THE UNDERGROUND LIFE
Explorers discover the dangers and allure of Utah’s forgotten mines
EUREKA, Utah — Underneath the mountains and deserts of the U.S. West lie hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines, an underground world that can hold serious danger and unexpected wonder.
They are a legacy of the region’s prospecting past, when almost anyone could dig a mine and then walk away, with little cleanup required, when it stopped producing.
In Utah alone, the state is trying to seal more than 10,000 open mines with cinder blocks and metal grates after people have died in rockfalls and all-terrain-vehicle crashes and from poisonous air over the past three decades. Recently in Arizona, a prospector broke his left leg and ankle when he plunged to the bottom of an old mine shaft. He spent nearly three days there with no food or water before a friend heard his cries for help.
Still, not everyone wants to see the mines closed. For years, a dedicated subculture of explorers has been slipping underground to see tunnels lined with sparkling quartz, century-old rail cars and caverns that open in the earth like buried ballrooms.
“Nobody has walked the path you’re walking for 100 years,” said Jeremy MacLee, who uses old mining documents and high-tech safety equipment to find and explore forgotten holes, mostly in Utah.
He also lends his expertise to searches for missing people. That’s how he got to know Bill Powell, who looked for his 18-year-old son, Riley, for months before the teenager and his girlfriend were found dead in a mine shaft outside the small town of Eureka.
The teens’ families formed a close bond with MacLee and other volunteer searchers. Despite his painful memories, Bill Powell decided to see what draws his friend to those dark recesses deep in the desert.
“It’s a whole different life — the underground life,” said Powell, who has a gravelly voice, a close-cropped gray beard and a quick smile.
On a recent day, he and MacLee joined friends in front of a mountainside opening near Eureka, wearing helmets, oxygen meters and strong lights, and carrying a stash of extra batteries.
The group walked between metal tracks that once carried ore carts, making their way through a tunnel shored up in places with squared-off timbers. After nearly a mile, the railcar tracks suddenly dropped into an abyss as the tunnel opened wide into a huge cavern. A hundred years ago, it would be a bustling scene lit with candles and carbide lights, as miners climbed a scaffolding the size of a seven-story building to drill out lead and silver.
Now, it is silent and pitch-black, lit only by the searching headlamp beams.
Though Powell’s son never got to explore a mine like the one his father was in, Powell thought he’d like seeing it. “He’d probably wish he was with me, hanging out.”
The dangers of abandoned mines weigh on Utah officials’ minds. There have been 11 deaths since 1982 and more than 40 injuries. Legally, entering a mine can be considered trespassing in Utah if it has been closed or there are signs posted outside, but prosecutions are rare. Explorers argue it’s no more dangerous than outdoor sports ranging from hiking to skiing, which also claim lives in the West.
But there are hazards specific to mines, from abandoned explosives to the potentially fatal low-oxygen air known to miners as black damp, reclamation specialist Chris Rohrer said. And although some explorers like MacLee go in prepared, many do not.
“It’s just a wide-open, Wild West thing,” he said. “It’s a completely uncontrolled situation.”