The Mammoth Yuhas Feldspar Mines of New Hampshire

Two of our state's largest caverns, the Yuhas Feldspar Mines, sit alone and forgotten on a New Hampshire mountainside.

One of these days I'm going to get the hang of seasons. In my last post I told you about an adventure that we first attempted during the winter and failed, then went back to during the summer and succeeded. Now I will tell you about an adventure that I first attempted during the summer and failed, then went back to during the winter and succeeded. This is the story of our hike to the Yuhas Feldspar Mines in western New Hampshire.

First things first though - what in the world is feldspar? Don't worry if you don't know, it wasn't until just last year, my 47th year of age, that I first ever heard of the stuff myself. Feldspar is a mineral found in granite that is used in ceramics and sometimes as a filler for plastics and rubber, providing hardness and durability. And the other word in the title your tongue might have stubbed its toe on, Yuhas, is the name of the mine's founder. Mining at these sites began in 1927 after Hungarian immigrants Joseph and Elizabeth Yuhas purchased 170 acres of property in Sullivan County, then leased the mining rights to the American Mineral Products Company of CT. These mining rights were sold several times over as different companies tried their luck with them, and at some point the sites were abandoned and left as they remain today.

My first expedition to find them was in the summer of 2017, and although locating the first of the two sites was straightforward enough, it quickly turned into a tease when I realized that I could see where I wanted to go, but could not get there. These caverns were made inaccessible by the murky water that has long since flooded the quarry, and I say long since flooded because it was the kind of water where you smelled it before you saw it.

My boss will be the first person to tell you I have a tendency to get excited about something, and when I do - to use one of his favorite phrases - I go off "half-cocked". In other words, I'm not always the best at rationally thinking a situation through. Just keep that in mind as you listen to me speculate about whether I could walk through this cesspool armed with nothing but a pair of waders from Walmart.

Of course, the simpler solution would be to wait six months for the water to freeze over, then waltz right into the cavern. I realized this later that night, and that's just how long I waited before returning to waltz right in there a few weeks ago.

Inside was even more amazing than I'd dared hope. After entering you'll find yourself wandering through this massive chamber, and when you finish admiring all the ice pillars, turn to your left and you'll find a smaller chamber, one which was just big enough for me to crouch inside and leave an offering wedged into the wall.

Now go back to the main chamber and follow to the right for a bit, you'll enter an offshoot that eventually dead ends at a separate section of the mine. The ceiling is full of leaks, so provided you're there in the winter months (and not floating through on a raft in August), you'll pass the largest pillar of the mine, one which stands nearly twice my height.

With Yuhas #1 thoroughly explored, it was now on to the unknown; Yuhas #2. Its location had eluded me during my last search - resulting in two hours spent wandering aimlessly up and down the wrong face of the mountain - but after a recent Friday night party consisting of me, Google Earth, and several IPAs, I thought I might finally have zeroed in on its location.

We backtracked from #1 to climb a more direct route up the mountain, and after a surprisingly quick hike found ourselves stopping to enjoy this wonderful view.

And in the opposite direction was an equally wonderful view, this large cut through the rock that all but promised we had found our spot.

I've learned throughout my adventures that the greater a place is, the harder it is to find words to describe it. In fact, there are times when something is so remarkable I'd do best to just shut my mouth and show you the picture. Our approach to the entrance of Yuhas #2 is one of those times.

If you started tunneling a highway through a mountain but after a hundred yards called it quits, what you'd be left with is something resembling Yuhas #2. This mine starts off with an entrance you could drive an 18-wheeler through, narrows a bit at the halfway point, then after another stretch it abruptly ends, leaving you facing a massive wall of rock. A ledge along the top feels like it might have a little more exploration to offer, but the same ice that makes this place so beautiful also prevented me from climbing up to find out.

From here, a look back toward the entrance shows both my fellow adventurer John and the magnificence of Yuhas #2.

Every adventure we go on is special, but between the size of these mines, the beauty of the ice, and the mystique of them not being well-known of by the general public, this is a trip I'll always look back on with an extra bit of fondness. Which puts me in a dilemma. Shouldn't everyone know a place like this exists and have their own opportunity to stand here and marvel at it? The quick answer is yes, but then I think about all the places that were once special but are now overrun with graffiti and broken bottles (the Odiorne Point bunkers are a great example of this), and it makes me think that maybe some thing are better kept secret. But then I'm reminded of all the places I never would have known about, if not for the generosity of others sharing their own knowledge.

So I feel everyone should at least know of the existence of these places. It may take some work to go out and find them for yourself, but as with any adventure, that really is half the fun.

Hiking To An Abandoned Cabin

This is the story of a hike that distance-wise was less than three miles, but time-wise took us nearly six months to complete. It is our adventure to find an abandoned cabin on Abbott Mountain, in Shapleigh Maine.

Our first attempt was a spur of the moment decision during the winter of 2016, when we found ourselves driving through Maine one unseasonably warm day with a couple of hours to kill. I'm a believer that every town has at least one unusual or interesting place to offer - many times they're hidden or off the beaten path - and I keep a list of these places on a bucket-list map for future adventures. Anytime I get wind of a new one, onto the map it goes. I opened that treasure map now, and saw the nearest place I had listed was something called the "Hillbilly Cabin" on Abbott Mountain, which is where we began our most ill-advised hike of the winter.

Sometimes my enthusiasm outweighs my good judgment, and on this day I somehow convinced my wife that this would be a short enough hike that we could muscle our way through the snow. She wasn't convinced, but gave it her best shot and got an A for effort.

I on the other hand got an F for common sense, and as a result of this day I also got a pair of snowshoes under the tree this past Christmas. As did Tina.

Having failed at our first attempt, finding this cabin had now moved much higher up on our to-do list,
and early last summer we found ourselves back on Abbott Mountain. Only this time sneakers were the correct choice of footwear.

This is a fun little mountain to hike, and even better if you enjoy exploring old remains and stone walls. Tina found this good sized foundation not far off the main trail, and the fact that she could not see over it confirmed it to be almost five feet in height.

I briefly tried looking into the history on this place, but although I found many references to Abbot Mountain online they mainly focus on the hike, not the structures. And as for signs or kiosks that might offer info along the trail itself, let's just say that those are a work in progress.

As long as you stick to the main trail, however, you will find the cabin. I don't know how many more winters this thing has left in it, but I've dealt with sturdier Jenga towers on game nights with the kids. Some of the more cautious among you will probably be content just to admire it from a distance.

But cautious is a word seldom uttered from my lips, and I found that as long as I tested each step and avoided the soft spots - a skill I developed thanks to our old sun room - I was able to make my way entirely around the single-room cabin.

Wonder what I'm hiding here?

Abbot Mountain has a little bit of appeal to everyone. It is an easy hike and therefore great for beginners, there is a beautiful view if you make it to the top, and there are remnants along the way to explore and satisfy your sense of adventure. We would be very hard pressed to recommend a more satisfying way to spend a summer's afternoon. Or, even a winter's one ... as long as you make sure to pack the snowshoes.

A Backroad Treasure! The Beryl Mountain Car Museum

My plan was to pull the car over and pretend I was adjusting my bike rack, maybe even act like the bike had been starting to fall off, while secretly taking pictures of the rusted old vehicles lined up alongside the road. I had spotted these relics earlier that day on my way to search for the Beryl Mountain mineshaft, and because I'm a fan of anything that looks like it has a story to tell, I made a mental note to drive the same route home so I could get a closer look at the cars. 

The collection obviously belonged to someone, but sitting this close to the road like they were I considered them fair game to spend a few minutes admiring, even if they were on private property. I did my bad acting job of fiddling with the bike rack, but before I'd even switched my phone over to camera mode I saw an elderly woman approaching from the nearest house. I knew I'd been busted. Prepared for an ear-beating about how I should mind my own business - a speech I've long since memorized - I was surprised when it wasn't her tongue that greeted me, but her outstretched hand and a smile.

"Hi, I'm Ruth!"

I recovered quickly enough to introduce myself back, and was soon enjoying a much more pleasant conversation than what I'd been expecting. The cars did in fact belong to Ruth and her husband, and she welcomed me to take as many pictures as I'd like.

There weren't just cars among the tall grass, either; toward the end of the line were miscellaneous rigs that included a couple cranes.

Ruth had such as easygoing way about her I soon found myself spilling details about my day, and how I'd driven to this part of the state in search of an old mineshaft. This garnered an almost grandmotherly concern to make sure I was being careful out there, and she even asked if I was taking care of my body. Guiltily I showed her my legs, which had gotten a bit scratched up during my earlier bushwhacking, but she dismissed these with a wave of the hand as if to say it was real injuries she was concerned about, not boo boos. I had none to report.

We talked a bit more and I thanked her again for allowing me to take pictures, then she went on her way. But before leaving she told me they had many more cars around the corner, and to make sure I checked those out as well. Thinking this day was just getting better by the minute, I drove down the street she'd gestured toward and was rewarded with a property littered with twice the amount of vehicles as before. And I'm not talking junkers like the rusted out Chevettes that used to decorate my driveway, these were cars with personality.

As I was just finishing round two of my photo shoot a golf cart came rolling up, and before I could explain that Ruth had given me permission to take pictures, I was being greeted by her husband, Ralph. Turns out Ruth had woken him from a nap to tell him someone was interested in his vehicles, and always eager for an opportunity to show them off, he'd chased me down. I started apologizing for the disturbance but he stopped me and said it had been time for him to wake up anyway because he needed to take his heart medication, and before I could feel bad about that he winked and told me his heart medication consisted of gin and tonic.

I learned quite a bit about Ralph over the next ten minutes. He is 87 years old, which he said was a good age because when you're older than everyone else, you have more stories to tell than everyone else. He also still keeps plenty active. It wasn't even until the last couple of years that he'd begun to slow down with his work, which at the mention of his eyes lit up and he told me I had to come see his collection of vehicles there.

Starting to feel like I was intruding I hinted at the two hour drive still waiting for me, but Ralph wouldn't hear of it. Next thing I knew I was following him up a long dirt road to a massive sawmill, which I soon found out was the family business. The place was enormous but he didn't want to talk about that, instead he led me behind one of the buildings and to the third installment of his car collection.

In addition to being strewn throughout the weeds, many of the vehicles were inside and protected from the elements. My favorites were these trucks equipped with tank treads, and I enjoyed listening to him tell me the history of these and others I pointed out.

By now I'd given up any hope of making it home on time, so back to the house we went where Ruth joined us in the driveway and we stood around talking like old friends. It was then that I learned the two of them had celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary just the day before. Ralph marveled at how they'd managed to stay married for all those years, and Ruth laughed that yeah, and most of them were even happy ones. He pointed to the house up the road and told me that's where he was born and raised. After a moments thought he reckoned he didn't travel all that far in life, but he followed this up by saying he always enjoyed himself, and by that account he imagined he did alright. I agreed one hundred percent, and had we been enjoying some of his heart medication at that point, we would have clinked glasses.

Talk eventually came back around to his cars again, and I had to pry just a little. Where did they all come from, and what was he doing with them? Ralph is a collector, and although he still buys and sells them from time to time, from what I could tell he isn't in it for money, he simply enjoys being able to look out at his treasures. This led to him telling me a story that turned out not just to be my favorite one of the day, but probably of recent memory.

Not everyone enjoyed his cars as much as Ralph did, and many years ago he received a letter from the town demanding he clean up his illegal junkyard. Well first of all, Ralph didn't consider his collection a "junkyard", and second of all, he didn't want to clean it up. He liked it just the way it was, where he and other people could see it. So he found a lawyer in Claremont who said to give him a check for $100 (a fee that gives me a pretty good idea of how long ago this story took place) and that he'd never have to worry about cleaning his cars again. Ralph wrote him the check, and he waited.

Soon after a letter arrived in the mail, and upon opening it he learned that the lawyer had registered his garage, his barn, and all of his cars as an official museum. The Beryl Mountain Museum.

And the lawyer was right. With this designation, his dozens of vehicles have forever remained protected from harassment by town officials, some of whom just don't have the same eye for beauty that people like Ralph or I have.

The Beryl Mountain Museum can be found at the intersection of Beryl Mountain Road and Saw Mill Road, in Acworth New Hampshire

Beryl Mountain, Part One - The Cave

I climbed Beryl Mountain in Acworth New Hampshire in search of an abandoned mineshaft said to exist along the mountain's west face, and by that account I failed. But as with most things in life, the trick is to frame what you're doing in such a way that you can't fail, therefore I'll actually say my goal was to find myself underground at some point, and by that account the day was a great success.

Mining along the Beryl Mountain ledge began with the discovery of giant quartz crystals by Francis Alger in 1837, and with that find was born a world famous mining operation that operated into the 1960's. World famous is no exaggeration either. Next time you're in Boston stop and look up at the JFK building, it's entirely covered with beryl quartz that was mined from this very mountain, and from the shaft I had just set out to find.

Starting with my usual tricks that morning, I picked a random parking spot half a mile down the mountain road, then pedaled my bike until finding the least-dense spot of woods to enter. There I began a bushwhack that would nearly turn into a crawl the further up the steep ledge I climbed.

You're not apt to find many bad views in the mountains of New Hampshire, but a few are bound to exist and you can leave it up to me to find them. Here's a picture I took for my wife so that she could experience the journey with me, and it shouldn't take you more than a few seconds to find all sorts of wrong with it. First is that I still haven't figured out how to handle lighting and shadows on my phone's camera; second is the pair of trees completely blocking what was an otherwise nice view; and third is that even though I'd ditched my bike at the base of the mountain I was still wearing my helmet, a fact I didn't realize until that moment.

Having already decided I have no problem playing word semantics, I told myself that I'd subconsciously kept the helmet on as protection for when I ventured underground. Some of those tunnels get pretty tight and I've rung my bell more than a few times wandering through them. This explanation might even have worked, except then I wondered why if I was so smart didn't I bring gloves on such a chilly day, knowing how bad the circulation in my hands can get. For this I had no answer, so I told myself to mind my own business and kept moving.

At some point during my climb a wall of rock came into view, and it wasn't long before a dark shape took form. I've seen mineshaft entrances of all shapes and sizes, and from 50 yards away I'd have bet the next round of Sam Adams that what I'd spotted was the mine's opening. It wasn't until reaching it that I realized it wasn't a mineshaft, but a cave. The downside of this is that our state's caves are much smaller than our mineshafts, but the upside is that this wasn't anything I expected to find on this mountain. In all my sleuthing on everything underground in New Hampshire, this is a cave who's existence I'd never sniffed out.

Because I could see to the end I wasn't worried about encountering anything large in there, but I was still cautious because it seemed like just the kind of place something small and cuddly - a porcupine, perhaps - might make itself at home in. I made my usual commotion at the entrance, and after several moments of reassuring silence ventured in.

If you're ever needing a break from the everyday hustle of life, hike to the top of a mountain, find yourself a cave, then just sit in it. Focus only on that moment. There are things that simply do not exist during magical times like these. There is no bickering about which political party is dooming the country faster, no never-ending stream of emails to fret over, no outrage over how inflation goes up 3% every year but property taxes go up triple that. There's only a wonderful mix of nature, peace, and a little bit of creepiness - which when experienced together will reboot your mind as thoroughly as ctr-alt-del will reboot your computer.

Eventually it was time to keep moving, and although I scoured that mountain for hours afterward, in the end I threw up my hands and admitted there just weren't any mineshafts to be found. I did come across plenty of quarried rocks and dig pits, and at one point I found myself in front of what could have been a mineshaft - a covered up area in the side of a hill resembling a train tunnel entrance with walls flaring out on either side - but any shaft at this spot was long buried. I thought this half-heartedly at the time, but I'll be darned if the following week I didn't find a video showing that this indeed was the spot of the shaft, and it had been buried many years ago following the closure of the mine. I had been on a fools errand the entire time.

For any other adventure I might have kicked myself over my lack of research, but in this case my sloppiness paid off. If I had known this mine was buried I never would have made the trip out here to begin with, meaning I never would have found this cave, and that alone had been enough to make this day worthwhile. But as I set off on my 2 hour drive home, I soon found out my adventures weren't over just yet.

For as it turns out, finding a cave on Beryl Mountain wasn't even going to be the best part of my day...

Links of Interest
World Famous Beryl Mountain Mine - by Jim "The NH Rock Guy" Pecora
Part II - A Backroad Treasure! The Beryl Mountain Car Museum

Abandoned Gold Mine in Grafton County

It's times like these I feel the most alive. The sun was shining, the breeze was warm but not hot, and I overlooked a beautiful river that would have been right at home on the back of a postcard. I had arrived in the mountains of New Hampshire armed with a single paragraph of directions, and I had an entire day to see what I could do with them. My goal? An abandoned gold mine said to exist somewhere along this river.

As I gathered supplies from my car, an elderly man approached and commented what a beautiful area this was. The only trick would be the twenty-foot, nearly straight down embankment required to reach the water, which if the gentleman before me had climbed would have been nothing short of remarkable. My guess is that he'd been admiring the river from on high. We chatted a bit, then he went off to search for some falls he thought might exist a mile or so downriver. Just two adventurers whose paths had momentarily crossed - a good omen to start my day if ever there was one.

My own adventure had started with finding a road that crossed this river, and from that intersection following the river upstream until finding the mineshaft in the side of a cliff. The road was not given by name, but of all the roads that intersected this river I was confident enough I'd chosen the right one to make the hour and a half drive north. And although my research described the mine as being a hundred yards upriver from the bridge, knowing how these things work I was prepared to travel for several hundred yards to look for it, and in both directions.

I navigated the steep drop to the water and soon began what I'll call the wild goose chase part of my search. After rock-jumping upstream a hundred yards and finding nothing, I thought possibly the tunnel was tucked back a little ways in the woods, so I retraced my steps, climbed the far side embankment and started bushwhacking.

The great thing about wandering aimlessly through the woods is that you never know what you'll stumble across, and today I found this abandoned satellite dish that had long since lost its battle with the brush. For any of you born after 1990, you have no idea how popular this would have made me if our family had owned one of these growing up.

I didn't find anything else of interest, but because the steep embankment had turned into a full-fledged cliff I was forced to continue upriver for several hundred yards before finding a way down to the water, which meant I would now be backtracking downstream. This river is anything but boring at least, and even had I not been hunting for a mineshaft it would have been a worthwhile trip, simply for all the wonderful pools and waterfalls.

And it was along this downstream excursion that I struck my own version of gold, spotting the opening of the gold mine across the river and at the base of a cliff, as promised. Even though the location of it wasn't very accurate, the description was spot on.

My problem now was, back in the shallower water upstream, I had wandered back to my original side of the river, and the mineshaft was on the far side. It was also flanked by a waterfall on one side and a pool on the other, two barriers no normal person would attempt to navigate. Fortunately that's not a category I fall into, and after slowly scaling the top of the falls I made it to the entrance with 50% of my feet still dry.

Into the tunnel I went, moving slowly not only so that I didn't miss anything, but so I could stop every few steps and listen, making sure I wasn't waking anyone that wasn't in the mood for company. Before long the entrance curved to the left and I began losing sunlight.

Then I came to something I don't see too much of in our New Hampshire mineshafts; an intersection. Usually these turn out to be quick dead ends where one direction was abandoned in favor of another, but I actually had a decision to make here. I chose left.

As I followed my beam of light I cannot remember if I could still hear the waterfall, but I do remember how cut off I felt from the world, and how creepy it was. With my flashlight off it was the kind of darkness where you could wait for an hour and your eyes still wouldn't have anything to adjust to. If I'd been with friends this would have been a raucous old time, but alone it was a nerve-wracking, jump-at-every-sound kind of journey. There was no turning back now though, so like a kid who stayed out too late and has no choice but to walk home in the dark, I walked through my nervousness and right to the end of this tunnel.

Before backtracking to next see what the right hand turn was all about, I left a little memento in the wall. Someday someone's going to come across one of these coins I'm always leaving behind, and they're going to know I was the one to put it there and will write to tell me they found it. I hope.

Back to the intersection where I took the right this time, and this direction continued maybe twenty feet before winding left and coming to a halt. At this dead end someone had left a little memento of their own, in the form of several empty beer cans. I cursed the hooligans that may all their future beers be flat, and made a mental note to bring a trash bag next time I visited here.

I'd seen everything this mineshaft had to offer now, and roughly speaking the entire thing was shaped like a drunken capital T. Back down the main tunnel I retreated and was soon standing in the warm sunlight once again.

My original research telling me to travel 100 yards upriver came from a geological study done in the 1950's, but oh those tricksters from a half-century ago. Google Maps later confirmed it was 587 feet as the crow flies to reach the mineshaft, and adding the twists and turns of the river the distance was more than double what they'd promised from start to finish. A bit off, but certainly not the hardest place I've ever had to search out.

I used to be a semi-serious runner until learning I was a 40 year old man equipped with an 80 year old's joints, and one of the things I miss most about those days was coming home with a runners high. No matter how miserable a day I was having, by the time I'd finished my evening run it was impossible to be in a bad mood. In many ways exploring has filled that void for me. By combining the physical aspect of hiking with the mental aspect of exploring all these wonderful and sometimes creepy places, I come home with as many feel-good endorphins running through me as I did with my longest runs. Only difference is, instead of basking in that feeling on my back deck with a beer, I'm now basking in it on my drive home, sorting blog notes in my head while trying to out-sing whatever Toby Keith song I have blaring on the radio, often forgetting that other drivers might actually be watching my goofiness.

So, if you're ever driving along our New Hampshire highways and see a bald guy in a black Jeep, singing like a fool and looking a little bit too high on life, you just might be witnessing the origins of a future blog post.

Blood Mountain Plane Crash Wreckage, Newbury NH

Pilot error is the probable cause of a 1949 single engine plane crash on Blood Mountain in Newbury New Hampshire. As with several other crash sites deep within our mountains, the body was removed but the wreckage remains, and if you ever make the journey to one of these spots, you'll understand why this is a practical decision.

Our expedition to this crash site was a classic case of don't believe everything you read online. Described as a 1.25 mile hike, our directions said to follow a logging road up the mountain until reaching the spot, insinuating that the road led directly to the wreckage and we were facing 2.5 miles round trip over something casual enough my Jeep could crawl up it.

We found the logging road at the base of the mountain, and although it seemed headed in the wrong direction, a helpful bear hunter showed us on his map how it eventually curved uphill and toward the peak. So far so good, and we crossed this small bridge over Blood Brook to begin our journey.

The logging road was an enjoyable hike that got us halfway up the mountain, but then it continued east when my GPS insisted we needed to turn south, and there was not a southern trail to be found. It also insisted that the crash zone was still almost a mile away. No matter how many times I re-positioned it the answer came back the same, so ignoring my wife's reminder that this was supposed to be an easy hike (a reminder punctuated by her patented stink-eye), I announced that it was time to begin our bushwhack.

Into the thicket we went, and although I had to endure more pestering of are we there yet than during the last family drive to North Carolina, thirty minutes later we found the wreckage. So much for the promise of 2.5 miles by dirt road though, by the time we trudged out of the woods later that day we had logged over 5 miles on foot, with a good portion of it bushwhacking.

Accounts I've read say the engine was thrown clear of the plane's carcass on impact, so we split into two directions with me searching for the engine. As a non-mechanic who rarely ventures beyond the yellow-capped items beneath my hood, I still assumed that what I was looking for would look like a big car engine and I'd know the thing when I saw it. Although I didn't find quite what I imagined I would, I came across this spiral armed thing that I believe to at least be part of it.

We also found that, through either the force of the crash or 70 years of growth, some of the plane's debris is actually embedded in surrounding trees.

The fuselage rests downhill from the engine, still possessing enough resemblance to a plane to give me pause, reminding me that this was an area of great tragedy.

I sometimes worry that there's a fine line between visiting a plane crash site to respectfully view the wreckage and learn about the victims, or just being a big old looky-loo. Maybe it's just something each person has to decide for themselves, but I feel comfortable that we fall into the former category and not the latter.

Soon it was time to leave, but rather than being daunted by the treacherous return hike, I attacked the thick brush with raised spirits, happy that our group of friends was able to be out here on this beautiful day, enjoying nature and each others company, and feeling fortunate knowing we'd still have countless more opportunities like this in our future.

Related Links:
http://www.soonipi.com/crash.html - Sunapee Mountain Plane Crash Remembered