Mine Exploration

Over the Thanksgiving holiday my brother-in-law happened to stumble on an abandoned limestone mine.

We were looking for an open area where the girls could ride their dirt bikes and knew of an abandoned limestone quarry. While discovering that the query was completely shut down and closed off, we accidentally found an area of the quarry that was underground and rather accessible.

So what does any adventure minded parent do when presented with such an opportunity?  Go get the kids!

The mine was huge. It was like an underground mall. You could literally drive cars and trucks through it in both directions.

We figure it’s been abandoned for around 40 years. It was surprisingly unmolested.

Over the course of an hour, we traversed from one side to the other (two different exits), and back to the beginning. See the map below.

The green arrow pointing up was what I’d call the main entrance. The blue area above it is roughly the area of the mine. The red arrow is one of the exits we came to, but it was 100′ up the cliff side in the quarry. See below.

The yellow arrow represents the second exit we walked to (first picture at the top). Though the yellow exit wasn’t up the side of a cliff, it wasn’t exactly clear how they got equipment in and out of the mind from the quarry. I’m assuming due to the course of time, there was probably a bridge or some other passage that’s now long gone.

The green arrow pointing down toward the second blue area was a second mine area under that mountain on the other side of the road.

Both sides were cut in a grid formation. The ceilings were roughly 20′ high and the “hallways” 40′ – 50′ wide. In one area of the second mine, there was access to what appeared to be a cave they cut through. We peeked in, but didn’t explore it further.

Though we never found a new spot to ride, we certainly found something cool to do.

– b