Sublunar Photography

Colorado Trip Report

I have once again travelled to the wild and distant lands of Colorado Territory to bring back tales of adventure and photographs of the same. Read on below for some dumb stories I have to tell and join me in stupid adventures!

Click here for the video.

In 2017 I made my first trip to Colorado to explore The Ghost Town of Gillman Colorado along with the mine structures below. Underestimating the terrain, I legitimately risked our lives (a few different times) by not being prepared from the outset. This led to a series of unforunate events. I learned a valuable lesson that day, which I promptly forgot and then re-learned again when I was nearly search-and-rescued on our trip to The Skaguay Hydroelectric Power Plant. Woops. The lesson is simple: Nothing is easy in Colorado. About a year had passed since I explored around Leadville, so naturally I forgot all about those prior lessons despite the added difficulty doing it alone, fresh out of surgery with a broken collarbone... I'm very stupid and I can't resist a good adventure. Okay? I have Adventuritis. It's a thing.

I had actually made a decent legitimate discovery of an accessible mine entrance deep underground (on the aforementioned broken collarbone trip) and I was planning to follow up on, and explore it, this time around. It was actually the main objective for this year's trip. Here's the tantalizing reconnaissance photo I took while not yet healed, wearing a sling, and unable to really do anything about it:

DISCLAIMER: Abandoned mines actively want to kill you. Bad air will kill you before you get very far inside them. Random unarked thousand foot shafts hidden in the woods and any other number of things at these sites can also kill you if you get too close. Risking your life often means risking your rescuer's life and that makes you an asshole. Don't be an asshole and don't try this at home!

I promise I'll wrap this up soon. So I found this awesome death trap, right? I'm super excited because I frickin love awesome death traps but my dominant arm was in a sling and I may be an idiot but I'm not an asshole. I wasn't prepared regardless of the injury. But if I wasn't crippled... I might have gone further inside. Which might have killed me. Which would make me an asshole. It's a finer line than you'd think.

As luck would have it, the mine was sealed not long before I returned. I heard the news in advance and verified myself in person. It had a shiny new metal gate/lock/etc. A significant new development for me this time around was that I had finally met some like-minded Coloradoans. Until now, I have been doing Colorado alone or with only people I brought with me (research/scouting/etc was also a solo activity). So I was fortunate to learn about it being freshly sealed while I still had a little time to find a plan B. Note that I will refrain from publicly identifying the aforementioned main objective.

With the Colorado underground once again eluding me, I did some digging and picked out what was among the most complete set of ruins I could find in satellite imagery, while also not being a well-known high traffic location. As it turns out, this place was a semi-popular 4x4 offroading trail. But aside from some shaky off-roading footage and not much in the way of articles/photos/information of the mines in the area, it seemed otherwise nowehere near as well documented as a lot of others. I visited the first of the structures, which was larger than, but separate from, the main bulk of the other stuff out here. Explored it without issue, though the road was already surprisingly rough at this point. Unfortunately, we didn't rent a Jeep* this time to save money.. and that cost me considerably. To get to the main concentration of structures, I drove the Santa Fe further up some genuinely dangerous trails that were barely over one lane in width and which featured guaranteed death, or a close approximation thereof, if you slipped over the edge. It got worse from there and by the time I decided to bail, I had to reverse a considerable distance to get to the nearest switchback where I could park the car safely and hike the rest of the 2 miles up to the site. *Note that this isn't a Jeep commercial, but on the last trip I was fortunate enough to have one. I had ended up driving through creek beds through the mountains to reach a few spots and the Jeep couldn't have done a better job getting over and through it all.

Once again, I had failed to appreciate the Colorado terrain. But this was my one day to really go for it on this trip and so I went for it on foot after nervously reversing the definitely-not-a-jeep into a suitable spot. I brilliantly also decided to leave my water because I didn't have room in my camera bag. I was expecting the structures to be at the base of the valley and all at similar elevation. And I was wrong. The hike in was entirely uphill and felt longer than 2 miles. By the time I got to the valley, I realized, that after first driving, then ditching the vehicle and hiking the rest of the way, how high up I was already when I could see what looked like an entire mountain range beyond the valley at roughly the same height as I was. And then I looked up and saw the next locations I had pinned were considerably higher up. I was doing ok but definitely feeling the altitude and the lack of oxygen. I explored everything on this level and made the steep climb up to the next. And then I climbed up to and explored the next one but by that point I was definitely questioning how much more I could do. There had been no cell service and I had seen no other humans for hours already and I was finding it increasingly difficult to catch my breath. I took frequent breaks and pushed onward and upward.

I hadn't even gotten to "the good stuff" yet, or what I envisioned to be the good stuff based on satellite views, and I began to feel a little off. I argued with myself and attributed it to psyching myself out and climbed further. I could barely take a couple steps without needing to stop so I could breathe and calm my heart back down. The most complete mining structure I had seen yet on this hike stood above me with a group of other buildings close by. I got almost close enough to throw a rock up to it, but in the end it eluded me. I already felt light-headed and knew that I had pushed my luck. I later realized I was at around 11,000 feet in elevation and I don't know if I just wasn't acclimated or what but it was affecting my ability to physically overcome the terrain and breathe at the same time. I had no water and I had been hiking for hours and it was a much more strenuous hike than I had expected. So I decided to turn back, be grateful, and just get back alive. I strongly preferred to do this without first losing consciousness.

This place wasn't exactly like finding a lost pirate ship in the mountains that nobody knew about but it was still a fun and adventurous trip. And while I didn't get to see what I felt would be the minimum acceptable number of structures I had planned to visit out here, I still got to put a check mark next to this one and return home safely.

The last two photos are: looking up at "the good stuff" (maybe?) and: the view of my elevation in the mountains around me at the point in which I turned back, respectively. I would like to add that they are both much higher in elevation (relatively as well as geographically) than they appear in photos. I was really high, I swear!

Bonanza Mine and Mill

Rawley Mines

Rawley Mine was in the business of extracting Copper and Lead, among other minerals, at this location from 1882 until 1969.

Probably where the "good stuff" was located. I'm confident there was a long lost pirate ship just out of reach..

From the same position as above photo (at roughly 11,000 feet in elevation) facing the opposite direction back down at the valley below and realizing how far I had travelled in a mostly up direction.

This is a pretty rad little spot called Train Tunnel Mine. The accessible portion is pretty average in overall size/layout as far as room and pillar mines go, but the unique feature here is obviously the rail line coming out of it and the train tunnel that goes deeper into the mine. Unfortunately, however, the tunnel ends abrubtly after only a hundred yards or so where a large sturdy gate prevents further exploration. Beyond the gate, within the dark and desolate expanse of these forgotten depths, electricity is loudly buzzing away, rather mysteriously, with no clear indication as to what exactly the space is being used for. Furthermore, there are no clues to tell us from where those responsible for maintaining this underground lair gain access to the site. One can only assume it's either being used for some run-of-the-mill underground storage or some clandestine government experiments involving aliens and/or lizard people.

Click here for the video.