The Kilton Mica Mine is located in the mountains of Grafton New Hampshire, where the Eureka Mining company leased property from M. M. Kilton and began operations in 1914. They were actually in search of a feldspar deposit, but a fair amount of mica crystals were removed from the site which, not being part of the mining lease, were taken by the land owner for himself.
I had spent an unsuccessful afternoon once already looking for this site, but a month later found myself passing through the area and decided to give it one more try. I started off optimistically enough, but after several hours roaming the mountain I was bug-bitten, sweaty, and ready to scratch this place off my treasure map for good. That's when I spotted a group of hikers coming from the direction I was going. We chatted a bit, and I learned one of them had actually been to Kilton Mine as a kid. He pointed me to the next mountain over and said it was somewhere on the far side, and to make sure I was careful of the deep pit near the top. These directions eventually did the trick, and on the crazy chance a hiker named Jason ever reads this blog and remembers that encounter, I owe you an adventure. Or a beer.
I've recently gotten into the habit of doing a couple things with my adventures. One is that I'll shoot a quick video just after finding whatever it was I'd been looking for; the other is that right before I show you that video, I'll find myself having to explain something goofy that I did in it. Here's today's situation. The road that leads to this mountain is called Kilton Road; the pond that sits nearby is called Kilton Pond; and the last name of the former landowner was Kilton. I guess I should have no problem remembering what the name of the mine is, right?
Like many other mines I've visited, the entrance to Kilton begins with a tall, narrow cut through rock.
A cut ending at a place that, with its various pillars and chambers, looked like what you'd get if Ruggles Mine had a child.
To the right were these flooded rooms, a little too deep to mess with on this fall afternoon.
But to the left was the goal of each and every mine I set out in search of; a tunnel.
It extended perhaps a hundred feet into the mountain before dead-ending at the bottom of the pit I'd been warned not to fall into. Light shining down lit up a beautiful cascade of icicles, making a picturesque ending to my day.
But Kilton Mine was such an enjoyable place, I set out last month to revisit it with friends. We arrived to a layer of unbroken snow, confirming my suspicion that this is not a well known of or visited mine.
Several bonuses came from making this return trip during the winter. First is that the ice allowed us to explore those caverns that were otherwise flooded, which subsequently allowed me to plant some easter eggs throughout the cavern walls.
Second was at the bottom of the pit, where this giant sheet of ice extended down like a frozen waterfall.
And it was behind this icefall that I found the third surprise of the day, in that this is not the end of the mine. A crawl space led to another chamber that I'd missed my first time here, and almost missed again if not for the fact I'd been looking so closely at the ice sheet. To enter this new room would require crawling or even sliding along the ice, but our March temperatures were just warm enough that only a thin sheet of ice covered the enclosed room, and when I pushed on it the sheet went floating off into the darkness. I dunked my hiking stick into the water to the point my lower arm was submerged, but still could not feel bottom. This tells me that what I thought was a crawl space was actually the ceiling of a full-size chamber, flooded except for the last couple of feet.
I went home that afternoon still not able to cross the Kilton Mineshaft off my to-do list. That won't happen until next January, when temperatures are cold enough to freeze even the deepest regions of the mine, and I can crawl inside this hidden chamber to find out just what secrets it has to offer.
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