Bradley Mine

Even though this was a few weeks ago, I wanted to share a little about this iron ore mine up in Harriman State Park, New York.

My friend Al told me about this place near Tiorati Circle that you could hike to. You had to do a little searching, but between this two rising ledges of rock, you would find the ent

rance to a cave. This was very intriguing to me, of course, so I had to check it out. So one weekend, my friend Sara and I set out on a hike to find this cave. We searched and searched, almost giving up when I finally found the entrance! It was little ways up a hill, but the mouth of this cave was huge!

As we entered the cave, we could barely see any distance. It's a good thing I brought a couple of flashlights. There was one ventilation shaft in the roof of the cave, but it wasn't too far from the entrance, so it didn't help much wit

h the visibility.

There was also a body of water in the cave. Probably a collection of runoff that can't be naturally drained, so I'm guessing it just pools up. It looks like it's been that way for a long time though. To the right of the water when you enter the cave, there is some dry rock you can use to access the back of the cave, but it's quite narrow and steep. I plan to venture a bit further in the next time I visit this place.

So when I got home that day, I decided to do a little research to see what this cave was all about. Turns out, it was an operational iron ore mine that was open during the Civil War era. They would mine the iron ore in order to make weapons from what I understand.

It was a great place to explore and I can't wait to get back in there!