I Spent 48 Hours Living 700 Feet Underground

hello there in this building behind me is the union mine and back in the 1800s this was the largest silver mine in california i'm about to go 700 feet down into the mine and spend the next 48 hours living there i'll have no way out so i'm bringing some rather interesting things with me let me explain more [Music] so the only way to get down to the 700 foot level is to use this cage from the 1800s and once it lets me down there it's going to come back up and there'll be no way out might sound a little scary but i'm actually very much looking forward to it [Music] now the only way to get to the 700 foot level of the mine is to use this hoist from the 1800s basically this 100 year old cable will slowly lower that cage over there down 700 feet once i'm down there i'll get off my gear and this cage will come back to the surface so i'll have no way to get out of the mine for two days straight [Music] all right so to officially start this thing i'm gonna press start and it's about 6 25 p.m that's all the way back up here in 48 hours all right send me down all right got me that going down [Music] all right and we're off just to confirm we're a minute 51 in because it took a little bit to get hooked up but i'm officially descending 700 feet down into the union mine where i will remain for the next 48 hours a little bit of butterflies can't deny it you know the fact that i'm going to be 700 feet underground for 48 hours with no cell service and no real way to get out is uh intriguing is the word that we'll say this right below me is the 550 level that means that i am getting oh that didn't feel good so that means that i'm getting closer the 550 level is another just enormous level that i've explored before you can see i even left water there last time [Music] all right stop it stop the hoist you're there you're there stop the way stop stop and just like that a smooth 29 minutes into this expedition i'm here so i made it down to the 700 foot level that's gonna be my home for the next 48 hours and so far you might be thinking hey this is going to be the survival video where brent goes down there tries to survive for 48 hours and that is where this video is going to take a little bit of a twist i'm not coming down here just to survive i'm coming out here to thrive i'm coming down here to have a vacation in these boxes behind me i have everything i can do to pamper myself as much as possible for the next 48 hours we're going to create a luxury suite we're going to create a place more luxurious than any other place at cerro border right now hey you know what i might even have a waterfront cabana which isn't possible anywhere outside saragodo so let's unpack this stuff start unboxing i'm gonna make up my little suite we're gonna do some adventures we're gonna do all sorts of stuff [Music] uh already some poor planning was these doors open in not out and we packed it from that way in so i basically locked myself in and as i was getting stuff out i did lose a number of things that dropped 200 feet down to the 900 level the boys are gonna bring up the hoist and i'm not gonna see it again for two days and i'm gonna start sorting through this stuff i think that's about it i obviously i dropped some stuff down the hole i don't know where it is i don't know if i'll get it back maybe i'll repel down tomorrow i don't really want to repel 200 feet by myself i think the next move is to find a place to set up the bed if we're gonna make a luxury suite it's important i think my first instinct is over by the water waterfront cabana sounds pretty nice let's take a little wander around our domain [Music] um i gotta say already a bit eerie being down here you know the excitement of coming down the hoist is gone and the reality that i have 48 hours down here it's a bit weird any sound that you hear kind of your mind plays a little bit tricks on you all right so this is what we'll be working with if we go with the sump now benefit across here this is a little bit wider you know we could set it up here kind of have that vibe as the view so i'm thinking this might be the move [Music] i'm excited you know i'm not just saying this to say it i just love being down in the mines you know it's been a pretty stressful few months you know sometimes i feel guilty or anxious being down here for two days and not working on the town but i've been working on a town 12 hours a day for the last six months plus trying to keep up with the videos and my day job and all that has been really overwhelming and so i'm not kidding when i say i was very much looking forward to this just coming down here having fun you know relaxing and truly just unplugging a little bit uh this is a time check i am two hours and 46 minutes into it it's about 9 11 right now so i think next move is to figure out how to make a little bit of dinner that should do it [Music] we got the mashed potatoes to go with the steak and shrimp we're living now [Music] this is fun i'm actually having a great time i think now that i'm a little bit more settled the relaxation is happening i'm going to eat really big tonight because tomorrow i'm going to go on the longest mine exploration of my life this is smelling awesome this is probably sadly going to be the best meal i've had in months this is the type of meal you need if you're about to go mind exploring shoot i might go my exploring tonight you know drinking off of these anything's possible what better way to finish off a meal then a little bit of ice cream when i knew i was taking a vacation down to the 700 foot level ice cream was the first thing i brought i actually broke into a little bit earlier but i'm really living today right at the edge of the water you know pool views don't worry i'll take off my shoes mom [Music] [Music] all right robes on relaxation chair is out i'm gonna relax for a little bit probably call it a night here stay tuned because tomorrow is when all the action starts tomorrow is when the mine explorations begin the decorating of the suite begins i know tonight we've got the bed of the mattress up that was a step one i got 44 more hours down here to make this thing look amazing that's what i'm going to do tomorrow [Music] all right so as i go to bed night one it's 11 25 upstairs i've been here for exactly five hours right now 39 hours to go well sleeping hasn't come quite yet it's now just midnight but you know at the water right there so maybe if i can't sleep then i'll go water skiing or something but six hours has passed it's about 7 30 which means i've been on here for 13 hours i gotta say sleep wasn't bad i was able to forget about these hanging rocks right above me and sleep for a little bit it is cold what i keep thinking is if i wait long enough then the sun will come up and it'll be much easier to film because i don't have to use these lights everywhere and then you realize it's the exact same all the time down here the lighting never changes you can forget what day it is it's a bit cold got definitely colder overnight which i can't remember happening before but i think the plan today to get myself out of this bed you know it is my vacation i can take my time then i'm going to make breakfast then do a little bit of mine exploration the unfortunate news this morning is that one of the things that went over the edge of the cage was my coffee pot and so i have the coffee maker i started the pot to make the coffee cheers to a good day a big mine exploration day and treasures to be found [Music] so the last time i was in here we were working on the pump and i only had 30 minutes to explore but i remember it was probably the most amount of stuff i'd seen in the union mine anywhere in only that 30 minutes and i always had plans to come back with a bunch of time today's that day so this is weird so i was walking from this way where the hoist is but this shows the exit going that way and the only thing that that would be going towards is the union chimney and that's the ore body that goes from the surface all the way down past the 900 level and if that's the case that would be a massive hole that would go to every single level of the mine behind any collapses i've been looking for these chimneys for quite a while on this channel i've never gotten to go to the very end of where this is pointing so today we're going to go down that way it's toilet toilet toilet toilet and all this is written with carbide so back in the day they didn't have bright lights like i'm using right now they had carbide burning in a headlamp and that ash they could make these kind of graffiti things with and you can see they really went wild in this level oh no so it appears that is where the exit is i don't love climbing ladders when no one's around but if you're gonna climb any old ladder if it's in set like this meaning they carved in and put it in that's better than just being nailed on the front but you can see these nails are toast but that's the exit they're talking about i just think i have to go up there i have to see where that goes so push this keeps going so so it's one of the craziest inclines i've ever seen i'm probably up another 100 feet so i imagine this goes all the way to the 550 level as you can see the ladder's out from here we must be on a sub level or maybe all the way up to 550 already holy sh look that means i just climbed from the 700 up to the 550 which is crazy i've been on the 550 before but i've never been able to get back in this portion because it must be behind some collapse or something but 550. one of my favorite things in these mines is to go in between the levels without having to use the hoist because if i get to the 550 i know oh my god i forgot this i know of a ladder from the 550 to the 400 so i could theoretically now get to the 400 and if i can find some type of ladder up i may be able to get out of the mind without using the hoist at all which has been a goal of mine for a very long time [Music] seems the only way up is to continue up this chute but this ladder is just toast so so [Music] so oh this is an old drill bit [Music] [Music] buttons [Music] [Music] all right this way doesn't look good to be it [Music] my light's running out of battery [Music] but there's a lot of branches off of this way up so i'm gonna go back to the home base charge up my batteries and come back over here [Music] ah time so all right before we go all the way back i'm going to take a little adventure down the right over here see if there's anything interesting that connection to the 550 is super interesting i wish i would have brought down my map like i always do to see where that's connecting but it's connecting somewhere and so there's a so much more it's probably eighty percent more of this mine to explore good thing i got 48 hours but i got a little bit more energy before i need some lunch so let's go check out this way you know what's really gross because all those signs said toilet and now i'm back here there's a scrap of denim and a bunch of newspaper around some old boxes that are full up it doesn't take too much of a detective to realize quickly that this box was the toilet they must have pooped in it used this newspaper or pieces of fabric around here as rags covered it up and now i was just digging through it so we're gonna move on from that it brings up a good point that i'm gonna have to create a toilet of my own here soon being down here for 48 hours maybe i should make my toilet where the miners made their toilet to continue on the tradition 1930 1929 all right getting back home after that mine exploration and it's officially 11 30 which means i've been down here for 17 hours now uh was that a little bit more than a quarter of the time i'm gonna be down here i think right now my plan is well one to put this bag down and take a breather for a second got some really cool rocks this crystal thing is cool i think this one to commemorate this experience i'm gonna give this away if you want this there's a link below it's free i want to give this one to you guys so below if you want this rock sign up i will ship this to one of you so i came back and i'm really dirty right now after the mine explore and i want to change and i realized one of the bags that slipped out of the cage and fell all the way down to the 900 foot level was my bag with all my clothes uh the thought of sitting here in dingy clothes for another day and a half is a reason enough to break out the first cocktail of this trip what time did i say it was i think it's yes it's 11 30. but in the wise words of jimmy buffett one of my uh heroes if you will it's five o'clock somewhere i'm not a big drinker i drink maybe once a month but i think in a really early video i said that i drink more or like to leave b or something so a lot of people bring me alcohol so this bag right here is full of every type of liquor you can imagine and my goal or my hope is to kind of build a liquor cabinet down here or liquor shelf let's be honest not a cabinet and uh i mean cheers sounds like a pretty good idea to me all right fiesta's over time to make some lunch hours are just flying by this 48 hours it's gonna be easy here's a fun fact that a lot of people didn't know i went to culinary school for a summer i went to johnson wales which is a very well-known culinary school that didn't work out lunch is served the hot lunch no less this is honestly better than i eat at cerro gordo almost every day i got shrimp i got rice-a-roni all right creamy caesar this vacay is working out pretty pretty good i mean i can't complain so far all right so lunch is done i think it's time for a little bit of rearranging i think at first i learned this bed right at the edge of the water and i think it's still an okay idea but what i want to do now is push this bed back almost to where the blue chair is so the blue chair can be the lounge area so that way you're not running right up into the bed here we shall build ourselves a bar so we'll go scavenge some wood throughout the mine build a little bar after that it's probably exploration time again i don't know what this was originally used for maybe some of the call box or something you know [Music] watch this boom now is that not a cool bar you're down in a mine you got yourself a whole light up bar oh come on power pack don't do this to me now now this place is coming together 23 hours and 43 minutes it's 608 but let me show you what the chateau is looking like these days a river raft right in front of the water you have a putting green if you so choose flower petals fully stocked bar lounge area umbrella in case the rain starts falling on these rocks last but not least you have a queen-size bed with a robe i mean what else could you want [Music] all right look at that almost almost 24 hours we're halfway there i'm just hanging out right now i'm actually having a great time i'm looking forward to another 24 down here i'm pumped up i'm having a good time this is kind of just the break i needed [Music] greetings welcome back to another evening the 700 the finest underground dining in all of cerrogoro tonight's menu includes spaghetti they side of some type and let me check with the chef as far as what meat we have shrimp it will be spaghetti shrimp we need to fuel up because it is going to be a big big big evening [Music] bon appetit serious question do you think this is the first time someone has to add had steak and shrimp inside of a mine back-to-back with how many meals of shrimp i've had in a mine and i don't know if it's the amount of time by myself but it's very quiet back here if i were to stop talking you don't hear anything but i keep hearing almost like crowd noises like a busy restaurant noise it tripped me out a little bit and then whenever you focus on listening doesn't it make it even more creepy it just like highlights everything around you anyways i might not think about that i might put on some music instead just uh way more comfy hanging out in the lounge eating you can i can do that now you know i have multiple locations within my suite i have a dining room area i have a lounge area i have a bar bedroom pool ugh 25 hours almost 26 hours in just hanging out for a little bit i think it's just about time for a little mine exploration oh yeah break time's over back at it with some late night mine exploration exp and exploring mines is probably my favorite thing to do in the world you know there's that peaceful element that nobody can get a hold of you and you're just alone down here and lost kind of in the moment i love history so there's always that potential you know that potential to uncover something from the past which is really exciting to me the first thing i want to try is to uncover this if you look up there there's track going up there and it looks like if i move enough rock i might be able to get past this collapse i don't know if it's gonna happen you know these rocks are just too big individually i thought these were pieces of rock it's all one big rock so i think i'll come back later with some rope trying to get some of these bigger rocks moving out of here all right so last time we went that way and there's still more to explore that way but i think right now right after the jump this was very intriguing to me there's an old oil tin these ore shoots obviously show that there's something above us so they're basically mining above us shooting them down here hopefully putting them on the track i bet that snakes around yeah see it you can pick it back up the ladder all right this ladder isn't great but it's better than that one so [Music] i think i'm going to do here is actually come back with my nails and hammer and actually build a longer ladder to get up there because i don't necessarily trust that it's a little slippery i need a little bit longer ladder and i do have the materials to do that i just got to come back right this second is not the time to get injured get really wet like frozen that's so creepy it's frozen ice i don't like being around damp areas that's where bad air can be holy cow look at this it's a skating rink all right that ends that trip all right so tomorrow plan is i gotta build those ladders for that area i just try to scurry up ah yes don't mind me i'm just relaxing in the way that every miner does after a long day in the union mine with a face mask even though it's freezing and a massage gun ah that's nice there's a lot of exploring today and even more exploring tomorrow tomorrow i'm going to the very bottom of the mine to the 900 foot level to retrieve my stuff we'll be building a ladder we're going to be pulling rocks behind me and if you look i've officially been down here 29 hours and 26 minutes so that means tomorrow's the home stretch i'm looking forward to it until then i'm just going to zone out and try to relax for tomorrow so good night okay final breakfast down at the 700. probably good thing my white tablecloth is getting a bit dirty and grimy and this morning i think what i'm gonna make [Music] eggs surprise surprise let's see what else we got let's try to make a little breakfast turkey bread yeah that's gonna be it [Music] so i've been down here now for 38 hours and 43 minutes straight and the only light i've seen is all this artificial light but i'm still going to bed around the same time waking up around the same time doing the same kind my energy feels about the same throughout the day and i think that's a couple things one you know you're kind of like in that rhythm circadian rhythm or whatever it's called and then two i'm looking at my phone so much because part of this premise is spending 48 hours down here but i wonder like if i were to bring down enough food for a month or six months so let's say theoretically i bring down enough food for six months i bring down vitamin d pills to not die and i don't have a clock at all there's no clock available i wonder in six months if i would still be waking up and going to bed at the same time meaning like is it driven by the sun or is it driven by just like my nature at this point you know i don't know it's interesting you know time is an interesting thing generally too like if i was down here for six years would the concept of time even exist anymore you know like we made up time and so it's like a construct that we created and so like before time how was anything measured or wasn't it measured was it just measured by events meaning like oh that happened that happened then like sunrise on set sure it's still kind of time-ish but maybe not you know now we see it as time but you know there was a point when there wasn't time i mean there was i think i've been down here i think i've been down in this mine for too long um but you know what i'm saying there was a point when would say there's time but they if they were living then wouldn't say there's time because we there wasn't time time didn't exist there wasn't that wasn't a thing you know you just lived and so i'm saying down here over a long enough period of time would you get to the point where time didn't exist it was just events like i don't know we don't even want the same food for breakfast you know what i even know breakfast is i guess i would understand that when i woke up now generally breakfast as i know it but like when i wake up what if i start waking up at 6 00 p.m when i something like ravioli or is it like the nature of waking up is like the ritualistic element of it and like how long would that take to go away all great questions i thought we might get there but uh i didn't know we were gonna get there this early i still have what did i just say it's like watch for time i still have like 10 hours all right breakfast is done i think next on the agenda is i'm gonna go down to the 900 foot level and retrieve whatever fell down it's gonna be a little scary i'm gonna have to climb down 200 feet foreign uh as i started going down the ladder i pulled up on the loose end of the rope and i could feel just swinging around like a rope does when it's not on the ground at all so i realized that the rope wasn't on the ground at the 900 foot level so it wasn't anywhere close to long enough so i came back up sat over there pulled in about 44 arm lengths worth of rope so if you do the rough math let's say it's three feet long that's probably about 120 feet of rope which is 80 feet short of 200 so it's never going to happen my long rope is one of the bags that fell over there so i'll have to go back down a different day if you're interested in the 900 foot level i just did a massive exploration of it look for the video called getting a five ton truck from my ghost town that goes all the way down to the 900 foot level stuff down there's got to wait till another day and for now let's continue our exploring all right so back to the chute that was at yesterday and you can see a rope it goes up but it's just a little slippery right at the top it looks like to be a ledge and then it might be a whole another level up there i imagine i get some wood some long planks and nail these two together it might get me far enough up that thing that i can go [Music] [Music] uh well that was a bust unfortunately you can see they kept drilling up trying to find a vein they even left one of their drill bits in the wall you can see how long it is so at least i know for me it's like how did i come up here it would have haunted my mind for weeks so now i know that i don't need to come back up here and you just keep checking them off and eventually you've explored the whole place [Music] so my goal over the last year and a half is just to explore every single inch of the union mine that way if somebody says hey in a history book if they say hey in the southwest corner of the 700-foot level i know exactly where they're talking about and i think that part of that there's no drill bit so this is an old drill bit this is a little bit newer one because it's detachable remember before we saw the one that was attached to the pole so well this would go into the rock drill the hole for the dynamite and because it was removable they could then be sharpened you can see this one's been sharpened recently and the reason has a hole in it it's the reason as a hole in the middle is because about you know a decent number of years into drilling in they realized that the dust that was creating was killing all the miners so they put a hole in the middle and the hole was for water so as this was drilling in water was shooting out and water really helps control the dust now it's said in some mines that the water made them so cold they died of pneumonia but at least they weren't dying of the dust so that is part of saragora's history it's my goal is eventually just to say yes i've explored every level of every part of the union mine and i think right now the best chance at the 700 foot level that we have is probably back behind the bed behind the suite where those rocks are blocking it you know i can see through it i just need to move one or two of those big rocks and so i think i'm gonna go back i need to eat lunch i'm getting a little bit lightheaded let's make our way back to camp all right it's lunch time final day well obviously we're gonna do shrimp we got shrimp and we're gonna do couscous do a little healthy i think a side of mini ravioli to be really unhealthy i mean look at that these meals have been on point so the final meal that looks pretty dang good uh so look you can see if i could just get past this rock if either of these two would move there's so much more mine to explore you see timbering here it's just these rocks are not moving and by myself i don't know if i can get them to move i'm gonna keep pulling for another 20 minutes or so i can't pull it out my elbow but damn that would be nice if i can move that one rock it almost looks like the world would open up two hours left and i don't think this rock is going to get out of there unfortunately for me i may need more tools more people but i know that's what leads to the jefferson chimney just a quick little recharge a little ice cream you know relax [Music] still frozen two days later sounds are getting a little weird so here he's kind of like crowds i wonder if it's like a phenomenon maybe i can look it up when i get home but it sounds like there's crowds around even there's not and the more you focus on it the more you hear crazy that's possible being down here for over 40 hours now [Applause] how do i get my drink [Applause] i thought i'd never see the day that was just lounging here in the pool at cerro gordo thought it would take much longer than this to be able to enjoy some uh frozen drinks in the pool [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] goodbye my home away from home it's been a real 48 hours as they say that's it and that's all folks headed back to civilization [Music] you

Channel: Ghost Town Living

Views: 807,938

Keywords: abandoned mine, brent underwood, cerro gordo, cerro gordo ghost town, ghost town, ghost town living, i bought a ghost town, living in a ghost town

Id: 7t3aFLyK0fg

Length: 48min 48sec (2928 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 30 2021