Making our way back uphill to the No.2 surface plant (which we have visited previously HERE), we decided to once again climb its massive rock pile and take a look around. From the top we were greeted to a sweeping panorama of fall brilliance. Ahead of us – piercing through the calico shroud of the forest canopy – stood the dusty gray silhouette of a lone smokestack. Its solemn and solitary vigil beckoned us forward, and we climbed back down the pile to go get a closer look.

Luckily for us and old road made its way along the front of the rock pile and out in the direction of the soaring stack. Along the way we passed a few small ruins including the gingerbread house Powder House sitting down in a shallow valley. Soon after we could see the stack through the trees and could tell that we were close. It was surreal to see this massive structure rising tall in a virtual wilderness – but that remoteness is probably what has kept it standing to this day.

As we approached the massive concrete tower we could make out the typical flue opening cut into its base. Unlike other stacks we have found however, this opening was rather close to the ground. The flue opening to most stacks usually stand a half-dozen or so feet off the ground. But there was a great deal of debris scattered about the base of the stack so its possible that we were witnessing an optical illusion. This easy access allowed us to take a peak inside.

Even before ducking our heads through the opening we could feel the strong draft running up through the opening. (Sometimes the simplicity of a stack’s mechanics amaze me, simply throw up a narrow tall tube and let physics do all the work.) Up around the smooth concrete walls of the stack stretched heavenly upwards towards the bright white light at its top. It seemed to stretch on forever.

Exiting the stack we took a closer look at the flue opening. Amazing to me was the relative thinness of the stacks walls – no more than a foot at best. Along the inside wall there looked to have been a change in the consistency of the concrete, possible due to a plaster layer or other coating on the stacks inner wall. Piercing through the walls center was a piece of iron re-bar – no doubt only a part of the massive spider-web of re-bar crisscrossing the structure.

Immediately outside of the stack’s opening we found ourselves face to face to the concrete remains of its original flue now sitting on the ground. Beyond it stood the a massive array of sandstone and poor rock – evidently the remains of the stacks complimentary boiler house. We dropped down to take a closer look…

To Be Continued….