Mine Exploring Isn't Easy

I would hope that viewers on this channel would have already realized that mine exploring is not easy, but in case a reminder was needed, well, here we are… As difficult as it was to drop this mine with its shaft filled with obstacles that repeatedly tangled our rope, it was even more tough to frog up and out of this mine. There was just enough of an angle in the shaft that it made frogging awkward and, of course, it was a constant challenge to maneuver around all of the collapsing infrastructure in the shaft.

I’m sorry to say that Andrew has reported that this mine was destroyed about two weeks after we visited. And, no, this time I cannot point fingers at aggressive mine closure teams from the Forest Service or BLM. Instead, this time, it was a private company carrying out a surface drilling program. For those that haven’t experienced it, core drilling is quite violent. As such, the drills apparently caved the stopes we saw and filled the voids with rubble.

I’m often asked if there is still valuable ore in these abandoned mines. Yes, there is. The destruction of this mine is evidence of that. I can assure you that a drilling program is not cheap. We’re talking millions of dollars… Investors would not have funded a drilling program with a price tag like that if there were not good ore left.

The ore the miners at this site were after was comprised of silver, gold and manganese. The earliest records I could locate on this mine date back to 1883 and it seems the mine was worked up until the early 1950s.

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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: https://bit.ly/2wqcBDD

As well as a small gear update here: https://bit.ly/2p6Jip6

You can see the full TVR Exploring playlist of abandoned mines here: https://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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