Here it goes... my first mine (explored with now-member @Bertuu !) I found this site mineratlas.com which revealed that my area is littered with lots of abandoned mines which I wasn't aware of, I'm no expert caver so I wouldn't attempt nothing crazy but this one seemed...doable! Actually the journey to the place was far more dangerous than the mine itself, we had to go through dense forest with no marked path and then follow a tiny path sandwiched between a rock wall and a cliff to the river below...but let's tell a bit of history!
In 1907 one of the chief urban planners of Barcelona and man of wealth, Pere Garcia Fària, bought a plot of land in a remote part of Catalonia to 'venture on a project'.
(Earlier, he designed a renovation of the sewage system for the town of Barcelona in the 19th century but it was rejected as 'not necessary'...he ended up being a big-name engineer for the Spanish state). The land he bought, far away from everything, was of interest to him because there was a river running through a gorge, and he built a series of tunnels at different levels to then make electricity with a turbine... the project never prospered, but there are about 2 kms of galleries that have remained, going deep inside the mountain, and a part of them were used as a mushroom farm up until the 70's, that's why the name of the place. Outside of the mine there are remains of an aerial tramway and some buildings scattered through the mountain, they were quite difficult to find and I think with a few big storms and some more overgrowth, this corner of history will get lost forever, access to the area was truly a nightmare!
So let's go with the explore, but before the mine... we'd been deep into the woods for more than 1 hour, no road, no path, no nothing...and we stumble upon THIS:
The door had signs of some having tried to break in... we did try to find and access all around the house but no luck.
Going to explore a mine and ending up doing a residential...! It was just such a surprise to finds this house that we stayed there a while.
The place was tidy but it didn't have signs of people going there for a few years... anyway, we had a sandwich by the pool and headed off to now yes, the mine!
Upon entering there's this low tunnel with this fixtures for lightbulbs, then you come to this, one of the spotlights of the trip:
At first we didn't understand the need for a wagon for people, but damn... ahead of us were 200 meters of almost 40º incline...
Sorry, my low-light skills are zero... I'm trying to learn, some come out ok, some like this...but you get the idea of the incline...no end in sight!
Looking down from the top.
The cable to pull the wagon up.
Another wagon!
The main tunnel had some side branches, all of them collapsed like this or dead-ends.
I just loved the shape of this little alien fungus...!
After almost 2 hours underground, we reached the end... I should say not all of the mine is lined in concrete, just the beginning and the end! More details on the way back:
This is actually how the mine looked most of the time, with this iron pipe running all the length of the 2 kms we did.
That's the oldest one we could see, there were some from the 60's and some from the 80's too.
An intact lightbulb!
To get out of the mine we just had to undo the whole path...after that, we walked for 30-40 minutes more up the mountain to the second area of the workings:
This is the sign that told us we were on the right track, an old...something.
The entrance to the second part of the mine, looking from inside. This part of the complex was much smaller but also nice.
It's just this main room with a huge vault and 2 corridors.
Looking a bit like a bunker with this steel door if you ask me!
There was this shed outside, the whole mountain had remains of cables, motors, aerial wagons...
At this point we were deep in the wild and with just the right time to make it to the car before sunset, which we managed to do in spite of taking a couple wrong turns.
Me and my buddy are really getting hooked up on exploring, we're lucky to live in an area with a rich industrial past and no vandals bothering to come this far...this was really one of the most epic days of our lives, exploring a whole mountain inside and outside...!
Expect more to come, until next time!
In 1907 one of the chief urban planners of Barcelona and man of wealth, Pere Garcia Fària, bought a plot of land in a remote part of Catalonia to 'venture on a project'.
(Earlier, he designed a renovation of the sewage system for the town of Barcelona in the 19th century but it was rejected as 'not necessary'...he ended up being a big-name engineer for the Spanish state). The land he bought, far away from everything, was of interest to him because there was a river running through a gorge, and he built a series of tunnels at different levels to then make electricity with a turbine... the project never prospered, but there are about 2 kms of galleries that have remained, going deep inside the mountain, and a part of them were used as a mushroom farm up until the 70's, that's why the name of the place. Outside of the mine there are remains of an aerial tramway and some buildings scattered through the mountain, they were quite difficult to find and I think with a few big storms and some more overgrowth, this corner of history will get lost forever, access to the area was truly a nightmare!
So let's go with the explore, but before the mine... we'd been deep into the woods for more than 1 hour, no road, no path, no nothing...and we stumble upon THIS:
The door had signs of some having tried to break in... we did try to find and access all around the house but no luck.
Going to explore a mine and ending up doing a residential...! It was just such a surprise to finds this house that we stayed there a while.
The place was tidy but it didn't have signs of people going there for a few years... anyway, we had a sandwich by the pool and headed off to now yes, the mine!
Upon entering there's this low tunnel with this fixtures for lightbulbs, then you come to this, one of the spotlights of the trip:
At first we didn't understand the need for a wagon for people, but damn... ahead of us were 200 meters of almost 40º incline...
Sorry, my low-light skills are zero... I'm trying to learn, some come out ok, some like this...but you get the idea of the incline...no end in sight!
Looking down from the top.
The cable to pull the wagon up.
Another wagon!
The main tunnel had some side branches, all of them collapsed like this or dead-ends.
I just loved the shape of this little alien fungus...!
After almost 2 hours underground, we reached the end... I should say not all of the mine is lined in concrete, just the beginning and the end! More details on the way back:
This is actually how the mine looked most of the time, with this iron pipe running all the length of the 2 kms we did.
That's the oldest one we could see, there were some from the 60's and some from the 80's too.
An intact lightbulb!
To get out of the mine we just had to undo the whole path...after that, we walked for 30-40 minutes more up the mountain to the second area of the workings:
This is the sign that told us we were on the right track, an old...something.
The entrance to the second part of the mine, looking from inside. This part of the complex was much smaller but also nice.
It's just this main room with a huge vault and 2 corridors.
Looking a bit like a bunker with this steel door if you ask me!
There was this shed outside, the whole mountain had remains of cables, motors, aerial wagons...
At this point we were deep in the wild and with just the right time to make it to the car before sunset, which we managed to do in spite of taking a couple wrong turns.
Me and my buddy are really getting hooked up on exploring, we're lucky to live in an area with a rich industrial past and no vandals bothering to come this far...this was really one of the most epic days of our lives, exploring a whole mountain inside and outside...!
Expect more to come, until next time!
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