone he had hit the jackpot. He set off on foot to the Dalles to make his claim on whatever his jackpot was, but was struck and killed by a car on his way. So now, I am obsessed with the idea of going back with a tiny hammer and chisel to see what I can find in that mine. Plus, after repeated dreams of finding the ghost of Mr. Kinzel back inside his mine (along with his orange cat in need of my medical attention—don’t ask), I am now also obsessed with the idea of going back and spending the night at the very back of the last shaft. Alas, that will have to be a bucket list backpack for 2023 however. I ran out of time before the snow took this option away for this year. It is interesting though to learn how I am quite drawn to the most inhospitable places to sleep on backpacking trips. But you will learn more about that in the October story!
The other thing we learned on this hike though was not to wear a taffeta tutu as the ticks really get in and stick between the layers and are hard to get out. We won’t make that mistake when we take the wolf with us next time. I can’t wait to see what Josie thinks of those tunnels! My only challenge is that without sunrise or a clock, I am not sure how long we will stay in there before realizing it is time to arise and hike out. Also, if this was a uranium mine, I wonder if we will glow in the dark after spending the night in there……if anyone knows, feel free to contact me with that answer before Spring!
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