Sugar Hill Mines - Part One

Even though this adventure took place in the 1990's, I'm putting it out here and calling it part one because there's a part two coming up next month when we revisit the location and try to find it again. And depending on how well that goes, there may even be a special part three.

In my younger days I would go to great lengths to find adventure. I had been on a kick with exploring caves, and in my quest to find some new underground spots I started searching out abandoned mines. This was the days before Internet and having all that stuff at your fingertips, so one weekend I dragged Tina to the UNH library and we scoured historical material for any info we could find on local mines. It took some digging but the trip ended up being a success, and to this day I still have the 16 page research pamphlet on mines, locations included, that I found and photocopied at a dime per page.

Armed with this material, me and some friends began tackling the list over the following weekends, starting with the ones closest to home. The first thing we learned, much to our disappointment, was that not all mines were actual tunnels bored into the earth. Some mines are just big open pits where the walls are continually chipped farther and farther back in search of the precious stone. That's great and all from a business standpoint, but standing in a big open pit doesn't elicit very much sense of adventure. We kept at it though, and somewhere around the 3rd or 4th mine we visited was Sugar Hill.

Our first trip turned out to be no more than a scouting mission. That wasn't the plan going in, but after hiking partway up the mountain and encountering this giant hole in the earth, there was just no way to continue. We stared into that pit for probably 15 minutes trying to figure out a way down, but without rope it wasn't happening. Temporarily set back, we returned the next weekend with rope (clothesline I believe, we were no professionals) and I was the first to reach the bottom. With my old 35mm film camera I took this blurry picture looking up.

Once we were all inside we followed a mine shaft leading away from the pit, then next thing we knew we were back out in the sunlight. The shaft had led to a tall and open crevice, and at this point it looked like that might be all there was of the mine as we began a gradual climb back to the surface of the mountain. This at least saved us from having to go back and try scaling the walls of the pit to get out, which was good, but it seemed our adventure had come to somewhat of an abrupt ending.

But here's where things got fun. We found this hole in the hill, and climbing into it we found a completely separate cave system that we could only assume must originally have been tied to the mineshaft somehow. Nothing about it felt like anything to do with a mine, however - there was no structure or uniformity anywhere - but it picked up right where the mine ended. The hole to my left is the entrance to the cave.

Inside was a whole new world to explore. This was a large cavern with more than just one section, and unlike other wild caves in New Hampshire, this one also had several tall spots that didn't require ducking.

There was also a lower level which better than anything demonstrated the depths of the cave. This picture was taken in late spring, on a day warm enough for us to be hiking through the woods in t-shirts, yet here at its lowest point water remained frozen mid-stream.

Climbing out of this lower level was no easy trick. Here I am (back in the days of having hair but already showing signs of trouble), making the squeeze during a follow-up expedition.

Most of my Sugar Hill memories are limited to the pictures I have of the place, and looking through them again has excited me to make our return trip after 20+ years. I hope I'm still able to locate the entrance, and I hope the cave remains as secluded and untouched as it once was - there wasn't a beer can or hint of graffiti anywhere.

I also hope I'm still able to squeeze myself back into that lower chamber.

Links:
25 Years Later - A Return To Sugar Hill Cave