I was coming down to the last of my State Parks, with two near the southeast corner of the state, and two near the center of the state, so I headed on a little day-trip to check off the two middle parks: Lake Vermillion-Soudan Underground Mine and Bear Head Lake.
My Dad wanted to accompany me to the parks, so we drove to Soudan early one morning and booked a mine tour.
We got there a little early, so we walked around the buildings for a few minutes.
There was a giant engine room, which helped operate the elevators that took us down into the mines.
And there was a cool view of a building that would cart the steel from the mines to the trains that would deliver it.
Carts would haul steel to the edge of the dock, and they’d drop it into the train cars below.
Soon enough, it was time to pack into the elevator.
At first I was not excited to be jam-packed into an elevator with a bunch of strangers, but once we got going, it was actually probably for the best, as it kept us from jostling around too much.
We were assured that the elevator was perfectly safe and could take much heavier loads to the mines, but it was also original technology to the mines, and to be quite frank, it sounded like we were being hauled to hell as we descended into the mine. The sounds were extremely loud and a little disconcerting, and the windows began to fog up and pick up moisture as we got lower. The elevators shook like crazy as we plummeted to the bottom of the mine. Our guide held a flashlight up to the window so we could see different levels of the mines as we passed them, but it was a little hard to truly see them through the foggy windows.
It was pretty exciting to ride down there, though. I’ve been on other cave-like tours before, but none of them shuttled you so deeply into the caves.
When we got out of the elevators, we picked our seat in the mine cart.
I was pretty pumped at this point.
We were told to keep our hands and heads inside the cart and below the flag above our cart at all times, to make sure we didn’t lose a limb or worse. And off we went, deeper into the mine!
It moved pretty fast, which was fun.
We were at Level 27 of the mine, 2,341 feet below the surface.
We walked into Level 27, and our guide told us about the steel found in the cave, and the lives of the miners who had worked there. We found out that at first, miners were expected to supply their own dynamite, because the mining companies didn’t want to have to pay for it, and thought the miners would be more conservative with their use of it if they were responsible for the costs, which was crazy to me.
Another insane detail was that, despite how dark the mine was while we were there, it was incredibly darker while miners were actually working in it. Our guide turned the lights off at Level 27 and showed us how dark it would have been while miners were working.
I don’t understand how people could work in that level of darkness. Especially with dynamite! It’s crazy.
Our guide walked us through other sections of Level 27, eventually bringing us back to where we started, and passing around some of the steel that was found in the mine, so we could see how heavy it was.
And then, back to the elevators!
The ride up was a little better.
When we made it back to the surface, we perused the grounds again.
We walked back to the loading buildings, which were interesting to see.
We strolled to the edge of the loading area, which actually had a pretty view.
We also saw that they had Christmas lights still hung on one of the buildings.
Pretty cute.
The whole area was beautiful – the leaves were just starting to turn at that point, so the landscape was gorgeous.
I never would have made it as a miner, but the area itself was beautiful.
Before they created the mine system that we toured, the original mine was an open pit, which you could still visit, so we headed that way.
It was a crazy deep pit that they used to get steel from.
Like I said, I would have never made it as a miner.
Next, we checked out the Lake Vermillion side of the park.
It had a nice set of docks for folks to take their boats out on.
It was also just a beautiful time of year to visit, as the leaves were incredible.
Check it out in September, folks.
We walked around the lake for awhile before heading to our next destination: Bear Head Lake State Park.
It was gorgeous, and the water was super clear.
It was a pretty area, and a large park. They had lots of picnic tables for folks to eat at, and a lot of gorgeous shoreline to walk along.
We checked out one of the trails at the park, which led a little deeper into the woods.
There was a pretty lake that we hiked down to.
The water was definitely not clear here. More of a nice green!
It was still beautiful to walk through – parks with these kinds of tall wooded spaces are totally my jam.
I love a good staircase in the middle of the woods.
And that completed our State Park adventure!
It was definitely a unique State Park experience to take a tour of the mines, and it was really fun hiking along Bear Head Lake State Park. There are some parks on my list that I’ve been happy to visit, but likely won’t return to, and then there are some like Bear Head Lake that would be glad to come back and camp and hike at.
Next on my adventure docket would be to check this item off my list, and visit my very last two State Parks in Minnesota. Stay tuned for a bittersweet adventure.
Want to read more about my 25 Things list? Click here for more adventures.
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