Iron Range Diving

[Shooter]

We hit the range the last two weekends to check out some of MN other diving attractions. Focused most of our dives on ore-be-gone last weekend as it was a one day trip. Nothing was marked except the chopper and the bouy was a couple feet under the water. Dove the trolley cars, boat, and forklift, but couldn't find the plane or bus. We searched in vain for "lake mine" to dive some of the submerged bldgs we heard were pretty cool. The place we ended up at last sat was called Embarrass pit. A little more research last week and found these are one in the same. On Sat we headed to lake mine aka embarras pit! Had a hard time finding the structure, but when we did it was spectacular! Vis was 25-35' nice and blue! Thought I might have time/dream traveled and ended up in the Bahamas by the looks of the water. Hitting the themoclines was a brisk wake up call back to reality and MN!  ;D After a couple deep dives on Embarrass Pit/ Lake Mine and an alien encounter at 100'  :o we headed to St James pit and dove there. Some nice wall drops and a lot of "sign of life" diver stacked rock piles, but not much else. vis was a little more hazy/milky and about 20'. Mosquito's were INSANE!

Sun we dove ore-be-gone and the plane on the way home but haven't found the bus yet. Looks like someone added bouys to the attractions since the weekend of the 4th. Vis was pretty snotty and bad at about 15'. It rained a lot on sat night. Vis Was better the weekend of the fourth.
DIVE, DIVE, DIVE!

[jasondbaker]

Thanks for the report. I'm thinking of going up there in two weeks. I've been skipping Ore-be-gone over the past few years since the visibility really went south due to the nearby mining operation. Lake Mine and St. James are the places to go these day. I'm surprised that the vis in Lake Mine was better than St. James. Usually it's the opposite. It's pretty common to get 30+ foot visibility up in those lakes though. Bummer about the mosquitos. They were insane out at Wazee a couple weeks ago too.

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[DetectorGuy]

I thought the vis was great in Lake Mine and St James, but St James seemed darker at 100' than Lake Mine. Ore Be Gone was good viz on July 5th and crappy on July 14th Here are some still photos from Ore Be Gone:

[DetectorGuy]

I took a bunch of HD video in all 3 pits but I don't have them all converted yet. Here are some still photos of the buildings in Lake Mine sitting 50' below the surface:

[DetectorGuy]

Here is a little video of Ore Be Gone from July 5th:

[DetectorGuy]

Here are more videos from the Iron Range from July 13th and July 14th:

Submerged buildings:

Wall Dive in Lake Mine:

Wall Dive in St James Mine Pit:

Plane:

Small fish in the shallows:

[DetectorGuy]

Since some people think that the Honey Badger Dive Team only takes what it wants... I thought I would show that we give what we want also. Prior to diving in Lake Ore Be Gone, I scoured the internet looking for maps of the dive sites there so I can plan our dives. I did not find any, although I heard that Tall Pines Scuba had a large map on the side of the changing room building near the landing. The map was there but the ink was so faded that it was un-readable. Tall Pines Scuba is now out of business, and I am sure that some of the other dive shops may have a map somewhere of the area but... I decided to gather up the intel from a few dives we did there to put something together. For those of you that have dove there prior to 2011, you will notice that the depths to the sites shown on our map seem shallower than you remember... The lake level has dropped approximately 10' since 2011. If I missed some items of interest on this map, let me know as the Honey Badger Dive Team tries to be very thorough in everything we do. Here is a map of some of the dive sites at Lake Ore Be Gone:

[jasondbaker]

Nice job Honey Badgers! I think you are on the road to redemption. I haven't bothered with Ore-be-gone since the water dropped and the vis went bad. What were the conditions like?

[Terry]

Nice job Honey Badgers! I think you are on the road to redemption.

I agree Jason, sure glad I'm not traveling this highway alone!

[DetectorGuy]

At Ore Be Gone on July 5th the sun was out and it was about 20'-25' visibility. The temp at from 40' to 100' was 42 degrees no light needed until I got to about 70'. On July 14th it was overcast with heavy rain the night before and the viz was like Nate said: 15'. The temps were the same. I think the surface temp was 56.

We spoke to several of the locals, and a couple of them were third generation miners in the area. They told us that a nearby mine is currently active, and it is the reason the water is cloudier in Ore Be Gone than it was in the past. This nearby active mine is also the reason the water level dropped in the last couple years. They pumped the nearby mine out, and it is tapping a subterranian vein (natural drift) between the two. I did hear from one of these two miners that The active mine is being held responsible to secure another water supply for the town of Gilbert, as Gilbert will not be able to pull water from Ore Be Gone much longer. I think its still a great place to dive even though the vis is less than Lake Mine or St. James. There is more stuff to see in Ore Be Gone than the other two combined. It is a long drive up there, but I could dive it a couple more times before getting bored. We are currently tracking down info about a D10 Cat dozer that was stolen a couple years ago and driven into one of the pits up there. It is rumored to be sitting on a very shallow ledge (like 30' deep). The pit its in is a smaller pit and not regarded as a "divers mine pit". We don't know the name of the pit yet, but I think that would make for a cool video.