North Taiwan Coal Mines Pt3: Sandiaoling Mine (北台灣煤礦: 三貂嶺礦)
(Last visited in 2021, nothing much had changed) Over New Year I visited another mine. I'm trying to visit as many as I can before they vanish or are turned into stale museums. The remoteness of this mine has probably saved it from either of these fates.
It is located right next to a popular hiking trail that starts from the small village of Sandiaoling, which I wrote about here. Almost everyone walks right past it. The first time I walked this trail I did too. It's fairly overgrown and the outbuilding visible from the trail just looks like a farmers hut. The only other clue is a rusting ventilation shaft but it's well covered by plants. It was the keen eye of a friend who realized this was part of a mine.
A ventilation shaft near the trail
I can't find any information about this mine at all. I only found a couple of pictures captioned "abandoned coal mine", from a Chinese language hiking blog. Apart from this I couldn't find anything about it's history or accounts from other visitors.
Heading into the L tunnel
The mine entrance is sealed within an L-shaped tunnel. However, the tunnel itself and the other outbuildings are still interesting. A rough path through bamboo stands leads to the tunnel entrance. The first part of this tunnel is a siding where carts were stored and unloaded. There are still a number of wooden mine carts inside, along with their tracks and some cave crickets. The mine entrance is in the far corner of the tunnel and is sealed with metal barriers. I found the entrance and the way it's been sealed a little unsettling. There was a small incense burner next to it in the total darkness. I wondered if the incense burner was there because people had died within the mine and a shrine had been made. A friend later told me it was probably for miners to pray at for safety. The entrance seal also has something of the 'dead inside don't open' Walking Dead look.
The sealed mine and incense burner.
Turning into the other part of the tunnel's L, tracks lead to the cart hoist room. A man called Mr Wu has made something of a camp here. Initially I thought he was a hermit but actually he is a computer engineer who stays here every so often. He's cleared a lot of the thick undergrowth and made it easier to get around the site. Perhaps before he did this everyone missed this mine because it was too overgrown. He's quite friendly but I feel he probably wants to be left alone, hence my vague location details for this post. I also would hate to see the site damaged.
The hoist room
The hoist room has a huge cable wrapped around its drum and a lot of other gears and wheels around. It's quite an interesting space with a lot of machinery and relics. Mr Wu said he thinks the mine has been abandoned for about 30-40 years. From the architecture I think it was established sometime in the forties, and I'd agree that it has been left for a few decades at least. Hidden next to the L-tunnel building is the ventilation room. Inside is an enormous tube that sucked air either into or out of the mine.
There are more mine posts here and here. The Hidden Taiwan Map is here. I've not put the marker for this location in anywhere near the correct place so please don't follow it. The adventures that make up these entries are often posted as Instagram stories at tomrookart first. So give that a follow too if you like as it can sometimes be a year or more before stuff turns up here! I keep this project free of intrusive ads but it does take up a fair bit of time. If you would like to support it please consider buying some of my work here