Copper City Washington Ghost Town and Mill Site

Last week, I had a spare day to get out and about. My Grandson Darien and I took a trip over Chinook Pass to find the ghost town of Copper City. The U.S. Forest Service is talking about bulldozing the mill site, so I wanted to see the site and ore piles before that happened.

FS Road 1808 has been closed at the Mt. Aix trailhead since 2006 flooding and bridge washouts by Deep Creek until just recently. The trip to this site was a long 4.8 mile hike one way. Now it's only 1.5 miles because one of the bridges has been repaired. There is still road damage along the last 1.5 miles of roadway to the town site.

The directions to the site are as follows:

Coming from the west on Highway 410, travel approximately 35.6 miles from Chinook Pass to Bumping River Road/National Forest Road 1800. Turn right (south) onto this road. Drive 13.5 miles past Goose Prairie and Bumping Lake and keep left at the intersection, turning onto Forest Service road 1808 following Deep Creek. Continue on this road for approximately 4 miles until you reach the road closed sign and a quarry site on the right. Park at the quarry. The hike begins from here.

Coming from the east, drive approximately 27.9 miles from Naches on Highway 410 to Bumping River Road/National Forest Road 1800. Turn left (south) onto this road. Drive 13.5 miles past Goose Prairie and Bumping Lake and keep left at the intersection, turning onto Forest Service road 1808 following Deep Creek. Continue on this road for approximately 4 miles until you reach the road closed sign and a quarry site on the right. Park at the quarry. The hike begins from here.

Road Closed Sign at Quarry on FS 1808

The hike is a fairly easy hike on the level road with the crossing of one washout from a Deep Creek feeder stream and a few spots where the roadway has become a seasonal runoff. It could be fairly muddy during the wetter times of the year. It is 1.4 miles to the Copper City sign and turn off onto the Copper City Trail #654 which is an old mining road to the mines above Copper City. The townsite is only .1 mile beyond this turn off. The trail continues on above the townsite to the top of Miners Ridge.

Copper City Sign

The first thing you will see is the old bunkhouse ruins, now mostly fallen over on the east side of the roadway. A few cabins were once scattered throughout the area but have gradually been vandalized or taken over by the forest. As recently as 1960, a cabin was located directly across the road from the bunkhouse, but no sign of this building remains.

Copper City Bunkhouse Ruins

Heading past the bunkhouse toward the meadow, is the foundation and ruins of the mill. The only remains here are scattered timbers, cable, pipes and ore tailings from the ore processing. Presently the U.S. Forest Service is considering removing the tailings due to contamination of the stream running through the ore tailings. At the present time however, the ore tailings are still there. 

According to a preliminary assessment report by the U.S. Forest Service, "In June and October, 1997, Washington Department of Ecology personnel collected water quality samples along an un-named tributary of Deep Creek, above and below the Copper City Millsite, and one sample was collected from Deep Creek just above the confluence with Bumping Lake (Rayforth and others, 2000). The samples along the un-named tributary were taken both above and below the old Copper City mill which has collapsed into the drainage. Water sampling revealed substantial increases in iron, zinc, arsenic, copper, and lead below the collapsed mill. Copper concentrations below the collapsed mill exceeded the state’s acute aquatic standard for surface waters. However, metals concentrations in Deep Creek just above Bumping Lake were similar to those above the mill."

..."The Site was extensively explored and developed by the Copper Mining Company which located 42 claims in the area in 1906. Development and production in the area focused around five mineralized shear zones within quartz monzonite/granodiorite cut by rhyodacite dikes. The most significant mineralized zone is explored at the Clara-Red Bird Mine by adits at three different levels and several surface workings. Total development in the area is estimated at over 1,000 ft. of underground workings (Huntting, 1956). The primary mineralization in the area occurs in mineralized shear zones cutting quartz monzonite and granidiorite host rock. Primary ore minerals were chalcopyrite, scheelite, molybdenite; gangue minerals include pyrite, arsenopyrite, quartz, calcite, and tourmaline (Derkey and others, 1990). Commodities produced included gold, silver, copper and tungsten (Derkey and others, 1990).

Copper City Mill Ruins

U.S. Bureau of Mines data indicate that 5 tons containing 34 ounces per ton (opt) silver and 1,486 lbs. of copper were shipped in 1917; 150 tons containing 1 opt gold, 99 opt. silver, and 4, 347 lbs copper were shipped in 1938; 650 lbs of concentrate containing 62.4% tungsten trioxide were shipped in 1940; and 5 tons containing 48 opt silver and 2,000 lbs copper were shipped in 1942 (Van Noy and others, 1983)."

Close-up View of Some of the Tailings

The tailings at the top of the mill site consist mostly of unprocessed ore. At the base of the mill, gravel sized tailings that have been processed through the mill appear to be contaminated with tron, zinc, arsenic, copper and lead. Maybe by processing, maybe just from leaching of the minerals from the ore itself. Whatever the cause, the tailings below appear uninteresting, while the ore above is scattered with visible samples of chalcopyrite, pyrite, azurite, and malachite.

It turned out to be a beautiful day, we came home with a few good ore samples and had a wonderful time.

Some of My Better Finds

Suggested Reading:

Mt Baker Snoqualmie Forest Service Topographical Map

The Golden Tunnel Mine Controversy

This post isn't about rockhounding, but I really wanted to put this info out there for others in the state to enjoy, if you can get to it...

Cadastral Survey Page Showing Aerial Tramway and Township and Range of Mining District

Recently I read a book called Discovering Washington Mines written by Northwest Underground Explorations (NWUE) and became intrigued by a mine named the Golden Tunnel located in the Index Mining District in Washington State. They described the mine as, "a natural cavern, perched 4,200 feet above sea level... It was reported to be 15 feet high, 20 feet wide, and 65 feet long with streaks of high grade copper pyrites in large crystals carrying gold and silver." It sounded interesting, but they described it's location as being inaccessible. This was strange I thought, because they had a photo of them visiting the tunnel and obviously they had been there. 

I decided to do a Google search for the mine and ran across this hostile exchange on NWHikers.net regarding the location of this mine. Click here to read the thread.

As I read the discussion, I could almost smell the testosterone in the air. Apparently a select group of self-elected "keepers of the Golden Tunnel mine" (in this case NWUE),  and a curious hiker who had somehow acquired a map to the mine were arguing about disclosing the location of this very special mine on the internet. The privileged "mine guards" (NWUE) were worried that someone would haul away a 500 pound tram wheel with a helicopter or some such nonsense. Apparently they, (NWUE) are the only ones allowed to tour the secret site and bring in news crews and helicopters (in this case Channel 7 News out of Seattle sometime in the 1980's). Why they feel that they and their friends and families are the only ones who should be allowed access to the site is beyond me. It's just mining artifacts that will rot away to nothing, when they could at least be viewed in photos or sit in a museum. I could almost feel an Indiana Jones movie sequel in the making. This piqued my curiosity and I decided to try to locate this illusive mine.

Because I didn't want to make a trip to Olympia to locate the info, I decided to use the internet. After reading the entire discussion on NWHikers.net, I felt I had a fairly good idea of it's location and decided to start my search on the BLM Cadastral Survey website. I started by viewing the Washington Master Title Plat Map Grid.

I knew the basic area to search which was south of Highway 2, near the town of Baring, so I clicked on a few off the townships there and checked out the Cadastral Survey Links until I found a good detailed map of each area. I usually start by choosing the largest file size surveys, since they typically have the most information. I hit the jackpot on my second try.

I looked closely at the survey map, which was made in 1921 and recalled a few facts. Because some older mines may not be on the map, I looked at the artifacts. One thing I knew for certain was that the Golden Tunnel had an aerial tramway from the pictures and description in the NWUE book. Low and behold I noticed an aerial tramway on the map in sections 20 and 21. No mine was marked, but the hikers' veiled descriptions from NWHikers.net had basically described the route to the mine area, and sure enough, this notation on the map, matched that description.

Golden Tunnel Mine - Cadastral Survey

I noticed that this tramway was located slightly northwest of Crater Lake on the northeast side of Red Mountain above Salmon Creek. There also appeared to be a large valley below where the mill site could have been. I also noticed a notation on the survey map of "Tunnel" north of the tramway. I'm not sure what this is either. Maybe someone could fill me in. I next looked at the topographical map (Mt. Si) of the area on the USGS website. I noticed that no mines were marked on this map either. The only way to be sure the mine is there is to visit the site. According to NWUE it is at 4,200ft. elevation (they could be misleading us though). It looks like a long way in and a long way out of this area. Not a good trip for me, being up in years and having a bad knee. Maybe someone will take pity on me and send me some photos of the site and area. I sure hope so. I want to see these wonderful "historic artifacts" that are rotting away up there for the Eagles to enjoy.

USGS Topographic Map of Golden Tunnel Mine (approx. locations)

I next checked out the Satellite images of the area on Google Earth and Bing.com maps. It definitely looks like where the Golden Tunnel should be. The mill site should be on the west bank of Salmon Creek. Possibly under the trees.

Golden Tunnel Mine Location - Google Earth Image

Here's to the adventurous few who want to track down this elusive AND exclusive piece of Washington State history. Please let me know if you find it.