Of all the mines that had sunk shafts into the great Baltic Lode, the Trimountain could be considered the ugly ducking of the bunch. Besieged by mismanagement and difficult geography the mine was never able to fully take advantage of the copper bounty below its feet. From its establishment in 1899 up until its closure in 1920 the mine was only able to produce minimal profits – only about 3.5 million when all was said and done. (It’s neighbor to the south – the Champion – made over 25 million during the same period) Even after Copper Range took over operations in 1925, it could only keep the struggling mine afloat for another five years. It closed for good in 1930.

The Trimountain’s first shaft – the No. 1 – sits on the mine’s southern boundary only a couple hundred feet from the nearby Champion property. It was abandoned rather early, having reached a depth of slightly over 2200 feet. For most of its mine’s life the shaft was mainly used as a waste dump for the large amount of sand the other shafts were producing. (The Trimountain was blessed with a large amount of sand overburden atop of its section of the Baltic Lode) Due to this we weren’t confident that we would find much in the way of ruins on the site today.

We started our journey by cutting down from the highway on an old two-track towards the old Copper Range spur line to the mine. Since the No.1 was our goal, we followed this old line south towards its terminus and then backtracked in search of the No.1′s spur line. It would be the old shaft’s rock piles that caught our attention first.

It wasn’t just one rock pile that we had found, but a few. There seemed to be a large collection scattered about in the vicinity, possible done more recently by bulldozers. As we stepped through the rocky terrain we found ourselves up against a steep bluff. Tumbling down from the top of the bluff was yet another rock pile, this one the largest of the bunch. We knew we were close and kept a sharp eye out for ruins. It wasn’t long before we found some.

What we found was sitting near the base of that large rock pile in the form of a concrete slab. The slab was rectangular in size and was topped by a pile of poor rock. It was our guess that this was most likely the cap to the No.1 shaft, and as we suspected there wasn’t too much else around. While the No.2 shaft to the north (which we had previously explored here) had been given a modern rock-house complete with a large concrete foundation, the No.1 hadn’t been so lucky. We couldn’t find any other evidence of the rock house that once stood here – just the cap.

We then turned out attention towards the second piece in our ruin puzzle – the hoist. Knowing the strike of the Baltic Lode we guessed that the hoist would most likely be to the east of us. This meant a steep climb up the side of the nearby rock pile which we laboriously undertook. As we reach the top we were greeted to a nice overlook across the calico fall forest beyond and behind us we also could view what looked like a large rock wall hidden in the trees. Our hoist perhaps?

The wall that faced us was very heavily overgrown and interrupted by a great deal of fallen trees and dead wood. We made our way around its perimeter to see just what we were dealing with. Whatever it was it was surely large enough to be the hoist building we were looking for.

On the ruin’s far side the topography dropped down and the surrounding ground cover opened up to reveal a very impressive stone wall. Standing a good six feet in height, the wall was covered by a thick layer of moss and lichen. We moved along the featureless monolith in search of any way to get inside.

As we turned yet another corner we were confronted with yet another topography change. On this side the wall was only a few feet tall allowing us to take a gander over the top. Before we did our attention was drawn to this brick-lined opening. The brick lining together with the arched top looked very familiar to us. We have seen these before on several other hoist ruins – this was a steam pipe inlet (or exhaust outlet) to the engine inside. Looks like we had found our hoist. We took a peek over the wall to make sure…

The ruin’s interior turned out to be even more impressive then what we had seen so far. Down below our vantage point stood a massive rock foundation, embellished on its corners with a series of red sandstone blocks. A thick moss covering capped it all, punctured at intervals by a series of sawed off iron posts. Surrounding it all was a massive outer wall which stretched out into the surrounding underbrush. (Take a look at the BIG PICTURE to see for yourself) We were pretty sure we had found what we were looking for.

To be continued….