Kennecot Jumbo Mine
4000 feet above the Kennecot lies the Jumbo mine. This is one of 5 mines which were connected together beneath the mountain range above Kennicot.
We're climbing way the hell up there?!
The tramway up to the Jumbo mine, buckets would carry miners
and supplies up and ore back down. Tractor trails were used to get heavier
equipment up to the top of the mountain.
The halfway station on the tram line. At this point another tram begins,
leading to the Glacier mine. This tram had a dumping arrangement to transfer
ore into the main tram, and the both lines had "sidings" and switches here
where the buckets could be transferred onto overhead rails for repair or
loading. Not much of the building is intact, and bears have apparently
been living inside.
Near the halfway station is a well-preserved house that was used by
the tram operators. It has a few fixtures and items of furniture left,
we were going to sleep here overnight but our plans changed.
Very nice view looking northwest from the halfway station.
As we climbed higher the trail improved. While the first half is choked
with alder, the last part is across a rock glacier (ice flow covered with
loose rock) which offered some more building remains and 100 year old trash
piles, as well as some copper chunks that had fallen from the trams.
After a final push to the 6,500ft level one comes to the Jumbo mine,
a snowy wasteland of demolished buildings and ground covered in green copper
chunks and brown tin cans. Crokery, empty dynamite boxes, and other trash
spill down the hill below the mine as well. The one building still standing
is the main bunkhouse, tilted at a 45 degree angle and difficult to enter.
Due to time constraints and excessive bitching by my exploring partner
I wasn't able to look around here too long. The mine portal has been gated
off by the NPS, and since by the time I got this far we'd given up on exploring
it, I didn't bother to check the status of the lock or gate. Above the
tunnel are some large green streaks of exposed copper veigns. Air vents
or other adits can be seen farther up the cliffs and inside some cracks
on the mountain nearby.
We were hoping to do some rock climbing up here, it would be a great
place for it.
A model of what one of the mine sites used to look like (actually the
nearby Bonanza Mine)
Click here for the page on the Mill town.
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