Okay, we're going to check out this abandoned mine! Look at this portico sticking out!
It has a door on it. There’s the door on the left. So we're going to head on
in here and see where this goes. It goes right into the hillside. Check it out!
Okay, we're just inside the portal, and there is some lawn furniture down there probably from the
miners. There’s a lot of air flow through here, so we're going to head down there and check it out.
Okay, we are just inside the portal of an abandoned mine.
That’s Jeff up there from OTG Exploring. Check out his channel! There will be a slide-out card in the
upper right-hand corner of the screen right about now with a link to his channel. He’s got some
pretty cool videos over there, so check him out! It looks like we have some miners’ furniture here.
Here’s a chaise lounge and this is probably a cot. Most likely two miners might have worked
this mine, and they slept in here. One slept on that chaise lounge and the other probably slept on
a mattress or sleeping bag that was on this cot. There are a lot of timbers here on the ground.
Oh, here comes Jeff! I'm in trouble.
I guess I'm not! Yes, there are a lot of timbers here on the ground. You have
to be careful that this might be a false floor over a shaft. I don't think it is.
Jeff made it across. Lots of extra timbers and boards. There was a portico at the entrance,
so it was pretty well-timbered. It’s kind of wet in here. It’s very soggy.
Here is one of these stakes. Stan in Arizona said these were called standoffs — these wooden spikes
that you see near the ceiling of the tunnel. They were used to hang up the electrical lights or the
ventilation tubing or whatever, and that's what those were used for. I didn’t know they
were called standoffs, so that's a mining term for you. Okay, it's kind of turning
silver here in color. Or gray. See that? It looks like we're in a very wet intersection.
So here's the intersection. Jeff is coming back from that way where there are a couple ore
chutes and tracks. There’s a false floor there. It looks like — oh! It has a shaft going down right
there to his left! See that? JEFF: “It goes down about 100 feet.” Here’s a tunnel straight ahead
and then something here off to the right. Let’s check out this shaft over here where Jeff is.
So here's a heavily timbered chute coming down from upper areas.
See how they plugged up the hole up with timbers?
Sketchy….
It looks really primitive with these big tree trunks. Those tree trunks are
about a foot in diameter. JEFF: “Aren’t these types of timbers from the 1800s?”
So here's looking down this series of ladders.
Right at the bottom of this first ladder, which you can't really see in the video, there are about
three or four rungs that are busted or missing, so we're not going to go down here. It’s just
a little sketchy and without a rope it's just not a good idea. It looks like there might be
a tunnel down there at the bottom going left and right. I don't know. We just came from that way
and we'll keep going this way. It looks like a major collapse is here. Here’s this big chute,
and look at all the retaining wall that's holding back tons and tons of waste rock!
And this is ore chute number four. We’ll check it out and get past this collapse. So we noticed
right here between the ore cart tracks are a bunch of old nails laying on a piece of lumber.
Okay, we just climbed up this waste rock pile here. Look at that big timber there! That’s
more than a foot in diameter! So this collection point is for
this — let me turn around here — looking up here into a stoped out area. You can see the waste
rock I'm sitting on, and you can see daylight up there. This is like we're at the bottom of
an ore pass or an open stope. All this rock I'm sitting on behind me here
came from above me, and we just came from down there over that timber. You’re looking up into a
stope chamber, and you can see daylight up there. That’s pretty cool! The tunnel
continues this way. There’s a ladder over there so let's go check it out!
Some interesting color there where my light is. It’s kind of a greenish color right there where
my light is — a greenish yellow color. Looks like sulfur. Here’s a ladder, and here comes Jeff.
This ladder just goes up here into a little
area. Somebody was digging out rocks up here. You can see…. Let me go up a couple rungs.
This doesn't go anywhere up here. Let me turn around here.
This is just a little area — a little alcove — where somebody was doing some mining.
Lots of what looks like quartz here all through here as well as maybe iron.
It’s definitely very brown in color. Continuing onward, check out these colors here! It almost
has a green tint to it. There’s a green tint to some of these colors, and then here's another.
Up to the right here there is daylight. There is a bat up there, too.
Let me get a better shot of that.
Looking up, I mean.
The bat has taken up residence. I’m going to continue down the tunnel this way.
This tunnel just faces out there. It’s kind of damp in here. You can see moisture there kind of
glistening in the light from my flashlight. Yes, it's really damp in here, so this is one of these
places where you want to have an oxygen meter and a hydrogen sulfide gas detector. Why? Because if
there's pyrite in here, the pyrite and water can mix and release hydrogen sulfide gas. This mine
is not exceptionally wet but it's wet enough that it's good to have the meters like we do.
There is a vein right there — a narrow white vein. See that?
Pretty cool stuff! Yes, this right here is a collection point for
that inclined shaft that's up here off to the left that I just showed you earlier.
All of this debris has come down and collected here in the tunnel.
We are going to head back to the main junction and take the other branches.
We are now back at the main intersection. There’s the entrance we came through. We just explored the
tunnel there to the left as we were coming in. Now we're going to take the tunnel to the right.
It looks like right here a retaining wall collapsed. Look at that! See that?
There’s an opening right there where my light is from when that retaining wall broke. Who knows
when that broke! It could have been yesterday or it could have been 80 years ago! All the
debris that was being held back by the retaining wall came out.
You don't want to be under one of those when it breaks!
Up here on the left is the same kind of retaining wall but it's still intact, so you can see the
difference. You can see the difference between an intact one and one that's totally busted.
This is what they look like, and that's just a bunch of rocks waiting to come down right there.
Look at that! Jesus! That’s scary! Check out this right here. Here is part of a dynamite box.
I'm not sure if that's a picture or if that's just a smudge. DJ 2010.
Here’s a big shaft in the floor. Oh my gosh! There are ore cart tracks and a ladder,
and there's Jeff!
This big inclined shaft comes down from above here on the left.
Look up there! There’s a lot of heavy timbering, and then you can see the
opening — the shaft collar. There is a gate over it to keep people and animals from falling in.
Check out these old insulators right here on these timbers! Those are old insulators.
They’re pretty old. Somehow I’ve got to make my way past this. I don't want to fall down
in there! This is loose rubble, and I have to make my way over there to where Jeff is.
Yes, Jeff is further down that way, so he got past this shaft with no problem
right here in front of me. That is one heck of a drop! That looks like it goes down about
100 feet, and that's pretty steep. If you slip on that loose rubble,
you're going down there. I don't think I'm going to take my chances going across there. If you want
to see what's down there, check out Jeff’s video at OTG Exploring. Makes sure you subscribe, and
he'll be posting his video probably pretty soon on his YouTube channel.
I'm not going to chance crossing that ledge right there where my light is.