The Man and the Mine
The large, granitic rock was moist and slick underneath my hands as I slid down to land on the floor of the dark cavern. I felt the water splash from underneath my boots up onto my legs. I turned my gaze downward and my headlamp revealed my boots submerged halfway in standing water. Under my feet, horizontal slats of rotting wood ran between the old rails for the mine. My jaw tightened, my nostrils flared and my breath became shallow. The air felt dank and contaminated, almost too thick with moisture to breathe comfortably.
I looked down the dark mineshaft. Only a few feet of light emitted from my headlamp, beyond which there was complete darkness. I turned to look behind me at the thin sliver of white light coming from the crack we had climbed through. From directly underneath the tall rock ledge, the opening looked too small to fit through, which is why passersby on the nearby hiking trail walk by the secret opening unaware.
Most gold mines in the Sierra Foothills have been closed for over a hundred years. Dynamite had been used to close the shaft entrances with giant rocks so that nobody could enter them. Undoubtedly this was one of hundreds of open mine shafts adjacent to the American River in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range that were blocked to access when the lands were made public. Our small entrance was an oversight which we wouldn’t have seen from the trail if it weren’t for a retired highway patrolman who had tipped us to the forgotten entrance under promise of secrecy.
The four of us, all in our late 20s and early 30s, bobbed down the flat trail casually in conversation. We planned to camp at a spot my husband and I had hiked to the summer prior. There was a rudimentary campsite only 4 miles upriver from the trailhead. At the campsite, the trail crossed over a high clearance road. We guessed that the campsite had been built by locals who drove out with the many eclectic knick-knacks that made up the campsite -- a couple tires placed around a fire ring, a jerry rigged grill grate, benches made out of scrap wood and old fence posts.
Though the trail was short, you had to descend down 2,500 vertical feet of switchbacks in under 1.5 miles, starting at the top of a steep canyon and immediately descending down to the river. While this was easy on the way down, lugging a heavy pack back up the trail wasn’t desirable. But, we had the memory of the emerald swimming pool at the campsite in our minds when we planned the return trip. The trail is commonly used for day hiking and local kayakers brave enough to jog down the switchbacks to reach the river with their kayaks in tow. These recreationalists make their way down river and get picked-up at crossing where there is a paved bridge. The kayaks left a littering of small curled pieces of plastic that sloughed off the bottom of their boats when they scraped against the trails rocks, leaving multicolored cheese gratings all along the trail. Most of the kayakers and day hikers we had passed who saw us carrying backpacking gear gave us an odd glance up and down before exchanging platitudes. “Hey there!” or “Enjoy the hike!”.
The highway patrolman approached with a day pack and a smile. He was a moderate height with light brown, neatly groomed hair which was peppered with grey strands. The olive skin on his face looked weathered, revealing that the man spent a lot of time outdoors. He wore stone colored hiking pants with a clean hiking shirt tucked in underneath a canvas belt. His sturdy hiking daypack had a hipbelt and a chest strap. Affixed to his shoulder straps he carried a small knife, a compass and an emergency beacon. He didn’t need many of these items for a day hike on a well-trafficked trail, but I guessed that he had his hiking backpack set up and ready to go with his essentials.
“Gosh, you don’t see many backpackers out here!”, he remarked with his hands placed casually on his hips, “Where are y’all headed to?”
My husband responded easily, “Oh, we’re headed down to Euchre Bar. There’s a little campsite down there we saw on a hike last year.”
I became uneasy about telling a strange man where we planned to set up camp and quickly added, “But we’re not totally sure! We may find another campsite down by the river.”
“That’s just great,” the patrolman said. He continued with few pauses, “My wife and I used to do a lot of backpacking, but now it’s mostly just me. We’ve been section hiking the Pacific Crest Trail for the last 17 years or so. Now that I’m retired I can really start hiking it more!” The man looked barely old enough to be retired -- maybe in his late 50s or early 60s.
“We’re section hikers too!” I shared, warming to friendly conversation, “The four of us are actually hiking about 90 miles on the trail in a month or so.”
“That’s just great!” he exclaimed, seemingly more excited to be in conversation with us. He asked, “What section are you planning to hike this summer?” When we told him, he continued, “That’s going to be just beautiful. My wife and I hiked that area a few years back and it’s one of my favorite sections of the trail so far.”
“We live about 20 minutes away from here,” he diverted, “So I’ve hiked these trails up and down...Ya know, there’s some pretty cool mining stuff along this trail.” He looked the four of us up and down carefully. “There’s actually an old mine shaft that wasn’t quite closed all the way…” He paused -- unsure if he wanted to divulge more. “Ahh, you’re backpackers. You folks don’t look like you’d post about this all over social media. If the park service catches wind that this spot is still open, you better believe they’d be right out here to close it up.”
As soon as he had taken the leap to share the mine with us, he buzzed with excitement while walking us down the trail toward the entrance. He regaled us with the story of when he had first found the entrance. He and a friend of his had been looking through the old mining wreckage, which was littered all along the deep river canyon. “You can walk all the way down the shaft! There’s two...maybe three forks in the tunnel. Eventually it opens into a great big cavern down by the river,” he shared, “But you have to come back up from the river bank.” He stopped walking for a moment, before continuing, “Actually with all the rain and snow we had this year, I’m not too sure what that lower cavern will look like. Might have a lot of water down there.”
He seemed genuine and kind, but I was on alert. I catastrophized the many unsavory outcomes that could result from following a strange man into a dark mineshaft that nobody knew we were entering. Even if this man was well-intended, what if we had an accident in the mine? Worse, what if he did mean us harm? This is one of those situations that they warn you about as a kid, I thought. As we approached the mine entrance, our new companion sensed my reservation.
“I’m retired Highway Patrol,” he said, showing me a copy of his retirement ID card and driver's license. I looked at him skeptically, wanting to believe he was the friendly stranger he seemed to be.
After a short pause, he acquiesced that he may also have reservations about such a spelunking endeavor with a complete stranger. “You’re right to be cautious,” he admitted. In a disappointed tone, he instead offered, “Why don’t I watch your gear while the four of you head in there to explore.”
He was clearly too knowledgeable to jump into a mineshaft by himself, so I felt guilty for taking away his opportunity to enter the cave with us. Am I being crazy? I wondered. I set down my gear, taking my headlamp and hiking poles before climbing up the boulders, covered with thick green moss to where he said the entrance was. Set between three large rocks, there was a triangular entrance which was tall and slender. It was a tight squeeze through the initial opening which deposited us onto a slight ledge that we had to jump down to enter the mine.
I became acutely aware of my discomfort in the narrow, dark shaft moments after we entered. The shaft was barely tall enough to stand. My boots were waterproof up to the ankle, but the variable depth and opacity of the standing water in the darkness led me to walk along the rail like a slackline down the long tunnel. I lost my balance on more than one occasion, but was reluctant to touch the walls of the tunnel, as though they carried some rare unknown pathogen. I’m still unsure if I said or just thought loudly to myself, “I don’t like this.”
When we reached the first branch of the cave, my breathing became even more labored. It didn’t make sense logically, because if we simply turned around and walked back the direction we had come we would reach the exit. But how would we know what direction to walk? Our sense of space and direction could easily become disoriented. What if the cave collapsed? My pace became even more reserved and my husband’s slowed to match mine. When our two companions continued on, they slowly escaped the reach of my headlamp and disappeared into blackness. I could still hear their wet steps echo through the tunnel, but eventually there was only the sound of our own feet navigating the wet cave bottom. When I stopped, the only sounds were the slow dripping of water from the ceiling onto the wet bottom and my labored breath.
All of a sudden the weight of the cave and it’s darkness broke down and my chest became trapped beneath the weight of the thick rock. My hands trembled, and fear cemented my feet in their place. For a moment, I was immobile. Then, I pivoted 180 degrees on the rail. My limbs moved quickly and unconsciously back in the direction I came from like a marionette being drawn by strings from above. My husband called after me, “Hold on, are you ok?” An invisible force pulled me toward the thin crack of light I knew was waiting at the far end of the tunnel. My feet no longer judiciously traced the rail, but clumsily splashed through the uneven water. The echo of my rapid, uneven gait was the only audible sound.
As soon as the entrance to the cavern came into view I saw the evidence of dim light -- a slight glimmer on the texture of the dimpled rock or any variation in the hue of black -- my gait slowed.
I was faced with the task of finding my way back up the rock to the entrance. Though it was covered in water and algae, the granite’s rough surface afforded some traction. I threw both arms up toward the light and somehow found footholds to thrust myself upward. With a grunt, I pried my way back out of the slender doorway back into the daylight. Just as quickly as I had slid down into the cave, I was birthed back out into the thick green forest.
There was a mix of conifers, aspen, fern and other temperate flora. The forest floor was littered with decomposing leaves. The soft ground and the smell of trees in the dry air hugged me. Our trail companion leaned lazily against a rock like an old cowboy might, with his hat dipped below his brow to block out the sun while he rested. He turned to look at me slowly and crinkled his eyebrows together in confusion before opening his eyes wide and smiling. I was happy to see his face in the bright afternoon sun which shone through the leaves of the canopy. A soft breeze rustled the leaves, creating a melody with the sound of the flowing river and intermittently chirping birds. The weight lifted from my chest and I breathed deeply, sitting close to the earth, enjoying his company while I waited for my companions to emerge.