Maps of the mine
A decade or so ago, The Mountaineers relocated their Seattle headquarters from lower Queen Anne Hill to a new building on the grounds of the former Sandpoint Naval Air Station. As anyone who has ever boxed all of their belongings after years of living in the same house would expect, the venerable outdoors and conservation organization had amassed an extensive collection of club-related artifacts and ephemera over its 100-year history. So they staged a "garage sale" to make the move easier.
Though I wasn’t a member, I went down to the clubhouse on a damp Saturday morning to see what was on offer. A large meeting room had been filled with folding tables stacked old editions of the club’s journal (The Mountaineer), campfire songbooks, and archaic pitons—most available for $1 apiece. And just like many moving sales, this one was observed by an older man seated by the cash box, who seemed by his expression to resent the rube strangers’ silent under-appreciation of his life’s treasures. I’m 97% sure this was the notoriously irascible climbing legend Fred Beckey, just by the high quality and intensity of the stink-eye radiating from beneath the brim of his trucker’s cap.
Several tables were set aside for banker’s boxes holding hundreds of copper photographic plates mounted on wood blocks, used for printing pictures in The Mountaineer. Most were wrapped in newspaper featuring the printed image and marked with the year it was used in the magazine, many nearly a century old. These interested me the most, so I bought a handful, also at the low, low price of $1 each. I might have taken more, but Beckey was making me feel like a ghoul and an imposter from his plastic seat in the corner, so I limited myself mainly to plates showing places I'd been. My favorite was an image of a log cabin near Dutch Miller Gap, a remote passage through the peaks of the Cascade Crest, the ridge delineating the range’s western and eastern slopes. A label on one of the short sides of the block marks the year 1925.
There’s not much practical use for this sort of object, so I placed it (along with the four others I brought home) on a shelf holding a collection of hiking guides and books on Northwest natural history: some relatively new, some 50 years old, and most published by Mountaineers Books. There they have sat undisturbed, looking cool for a decade or so.
Remnants of a prospector’s cabin in the upper Middle Fork Snoqualmie River Valley (photo: Monty Vanderbilt)
Until recently. I was scrolling through the pages of Mid Fork Rocks, a web site chronicling the long and sometimes sordid history of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River valley. (This is what I do for fun.) The stream begins as a trickle from its headwaters near Dutch Miller Gap, picking up volume and momentum as it winds downstream to the town of North Bend and over the nearly 300-foot drop of Snoqualmie Falls (both famous to aficionados David Lynch’s Twin Peaks), before joining forces with the Skykomish and discharging into Puget Sound at Everett, now as the Snohomish.
On a page soliciting contributions from MFR readers, I found a request for “photos of the cabins below Dutch Miller gap from the 1920s when they were standing.” Naturally, I became excited and emailed the site’s creator, Monty Vanderbilt, with an image of my Dutch Miller Gap photo block and the narrative of my harrowing Fred Beckey stink-eye experience. I felt very much in-the-know and on-the-scene.
Monty responded a day or two later, and it turns out that I am neither in-the-know nor on-the-scene. He sits on the Mountaineers’ History committee, and he was familiar with the picture. It was included in The Mountaineer’s April 1925 prospectus, detailing the itinerary for the group’s annual wilderness excursion—a three-week long “zig zag” through the peaks and trails of the Central Cascades, including a four-day stop at Dutch Miller Gap, “where camp will be made near a deserted colony of old prospectors' cabins which have withstood the elements for over thirty years.” Among the local attractions:
Directly to the south, Summit Chief rears its rugged head, followed closely by the jagged black spires of Chimney Rock, altitude 7,727 feet. Then come Overcoat and other peaks which also offer fine climbs and splendid long distance views. The path is guarded on the north by the stupendous battlements of Bears Breast and farther on, banked by glaciers and snowfields, rise the bulky domes of Mount Daniel. The snowfields will provide thrilling glissades. Between the snow banks alpine flowers bloom luxuriantly.
Location of the Dutch Miller Gap cabins on a 1902 USGS topographic map. Dutch Miller’s mine is the black dot just below the “La” of La Bohn Gap, top right.
One of those cabins might have been home to Dutch Miller himself, who dug adits and shafts in the alpine granite surrounding the Chain Lakes, just north of the valley and a thousand feet above its floor. His mine yielded copper and some amounts of gold and silver, among other minerals. Early in the 20th century, Miller’s neighbors might have included a crew from the Seattle-Boston Copper Company, deployed to assess the potential of the area. Had it proved profitable, the company’s plans included an aerial tram to transport ore north to a mill lower in the adjacent Necklace Valley.
It didn’t pencil out, and the area was eventually protected as part of the now 414,161 acres of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness (even if archaic mining laws allow for the occasional specious claim). But the old miner’s stuff is still up there—you can find rusted mine carts, cables, and even bits of pieces of tram hardware. But there’s nothing to see of the cabins beyond rectangles of rotting logs, and only if you’re determined enough to find them.
Copper photographic plate, cabin near Dutch Miller Gap
One more note on the block: Monty asked if I would send a scan of the copper plate itself. It had been sealed for almost a hundred years, and I was both nervous and reluctant about opening it up. But I was also curious, and I figured that with a sharp X-ACTO blade and a bit of patience, I could perform the surgery without causing too much harm. I went to work on the ancient tape that locked down one end of the package, which had been neatly wrapped up like a birthday gift. The cut was clean, but the operation got a bit messier after that. After decades of storage in what I assume were a series of dank Seattle basements, the flaps of brown paper had fused together and wouldn’t yield without some tearing. Through some strategic slicing, I managed to open the end and slide the block from the wrapper with minimal damage. It made me a little sick, but the seeing the plate was worth it.