This whole area had been on my list to explore for a while and so I was happy to add this zinc mine, hidden away up a canyon, to my itinerary… Some of my best explores have been those mines that I know nothing about before visiting. Usually, I will know nothing about a mine because it is obscure and/or remote. So, there is a “lottery ticket” element to these abandoned mine explores as they can be a complete bust (the mine is eroded shut or impossible to access or whatever) or they can be phenomenal.
I was able to learn more about this particular mine after I returned home and dug deeper into the archives… The mine was developed and worked during World War I, when several hundred tons of lead-zinc carbonate ore was extracted. Apparently, it was mostly a surface deposit and the ore pinched out completely at a depth of less than fifty feet.
Interestingly, it was noted that the ore was packed (rather than trucked) down the steep canyon to the closest road junction. I didn’t show it in the video, but there were several steep drops in the canyon. We even had to use rope to get over one section. So, as I mentioned in the video, it would have been an extraordinary amount of work to make that canyon reasonably accessible for the miners to haul equipment (such as the compressor) up or ore down. Of course, flash floods have undone all of the work the miners did on the road up the canyon to the mine.
Oh, and some of you may be wondering about the lower trail… Looking at this abandoned mine from above again, I can see now that the lower trail crossed the ravine and led up to those smaller workings on top of the ridge.
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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 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!
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8 мар 2022
