The Rock Pile
It is a standard practice for us at Copper Country Explorer to climb any poor rock pile we find, and the Gratiot pile would be no different. However, walking up to the looming man-made mountain gave us some second thoughts. It was much more steep then previous piles, and to make matters worse it was littered with debris. Hundreds of feet of coiled hoist cable wound up and down its sides possibly making climbing it a bit more difficult.
We climbed it anyway, slipping and sliding on the layer of loose rock just on the surface. The further we climbed, however, the easear it seemed to get. Reaching the top, we looked ahead at a narrow ridge climbing another couple dozen feet to a second peak a good hundred feet ahead of us. The peak of the rock pile here was very narrow, and at times our feet slipped off the edge momentarily. But then we received help from the most unexpected condition – the coiled hoist ropes. These were coiled so tightly that they provided an extremely stable surface for us to take on the remaining climb.
Finally we reached the summit, where the pile widened out and provided plenty of solid footing. Walking to the end, we looked out on a sea of green – a lush forest spread ahead of us as far as we could see. Turning to the north we could make out the cliffs – looming above the green see in the distance. Turning further we could make out a sliver of dark blue on the horizon – the expanse of Lake Superior. But it was when we turned south that we noticed a more interesting site.
Here we could make out the valley between Mohawk and Calumet, where the up-rise of volcanic rock that formed the cliffs and the highlands of Calumet is broken by the Allouez gap. We could see the long rise of Calumet Hill stretching ahead of us, dotted with houses roads and more poor rock piles. Surprisingly enough we could see Calumet itself, the spires of its churches rising above the horizon and the Centennial shaft standing tall on the hill.
And looking down below us, the ruins of the Gratiot Mine remain. All we could see was the Rockhouse standing only a few dozen feet away. It was then that we realized we still hadn’t found all of the big three buildings – where was the Hoist Building? We decided to climb down and find it.