Red Mountain Park

Red Mountain Park. Birmingham, AL

Wednesday, April 13, 2016  (Upper section of Park)

We heard about Red Mountain from some other folks camped at Oak Mountain State Park.  We had come to Birmingham to see the Body Worlds Exhibition and planned to spend a few days at Oak Mountain.  But since we had hiked most of the trails here decided to check out Red Mountain Park.

There is a very nice dog park (Remy Dog Park) within Red Mountain Park and dogs are allowed on all of the trails.  We did not take Bailey since we didn't know how rocky the trails were and because she tends to pull a lot on trails.  Although we did want to explore the trails, we didn't want to do it at a gallop so she went for a long walk before we left and napped while we hiked.

The park is built on the site of an old iron mining operation.  The mine was operational from the 1890’s through around the 1920’s, then was put back into operation in 1941 to supplement iron demands during the second World War.

The picture below shows the mining site during its heyday.  Miners lived on site in several camps.  The site also had a doctor’s office, a commissary, a bathhouse, as well as machine shops to support the mining operations.  Ore from this site supplied the Oxmoor Furnaces from 1863 to 1928.

Today the site is a debt-free, no admission park for the citizens of Birmingham and the surrounding areas.  It is funded completely by donations and maintained by donated labor.  The Remy dog park on site is a large, fenced park with separate areas for large and small dogs, as well as an area for “special needs” dogs – described as those dogs who are shy, injured, or recovering from an injury.

The Adventure Area is the only fee area of the park.  It features a ropes course designed for team building exercises, and the Kaul Adventure Tower where you can embark on the Red Ore Zip Line.  The tower also has a climbing wall on one side.  Schaffer Segway Tours also has a headquarters here.

The tower is modeled after a beanstalk, with “leaf” platforms all along its trunk.  You can see the climbing wall on the right side.  At the top you would begin your zipline tour.

Many of the trails are actually old mining roads and are therefore quite open and wide.  This is one such trail near the ropes course.

We walked the BMRR trail up to Ishkooda Mine 13.  It was originally opened in 1873 under the name Eureka #2 but the name was changed to Ishkooda when Tennessee Coal and Iron took over the operations around 1900.   As you can see from the dates on the concrete wall, this shaft was closed in 1933.  This was actually the end of the rail line for the #13 mine.  (Later in the day we realized that BMRR trail meant XX RailRoad, and that the “trail” was actually an old rail line.  We discovered this when we found railroad ties almost buried in the trail and some rail spikes in the trail).  We think that the second picture is the actual mine shaft.

The main mine slope extends over 4900 feet along the ore seam.  Later workings here stretched several miles under Oxford Valley and had an average depth over 1500 feet.

We left the railroad for the Ike Maston Trail up to Ishkooda #14 mine.  This was an actual hiking trail and wove around the hills and valleys up to the mine.  It is interesting to note that although there had been significant rain in the area less than a day ago, most of the trail was dry except for a few potholes that were still full of water.  The actual trails had little standing water.

Mine #14 also had a rail line to carry away ore.  As the inscription states, this mine operated from 1895 to 1941.

From the #14 mine we continued up the Reding-Ishkooda trail toward Grace’s Gap overlook.  Near that overlook we passed the Rushing Rendezvous Treehouse.  The treehouse was really only a platform surrounding the tree trunk.  The main attraction was the rope bridge by which you accessed the tree house.

The first is a picture of Lyle crossing the bridge to the tree house.  The second picture was actually taken on the bridge entrance.  Although it is quite sturdy, it is still a little unnerving because it is only a little over a foot wide and does sway quite a bit.

Grace’s Gap Overlook was a little underwhelming.  It was probably the high point on the mountain but it wasn’t exactly a scenic view.   I suppose it would have been a little better on a nice sunny day.

The wildflowers on the trail nearby were a prettier view

Other than these, there were few flowers along the trails.  There were quite a few flower petals in the pathways.  It appears that they may have been blossoms that were blown off in the rainstorm a couple of nights ago.

There was also a carpenter bee working in one of the rail posts at the overlook.

We had to retrace our steps back down to trail heading toward the parking area.  It was getting late in the afternoon and we had already been about 5 miles.  Heading southwest just past Mine #14 we can across Riley Roose Treehouse.  This one wasn’t as interesting.

However, just across from the treehouse platform were several more concrete ruins.  From the posted picture of the mine area (first photo in this series) we think that this may have been the steam hoist and boiler house for the mine.  The hoisting engine used to lift the 15 ton ore “skip” up the #13 main slope was one of only two steam powered hoists still in use in the mid-1900’s and was still in operation when the mine closed in the late 1950’s.

A flash picture through one of the small openings in the building in the right picture showed that this was the foundation of a large building.  The general location and size suggested the boiler house.

We passed several more “ruins” on the way back to the parking area.

We actually only explored about half of the park, but the rest will have to wait for another day.  There is another treehouse to the south end of the park, two additional mines, and many miles of trails left to explore. But it will have to wait for another day.