Vacation, 2023 - Thread - Urban Exploration Resource

The summer of 2023 my girlfriend, our dog and I spent 8 days travelling mostly across Washington and back into Oregon visiting abandoned and historical places along the way.

The first stop was the train crash site from the movie "Ring of Fire". Maybe a minute before the gate you park at, we had a baby deer jump out in front of our car and it unfortunately was not fast enough. We did the hike out to the spot and did a chunk of the descent down until we realized there was absolutely no way we would be able to get ourselves and our dog down further given how steep some of the rope was. I had underestimated it based on the info I was able to get beforehand. We did the trek back up tired and hungry, made a quick meal on the camp stove and drove the rest of the way to our campsite for the night, getting there somewhere around midnight. What a start.

Somewhere not too far below me in this picture is the 1924 train engine's corpse, lying dormant forever in the waters.

The next day, on to some coastal bunkers. This first one is on what is now reservation land,
so I was glad to see their was some local flair in the graffiti on it.
Hand scrawled tag from 1956.
Ember dog in the entrance with Kilroy.
Photo taken by my partner.
After many years, the view of the ocean out of the bunker is a bit overgrown.
The second bunker, "Majestic". The first one was pretty clean but this one, had seen much much better days inside.
Whatever view of the ocean existed before is gone now.

The next day, headed deep in to the Olympics to check out the B-17 site and some mines. We stopped at the Manis mastodon plaque on the way in so Ember could compare her size to the mammoth that was once there.
Unfortunately I underestimated this hike also, and after doing a few miles in and talking to some other hikers we realized there was no way we'd finish with daylight, so we trekked back to the car. Disappointing, but we did manage to get some of the most photogenic pictures of Ember I'll probably take on the way back lol.
There was a nice bonus of this overgrown cabin on the drive out. We spent that night at a campground way out in the middle of nowhere in Dewatto. Pulling up to our site, we spent a good chunk of that night dealing with a drunk dude of at least 60 years old who was blasting his bluetooth speaker and falling asleep against his car. Wild.
Drove on to my first ferry over to the Seattle area. It was later this evening that I came down with a pretty bad stomach bug for the next day and a half, screwing up our schedule and causing us to book a motel in Everett for that night. Seems the most likely culprit was some campground water supply.

What this had delayed was one of the most exciting parts of the trip for me, having read books and scrounging up every last piece of info I could find on it:
Monte Cristo.

We did the beautiful drive through the mountains up, and arrived about mid-day.
It took a while to get everything we would need together, and we ended up starting the six mile hike alongside another hiker Dane, and his very excited puppy Cedar.
It was hot, arduous, and bug-filled but we made it to the primitive campsite entrance up there just as it was starting to get worryingly dark.
We heard a yell from up above us, and it's Dane. He'd gotten there much faster than us and said he had been keeping an eye out to make sure we made it okay. Being able to plop our bags down, cook dinner and set up camp was a very welcome reprieve.
The next morning we woke up groggy and sore, and set off into the former townsite. It's hard to say exactly which buildings are from which generation of the town, the 1800's mining town or the 1950's tourist reincarnation. Assumedly most the structures that are left are from that second era though. Many of them have been reinforced to withstand the heavy snowfall that happens every year there, but even with those reinforcements they've fallen to time.
This one however you can tell the era by the sign
Walls of the former ore concentrator
One very old piece of equipment that will never operate again.
Off the beaten path there's plenty of artifacts to be found.
Mine cart (apparently I didn't get an in focus picture.)

So one of the main reasons I was interested in Monte Cristo is the mines. I was hoping to at least take a peak into a few adits. However, we realized once we were up there that my partner had not packed as much water as I thought we had agreed to. The problem with that? The water in the area is basically poisonous.

Years of ores being dumped directly into the main water source running through the town means very high levels of arsenic that can't just simply be boiled out. So basically there was no way we'd be able to continue hiking higher to the mines in this heat and then have enough water to make it back safely. This was super disappointing to realize. You might be noticing a pattern in these excursions at this point. We made the smart move and decided to check out what we could of the town and then pack up camp and head back on the long hike.
This well was placed here by ecologists to monitor the soil as they make efforts to reverse things to non-dangerous levels.

The 6 mile hike back was one of the worst I've done. We ran out of water and by the time we got back to the trailhead, my cottonmouth was so bad I could barely talk. I've never been happier to have a freshwater source in my life.

We said goodbye to Monte Cristo and although I'm glad we got to see some things at least, I vowed to come back more experienced and better equipped. Ember took the hardest nap of her life as we headed to our next destination
We drove through Stevens Pass and booked another motel for the night. Now we were moving from lush, verdant forests to the high desert.
From 80 degrees to 100. The ruins continued of course.
In the middle of the desert is the Govan Schoolhouse, a regular stop for many. Who knows if the three residents of the "town" were home that day. I think we scared off a family in a minivan who was nervous about being there when we pulled up. The outside of the building was a field of desert scrub flowers, which were covered in what must have been thousands of these butterflies.
Photo taken by my partner.
Kilroy returned.
These kids and their dad parked and ran to this house right as I was getting ready, making for this fun shot.

... and that's pretty much it! We spent a few days in the desert heat, packed up and headed back to Oregon bedraggled. Overall I think the trip was a success, but my main takeaway was not to underestimate some of these locations and the time and physicality they may need. Wow this took a while to put together, sitting here at midnight as I publish this. If you read this far, thanks! Hoping to see more in 2024.

- Skyguide