Uncovering a Hidden Winze in the Abandoned Grizzly Gulch Mine
0Does the Grizzly Gulch Mine really have a haunted shaft? On my initial visit to this abandoned mine, I came across a winze in the tunnel floor that had been covered up with a huge pile of broken timbers and ladders. For those of you who don't know, a "winze" is a small, vertical shaft found in a tunnel floor which leads to lower levels in a mine. On the wall near the winze in the Grizzly Gulch Mine, the old-time miners had used their carbide lanterns to scrawl the words "DANGER" and "HAUNTS" with an arrow pointing to the winze that they were so careful to cover up and seal completely. It seemed a bit unusual because two other winzes earlier in the mine were not covered up at all. Why would the miners go to all that trouble to cover up that particular winze and then write the words "DANGER" and "HAUNTS" next to it? Maybe a fellow miner died in that area of the mine. Maybe that particular winze really was haunted. Who knows? Curiosity got the better of me, so I recently returned to the Grizzly Gulch Mine by myself to uncover the winze and see if the lower levels in the mine could be accessed there. Later on, I hiked down the mountain on an old mining road and found another adit for the Grizzly Gulch Mine that led into the bottom of a deep, narrow, open stope. Along the way I documented another one of the mine's leftover, windowless buildings. Enjoy!
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