Last week my neighbour phoned me and asked if I wanted to go on a road trip to check out an adit by Harrison Lake. Of course I said yes. Who wouldn’t be down for a short road trip to check out an old mine adit.

The trip only took two hours from my home in Abbotsford, BC. We drove up to Harrison Hot Springs then transitioned to the 4×4 road called Harrison East FSR. Conditions were great for the trip out we got hit by rain on the way back but that’s to be expected on the West coast in March.

I brought along my mountain bike night riding light and it worked awesome! You can see the difference between my super light and a standard headlamp in the video. Check out the video below showing our exploration in the adit:

This adit was created a long time ago, probably a during the period of the Fraser River and Cariboo gold rushes (1860s – 1880s). No records have been found from that time period describing the adit though. During the gold rushes the Harrison was one of the major routes to the Cariboo and many miners worked in the region.

The adit extends for approximately 50m with a slight bend half way in. It cuts through altered schist formations and has several small quarz veins exposed inside. We sampled one of the veins which will be sent to a lab for fire assay. The map below is taken from a 1983 geological report of the area.

In addition to the 50m adit a vertical shaft had also been excavated. Unfortunately the shaft is filled with water so it cannot be explored at this time. Both excavations were carried out to explore a sizable quartz vein. The shaft is right on the 1m wide vein and driven vertically into the bedrock. The adit that we explored was intended to intersect the shaft and the vein. It seems that the miners missed. It is difficult to tell by how much.

Inside the adit there are wooden tracks that line the whole tunnel. These were probably part of an old rail system used to remove the excavated rock. It is not known why the miners abandoned the property, without any information we can only guess. There are other adits in the area that we’ll explore another time. Not bad for a Tuesday afternoon.