Black Hills Trails – Ingersoll Mine
It was 70 degrees in the beginning of March.
It was the weekend.
We had spent all day Saturday shopping and taking Emily to her Festival of Bands Practice and then to the concert that evening.
Sunday (after the appropriate sleep in time) was a day to go and DO something!
A friend told us about some caves they visited near Keystone called Ingersoll Mine. We decided it was the day to check them out!
Our instructions were quite interesting:
“Old Hill City Road west of Keystone. Just west of Kemps Kamp. A turnout on the side of the road across from some trail ride horses. Near a small wood house. Start walking near the rocks.”
I was skeptical of the vague-ity (new word….trademark dibs!), it was actually just as he said. But for the less adventurous, here is the map to get to the parking spot. (technology making life no fun….)
Here is location of parking spot right in front of trail…
The trail was a steady climb up the hill. Come to find out it was an old mine road – you could see the old tracks in some places but looked like plenty of rocks had been added.
When we finally got near the top (hey – we hadn’t been walking all winter…we were a bit out of shape!) after about a 30 minute walk, we saw a silver tin building – which must have been where they separated the rock from the good stuff and dumped it on the truck.
We explored there for a bit and then walked up behind the building and found a whole bunch of different quartz crystals and rocks laying around from the mining. There were some really cool ones laying around. We even got Sarah to come in with us. Here is proof:
Obviously the shaft into the side of the hill. When you walk halfway in, there’s a hole out you can look out:
As we explored around, we found another one that you could walk straight in. It led to a huge cavern with a fire pit in the middle where others have had fires…and who knows what else went on. 🙂
What was amazing as well was the view. As you looked past the mine building to the vista around, it kind of gave you a old vs now feel…
Well worth the exploration! We will probably be back to this Black Hills Trail – just to explore when we have more time!
Happy Caving!