Anyone who has skied the Thaynes chairlift at Park City Mountain will have seen the historic building and headframe just up the hill from the base of the chairlift from the Keystone run.
In early April, the Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History, who work to fundraise and save local historic mining structures, learned that the roof of the Thaynes Hoist House had collapsed.
Sally Elliott is co-chair of the Friends group and says this collapse is especially sad since this was one of the projects they had hoped to tackle this summer.
“And we planned this summer to clean up both structures and get it suitable for people to be inside of it,” Elliott said. “They're just awful inside because they've been abandoned for so many years. So, we were going to clean him up this summer and then hope that we could get the shafts kept either late this summer or early next spring.”
Co-Chair Don Roll says the headframe, which is the top of the elevator shaft, is still standing, but is compromised – one because the mine closed 80 years ago and two, the elevator shaft it’s supporting is made out of wood.
“So wood rots, and it's pretty big,” Roll said. “And so, what happens is then it's this subsiding starts pulling down everything around it, including the headframe, the building, etc. So that's one of our first objectives after we make the building safe to work in, is to what's called capping and closing the shafts. And we've engaged engineering firms to specify how to do that. And we're working with the Utah Department of Oil, Gas and Mining, as to how to get that done in the not-too-distant future, because we can't save the buildings until we close the shafts.”
Roll explains it takes a lot more money to repair when the headframe collapses than if they had been able to close the shaft first. This is what happened with the Daly West headframe at the base of Deer Valley’s Empire chairlift when it collapsed in the spring of 2015 – just months before the Friends had planned to close and stabilize it. Instead, it took seven years and $670,000 to repair.
“And it would have been a fraction of that if we had successfully capped and closed the shaft which ironically was supposed to be done that summer,” he said. “So it’s much easier to preserve, then, and because once these things fall over, the cost becomes astronomical to try to restore them.”
Roll says the group won’t be in a financial position until 2025 to start the stabilization work. The group is trying to raise $4 million to repair five priority structures at Park City Mountain and two more at Deer Valley resort. Three million of that will be for repairs, and the other million is to create an endowment fund.
The Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History has saved seven mining structures over the past eight years. Park City has the only two resorts in North America where people can ski by historic mining buildings.
And save the date for August 20 when Park City Mountain is hosting the Friends summer fundraiser which includes a ride up the Crescent chairlift and then a hike to Mid Mountain Lodge for brunch. For those who want to hike down, they’ll stop by and have a look at the work being done on the Silver King mine located at the base of the Bonanza chairlift.
Learn more about Park City’s mining history and how to contribute here.
