This is another follow up to my last post a few weeks back. This underground location is probably my favorite place to explore ever and every trip we discover countless new areas/ things about the place. On one of our earliest trips to this place a year or two ago we discovered large ice on the lower floors. After talking the the guy who basically discovered the location and showed me this place, it sounded like massive ice forms underground during the winters here. We planned a Christmas expedition (23rd) to attempt to see the full ice formations back in December. The weather was insane. It was blizzard like, and more than 3 feet of snow already laid on the ground in this area. Still we brought warm snow suits and snow shoes and ventured the nearly 3 miles to the location. Upon arriving a worker by some chance was outside and turned us around. luckily knowing the area we sheltered from the snow in a hidden nearby small mine and had lunch before a long hike out. Overall that trip was a bit discouraging and I longed for even more time in the underground. That brings us to this trip.
My contact told me ice may remain only a few more weeks so we knew we had to vist the site soon. We decided that rather than drive 2 hours to the location we would make a full trip of it. 3 of us booked an Airbnb the night prior. After the most relaxing start to an urbex trip ever, we made our way to the location early in the morning.
Sadly we nearly missed the short window of time in which you can find these incredible ice formations here. Luckily a few floors still remained cold enough that ice remained but a lot of areas had also melted.
On this trip it felt really good to have a full day to explore so we were more thorough than any of my prior 8 or 9 trips here. We ended up spending more time below than on any other trip to the location. We had more than 10 hours underground exploring and setting up lights for these shots so I hope yall enjoy. It was a blast and I still cant wait for the next trip!
P.S. Hope to connect and explore with more people soon! I travel for work and will be in KC Wednesday night if anyone wants to meetup!
Getting ready to begin the real explore of the deeper levels.
Again but with the plague doctor suit a friend brought along:
This gave me temple of doom nostalgia.
I found an amazing old miners lung Xray in this section. Which of you brought this here lol? (was not here on prior trips)
Elevator to the depths. The stairwell behind this feels like something of a cross between an underwater ship wreck and a building overgrown with alien fungus.
Did I say alien fungus? anyone have a clue what this is? I think it was growing on wood:
Venturing deeper below. walking to place the orange light in the top left was fairly sketch as ALL of the metal here is very very rusty and crumbles away in many places.
Found our first ice chamber:
had to get the group shot, it felt like being in a fantasy game being in this place.
this is as close as it gets to real life dungeon exploring.
Had some fun lighting this room. It is incredible what was left behind. the welding goggles tools and even stacks of blueprints give this section such an amazing feeling.
Found this sink full of colorful jars/ glass containers of chemicals so we busted out the lights and had a quick photo shoot!
Discovered a second ice chamber! in this room their was even one ice formation that was easily 15-20feet tall. Cant imagine how this place looks in the dead of winter.
Group shot #2
Workshop portal!!
This is my favorite capture of this workshop to date.
me
last shot of the trip, wanted to get back earlier but ended up taking this quick shot of the timbered section before the hike out.