[JoeF]

Rick and Bill C :

[Bill Cummings]

Don Ray, of Aurora, Minnesota and I have soared the east end of Lake Mine Pit. It is between Pineville MN and Aurora, MN (USA). The pit is said to be 600' deep.
It is an old open pit mine that had to be abandoned when the water table pumps could no longer stay ahead of the inflow of ground water. The shovel on track pads (Like a tank) was able to climb by circling the pit road to the top with the water level keeping up with the back end of the dipper shovel. The water table stopped rising at 1,363' MSL and the eastern cliff is 1,505' steep. (140' high with the north-south rim being .25 of a mile long to soar.) The west edge of the open pit was lower than the the east edge. East to west it was 0.8 of a mile. Don and I both have soared the east rim. Sometimes landing on the ice or with floats in the water during summer. Some of our club from Duluth MN (Skyline Sky Dogs) came up one winter to fly and never came back. They renamed it "The Pits."

Lake Mine.PNG (362.68 KiB) Viewed 1803 times