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The view from "The Cliff Lookout" aka "The Anvil" aka many other names -- a lookout along the Cliff Range. I snowshoed up to this lookout by following the ridge line (visible here) all the way from the North American mine.

Cliffs and Ruins photo blog

Underneath the massive -- but slowly decaying -- Champion #4 rock house. This photo shows the path of the old rail spur which lead under the rock bins, where train cars could pick up copper-bearing rock to take to the mill.

This photo was taken as part of a tour on the Copper Country Explorer weekend, 2010.

Cliffs and Ruins photo blog

Some sort of mechanical-electrical switches at the Champion #4 hoist building.

Cliffs and Ruins photo blog

An old shot from the Delaware Copper Mine, and excellent self-guided mine tour up in the Keweenaw Peninsula. This is a stope hole (possibly better called a "winzie") which connects the 1st and 2nd levels of the mine. The hole connects to the top of a "stope" (an area of copper ore which was removed) which is now filled with water.

Cliffs and Ruins photo blog

The beginning of the tram road from the C shaft of the old Minesota mine's tram road -- yes, that's spelled right -- at the top of the cleverly named C Shaft Hill.

The Minesota was one of the richest mines in the Copper Country -- in its time. But it mined a special type of lode which had huge chunks of pure copper, and which (like most lodes of that type) ran out fairly quickly -- nothing near the 100+ years that Calumet and Hecla or Quincy would survive, working low-grade lodes filled with tiny nodules of copper. The lode mined at the Minesota was right on the face of the bluff, and so the rockhouse and other parts of the mine had to be below the bluff face.

Cliffs and Ruins photo blog