Wengers: Ophir Hill Mine and Hidden Treasure Mine near Tooele Utah

My sister Tracy hooked us up with this non-profit organization called Mojave Underground. They explore abandoned mines, which I think is totally awesome. Let me start off by saying Karl and I are pretty adventurous and love new challenges, but these guys are total bad asses and we have nothing on them (they’re crazy in-shape and have no fear). The miners who did descend into these mines every day for their job are amazing people and they have our total respect. The miners wrote stuff on the walls with their carbide lights and we saw evidence of this throughout both mines. They regularly put the date they wrote on the wall and we saw everything from 1903 to the 1930’s and later.

The mines are kind of scary because they’re old, dark, abandoned and seem to go on forever. Mojave Underground takes it slow and safe and have neat safety gear and with them including air sniffers that look at the oxygen content in the mine, two-way radios, ropes, food, water, etc. Both mines had air shafts that cause the mines to have cool fresh air blowing through them.

In one week we’ve gone to the Ophir Hill Mine and Hidden Treasure Mine, the area is about 1.5 hours away from our house near Tooele Utah.

The Ophir Hill Mine is easy to get to and easy to walk around in, and I thought it was super neat.

It was mined from 1865 to 1971 and there are somewhere around 20 miles of tunnels and shafts in the mine. You can drive into the town of Ophir and park right in front of the mine. On this excursion, we stayed on the main level and it was real easy going, just a walk in the park. We went about a half mile down the main tunnel and saw the main shaft where they hauled ore from below. There was a bunch of old equipment including the controls and a huge hopper where they dumped the ore to load it into the mine carts. We then branched out into other areas of the main level and spent several hours exploring. Some of the areas were huge and there was a large room nicknamed "The blue room" that had a huge vein of blue running through the middle of the ceiling. I was able to get some cool rocks of silver and other crystal rocks. This really whet our appetite for mine exploration and we were exicted to go to another mine.

The Hidden Treasure Mine is a different story, it was hard to get into and had low ceilings (not a place for people that are claustrophobic or scared of the dark) but totally worth it, you won’t get this kind of feeling going on a rollercoaster. This mine was also huge and had about 20 miles of tunnels, too. We met in a parking lot in the town of Stockton, UT and rode up to the mine in our new friend Jeff's 4WD jeep. The road was definitely 4-wheel drive only and it was about a half-hour ride up to this mine. To enter the mine, you climb over a metal grate and then down a 25 foot metal ladder and wiggle your way through a small rock hole legs first. The first areas we went into were no big deal and on the main level. We saw the powder room where they kept core samples and the dynamite. There was some old dynamite labeled from 1947 but we decided not to mess with it. (Note: Our guides advised us that the dynamite has a 40 year shelf life but they were cautious nonetheless.) Further into the mine, I had a moment of sheer terror while descending down a mined area that drops about 350 feet and it’s very near vertical in places. I was not in any physical danger, okay, maybe a little, but mental danger YES, this mine really screwed with my mind. We had to use ropes for this section and I was really happy to have them. We didn’t take any pics of this as we were too scared to do anything but look down and grab the rope. I’m so glad I did it and will always treasure this experience. This mine also had some areas you had to crawl through on your knees and I didn’t care for that much. There were bridges over some deep shafts that made you a little nervous when crossing.

By the way, our group did the easy route and was going to stick to the main level, but we ended up doing a lot more. After descending, we wound through some tunnels and came out by the main shaft where they haul most of the ore up. This shaft drops down about 2500 feet at an angle of 30 degrees at first and lower down the pitch increases to 60 degrees. We had to hike up this (we were about ¾ of the way up already and it still kicked our asses, what a ballbuster.) The second group went all the way to the bottom and every rock these guys carried up they earned, it’s like stair stepper times a million. When Karl and I got home from the Hidden Treasure Mine we felt lucky to just make it up our stairs in our house, our legs are on fire (we decided we’re out of shape).

This picture really does not do this area justice, if you could look up higher you'd be humbled. (Hidden Treasure Mine)

Walking into the dark. (Hidden Treasure Mine)

Angela having a great time. We added coveralls to our arsenal after exploring the Ophir Hills Mine. After going to four different stores, we found them at the Intermountain Farmers of America store.(Hidden Treasure Mine)

One of the bridges, I think this pic speaks for itself. (Hidden Treasure Mine)

Angela ascending up out of the mine. (Hidden Treasure Mine)

Karl crawing out at the end of the scariest part of our adventure. See Video. (Hidden Treasure Mine)

One of the tunnels. (Hidden Treasure Mine)

Jeff trying to pretend he's not cold on the day of the Hidden Treasure Mine

Our new friend Jeff giving us number tags to put on our clothing at the Ophir Hill mine. This is so they can identify us if something happens (nice thought).