This is probably the coolest thing I've done this semester! In Ephraim there are these mines. I guess in the early 1900's there was a market for mine for stone(?) So if you need stone, come on over to Ephraim! Anyway, in 1921 they closed the mine, but they left something for Snow College students to do: explore it!
We crammed like eight people in the back of Jake's truck (this seems to happen a lot) and headed off. The mines are in Ephraim, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes, right? Nope. No one knew exactly which rode to take so we spent an hour trying to find them. It was already past midnight, and the cold autumn air pretty much killed all eight of us in the truck bed. But we found 'em finally.
This is the original entrance that caved in a few years ago.
1. Call someone and tell them we're entering the mines so if we never come back, start worrying
2. No running, the walls could collapse at any time.
3. Whispers only. Noise could cause a cave-in.
4. Count the # of people before you go inside.
I thought he was just being a drama queen and trying to scare us.
This is the entrance. It's actually a lot smaller than it looks, cuz I mean, I'm a pretty skinny guy and I barely fit in there.
Inside was so cool! There is no light in there, and I didn't have a flashlight. But I was using my camera flash to see for a while and I was expecting some monster to show up in my flash at any moment! Super scary.
That is a sketchy beam. Jameson's rules #1-3 made sense now.
After getting out we counted everyone (Jameson's rule #4) and we were good to go.
Then I watched this movie called "The Hills Have Eyes" which is about these people that got exposed to radiation from nuclear bomb testing. They got really mutated, and they live in mines just like this! It's a good thing I watched the movie after the experience.
