Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

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bertvorgon
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

Post by bertvorgon »

At the parking lot, instead of going LEFT and just walking along the river, you go to the furthest lot just to your right and the EAST CANYON TRAIL starts there. That is the old skidder/logging truck road. At about 4 KM you will be ABOVE the falls, where you can follow a trail down ( steep) or continue along the road. At about 4.5 - 5Km you will come to a left turn ( if you want) to go across a new bridge and then loop back down the west side, or head to Alder Flats. If you continue on it does slowly degrade into a true trail, where there is access to cool rocky beaches. You don not run into many people after the bridge fork.

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explor ... 0727604381

The east Canyon trail is marked on the extreme right of the map.
"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty" - Peter Egan

Keith Law
1973 2 Door Slalom/hill climb/road race / canyon carver /Giant Killer 510
1971 Vintage 13' BOLER trailer
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

Post by Byron510 »

It appears I've been doing the Lower Falls Trail then. I have done it 4 times since moving out here, it's a great walk in the heat of the summer as you are right in the trees nearly the whole way, and that ice fed water is right beside you to cool off at any point. And the falls are also beautiful as well. Here are a couple I took last year with the family above the upper falls, and record that bigger trees were once here and that the girls cold climb the stumps – hence the skidder track!
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

Post by bertvorgon »

Nice photos!

This area had some of the largest trees on the lower mainland, as you can see by the stumps through out the forest here. It was also the largest railroad logging operation, you can still see some of the rail bed on the west side.

Matt and I always think about how good in shape those loggers were, you can see where the "spring boards" were on the stumps. The arms and core strength of those loggers would have been amazing.

There are two pictures of the trail past the fork to the bridge, where it just becomes a single track and washed out areas, easy to walk though. Matt and I rode our bikes up there some years ago.

Say, if anyone would like to come on any of our spring tune up walks, you would be more than welcome.
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"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty" - Peter Egan

Keith Law
1973 2 Door Slalom/hill climb/road race / canyon carver /Giant Killer 510
1971 Vintage 13' BOLER trailer
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

Post by loungin112 »

Those trees are amazing! Here in Colorado, the largest pines I have found are maybe 75% of the circumference of the ones you guys are standing in front of. Those pines, found in a state park area, were huddled together in a small ravine with a good but slow-moving water supply. I think the ravine partially hid how big the trees were, for if you simply looked out across the landscape above the ravine you couldn't see any difference in the tree height. There was a small metal plaque that was pinned to the largest tree, but unfortunately time had erased whatever the plaque had proclaimed.

We came across these giant pines while out foraging for a Christmas tree. In years past, before our family switched to boring (but pollen free) plastic trees, my family would purchase a permit from the State forest service, pack up the truck, and head into the woods to cut down a tree for Christmas. It was an all day affair. We would begin early in the morning to drive the 2 hours to the designated site. We would pack a folding table, some chairs, and decent lunch. Usually lunch consisted of sandwiches, home made soup or chili, breads, coffee, and hot chocolate. There was usually snow on the ground (this would have been in November) and picnicking in the snow is quite a different experience. That, and the snow made the required hike to locate the perfect Christmas tree an exhausting endeavor (no snow shoes!) By the end of the day, we would always find the perfect - well...perhaps good enough - tree for Christmas, would strap it to the truck bed, and make the trip back home. Of course, everyone but the driver would snooze the whole way home...exhausted from hiking up and down hills, full of good food. But, without those experiences, I would have never of found what I consider the largest pines I have yet to see in Colorado. (Lots of lumber was pulled out from the old growth forests in years past.)

Wish I had pictures!
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

Post by loungin112 »

Byron510 wrote: Clint, having only spent a short while in Colorado (took in the Pikes Peak Hill Climb a couple years ago - crossed that off the bucket list), i was certainly reminded that this area is very much like the interior of British Columbia - dry and hot for the most part, with lots of beautiful valleys, rivers and forests. I was born in the interior of BC, and certainly love ot go back. The west coast here is quite different, being a rain forest until you cross that coastal mountains. The Pacific North West has it's own coast that is really quite unique in the world, ranging from northern Oregon to the south of Alaska, it's a completely different animal all together from the land on the other side of the coastal mountains. We are very lucky in that both ecosystems are within such a short drive for us, and we do take advantage of this on our cruises.

Byron
Byron,
Pikes Peak HC is something I would like to experience one of these days....even if just to watch. Sort of silly I haven't made it down there, but there is a lot on my not-yet-a buck-list list of things to do. I work full time and go to school in the evenings, so I'm looking forward to getting some time back after graduating and revisting that list of mine. Wish I could join you guys on your cruises and adventures... As with Keith, if you ever find yourself in Colorado, let me know.

Clint
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

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Hey Clint, thanks for sharing your story. That too has been my family tradition, drive off into the wilds somewhere, and spend hours trying to find the "perfect" tree. More often than not we had the CHARLIE BROWN SPECIAL. Along with that goes that outdoor experience of fresh air, lunch and just being together.

Last year we could not get out, so ended up at a Christmas tree farm not far from us, so of course my son and I could not get the easy ones.....

This coming Christmas, the Province of B.C. has change some of the rules, so it will NOT be as secretive a plan as it used to be.

What are you taking in school?
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"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty" - Peter Egan

Keith Law
1973 2 Door Slalom/hill climb/road race / canyon carver /Giant Killer 510
1971 Vintage 13' BOLER trailer
loungin112
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

Post by loungin112 »

hey there Keith,

I currently hold a bachelors degree in social work, but I've gone about as far as I can professionally with that degree. So, about 4 years ago I started taking classes to earn a masters degree in business administration. I'm just about wrapped up, but I'm tired....2hr commute each day, 9 hour workday, 4hrs of homework each night...it takes a toll. I'm hoping to go into the fields of either project management or process improvement after all is said and done. To those who are contemplating going back to school...I would advise that there really is no time like the present. Or to apply another saying my father handed down: "do not put off for tomorrow what can be achieved today".
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

Post by loungin112 »

So, I was able to dig up some photos from our trip a number of years ago to Ouray. We took these photos along the offroad trail up to Yankee Boy Basin. It is rated as a moderate offroad trail, but the Xterra handled it just fine. (I love the xterra by the way...very disappointed they discontinued.)

This trip was at the end of June!

The cool thing about Ouray is that you do not have to own an offroad-worthy vehicle. There are a number of outfitters that will rent jeeps by the day.


Clint
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Almost made it to the top of the trail until the snow stopped our progress
Almost made it to the top of the trail until the snow stopped our progress
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Looking up the trail
Looking up the trail
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Looking down the trail
Looking down the trail
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Cool old mining buildings
Cool old mining buildings
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Cool old mining buildings
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Cool old mining buildings
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Cool old mining buildings
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Some areas where the government had to come in and do some mine remediation
Some areas where the government had to come in and do some mine remediation
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You have to zoom in a little, but the sign states: "...virginius mine employed 600 men and produced gold and silver worth $1,000,000,000 today."  Who knows when they put that sign up, but it was before 2011.
You have to zoom in a little, but the sign states: "...virginius mine employed 600 men and produced gold and silver worth $1,000,000,000 today." Who knows when they put that sign up, but it was before 2011.
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A portion of the trail up.  A little unnerving at that point, had to take turns in this section with oncoming vehicles.
A portion of the trail up. A little unnerving at that point, had to take turns in this section with oncoming vehicles.
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

Post by bertvorgon »

Thanks for posting those, great pictures and makes me want to go exploring! Looks like they had a stamp mill there to crush the ore.

Up here with our weather there are very few mines that still stand, as the snow load and rain has just killed them. One exception here in B.C. is the historic BARKERVILLE ghost town which is now a living museum. We have issues here with mine drainage but due to the costs, very little are dealt with. We have one high profile mine, BRITANNIA BEACH, which at it's height was the largest copper producer in the British empire. In 2006 a treatment plant was put in to deal with the acid drainage.

I'm involved in a mining related business so I know what mines have to do now before they get permitted...just bring 100 million dollars these days, and that's before you even turn the coffee machine on.

Nice thing here and I'm sure down there, that all the mining records have been scanned in to a digital file, so with lots of patience you can find the old reports and possibly the maps that show where they were and the underground maps can be there too.
"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty" - Peter Egan

Keith Law
1973 2 Door Slalom/hill climb/road race / canyon carver /Giant Killer 510
1971 Vintage 13' BOLER trailer
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

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I would say it was a large avalanche, booming across the valley for about two minutes at least. A massive slab must have broken off from the backside peak of Golden Ears, thundering down to the valley floor. The backside is almost vertical in a few placers for a few thousand feet, so it would have had good speed when it fanned out at the bottom. I hope no hikers had dared to foray up that side. You could see a huge cornice up there also, made me think of the 5 killed a week or so ago, on Mnt. Harvey, when they ventured out onto a snow cornice, not realizing how big the overhang was. You cannot be too careful in the mountains.

In line with getting our legs in shape for summer, we went back to the East Canyon trail with the plan to push way past the weekend warrior portion, which gets us into the rugged section of the trail. The snow was gone from where we first encountered it but after another kilometer, started to run into it again, very surprising, which speaks to our crappy spring. We still ended up walking on 1 -2 feet and it was getting slushy as the day warmed up, specially on the way back.

Our destination was to be another rock beach that the trail intersects. The small log bridge that crosses a river side channel was gone when we got there. We already had to do some diversions to cross some of the spring freshets, where it was too deep to rock hop. Here we decided to just take our boots off, roll up the pants and wade over to the sandy continuation of the trail....WOW...was that water cold! The air was still cool there, the north wind blowing cold air down off the snowy peaks ahead of us. We started a small fire just to take the chill off while we had our lunch, spending an hour before we too started to cool right off.

On the way back we found this big tree had gone over the side channel, so we elected to bush whack through the Devils Club to get to it and carefully walk the log, instead of having to take our shoes off and really get cooled down.

As it was late afternoon the last 5 km were quite warm now, as the day had warmed up and we were out of that cold wind. All total we did 14 km this trip, with slightly heavier packs. Each trip we will increase the load, to try to get our hips and legs used to the load.
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"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty" - Peter Egan

Keith Law
1973 2 Door Slalom/hill climb/road race / canyon carver /Giant Killer 510
1971 Vintage 13' BOLER trailer
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

Post by bertvorgon »

few more
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"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty" - Peter Egan

Keith Law
1973 2 Door Slalom/hill climb/road race / canyon carver /Giant Killer 510
1971 Vintage 13' BOLER trailer
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

Post by loungin112 »

As a kid, my father gave me two books that would wind up fueling a lifelong passion for outdoor adventures.

The first was this:
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We couldn't afford to formally participate in the Boy Scouts, but my father did as a kid and passed this manual on to me. I would spend countless hours every night reading about knot tying, building shelters, snares, latrines, etc. I was probably 7 years old at that time. Then, on a trip to the family cabin, my father found this book:
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I lost the original, which didn't have as many stories as this version does. But, I remember waking up early in the morning and reading this book while gobbling up some pancakes. I was about 8 or 9 years old at that time.

Either way, between the two, I was addicted to looking for things and places that have been either forgotten or lost. Hopefully this summer, with added time being available, the wife and I can get back out to looking and exploring that which has been either forgotten or lost.
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

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That is really, really cool...we have some parallels together, you and I.

In my trunk of collectibles in my basement is my own handed down Boy Scout Manual, from about the 30's. My family had a cabin on the LAKE OF THE WOODS, outside of Kenora, Ontario, where we would go on weekends (winter & summer), from where I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was there I got my love of the outdoors. In the 50's it was still very rugged and not developed, we would go on our boat to remote place's with old trapper cabins and old gold mines, things not ravaged by scavengers then.

One of my Uncle's gave me the manual, where I too tried to make all the little traps, rope knots and other survival things.

When we came to B.C. in 1960, I joined the Scouts...but....the Troup in Richmond, B.C. really did nothing out doorsy at all! I had done and did more on weekends than all the Scouts combined. They would sit around and listen to me and what I had done, really funny actually. I quit.

It was of course in B.C. that we really came unto our own for exploration, as it is a world different than the flat lands of the Prairies. Abandoned mines galore, old logging roads, a few ghost towns, all with the specter of finding TREASURE. The reality was quite different of course, but with enough time we did find old bottles and other artifacts, dragged home to the family "museum"...much to my mothers chagrin.

The love of the hunt and explore has never changed and through my line of work I have had the ability to find out about some "lost" mines, etc.. We have lucked out a few times in digging for bottles where either no one has thought to look, or, just plain been the first there.

The days of the Boy Scout manual and all those knots and survival tips have faded to the reality of my modern experience...you will likely starve to death trying to snare something....getting a fire going in the wilds of WET British Columbia would tax any so-called survivalist.

Bit of a funny story here...Matt and I always try to start a fire with ONE match, we have a contest. If the fire does NOT start with the first match ( which could be your ONLY match) we say your dead. A week ago, when we were up that valley, I had packed some very DRY, PERFECT tinder along, enough to start afire. I had always wanted to try to use one of the strike rods that purport to send a 5,000 F. spark and would start a fire. Well, Matt had bought me one and we thought we would try it. Holy Crudmucker...you think that thing would light that tinder..NO WAY!!! I was so disappointed. Here is the reality, if it could NOT do that with perfect conditions and dry tinder, it would be totally useless in real world, wet B.C. forest conditions, where a fire is the first condition of survival. Matt took it back to the Mountain Equipment Co-Op. Maybe there are others on the market that might work better, but, I just carry good old EDDY STRIKE ANYWHERE matches, in multiple containers, in my pack. The so called waterproof matches are crap also, you cannot rely on those either.

TOM SAWYER was another favorite, which I think any 12 year old would fantasize about. I wonder how may have read that in this day and age. His adventures fueled me for years and as my brother and I did, were able to almost duplicate some of those. Long before parents got afraid to let their kids play outside, we could go and play all day along the mighty Fraser River, miles from home, had more true adventures than I could tell here. There was a tragedy one day, where misadventure caught up with one of our friends, but that reality was a learning lesson, burning into our brains how quickly things can change and to be ever vigilant during our adventures.

Sorry if I have rambled but you brought back a different time, so long ago now, but, at the same time my modern adventures and love of the "hunt" and adventures still continues to this day.
"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty" - Peter Egan

Keith Law
1973 2 Door Slalom/hill climb/road race / canyon carver /Giant Killer 510
1971 Vintage 13' BOLER trailer
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

Post by bertvorgon »

Pull up a coffee for this next tale.

I wrote this story for a newsletter last year. With the dearth of "reality" programs on air these days, I thought I would write about my lost mine experiences, of which some of my 510 comrades have been able to take part in with me.
Last edited by bertvorgon on 30 Apr 2017 08:01, edited 1 time in total.
"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty" - Peter Egan

Keith Law
1973 2 Door Slalom/hill climb/road race / canyon carver /Giant Killer 510
1971 Vintage 13' BOLER trailer
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Re: Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

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Forward
Welcome back for Part 2 of our search for old gold mines. This one has held a real fascination for me my whole life, as it is both so close to Vancouver, yet almost impossible to get to now. I have very few pictures of the mine itself, as it was so dark inside, with marginal cameras back in the early days of going there, and, that the mill was just blown to smithereens when it was hit by an avalanche. The trees and shrubs had grown up through everything so it makes it hard to even get a shot of the wreckage. The pictures I have sent hopefully give a sense of the remoteness. Enjoy!

The Boundary Red Mountain Mine

With a muffled.... KAWHUMP...the stack of flaming corn stocks launched thirty feet into the air, like a Titan missile on takeoff, my brother standing there in shock, his mouth open, lit match still in hand, leg hair singed.....the neighbour behind us is hurdling over the back fence........I start to laugh.

Lets’ step back a minute here, to set the scene. The year is 1969, Mankind steps onto the moon, the Concorde has its first flight and the Vietnam protests are in high gear. My family has moved to Fort Langley, a quiet, sleepy little town back then. I have just come back from working at the North end of Vancouver Island. My brother has been tasked with cleaning up the back yard and my Mom’s garden debris, which included a small corn patch. My brother has stacked them into a nice teepee shape, maybe eight feet across at the base and of course, over six feet tall. He has taken some lawn mower gas and poured it all around the base. It is a nice sleepy morning in Fort Langley, sun is up, birds chirping in the late September day. The neighbour behind us is out working on his lawn mower.

Now, my brother has forgotten to bring matches out, so he has to pop BACK into the house. This of course gives the gasoline time to both saturate into the base of the corn stalks and have a vapor wall that has now extended a good three to four feet out on the ground, on this very still air morning.
I am now walking out through our carport, to the back yard, when my brother strikes the match. There is a Kawhump, a bright orange fire ball, emanating from my brother at ground level, and, into the corn stalks, which then launches half the stack into the dead morning air, flaming bits going thirty feet into the air and then they start raining down onto the neighbourhood. I start laughing looking at the shock on my brother’s face, his legs starting to look a bit pink after the quick flash of fire, all the hair gone. The young neighbour behind us has launched over the fence, to see what is going on.

His name is Gary, and after getting the garden hose going to put out the worst of the flaming stocks, and cooling my brother’s legs down, we get talking about the outdoors and hiking. It turns out he is a geology student at U.B.C. and an avid hiker. We of course have been outdoor people all our lives too. This brought the discussion to an old gold mine that he and his brother have been trying to find, having read a geology report from the 1930’s, about this mine and it’s interesting history. It is just across the Canada/US border, in the U.S., but, only accessible from Canada. This mine, like the last one I wrote about, closed down a few times over its life time. It was discovered in 1897 with actual mining and milling was done in 1916, shutting down in 1917 from a worker shortage due to the war. Then, in the 1930’s and through to the 40’s it was mined off and on. Then, in the winter of 1947-48, the entire mill was swept away by a massive snow slide.

One of the interesting things is that it is at the 5,000 foot level, just beside a huge glacier, according to the records.

Gary and his brother had spent many weekends, following some logging roads that were put in, in the mid sixties. The Valley was logged right up to the border and up to about 3,500 feet. Gary and his brother had gone up the roads, very, very steep in places, but, could not see the mine. He suggested that it was a nice hike in the valley anyhow and that we might try our luck in finding the mine.

This sounded like an adventure to us, and I mentioned it to my dad, who was gung ho to go find it. Being from the flatland prairies, Winnipeg, he loved any chance to head out in the mountains.

A few weeks later, armed with enthusiasm that this should be easy, off we went. It’s about a two hour drive from our house and up the old logging road, to the place where we would park, as far as our old two wheel drive car would take us. The valley is along the Slesse Creek drainage and where we park, just before the border, has towering snow capped peaks and a beautiful hanging valley above us. Little did I know then, what destruction that hanging valley would cause, many years later.

We started climbing up the old road, packs loaded for the exploration. After a few hours, we were at the end of one landing where a yarder must have been. We could see nothing above us but a large bluff, covered in first growth trees. HHmmmm..so, we went further along to a junction, then to another landing. Nothing.
Long story short we were stumped that day and planned to come back in a few weeks, before the snow fell. As this was of course before the Internet, we just could not pull up Goggle earth or do any research. My Dad went and got a topographical map, but it did not even show the logging roads. We could see roughly where we had hiked to, so this let us study that bluff in elevation, to maybe figure out where any trail might be. We could see the glacier on the map, so knowing that gave us a rudimentary idea of where we should look.
We headed up again, this time going to the one landing, and then heading into bush to see if we could pick up a trail. Our family were hunters at the time and we had a good idea how to watch for vestiges of trails, both game and otherwise. Typical in the mountains, distances are deceiving and we could see that to get to the edge of the glacier, was in realty a kilometer away or so. We could see nothing and ended up at the edge of a huge cliff, dropping some thousand feet to the valley floor. Deciding to head back down as the days were short, we vowed to come back in the spring, when the snow was gone and days longer.

The next June we headed back up there, excited that for sure we would find it. The old road had suffered some major damage due to both run-off going down in sections, and the odd landslide. Our plan was to go to the most southern landing and then really look there.

Sure enough, what we had missed was where a bulldozer during the logging operation had cut through a very steep embankment, which in fact was part of the original horse trail to the mine. We had just thought it was a dead end. I scrabbled up the bank, then I could see the old cordwood trail disappearing under the over grown brush. It almost looked like an old stream bed. My Dad and brother followed up and we bush wacked for another half kilometer, finally losing the trail due to SNOW! As it was very steep on the side hill where we stopped, with no real idea where we might need to go, we decided to have lunch and head down, promising to come back in July, when the snow would be gone. As we finally did see, due to a snow marker at the mine, in that time period the Cascades got over eighteen feet of snow there.

July came around with really hot weather, perfect for a hike and explore. We were at elevation quite quickly, as we knew exactly where we were headed. We easily found where we stopped and picked up the trail and as we were now at about five thousand feet, the alpine trees thinned out. There before us was a clearly defined trail, even finding a fallen section of corduroy road, where the bank had collapsed.

In another ten minutes we came out of the trees onto a level landing, totally artificial, with rusting cans scattered about and some crushed quartz looking rock. On the other side of the landing we could see a foot path, which in a minute had us in front of the mine opening...we had found it, July, 1970. There was an ore cart still in the entrance, with tracks disappearing into the blackness. There was also a small river coming out of the mine, which eliminated us going in, as we had not thought about that and did not have the appropriate foot wear, as there was a deep pool of water in the entrance. The mine flows about 500 gallons a minute during the summer.

On the other side of the tracks was another foot path, which upon following led us to some sort of air compressor and another rig that looked like it was meant to hold drill bits, which were scattered about. We of course were excited beyond belief, actually visiting an old gold mine...at five thousand feet. Not bad for a prairie family.
We spent about two hours there exploring, finding all sorts of old tools, core drills, cans, etc.. My Dad found a large steel ball (which we know now was from a ball mill) that he thought was too cool, so he threw it in his pack. It weighed a ton but he packed it home. The view there was beyond spectacular, glacier and snow all around us, eight thousand foot peaks gleaming above us and, we are now just below the hanging ledge of the mountain range in front of us. This is where in the next few years a massive destructive avalanche screamed down into the valley floor.

It is in this time period that I have also started to work in the precious metals business and with this came the realization that there is more to an old mine than just a tunnel or shaft in the mountain side.
We soon realized that there had to be some buildings and with my Dad finding that steel ball, that there must have been a mill there. The neighbour had quoted from the book about the mine and that cemented that there must be more infrastructure there, or, as the reality came about, it had long fallen down.
Our next trip had us packing tall boots, strong flashlights, and, a whole days worth of food, planning to be up there all day. This was becoming work! The hike was taking about two to three hours, so early starts were mandatory. We were excited to finally be going into the mine shaft, not knowing what we would find...GOLD of course!

There was debris piled in the entrance, which caused the damming of the flowing water, making it about a foot deep, just up to the edge of our boots. We hoped we would not run into deeper water. Our flash light beams disappeared into the darkness as we progressed along, the deep pool finally ended to a small river running a long side the cart track. Where was all the water coming from was in our minds? After walking for 10 minutes we turned and looked back at the entrance, which was literally just a pin point of light. Even in July it was cold in the mine, our breath leaving a ghostly cloud in the mine. When you stopped it was also insanely quiet, the proverbial quiet where you can only hear your heart beating. After a slight curve in the track, where the pin point of the entrance light finally vanished, we noticed markings on the wall, which we interpreted to be distance, which as we walked along, kept getting higher. That was good as we would really know how far we had gone in. Along the tunnel walls were showings of all sorts of mineralization, but, nothing that really looked like this was following a vein.

We were now two thousand feet in, almost straight as a dime...where did this end? Hanging from one edge of the ceiling was some sort of pipe and what looked like old wires, likely ventilation and power. We walked for another ten minutes in the blackness, the crunching of our feet the only sound. Then we felt an unmistakable low rumble,...WHAT WAS THAT......? It was scary for a minute, then, as we got closer, realized it was the sound of crashing water. Finally, in the darkness ahead of us, we could see water falling from the top side of the tunnel wall, a wooden crib structure surrounding it.

As we approached, the ceiling was open, a vast black cavern above us, our flashlights not even able to see how far up it went. The water was coming down somewhere from above, who knew how far. The wooden crib looked like some sort of ore chute, with a shutoff system for the ore, and then the ore cart would be pushed under to be loaded. The noise at this point was deafening with the reverberation of the falling water.
We pressed on, coming to a split in the tunnel. We first went right, but it ended quite quickly with an earthen dam, with old pipe filling the backside. Going back and to the left had us going by another two ore shoots, with what appeared to be massive stopes above us. It was silent again and as we walked what was the last ten minutes we came to the end of the track. From there it was a very short walk to the last place they were blasting, the working face. We were now 3,500 feet into the mountain!

EVERYTHING gleamed on the floor, looking like gold but I knew it was only pyrite in its various forms. We were chilled down now and headed back out, which still took us over 45 minutes. The blaze of the afternoon sun was blinding and it actually hurt to look at the glacier and snow covered peaks around us. We fired up our little stove and made some hot chocolate and ate late lunch, then hit the trail back to the car, some three thousand feet below us and miles away. We were done at the end of that day but a smile was on our faces!

Over the next few summers we went back many times. On one trip, early in the spring, as we got close to the usual parking spot, we found a small slide had covered the road. Oh, so we have to walk a bit more, no problem. Then, in getting to almost where we could park before, we came upon a wall of snow fifty feet high. Upon climbing up it we could see that an indescribable avalanche had come down from the hanging valley, some four thousand feet above, with an unobstructed path to the bottom. The trees that were there were blown to smithereens, and, as we could see, the wind that must have been ahead of the slide blew down the trees on the other side of Slesse Creek and up the hillside. The river was dammed up, with only a trickle getting through under the slide. It was half a kilometer wide and had totally wiped out the road. We would never drive to this point again. As the years would go by, the slides totally rearranged the valley bottom and pushing our parking spot further and further away.

I and a friend Evan, who worked with me, also realized that likely no one had ever dug for bottles, there must be a midden somewhere. One hot summer day, after scouring the side hill below one level landing, we realized there were a LOT of rusting cans, this was it. As I found out in later years, the first level spot we had come to was the cook shack. They literally threw the garbage out the back door and down the bank. It was really overgrown with lots of devils club and stinging nettle, making the digging a real lesson in pain management, the bugs just eating us alive, as we opened up the old dump, but, the excitement of finding some very cool bottles and jugs over rode all of that. And find we did, I still have some of the bottles on display at work here. They were clear when I first dug them out and then they have turned a beautiful blue colour after all these years.

One of my most memorable trips to the mine was when I went by myself. In thinking back I cannot believe I used to go up there by myself! It was a cool, misty day, with low clouds hanging in the trees at the alpine level. I am a very quiet walker when I hike. I went past that first opening of the mine and followed the trail that went by the compressor and drill holder, heading to a ledge at the edge of the avalanche chute. As I stood there, in the swirling mist, trying to see the glacier, I looked across to the other side of the chute, where, standing there in the ghostly grey mist, is a pure white mountain goat, just staring at me. We both stood there, time standing still for a minute. Then, with no sound, the goat just fades into the mountain side, as a cloud of fog rolls past. One second he was there, the next gone.

Also in the seventies, as I explored around the mine site, I started to follow some man made debris.....UPHILL. I could see a large steel cable heading way up to a cliff face...what was that for?

It was on one weekend as I was rooting around in the bush BEFORE the mine that I saw the vestiges of a foot trail. I decided to follow it. It did a series of switch backs, heading to way above the shaft we had being going in. Finally, some seven hundred feet above what we thought was the mine...was the actual ore body entrance! The tracks came out to a tailings pile and a ton of drill bits and other pieces of equipment. This would require a major exploration. This location became the destination in years to come. As it turned out, this was where the gold vein was, with the lower shaft being fed by the huge stope’s, dropping the ore down and then out to the mill, which we had found below the first shaft, a pile of rusting iron and steel. Amazing when you consider that was all taken up from Chilliwack to the five thousand foot level via pack horse.

In going into this shaft it took us to the main vein, huge stands of quartz, with the tracks going over openings down into the depths, some seven hundred feet to that bottom shaft. There were crazy insane ladders hanging in mid air, which we could just not fathom anybody using. We had to be so careful on crossing these areas, testing our weight on the tracks, with one of the guys holding on to us. Again, we ended up almost three thousand feet in, and, at the working face, you could really see the vein of ore. I took a grab sample of the last blast they did and in taking it out into the sunlight, I could see a gleaming spec of gold. I still have this in my collection. Gold was crushed in a small stamp mill there on site, and then run over a mercury laden slick plate for recovery. We found mercury flasks in the steel pile down at the mill site. (Again, in later years I have found out that there were 10 stamps, weighing 1,000 lbs each!)

On one weekend I headed over from this second shaft, to see if I could find that steel cable I saw from below. Sure enough, it headed up to a rock ledge above me, on a cliff face. Upon climbing up onto that, I find another shaft entrance...Holy Cow...this is too cool. As I finally found out, there was an aerial tramway that took ore down to the mill. We tried entering this shaft but after about one hundred feet there had been a major collapse and as discretion is the better part of valor, we decided not to press our luck trying to go by it. There was indication that there was another shaft up higher and in later years found that to be correct.

As we headed through the eighties I did not go back up, finding other adventures to pursue. Then, in the early 90’s a group of my fellow 510 race car people heard me talking about this old mine, so close to Vancouver. They thought they would like to be taken to visit it. What a good idea.

Around 1995 I organized a scouting mission, bringing my young son with us. We found that we had to park almost five kilometers from the start of the uphill grind to the mine. When we did get to that point it became a bit of a bush whack, nature having taken over again. It had been 30 years since it was logged and no erosion control was done on the roads, so it was almost gone with only a few overgrown spots that resembled a road.

It was in this time period also, that one of my mining customers that came into work one day sparked a conversation on hard rock mines. It turns out we get talking about mines close to Vancouver and he mentions he has the maps for a mine in the Cascades. I light up of course...WHICH MINE?

He has the complete underground maps, the claim maps and assay maps for: THE BOUNDARY RED MOUNTAIN MINE. He asks if I would like them...You must be joking...I just about dropped in my tracks! With these maps I could put a lot of the pieces of the puzzle together. It confirmed there were four levels of the mine, a large mill was there, and, a power generation station was built on Slesse Creek, on the U.S. side of the Border. As the Internet came along too, I could finally do some historical research on the mine.

I spent a few years taking my car group up there, letting them experience both the beauty of that alpine terrain, and, to be able to see what an early underground gold mine was like. The trail was now a major issue to get to, as the valley got rearranged many times due to our changing weather and massive landslides.

It has now been almost eighteen years since I was last up there. A few years ago my son and I did a hike to the base of the trail, where again we found this time a massive land slide had come down from a channel just to the west of the mine. And massive it was, scouring the mountain side clean in a few spots, nothing but bed rock showing. The jumble of trees we had to negotiate was a real work out and when we got to the base, we encountered the snow from another huge avalanche. We were very aware of what was above us, being in spring weather, with the melt going on. We had maybe been there an hour, just sitting in the sun and having lunch, when we heard a huge BOOM above us! We did not even look, we just started running to the edge of the slide chute, ensuring we were well out of the way of anything coming down. It was a small avalanche on the other side of the hanging valley and it did make us rush a bit when crossing the bottom of the valley.

There is now rumour that the good old HOMELAND Security of the U.S. has put some sort of sensor or alarm up there, why I do not know, as you CANNOT get over those mountains from the U.S.. Personally, I do not believe it and I think they said that to scare people off from a “technical” crossing into the U.S.. I have been on the other side, a valley away and there are ramparts of mountains in the way that only the best equipped technical climbers could negotiate. I do know that the Slesse valley was used by the drug smuggling guys using blacked out helicopters in the nineties, as we both saw them and had one very scary encounter with some guys waiting for a drop..and... I mean SCARY!!!

So, while it was not a lost mine, nor misplaced, it was off the beaten path for a long time, with only the odd hiker heading up there, myself only running into a few people over all the weekends we went there. We camped up there many times and even on those weekends saw no one. I think that as it became harder and harder to reach, it eliminated all but the most dedicated weekend warrior. It has been stated in the records, that there were three work crews, one going in, one working at the mine, and one leaving. The mine had huge worker turnover, as once they got there, they realized how remote and tough it was, and would leave right away.

I still have all those maps in my collection and swear I am going to make one more attempt to get up there, as it is a truly spectacular hike and vista above.

Keith Law, April 28, 2016
TECHNIC CANADA
Stay tuned for the next story: How a Gold Refinery Works
"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty" - Peter Egan

Keith Law
1973 2 Door Slalom/hill climb/road race / canyon carver /Giant Killer 510
1971 Vintage 13' BOLER trailer
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