Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: kaymoor

Kaymoor One Mine , New River Gorge, West Virginia. The down stairway goes to Kaymoor Bottom. Eight hundred steps, we're told; we weren't up to it. The miners apparently scrambled up a trail every morning....

This waterfall's on the trail to Kaymoor One mine site in West Virginia's New River Valley. It's a tall thing; the photo shows less than half of the cascade. Just of bit of Joan showing on the bridge.... Photo taken with my Nikon N90s

One of the surviving structures at Kaymoor One mine in West Virginia. This was a thriving operation into the sixties; now part of the New River Gorge National Park. Accessible only by trail (or long stairway), now. Neat stonework.... Camera: Nikon N90s

Camera: Nikon N90s Another photo from our July, 2003, trip to the New River Gorge. Here's a different view of what still stands at the Kaymoor One mine site. The grill at the center of the photo protects a ventilation opening; the mine's entrance is behind the concrete building down the trail. This was a major mine, and during its prime this shelf on the canyon wall must have been a terribly busy place. Four decades after the operation closed, most of the mining structures are still standing but nature is reclaiming them and it certainly looks very different from what the miners must have known. Balancing preservation, safety, and natural decay is a challenge for the Parks Service, particularly in the parks in the National Heritage program areas. This location appears to test those efforts.

The New River Gorge has dozens of ghost towns.... Down below New River Bridge is a reasonably easy trail to the ruin of the Kaymoor mine. Properly speaking, this is not the Kaymoor ghost town; these are the buildings at the entrance to Kaymoor One. This mine closed in 1962, and the buildings have been neglected for four decades. The mine was about two thirds of the way up a thousand-foot hill. Most of the miners lived above the mine at Kaymoor Top, which is still inhabited, or below at Kaymoor Bottom. Besides housing for miners, Kaymoor Bottom had the rail connection to the outside world, and featured a battery of coke ovens for much of the mine's history. This town was abandoned more or less with the mine. There's a stair from the mine to Kaymoor Bottom, but Joan and I weren't up to the 800 steps.... The road below New River Bridge was once the sole roadway which crossed the gorge. It's a skinny, twisty, scenic path down the valley wall, across the bridge at Fayette Station, then back up the other side, crossing back and forth under the bridge in a series of switchbacks. Very scenic, but pretty intimidating.