Exploring around Kelly and Waldo mines

Recently, it was decided by our little group of ne'erdowells that we should go out again and take another look at the Kelly and Waldo mines out near Magdalena.
So we set out, initially with the intention of just doing a scout of the area and try to find the entrance to Waldo.
Plans of course change.

The view from where we parked the car. You can see some of the old structures around the Kelly Mine in this shot. The headframe of the Kelly mine was designed by Gustave Alexander Eiffel, the designer of the Eiffel Tower, and delivered to the Kelly Mine in kit form, manufactured by Carnegie Steel out of New Jersey.

Our troupe unloading and gearing up.

This was the first mine shaft that we found. This was a walk-in shaft, with the cart rails mostly still intact. However, it was so infested with flies getting ready to winter that we didn't progress in very far. Literally crawling with them!



And this is the view from just outside that shaft. Gorgeous, ain't it? In the full-size version you might be able to make out a few white dots in the distance. Those are a couple of the dishes out at the Very Large Array.



And here we have yours truly worming my way inside another mine shaft, this one I believe to be Juanita Site. In this shot, I was headed inside for a quick scout and to see what the shaft looked like. You can see me wearing my trusty Ibex Shak Jersey and the Haglofs pack that has literally followed me halfway across the globe.
Based on my initial scouting, we decided to check out this shaft further.


So apparently, we're not supposed to be here... I had to literally dig out this sign as it was covered liberally and probably deliberately, with rocks.

However, as per the usual approach, we are not deterred by such trifles! So we ventured in deeper.

Roughly 30 yards in, there had been some kind of rockfall at an earlier time. It had created a mound of rocks piled up in the tunnel, making it a bit narrower, but still with plenty of space to move through at a crouch. Past that rockfall, which is kind of a handy environmental barrier, we ran into some rather interesting looking shale deposits. I'm assuming it's shale, because of the color and the highly friable nature of the stuff. These deposits were also liberally streaked with what appeared to be sulfur.


Here's a view down the tunnel. We pretty much all had to walk hunched over. But a pretty decent tunnel compared to some of the ones I've been in in the past. Kelly Mine for instance has seen considerable more upheaval than Juanita. At least in the early stages...

Shortly after I took this picture, we ran into the first denizen of this deep. A small bat, clinging to a wall and likely enough trying it's best to imagine that we weren't there.


Past this guy, things got interesting. The main shaft opened up and went in three separate directions. One tunnel led to a dead end, something that may at some point have been another exit. It had very deliberately been blocked off. Old, moldy lumber, more lumber behind it and then rocks piled on top.
That blockage was also apparently near a spring of some kind. Water was trickling slowly down a wall and the ground was wet. That was the only place in Juanita we saw water.

Another tunnel also dead-ended, this time in a kind of chamber. Looked like they just stopped digging. There was an odd little opening right before that chamber though, where a shaft went quite steeply down. Filled with loose rocks, sand and dust, we were able to see old timbers and steel reinforcements but it was frankly far too risky a proposition since we had no real gear with us such as ropes, helmets, etc. Even with a good rope setup, I would have been hesitant to enter, since everything was so loose. The chance of causing a rockslide and the resulting cave-in would just be too high.
The third tunnel however, proved very interesting.
Tracks, and a kind of crude staircase, leading down into the darkness. It started out gentle, but soon got close to being a 30-40 degree slope.

Some joker had spray-canned "BAD AIR" on the rock right over the entrance to this tunnel, which of course I didn't notice since I was standing right underneath it... Duh.

So, I volunteered to check this out. No need to risk us all if it turned out to be unsafe, yes?
I quipped as I got ready to head down in response to an admonition to be careful, "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." Which garnered a lot of blank stares. Kids these days, no appreciation for fine cinema!

But I digress. Down the rabbit hole I went.

At a rough guess, I'd say this shaft went down about... 150 feet or so, before my progress was halted rather rudely by destruction.

There was a pit, underneath the tracks. A pit that had at one point apparently been spanned by a bridge of some kind. Something had happened. Structural fatigue, earthquake or something, had ripped out the supports of this bridge and a part of the bridge and tracks had tumbled into the deep.
You'll have to pardon the poor quality of the following picture. It was difficult to get decent lighting down there. The white blobs you see are actually flecks of dust reflecting the light from the flash. It's extremely problematic to take pictures at any kind of distance down below because of this.


As you can see, no real safe way to progress past this point. I want to at some point in time, revisit this area with proper gear. Across this pit, the shaft actually continues further down. I'm also extremely curious as to what actually lies below in the pit itself.
This next picture you can see how the shaft continues further down. Pardon the shoddy lighting.


I turned around and went back up to take a closer look at some other parts of the mine that we'd only cursorily examined.
We'd found a kind of gallery up above the approach to the dead-ended chamber. We contemplated climbing up there but dismissed the thought as there were other areas in the Kelly site we wanted to look at.
In the following picture you can see our intrepid group peering up into the gallery.


We exited Juanita Site shortly there after and went exploring through a couple of other sites, but I won't write about that just now. Perhaps in the future.
After we were done with the Kelly Mine area for the day, all of us went to nearby Magdalena and consumed large quantities of very dead bovines. It's a bit of a tradition really. A tradition that I have no intention of ending any ti... Well. Never, really.


Just a quick addendum about gear.

For this trip, I wore an Ibex Shak Jersey as previously mentioned. My baselayer underneath that was an Ibex Zepher Zip T-Neck, both of which have been previously reviewed on this blog.
Very comfortable throughout the trip and the Shak looks none the worse for wear.
For pants, I wore a pair of 5.11 HRT pants, using the included kneepads. This came in handy several times during this jaunt.

My hands were protected by my OR Argonaut gloves and for footwear I wore a pair of Bates M-9 Desert Boots. These handled themselves quite well, providing a sure grip on the rocks and sand and protecting my feet quite well. I didn't roll an ankle even once, despite scrambling up and down scree slopes several times that day.

Lighting duties were handled with a variety of different lights. Three LumaPower lights, an M1-T, an Incendio and a D-Mini were employed, along with a modified Surefire with a Malkoff Devices M60 module.
All lights performed beautifully and flawlessly through the duration.
I hope to have the chance to bring some more purpose specific lighting with me in the future.