El Paso Mountains -- Exploring Mines & Detecting

all right I am out in the El Paso mountains I'm not entirely sure how far e'en I am that peak right there would be Red Mountain over there by randsburg I'm just doing some off-roading probably some detecting exploring looking around I came across this there's a sign here that says halt in the camp one thing that caught my eye is if you can see it up on the hill here there's a lot of mining and there's some more over here I don't know if it's gonna show up or not I'm gonna check it out a little closer and there's also some here there's some equipment up there and also since I plan on doing some detecting looks like there's a creek running down through here or an old river so I think I'm gonna check that out with the detector and see how it looks I'll get as much on camera as I can I'm just kind of just trying to have a good time today it's beautiful out here it's about 65 degrees sunny very little wind it is nice I am enjoying this good day today okay there's where I was just at and off to the left here there's a there's a small vertical shaft here there's a nice added right here I'm gonna go inside and check it out it looks pretty cool there's another vertical shaft here it looks like it goes down pretty deep but I'm gonna check this one out I don't know how far I'm gonna go in just for safety reasons I'm by myself but uh I did take a quick peek in and it looks very interesting might be worth a look oh yeah Wow yeah I may not be able to go any further that's a shame I want to get over there yeah there's no no way I'm gonna try and climb over this that's a shame I do see some I see some daylight over there look if I can make my way over to either side this obviously opens up this is pretty cool I'm gonna go climb around go to the other side okay so huh over there by my cars where I came in that is the vertical shaft that I got stopped at and this is the daylight that I saw I guess there's not a way in at least not that I've found so far might have to get a couple people over here and see if we can get a safe way across check it out but in the meantime there's no way in hell I'm going down there oh yeah I'm gonna go go check these guys out maybe I can find something interesting okay I'm out of breath all right judging by this tellings pile here there's a mine right there I'm guessing this thing probably goes back 150 200 for the deeper so maybe more we'll see besides this tank I came up here and I wasn't expecting to do any mind exploring today so I left my waterproof boots in the car had to go get them there's a lot of water in the bottom here let's see what it looks like mm-hmm got my detector with me so uh maybe it'll be good I'm gonna go ahead and leave a detective here at the entrance for now all right we got a little short in here maybe six feet at the highest point oh I should come back up here with my pan that might be worth heading a little bit it is wet footprints I have no idea what they were mining in here there's a lot of looks like slate not really sure there's some quartz doesn't look like anything too special interesting as I don't see any tracks there's no signs of tracks in here at all it is very very humid though sorry I'm kind of looking around while I'm walking oh I take it back that could very well be tracks right there you got some chords with a lot of uh looks like sulfur staining might have to chip some of this out on the way out see what it looks like I don't think there's an exit here it's just really warm and humid in here which is not good there's no air flow whatsoever I don't see any obvious signs of a the main that they were following is everything's running up and down the sides here well it has to be 30 degrees warmer in here than it is outside easily I'm sweating just walking this is interesting look at that there's a lot of quartz what a staining Oh see much aside from maybe some sulfur / sulfides ready I'm starting to see a lot of sulfites yeah I don't know if that's gonna show up or not but it's just all yellow hey look Drex right gotta be a pretty old mineshaft look at this oh I'm sulfides bleach it out there I wish this showed up as pretty as it is on the camera or as pretty as it is in person on the camera here it's very glittery oh I think I found the ND yep this is the end you can't even see the exit all right I'm gonna look around a little bit and then go on check out one of the other mines see what they look like all right that was one heck of a hike up here there was no road or trail or anything I just had to make my way up that tank right there is a mine I was just at see my car down here got a nice view up here very pretty I see a few areas that were probably mined at some point make note of them for next time anyway I'm up at this upper mineshaft here and it's similar to what was down there you can see all the rocks are all vertical to the shaft where all the layers so I don't know how they determined or what they were digging for or that there was anything here maybe they were just trying to get somewhere I'll go check this guy out it looks like it's probably gonna be pretty close to as deep as the other one was can't tell but there may be some light back there it was interesting I really would like to know how they determined that there was anything worth digging for in here everything's still going in layers vertical no that was it not quite as deep lots of rats little dude alright I didn't mean to scare you a little all right well that was it this is that watchh that I was talking about I'm still trying to find a way down here it looks somewhat promising see it that is the camp I was that I already try to Road on the other side it just got too rough I had to back up and turn around so uh same thing with this road it's not looking really all that promising but there's one on the right here I'm gonna take that and see where it goes that's the thing about exploring you never know we're gonna wind up we'll see how it goes I'm limited on time otherwise I would just hike down here it's uh about three hours until it gets dark it wouldn't give me a lot of time to prospect once I got down there oh I anyway it's still a nice day well I found what looks like a potentially good area to do some metal detecting here it's an oak cut out there's a lot of river rock in it doesn't look like it was riverbed looks more like it was like a mudslide or something but anywho check this out ah ah see I'm not getting a non-ferrous target off of it but I'm gonna go ahead and ship it out anyway and see what it looks like unfortunately I don't have my tripod so uh I won't be able to show you guys all right so you can see here there's a lot of hot rocks you know a lot of iron in the soil here that's what was triggering it I had to reground balance to check the rest of the area as you can see it's uh there's a lot of iron in it over here too oh yeah nothing there just uh just iron in the soil just a lot of it well I did find one cool thing here this guy unfortunately after I got about a foot down or so trying to dig it out I realized it's probably about 20 feet deep or 20 feet longer huh yeah I don't have a shovel with me otherwise I would go ahead and dig it just not worth the effort with this little pickaxe here yeah time to find another place to detect man I'm out of shape leave this a lot of driving today have not yet found a road that I can make it down that mixes the creek down there it uh all just got washed out from the rains so I've been just driving around detecting a little spot here and there wherever it looks good that's especially yet but if I do get anything good I'll obviously get it on camera okay so I never made it around to detecting in that Creek it got a little bit late and I ended up heading out looking at the maps I realized that just around the turn from where I was at the old mines there was a much larger mine I believe it's called the Apache mine and that would be this guy right here so I decided to drive out again today and check it out I don't know if it's accessible there to find out real quick it's beautiful out here there's a little bit of a storm coming in it might rain we'll see how that goes and I did see a lot of areas to detect a lot of dry creeks on the way in and a lot of adits so I'm not really sure what the day is gonna look like but I'll try to keep it as interesting as I can well that is rather disappointing I hiked up the top without my gear and it's a vertical shaft and it goes down pretty darn far which is a shame because this was supposed to be about 350 feet long into the mountain I'm guessing you got to get down first but that's okay it is what it is there's plenty of other areas to check out for example there's one right there I might hike over and check that out and then there's several along the way back and like I said earlier there's still plenty of places to well I did like anybody else would do and decided to go raid their remnants from their ore cart up there the ore chute usgs says then in 1940 they got several ounces of gold and tens of pounds of copper however much that winds up being but uh this is the stuff I'm picking up there could be gold in it best I can tell Erin and maybe some silver but uh I'm not really very good at identifying silver just yet it was one of the primary materials they're pulling out I suspect anybody with the rock crusher would have a field day up here I'll put it on my list for when I do get a rock crusher going but anyway I'm gonna take my metal detector real quick before I get done here and go up and run around on the area and see if I find anything you never know okay I didn't find anything with the metal detector and I'm not really all that surprised honestly the report here was that it was a half a gram per ton for the gold I did find this piece of ore here which looks really nice there's a lot of iron there's some sulphide staining there's some iron pyrite visible with the eye loupe and some Chalco pyrite a little bit of quartz going through it here and there and as best I can tell what the eye loupe could possibly be some gold in it for example that area right there I won't know until I crush it up but I'm hopeful it's funny because I always tend to to look for quartz and I always forget about this stuff but this stuff can be pretty darn good as far as finding gold and other stuff in it all right there is the mine I was at unfortunately I went up the wrong side of the hill I had to hike my way back over here there is a stay up stay alive sign up which is probably for a good reason yeah that's relatively deep all right I don't know how deep this guy goes in what we're gonna find out sorry did you get my flashlight don't have enough hands here it looks like somebody was using a torch in here at some point I don't expect this one to go back very far just judging by the tailings but you never know what's in here could be something cool looks like that's it very deep as usual lotsa rats all right well let's go find another one okay I haven't quite gotten out of this place yet um something caught my eye and this quartz here and I've been smacking it with a rock I don't know why I didn't bring my rock camera with me I doubt it's gonna show up on here but there is something whether it's copper or gold I'm not really sure kind of see it sorry right there and I found several pieces on the inside of this quartz here as I've been chipping it away yeah using my my trusty pocket knife you're gonna break pieces off but when I get out in the sunlight I'll see what it looks like could just be copper it could be pyrite but I'm gonna take some with me regardless we'll see what it looks like when I get out okay it appears to be copper as best I can tell that doesn't mean there's not gold in it so of course I'll go ahead and crush it up and see what it looks like sorry no it's windy alright because I'm incredibly stubborn I went back up and chiseled out some more of that uh ore from that mine I noticed this on the way in I'm gonna go check it out I don't think it's very deep but it's worth a worth giving it a shot I doubt it looks like it from the view on the camera here but that is going to be a slippery climb I'm gonna spare you guys the huffing and puffing just wanted to give you a view here before I go up looks like the storm passed by which is awesome alright I am here I just had a hawk fly by me I got so distracted by the fact that I couldn't go in the other mine I forgot that I had brought some toys with me I don't know if it'll show up on here but that's pretty standard for background radiation levels I'm curious to see how these mines end up being a lot of the granite mines that I've been in tend to be around 300 or so also brought a shortwave UV light so we'll see if there's anything cool in here I can't believe I forgot to use them in the other mines anyway let's see let's see what things look like ah this doesn't go back as far at all I should have known with all the rat droppings at the entrance here well that's what somebody's nest back here Wow there is somebody's nest back here alright well let's see we'll try the UV light Oh your turn this other one off my guess would be that's probably a vein of calcite I don't know how well it's showing up on here yeah that's what it appears to be that's pretty cool there's more I know it's not working on that great there's too much visible light in here that there's a big old chunk good way to determine calcite from quartz that's for sure here's another vein I don't think we're gonna see much over here with all this light let's see what the see what the readings are in here no surprisingly normal there you go like I said usually the granite mines end up being around 300 or better alright let's get out of here it smells like rat pee well I decided to go check out this creek bed that I was looking at the other day I don't know if there's gonna be anything there but it's worth a shot at least use my curiosity take me a few minutes to get over there I don't know how visible anything is gonna be on here coming up on the Hollen camp right now Express something on the bottom there uh anyway it's a beautiful day couldn't ask for anything nicer called uh 70 degrees pretty good for a winter time and there's a light breeze so it's not too warm I'm loving it all right I made it no it's gonna be windy down here can't do much about it unfortunately you guys quick view and check this up I know it doesn't mean much all that black sand they got me kind of excited what can I say there's a lot of it all right I'm gonna metal detector I know somebody's gonna complain about the sight thing but uh it is what it is I think it's beautiful honestly I was at the base of those mountains over there was where the camp is I wasn't really sure I was gonna make it down here honestly [Music] could be golden [Music] here's where I guess Realty [Music] I sure hope this is actually me that's further back this way the tedious joys of middle detecting I'm gonna have to go back to the car and get a pic did not anticipate digging in bedrock that's how sensitive I have this thing set look at that maybe a little piece of buckshot I'm not gonna miss any gold that's for sure beautiful I'm down a little Canyon here about having too much luck detecting lots of hot rocks so yeah see that I'm probably gonna call it a day here in a few minutes getting dirty this is just something else no sense um detecting here is like a foot of sand pretty I didn't expect there to be so much sandstone up here let's see what's over on the other side real quick before I call it a day yeah well unless I find something amazing on the way back that's gonna be it I hope everybody enjoyed watching I had a pretty good time looking around checking everything out I gotta find a new spot now

Channel: Oidium45

Views: 41,388

Rating: 4.8917589 out of 5

Keywords: Exploring, El Paso, Mountains, Gold, Silver, Copper, Chacopyrite, Pyrite, Hiking, Apache mine, holland, camp

Id: -otQDIMR-NA

Length: 33min 26sec (2006 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 27 2019