This is a bit of a change from our normal fare of exploring abandoned mines. Sure, it is an abandoned gold mine, but I haven’t seen any content before on RU-vid about bringing an abandoned mine back to life for the purpose of thoroughly exploring it… That’s a step beyond just putting in a couple of hours to explore and document a mine!
Sometimes access to an abandoned mine can be restored with as little as a morning with some shovels and a group of friends. Other mines, such as this one, require a full-scale effort on an industrial scale. Therefore, I can promise you that this is virgin mine exploring ground! No other mine explorers have ever been able to get in to see what is in this mine.
As I mentioned in the video, this mine was first worked in the 1870s. There are periodic references to it in various reports after that, but the exact dates in which it was worked are not entirely clear until the 1920s/1930s when a full mill was constructed below the mine (I’ll hike down there and film that for a future video). In the 1950s, a forest fire destroyed the mill, the mine’s bunkhouse and even the mine itself as the fire burned the timber supports in the portal, causing a catastrophic collapse.
Following this stunning amount of destruction in one afternoon, the mine was abandoned until a crew in the 1990s took a shot at opening it up again. They were successful in opening the portal (the steel sets in the entrance were their work) and did some rehab work, but there are large parts of the mine that have not been accessed in almost a century.
We’re hoping to change that and to see what secrets this mine holds in the areas that have, so far, been out of reach!
There are three levels at this mine. The level seen in this video, we’re calling level three as it is the lowest (the highest level is level one). Level one and two are caved and will require work to open up. Of the two, level one seems the most promising for us to dig out and to get opened up.
There is also a raise farther back in the workings on level three that supposedly connects to level one and two. However, no one has been able to make it all of the way up the raise yet as it requires some rehab work to become passable. So, we do not yet know the conditions on the upper levels. There is a very faint amount of air flow revealed by ventilation tests, so it could lead somewhere interesting. As such, getting that raise rehabbed and getting level one opened up are a big priority.
I wish I could show you more of the interactions I have with the other miners and that they have with each other, but I am forced to self-censor fairly heavily or RU-vid would immediately yank the video down for offending practically everyone.
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All of these videos are uploaded in HD, so I’d encourage you to adjust your settings to the highest quality if it is not done automatically.
You can see the gear that I use for mine exploring here: bit.ly/2wqcBDD
As well as a small gear update here: bit.ly/2p6Jip6
You can see the full TVR Exploring playlist of abandoned mines here: goo.gl/TEKq9L
Several kind viewers have asked about donating to help cover some of the many expenses associated with exploring and reopening these abandoned mines. Inspired by their generosity, I set up a Patreon account. So, if anyone would care to chip in, I’m under TVR Exploring on Patreon.
Thanks for watching!
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Growing up in California’s “Gold Rush Country” made it easy to take all of the history around us for granted. However, abandoned mine sites have a lot working against them - nature, vandals, scrappers and various government agencies… The old prospectors and miners that used to roam our lonely mountains and toil away deep underground are disappearing quickly as well.
These losses finally caught our attention and we felt compelled to make an effort to document as many of the ghost towns and abandoned mines that we could before that colorful niche of our history is gone forever. But, you know what? We enjoy doing it! This is exploring history firsthand - bushwhacking down steep canyons and over rough mountains, figuring out the techniques the miners used and the equipment they worked with, seeing the innovations they came up with, discovering lost mines that no one has been in for a century, wandering through ghost towns where the only sound is the wind... These journeys allow a feeling of connection to a time when the world was a very different place. And I’d love to think that in some small way we are paying tribute to those hardy miners that worked these mines before we were even born.
So, yes, in short, we are adit addicts… I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!
#ExploringAbandonedMines
#MineExploring
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8 июн 2021
