Edgar Experimental Mine

This isn't a tourist gold mine with fake gunfights — it's the Colorado School of Mines' actual working research mine, where engineering students learn to drill, blast, and survey in half a mile of 1870s tunnels. Lately it's gone weirder: under ~200 meters of rock the school built the Colorado Underground Research Institute (CURIE), including a room nicknamed the Subatomic Particle Hideout where muon and neutron detectors run quantum and particle-physics experiments shielded from cosmic rays. Public hard-hat tours wind through the historic workings at a constant 54 degrees year-round. Almost nobody outside the geek pipeline knows you can just book a tour.

The move: Book a guided hard-hat tour, go deep into the cold dark tunnels together, and have them point out the quantum/particle-physics gear before you surface for daylight and a thaw-out lunch in town.

• 📍 Idaho Springs
• 💸 $
• ⚡ Up for anything
• 🌗 Indoors

Where: 365 8th Avenue, Idaho Springs, CO 80452 (Colorado School of Mines Edgar Experimental Mine)

Hours: Tours by appointment; contact [email protected] or 303-567-2911. Public tour times appear via Mines' ticketing site and fill up (waitlists common). Note: the CURIE quantum lab is an active research space and not guaranteed on every public tour — confirm when booking. Mine is a constant 54°F; bring a layer.

Plan a visit & invite your people →

Proof: source 1 · source 2 · source 3 · source 4

Verified 2026-06-07.