Exploring an old mine shaft, Västmanland, Sweden

Mike's photos

My spot on the web where I upload photos from my adventures

Home

Out of bounds

Exploring an old mine shaft

On my first trip to check out abandoned mining buildings (photos here) I noticed that one of the mine's shafts was not completely water filled like the others.
After pondering on that for awhile I decided to head back with some caving gear, rappel down the shaft and have a look around. I was expecting the water
level to be a bit too high for any tunnels but when I came down to the water level I found to my suprise a few that branched of in a couple of directions.
It's the first old abandoned mine where I've actually been down a shaft and in a mining tunnel system, but I'm quite sure that it was not the last.

I came rappeling down behind the gate which is just above the water level.

The shaft was an elevator shaft, used to lift out the ore.

One of the tunnels I found down there.

It took me to this little gallery of ice stalagmites.

At the end of the tunnel was an exit to the mine, but it was rather steep out there and with plenty of slippery snow covered rocks. I also had to de-rig a rope deviation in the shaft so I ascended the rope back up as planned.