Death Is a Very Real Possibility, Stay Out - Stay Alive

[Music] hidden throughout the vastness of the western united states over a half a million abandoned mines from the late 1800s and early 1900s are scattered across 12 western states and remain as one of our last remaining and most dangerous exploratory curiosities just waiting to be discovered by professional explorers [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] unlike any other type of outdoor recreation exploring abandoned mines is one of the most dangerous activities one can do containing such hazards as bad air seemingly bottomless pits and the potentiality of becoming entombed under thousands of tons of rock the safest solution for non-professionals is to read the warning signs and stay out and stay alive [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] now come with me as we peek into the forbidden darkness of abandoned mines as you watch safely and comfortably from your home [Music] [Music] okay guys we didn't travel too much farther there's what appears to be a i guess what i would consider a tourist mine along the way to what i'm hoping is going to be a larger mine in this area so i just thought i would show it to you i'm pretty sure that this one gets hundreds if not thousands of visitors but we'll take a look at it nevertheless let's see what we have in here a bunch of bracing here um okay but that's about it oh yeah i can see let me get you over to where we can see the sunlight there right here so what they did here is they found a vein that's only about 12 inches wide that little tiny pillar right there you can see they left in place mr emma imagine trying to pick a vein this skinny my goodness yeah what a pain that had to bend huh let's see what else we have in here and over here it gets a little bit wider let me show it to you guys you know this is really interesting this way look at that yeah that's kind of cool how they went all the way up and out you can see us there's a skylight up there this is called a open stop so when it opens up to the surface you've got an open stop and there's still pillars in place some of them pillars might have some goodies in them here's another one over here i think we're on a false floor here yep definitely are because down there they chase the vein all the way down into there so what we are standing on right here are you see these stalls these these stalls stretch from this side to the hanging wall to the foot wall that's what you got to be real careful of so we're going to stay to the left and get past that okay all right now you guys want to see what they're mine in here here is the vein okay i'll turn my laser on and point it out to you so it stretches from the hanging wall to the right there and through this section it's only about again 12 inches maybe if you go off to here i don't know 20 25 inches across that is it i'll get a close-up for you so you guys are always saying we need more close-ups of those veins okay there you go all right well this uh not so interesting tourist mine is getting a little more interesting here's uh our first ore shoot right here and what do we have up here oh yeah another another horseshoe that used to go way up in there that's what they're doing they're chasing the vein along this hillside what do we got going on here we got a 12-volt car horn oh yeah we sure do don't we there's a relay here let's hook that up to better bob and see what happens avoid the warranty okay down here where the battery goes oh yeah oh and there's the terminals oh so clearly they were in here working this well not too long ago because we've got pvc fittings on their pipes oh boy see you later gly let's look down in there like you're going for a walk am i yeah oh look there yeah that one goes down let's let's let's go around the corner well let me go back here and get a better so they okay let's see how this worked yup mister and we need you to do a demonstration for us here nice some screen time i love it yeah okay so there you got your your you fill that barrel up with ore down in the mine and then when it would come up on the rails here yeah see the hook here yep and pull it back up pull it back i lift up and off and it goes on to that hook and once it gets onto there then it can fulcrum over yep back back towards your heart this way yeah exactly yeah i know exactly yep okay let's look down here one more time i don't know about that mr m that's vertical that's a pretty stout looking ladder though isn't it sure is i'll try it okay well i know that's a that's kind of neat looking all right well for right now i'm tired and sore what do you mean that they just got started what else do we have up in here okay drift going off to the left it's a spacer on it i wonder what that means spacer yes it does we'll come back and revisit that drift for now let's just keep on going here or shoot or shoot so i'm only gonna stop on these ore shoots if i see some something interesting like graffiti or or a big stop or a big stop up there look at that this has turned into a level two mr m nice look at this way too oh yeah anything up in there not looking that way is it no just goes up and stops go ahead mr m i'll follow you kind of gives people perspective of the size of these passages that is unless you're walking around like a six year old well laughs oh oh yeah instantly just like that now you either let go of a silent but deadly where we ran into a small pocket of sulfury stuff oh nice big drift going off that direction okay all right we'll come back you'd never you'd never admit it would you if you if you dropped one in front of me i'm proud of mine and i'm the sentimental type too i might even start crying okay what's for dinner tonight mr m lee mary's making this chili rieno casserole and spanish rice burritos mmm yeah i'm getting hungry just thinking about it and that's going to be the end okay let's uh work our way back to that other drift and see what's down that direction i'll see you over there okay so we were just right up there now we have to follow mr m into this one nice cross tie indentations on the floor nice big passage oh but that's it okay well i think we're just i'm just gonna take i'm just gonna take you guys with me and quickly walk work our way back to that i think we had one more drift yeah just do a nice fast walk nice and cool it is i really like this there we go this was the other drift right here oh i take that back no it wasn't that was that was the one that quit this direction there's a little bit of graffiti mr m's been in here doing self-portraits like that gal the other day huh yeah here we go this is it spacer spacer oh it's a nicely contr constructed spacer isn't it oh there's a what is that a table yeah themselves it goes nowhere in here though but maybe this was their poopy station that's as far as that goes okay well the only other thing to ponder is whether or not i'm going to go down them sketchy ladders so we're going to take a closer look at that i'll be right back yeah what do you think mr m well it's solid and this is a pretty modern bucket yeah and honestly fine that looks a lot safer in the whole bunch of stuff i've seen you go down yeah i'm going to say that this is this is probably doable here let's see here i'm going to have to give me a second there we go i need to kick off your backpack yeah maybe we'll see what happens okay i'll let you hold that for a second until i get on this thing thank you fly that's it yeah that's a vertical but it's in pretty darn good shape all right let's see here let me get a little bit further just got to get that point with the backpack okay let's see what we can see down here take it nice and easy yeah this is this is pretty darn cool i can't imagine too many of the daily weekend explorers are headed down in here okay let me see what i can see down here mr m and i'll let you know if it's worth it were you coming down okay let's look oh yeah yeah you're going to want to see this yeah you're going to like this and these ladders in real nice shape i'm going to get down there it looks like i got a drift right below me i'm gonna i'm gonna get down to that point and i'll wait for you here we are let's see what we have here okay so it just keeps on going there's probably another drift right there we've got a little thing to the left here all i'm really seeing is a bunch of debris mr m coming down the ladder and off to my left is another drift with a little bit more pieces of wood debris and whatnot but no interesting artifacts so what that means is we have to work our way to the next next ladder here and keep on going without making a bunch of dust at least try anyways there we go looks like we're coming up on a much bigger drift here i can see that the rungs on this ladder have been reconditioned in some places yeah when we were outside i we saw this mine up on the side of the hill and i said oh that just looks like a that just looks like a tourist mine but mr ramo said well let's go look at it anyways i'm glad we did look at what it's turning into okay off to the left goes that direction and i gotta get my footing here first this is a cute little ladder yeah yeah skinny isn't it expecting the smurfs to come around the corner anytime well i thought you were the papa smurf so okay which way you want to go mr m right or left i'm following you by okay um i like i'll be honest with you when i'm doing incline shafts so actually this is technically a decline shaft i like to do the left hand sides first so let's look at that there is a cardboard box of of what once was dynamite there's is that ever ready that's not a battery it can't be it's too big for a battery okay we've seen hundreds hundreds of these and mines before this is a kerosene tin oh antifreeze yep okay that makes sense they would put um antifreeze in the compressor lines because they would get a lot of condensation putting antifreeze in there kind of keeps things flowing now here we see the vein that they're working it looks like well it certainly doesn't look like quartz looks like rhyolite to me and i think this is as far as it's going to go look at this back here okay wait before i show them that yeah here we go yeah look it's um i don't know if i'd call that andesite i'm leaning more towards rhyolite and it almost looks sprechiated see that see all the uh different pieces in there the makeup of it okay andesite has all those little s snowflake puffy little snowflake um things in there but not this that's not what they were mining all right mr m had found something let's go see what he let's go see what he found what do you what'd you find mr m i got another wins okay look at that don't tell me that's not spooky looking yeah could you imagine trying to crawl in there and down that ladder i think it would be easier to if that ladder probably goes down to the next level or the stop that's in between where we are now and the one below us yeah that's what's going on there all right we're going to follow you into the right hand side of this decline you move around pretty good for an 82 year old 83 oh 83 sorry you know you keep calling this a tourist mine and this is the first piece of trash that i've seen in here that technically is isn't it yeah no now that we're doing ladders and uh a decline shaft this is jumped up to a level three wheelbarrow wow you know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna do a small little shout out to jeff williams because i know sometimes he watches my videos hey jeff i know you can see that material right there what would you call that is that rhino light and a sight and a good shot of it right there okay what do we got up in here oh they were doing some digging weren't they yeah and i don't know if you want to go but you can i'll take a look at it okay oh it does keep going yeah we're just gonna have to do some crawling that's all all right i'll let i'll let me take a peek i'll let you know what i find okay there we go what do we have up in here what we have is nothing more than a mouse nest any mice in there what are you doing mr mouse nope no mice in the mouse nest okay back to the decline we'll make a decision from there see you back there so we were um kind of loitering around this section for a moment trying to figure out what these miners were doing and i think we got it figured out go ahead mr m so they've already uh run an ore cart up and out of here and then run it back down they'll pull this plate out of the way a couple of big burly gun and let it go back down there you can see their stops down there let's stop the bucket yep and then they dropped it back down and they bring their car here and they dump it on in so that they could get it all and kind of use it as a funnel it's a big funnel yeah so this is the area where the prospectors were mining the most down this next set of ladders looks to me to be going into an older part of the mind so let's head down there next and see what we can see okay yep it looks like it's just going to go to this next drift and uh the rest of it down there is going to be a sump i'll take a closer look at it to see if it's uh if it's worth heading on down here mr m that ladder is creaking and groaning yee yikes okay almost there okay yep that looks like it's gonna be the sump and we have a small drift yeah it looks like we just have a small drift going this way mr m and that's gonna be about it there is a hercules powder box right there see this is how i know that the uh the weekend explorers haven't been coming down these ladders 40 strength not finding a date yet that's what i'm looking for let's try this end looking for a date here no i don't see it i'm coming on the bottom nope yeah because if that was topside that would have been long gone all right what do we have up in here well i'm just seeing this is the second this is the second dead uh minecat that i've seen in this mine right there well maybe that's just a rabbit i take that back i think that's just a rabbit okay okay remember when mr m pointed out that that ladder going up to the tiny little hole that's right there that's the little hole pointing out to you guys right there that we were looking down into all right and nothing up in here except for looks like the the prospectors were using they were using that piece of plastic there as a muck sheet a place you can drop your rocks off down onto and it makes it a lot easier to shovel them off so i am going to head back to the decline and take a closer look at this sump i'll be right okay guys this is uh a section down here there's no way i'm gonna be able to hold the camera my handheld camera and uh get down here so what i have to do for this little bit i got no choice but to put it into kind of put it into gopro mode here as we work it down this way yeah we're getting there so i'm just going to use the rail for the skip car that's what i'm doing now oh i don't know if i get around that i don't think it goes anywhere to be quite honest with you oh yeah i can here we go i just put my feet just like that there we are okay well you all wanted me to be using my helmet cam more so here you go [Laughter] so i just i'm not really happy with the kind of quality a helmet cam has all right let's see if i can get to the bottom here almost there there we are let me get my better flashlight out see what we got down in here yeah as as suspected we've got multiple dead bunny rabbits down in there there there's one two skeleton of another another one there and that's it lots of dead rabbits okay looking back up where i just came from that's what i have to climb back up okay so i'm gonna retrieve my camera and meet back up with mr m higher up on this thing so i'll see you up there all right just about up all these ladders here yeah i thought i would turn them turn the cameras back on for [Music] this point oh look at here so here is a pulley so when you're raising and lowering that bucket the cable has a place to track against right there instead of the rock you don't want it tracking against the rock because it'll wear your cable out okay anyways as i was saying i turned my camera back on so one of these ladders fails we can catch it all on camera and we can and then we can hear mr m laugh profusely i just need all your youtube passwords yeah yeah my my youtube password is one two three four five six that way you can upload the content almost there you go you know it's you it's you that talked me into this stuff it's you it's your fault mr m i know you're the one who's talking me into this you might want to tame your headlamp oh yeah you just uh say that insult me again because he couldn't see your face i said it's you that talks me into all this stuff you're a bad influence i know actually you know i think truth be known everybody knows who the bad influence is in this crowd oh is there somebody standing behind me yeah all right all right almost out of here okay guys i may have time to maybe squeeze one more location in for you for this weekend so let's hop back into better bob and see what we can find higher up on this hill see you back outside [Music] okay everybody we worked our way to the next mine and uh really what i'm doing this weekend is i found some smaller mines for you guys but ultimately i'm trying to track down a much larger one for next saturday so here we are i'm standing on a big waste rock pile now remember when we were down in that last mine and uh i said i asked jeff williams hey jeff what is this well we got outside here and i found an outcropping come on over and take a look at this so this is exactly what was down in that mine notice all these different rocks mixed in this is classic rhyolite okay so what we saw down there in the mine i'm pretty sure that that was rhyolite too now take a look at what we found over here as we work our way to the portal check this out i can totally understand why the miners decided to put it and add it right here going in right there look at this sheer zone right here so what we've got is a an uplifted okay uplift or a faulted shear zone going right up the side of the mountain on the left-hand side of it here you have what looks like a bunch of uh of andesite and colonite possibly some caliche and then off to the right you've got the uh rhyolite material right here on the right hand side and so here's here's about here's your boundary line you can see the difference in color and so that's why they put the at it right here because remember i'm always saying to you guys the gold concentrates right along those sheer zones or right along those boundaries okay let's head on inside and see what we can find all right what do we have in here well this is kind of interesting they carved that out and as we look around yeah it was right back outside why isn't that pretty yeah that's kind of neat it kind of looks like looks like a skull from this from this point right here yeah look at the look at that mr m that's scary it's the skull mine scary okay turning back around what do we got up in here hopefully we can find a whole den of rattlesnakes i've just always wanted to document a rattlesnake den one of these times i'm going to run into one okay we have a sp y left or right let's let's stay to the right for now we'll come back and revisit that drift i can see they have track down here okay yeah the miners they were pretty smart they they could observe all of the things all of the outcroppings and the shear zones topside and uh go by a pretty educated guess when it comes to finding gold and silver and they had to because back then they didn't have fancy modern things like diamond drill bits or diamond core bits like they have today looks like we are making a hard left-hand turn into a bat and it just scared to scare the bejesus out of mr m all right and then it's going to turn right back around here dude did he get you mr m i like that all right we'll just uh i'll take you right along with me and then we'll go down another drift yeah some of the surrounding material does look a little bit like caliche and what do we have okay around the corner we go okay i was just pointing out that crack oh so while i'm walking down through this some of you asked me how come these mines don't collapse more often and a real good analogy i can give you guys is remember when you were kids and uh you're on the beach playing with your sandcastles okay so the next time you're on the beach take some wetted sand put it in a bucket turn it upside down like you're going to make yourself a sand castle and now that represents the mountain now take a pencil and poke it into the bottom and then slowly pull it back out you'll notice that you have a nice little hole okay that's ridiculous well the same thing it's it's the same thing kind of going on here in this mine you have this giant mountain okay and all you're really doing is poking a tiny little hole and also that the reason that these attitudes are shaped like an arch is because an arch is the strongest uh load bearing what would you call it mr m i'm trying to come up with the word here bearing configuration load bearing configuration right right okay that's why the romans they built a lot of arches in their structures plus for this to collapse right here all of that would have to go away and all of that would have to go away for it to do that exactly you got it now that's not to say you don't get something like this from time to time right so you look down here on the floor okay there's a bunch of rocks that fell recently probably from that earthquake that happened three four months ago but you know clearly you see a big crack and that's where that comes down so you always have to look out for those kinds of things but as far as a um a collapse that's going to happen all in one big boom and the whole thing is destroyed well that is ultimately determined by the type of geology that the added or the tunnel is going through right now we're in really super hard rock but for example in some of those mines where you have soft rock in stopes or soft ore bodies that are being permeated by groundwater that makes a big difference can i get you almost okay all right so up here we've got tw tw was in here in october 11th the 47th and looks like all we have up in here is just the packrat nest okay well we're gonna head back outside if i see something interesting i'll be sure to hit record but if not i'll see you back out there hey gly there's you well i'll be darned it's even got your little camera it is me the hair is the same so the guy from the guy from 19 what was it 47 who was in here he must have known that eventually i was gonna yeah there's there's gly coolness holding his camera that's him that's pretty cool all right all right guys still working our way back out of this mine hey everybody now that was a lot of fun one that sorry we didn't find anything that much spectacular but we did to get to see some big stopped out areas and an open stop uh anyway make sure you come back next saturday and see gly's stuff he's really great thanks a lot for joining and for subscribing and for being being part of the team it helps us out a lot a lot of fun too thanks [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] do [Music] you

Channel: Abandoned and Forgotten Places

Views: 69,109

Keywords: A&FP, Abandoned, Forgotten, Places, Mine, Mines, Tunnel, Exploring, Adventure, Hiking, Artifacts, Antiques, Geology, Prospecting, Gold, Silver, Quartz, Dynamite, Blasting, Adit, Gly, Bobbie, Quackers, Gly Coolness, Old Bob, Old Mine, Old Building, Gold Mine, Ghost Town, Abandoned Mine, Abandoned Mines, Abandoned Place, Abandoned Places, Forgotten Place, Forgotten Places, Mine Exploring, Abandoned Mine Exploring, Exploring Abandoned Mines, Abandoned and Forgotten Places, Abandoned & Forgotten Places

Id: 6BAwDEhd2l8

Length: 44min 34sec (2674 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 19 2020