#275 Valley of Ghosts the Lost Mines of Sandon

hello everyone my name is frank we are back in sandon this week so glad you could join us salmon was a ghost town it's about four people that live here there now there was about 5 000 that lived there in this heyday back in the late 1800s this is the power plant it's been running since 1895 so just to give you a quick little tour around the town here you can have a look at it's a really fascinating place to visit so big thanks to hal who owns a good part of the town and he donates a camping spot and everything for us and very helpful as far as directions and history so uh kind of helps us out a lot this is the city hall it was built back in 1900 um you see the creek is going right through town at one time the the whole there was a big flume and the whole town was actually built over the creek but what's happened is it got plugged up and that they had floods and fires and all kinds of catastrophes there over the years this is the mill that's still there they're not operating the mill anymore it's just a junior mining company they store some of their stuff around there and uh yeah it's not operating but the most stuff is still there there's also uh no locomotive trains trolley car buses fascinating place to visit so we've been there quite a few times there's hundreds of mines around there and we've got a lot more shows of the sand and uh we've done a lot of work it's different difficult place to get to in some of these mines in the back country we've got lots of cool stuff we can show you in upcoming weeks and if you look back at our old videos there's quite a few videos of sand and we've done over the years so well we'll just play the intro and we'll show you some pictures of sharon's and uh we'll get into some really cool minds this week in sandon most of it's probably mental you don't like dark places that are wet and your claustrophobic you have a bunch of phobias and stuff but it's not gonna be the place for you [Music] we're an area where the noble five mine was um which is just uh close to cody which is just a a couple of miles kind of another ghost town actually just a couple of miles to the south of sandon right in sand in there but you see a very rugged country and this is the drone really kind of helps us out finding these attitudes i mean there's so many attitudes there the thing is uh a lot of have been plugged off so it's difficult sometimes to see which ones you can get into and which ones you can't some is possible to dig out and others it's impossible to dig out so there's a large group of mines near the last chance um the noble five and then they're hooked into another one called the american boy and uh and another mine there so we've got all these these minds together and we're not able to get into most of them so but they're all interconnect so we're going to start uh we're so we're just kind of going through all these different minds like i said just really rugged countries straight up and down we have to do a lot of hiking and drone work to get into these uh into these mines but very fascinating mines and nobody really has been into for a very long time so the major period of production was in the late 1800s these mines are started around 1893. this one here you can see in the middle there there was a big hole there uh it was a lot of work to get up into it and there was nothing nothing there look the drone looks like it looked like there was a big hole there but uh we couldn't find anything in that particular one so we're not going to show you that one eventually we're able to get into this huge complex that gets into all these minds and you'll see that in the in upcoming shows so uh this is some pictures that sharon took from this week's adventure um yeah thanks to sharon uh it takes a long time to take these pictures difficult to take pictures underground because of the light and the and and all the conditions the heat and stuff in there this is a wind glass that goes down to a winds which is really cool and we've seen quite a few of these up in the surprise mine that you'll see in upcoming shows so the wind last was hooked up to that bucket um there's a man way going up to higher levels and ended up roping down into some lower levels to get into to different areas in this mine so there the wind loss is really cool we found one that was actually still working it was uh this one was a little bit rusty that's part of an ore car there that's a badge off of an older car it was built back in the 1800s it was kind of cool i can't remember what kind of car it was that's a flat deck car these are moving timbers around we found a whole bunch of eggshells in one area i guess from i don't know why they're there but yeah yeah the flat deck car is really nice shape and lots of mine cars and stuff in there [Applause] [Music] sure is just going to hang out here for a sec it kind of keeps going now to come the water's not very deep follow a neat vein here looks really cool it's a small tunnel but pretty neat it wasn't too much on the main hall level but this one is pretty interesting a little bit wet not too treacherous once your feet are wet once they're wet they're wet eh when they're wet they're wet yeah it's only about a foot of water and then it's dry here so it's just a bit of a plug in there before so there you go starting to get shallower already yeah this is an old mine probably it seems it looks like in here back from the 1800s in the first silver rush there's anything up there probably not this should look definitely goes to other mines or something far more extensive than the level we explored bubbles pretty wet up there as you can see heard on cameras now it gets wet oh wooden bucket oh lots of cool stuff here let's see oh it's wooden bucket two of them [Music] dynamite boxing obviously in it wow look at this old wooden bucket really cool the whole there's no hole there no no where straight ahead there's no hole it's just it's fairly deep though i had to go up to he'd be up to your package yeah it keeps going and it's shallow over here yeah you might as well give me a couple steps you're gonna be a little deep but there's so much cool stuff here there's a beautiful wooden bucket here a shot bucket for this wind glass that's only a few steps and then it'll it'll get deeper but you must just walk i am walking yeah it's cool it is [Music] and this wind glass looks cool really cool [Music] oh the wood is so rotten step is crumbling well it gets dry again eventually that's neat for your trestles well it's minor has been up there all right i might walk up there probably shouldn't ah look at this shovel this really old shovel [Music] keeps getting cooler and cleaner wow what a mine this is it'll dry for a while at least anyways it's got a cool little container there they had a lid on it but it's all rusted shut there's something in there but i don't know what it would be i kind of moved it around a little bit there and it damaged a bit and i can smell carbide so it was full of carbide yeah neat little mine far more extensive than i thought all right yeah water's a little muddy now [Music] i'm sure we need to get up there but i don't think it'd be safe to go up there they're on my pack either so [Music] nasty to fall down this is turning about to be a pretty incredible mind that's interesting was we're looking at this uh skip here so we know because the skip goes up to higher levels that uh it doesn't connect to anything else because the miners brought all the tools up to skip they're almost tempted to go up there but man you're talking about hundred somewhat year old ladders and it's really steep so if you fail you'd probably kill yourself so we don't think there's anything up there we need to see that badly we should probably stick to the right as we get further up there so we don't go for a swim in that big shoot [Music] it's all wet there you could climb up there yeah it'd be safe to climb up there yeah i have to climb up there and have a look so they had this hook up to this uh barrel here shop bucket and they got to work from lower levels there there's a ladder going down [Music] obviously they had a pump here [Music] let's see what kind of awesomeness you can discover for us up there makes you jump you hear that can we just keep walking up on the ladder maybe there's something i could do [Music] no yeah that letter looks pretty good actually [Music] yeah you're gonna have to step on my shoulder or something i don't know if this is gonna fall though okay ready hmm look back at you i'm just gonna turn my light on right up there pretty oh there's a ladder yeah did we see a ladder did we pass a ladder oh yeah that's the one then i'm gonna look up at ya oh this is where this deep section is and it's pretty deep here oh that's wet up there you're staring up there [Music] pretty wet yeah yeah it's very wet up here okay kind of got some i'm okay just just hold my foot hold my foot i'm good okay yeah i'm good thank you a little lunchtime cubbyhole and that looks scary [Music] oh it's when i think my foot is gonna touch the bottom and it doesn't and it goes deeper i got my face showered refreshing face wash yep just the box let me take the wheels off of it i gotta stick to the right yeah if that ended but it looks like it's maybe gonna come right around to it [Music] not interesting features on the walls are the ribs as they call them in mines [Music] it's just still through their mind up there [Music] oh look at there's a pickaxe he stepped right over it [Music] nice one [Music] beautiful pickaxe [Music] that still doesn't go up very high [Music] this is our favorite of mine here yet by the looks of it under the cart strange place to park one [Music] here's the axles and the axle [Music] too old to see the radio [Music] huh there's eggs here chicken eggs too this one food for the miners there's no chickens in here i'm sure [Music] that is weird that is weird oh there's another work part flock that car love that car sure it's rusted solid in place it's a nice little flat deck guard though i just want to be careful about dynamite boxes upside down another cart well he's got the bottom there the top is busted out here more water that looks like we're at van that's it she's plugged it's weird that i snapped off the axle so that's a riveted cart nice shape didn't it [Music] warmer outside warmed up now i went outside for a while yeah i'm gonna head down here and see what's down there there's another level down there well that's a big rock big what a big rock [Music] there's sharon up there we're down the the first level first part of it see there we go there's a big nasty rock there but so we're on this side of stealth so hope they won't fall on us seem to be pretty solid let me go down this way and see a bunch of stalls in there it keeps going down so nothing much here rats nest all right okay we'll keep working our way down they got some kind of sketchy stuff above us yeah not too bad but yeah there's some rocks and stuff there i wonder if we should send some that stuff down or that would be okay we can continue on maybe okay looking down where we're going yeah maybe a whole level down there okay so uh yeah these ladders are completely rotten we're making our way down there's a nasty rock there so we're almost out of level and there was a level we've been to so huh well it's interesting we might be able to pop out somewhere else not have to climb back up here hey so we made it we're right at the bottom here got a little bit of rope left and this is an at we haven't been to before so look at the nice glowstone so we don't know um whether we're going to get out or we're going to go back up we can do it either way but i'm pretty sure we haven't been here because i remember seeing that pile of quartz um yeah it could have been there oh maybe we have kind of looks familiar all right we'll see old-time vent tubing square oh wow look at that another teapot that's cool that's an old timer too we're getting quite a collection of them [Music] got some really cool teal per teapot i've never seen so many teapots and miners these days so all right so that'll be part of our collection they're not um dovetailed i think they made better quality boxes later probably for safety reasons but these aren't tails boxes you'll see there's sawdust and stuff in there so the wraps probably chewed it all up maybe necessarily yeah there's another box you can add some water or something [Music] getting some serious water now looks like this widens out a bit yeah that's a lot of water isn't it maybe we should try walking a little ways looks like a lot of water for me maybe not so bad look my package is what there's all these bubbles coming up well that's not good that could be some kind of poisonous gas or something as i'm walking in there all these bubbles are coming up it's not good no i don't think i'm gonna kill any further you haven't seen that happen before why oh i know the bubbles just come from my boots and stuff maybe huh yeah that's what it is yeah no problem i feel these bubbles but hank's just from my boots deep all right look at that so much my package stand right i'm just saying no i'm gonna my next goal keep my tits dry [Music] i'm just seeing it widen out here just so i wonder if there might be a branch it's going to get a little drier it's just a dream not really yeah she's wet i could have saved myself the regulation of this yeah i ain't getting out of here so yeah she's wet really wet the family jewels are feeling that cold water i'm not sure if this has been to me or not i've seen it square like that there's only one piece in here so that is kind of cool so it's a helmet [Music] i've seen it before i guess i get out of a large container or something who's that a rotten egg yeah just for carrying stuff fell off [Music] yeah well that's the thing about this stuff in these mines it doesn't last the rest will definitely hurt on it [Music] yeah people complain about you taking stuff out of mines but those things should have been taking over a long time why they were still actually useful well i can see you in your pack [Music] and yeehaw we're at the end i see daylight and there's frankie behind me all right everyone thanks for joining us this week we have a show every week so we'll see you next week uh check out our new merch page don't forget to like and subscribe music is by the audits [Music] you

Channel: Exploring Abandoned Mines

Views: 11,121

Rating: 4.9840798 out of 5

Keywords: mine carts, antique, exploring abandoned mines, exploring abandoned mines in bc, frank schlichting, dangerous mines, abandoned mines, bc mines, gold, machines, explore, adventure, exciting, gold mining, #gold, gold mine, gold mines, # exploring abandoned mines, exploring mines, mine shaft, minecraft, mine exploration, abandoned gold mine, abandoned and forgoton places, underground, mining, hard rock mines, climbing, mining equipment, Ghost Town Living, Sandon, valley of the ghosts

Id: UaL_7rpTQEo

Length: 27min 41sec (1661 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 01 2021