Exploring a Unique Historic Mine

and welcome to another mine this is one of the more interesting ones in the uh slide of washington state this is on i'm not going to tell you the name spoil this one because uh this this mine's a doozy [Applause] but basically from the late 1890s to the early 1920s i believe this was a very large silver lead zinc mine and i mean very large i think they produced i don't remember how much they produced but they produced a lot of ore because this had an incline shaft that went down i think 800 feet and then there were like four or five other mines all in the same mountain so this is one of three giant pits of some later work that they did in the 1940s literally just bulldozing the remains of the mine i think that they could get into further things this is pointing in the direction that the incline shaft used to be because right on the other side of this pit is an even deeper pit probably about 200 feet deep where they just i think they had an excavator just uh on the end of a crane just pull out ton after ton of ore just huge amounts of rock pulled out of this mine and this is only a part of it but we know there's no added on this side here there's supposed to be one or two attitudes on this mountain that might get underground still that's what we're hoping for today and there's a few remains and ruins and some pretty cool stuff to see yep there's some ruins right there i think there's a diesel generator there we've been to this site once before but we're investigating it again because we missed a lot last time but you can easily see right where they were just bulldozing everything and pulling ore out in just enormous quantities they literally removed this side of the mountain in a few different spots and it's pretty crazy but we're going to walk around the side here now [Applause] and where we're going today i think is possibly something there should be a road further down the hill past a giant remains of an orbit i think it goes down that way i think so yeah but i do want to check out the giant hole again so we're going to do that first all right okay that's all right before going back down that's the one we climbed around last time yeah yeah we didn't climb down at least it's more than a little sketchy but yeah that's the one where i think they just had a giant crane lifting rocks and just everything out of the mine to remove i don't know whatever was here it's really sad because this was a pretty historic mind before this area especially with how much production it had a lot of waste oh yeah a lot of waste i believe it's mostly in limestone here a lot of white in the rock right in dark blue but uh gotta get up this somehow you can kind of see the remains of the building up there we're going up yep gotta go up to go see the other hole we'll catch you in just a minute and that little structure that i saw showed you a minute ago actually turned out to be the outhouse but what it was next to is a giant platform for what i think is a generator or something bolts yeah yeah those concrete this concrete head was built something built to hold something huge it was a decent sized building otherwise it's definitely seen better days yeah those that's one thing it was a big diesel generator or something or a generator or i don't know a lot of things it could have been but it was right here and then it looks like there's electrical cord right bearish but there's a small pit here and another one way beyond that's the big one i just wanted to check all this stuff out here first though [Applause] i don't think there's anything that way just [Applause] an old building [Applause] so [Applause] i'll head right up this way be a rough day for me because carrying like 30 40 pounds worth of gear feels like well about 20 but you can kind of see the big pit already it is something special yep this smaller one might have been where the start of the uh incline was but uh this one might have been where the start of the incline was but definitely went down that way check that real fast [Applause] and my fear of heights kicks in a little bit here yep ah that's a thorn yeah we came down the other side not this side yeah but uh this is where the incline shaft for the mine was supposed to be going down in the mountain i think that way ish and it's just an enormous hole it's probably 200 feet beat i don't know if you could hear it but that rock just stopped rolling that's enormous how deep it is but it's actually pretty cool right here because that red you can kind of see on your screen that is mostly limonite which is a pseudomorph of iron and at this mine specifically huge amounts of silver lead ore were found right alongside it so considering this even comes up to the surface this is probably where they found the first outcropping of the ore seam that is just an enormous pit really quite something but we did come back to see a little bit of this and then see if we can find some other things that might hold promising [Applause] so we're gonna investigate get down the hill and see what we can find what do you have to say big pit very big pit yeah all right we'll keep walking so just above me there is the road that leads down to an edit that we're going to be checking out and we are like maybe 150 feet down the mountain from those main pits mosquitoes showing up now but uh we've just come down to see an enormous set of structures here dad walked off that direction what's over there anything over there it's a barrel there on the ground a couple feet okay with what appear to be control valves for these pipes okay or is it like a giant metal barrel yeah like uh so yeah big metal barrel okay so that might have actually been what's called an accumulator which is uh they compress air outside the mine and pump it into the mine those accumulators store the pressurized air for the drills well that barrel is just an empty you know oil barrel oh okay okay and then with two pipes coming up with like a control valve almost kind of thing so it could have just been control yeah the flow here which was obviously coming into something yeah i see what might be sluices and stuff down there which is odd because this was a silver or a silver lead mine there's not a lot of water up here no there is not they did have to barrel it and use the trim system to get the uh water up here so i do wonder what's down here we're to start down in a second oh stuff yeah i just need to drink water first i'll be ready just a second huh all right we're climbing down the hill now we're wondering if there might be an ad at the bottom of this this is certainly a huge structure it's like two or three stories here yeah some big big beams in there yeah so walking along [Applause] i don't know from the records they didn't seem to have a mill on site but the way this is going down the hill makes me think mill sure [Applause] sorts of stuff yeah this is a huge structure whatever it was was something big yeah like a big let's try to get down there's nowhere still in the wheels yeah that looks like an overshoot there oh i felt a raindrop darn it anything it's hard to tell what this was yeah like and that's holding back yeah cool [Applause] this wood is not good anymore so i am thinking this is maybe a mill because that looks like screening there yeah and this is all milled timbers this is probably not original exploration and workings yeah there's a grizzly up there so i shouldn't just say that so a grizzly is what they basically dump an ore cart over and it's a bunch of bars that determine uh whether large chunks of rock can go through or not and it looks like they made it up there just out of i-beams or something really thin i beams yeah it does which was probably an ore shoot or something really because i saw what looked like an overshoot gate assembly back behind me so i'm thinking this was a small mill that they used to process or on site which is interesting i've never seen i've just never seen reports of anything like that so never seen reports of one around here seen pictures of an orbit which i think is just below us this is a enormous structure yeah probably not stuff below me is giving away this is a really giant structure here though no unless it was under that which it very well could be considering just how much rock is here there's just no waste material here no well there's some down beneath us but yeah there's nothing here so if there wasn't at it either this was just a haulage that they just dug right in the mountain or i don't know okay i'm gonna get off this just keeps giving away on me so we'll see you down there in just a moment [Music] yeah i mean it's obviously it seems like it's filtering out water yeah it is i think and then directing it it looks like it continues on just down here there's like a belt or something yeah there's like these like a flume line a bloom lined with a sort of a belt material like a conveyor belt that's in a little better shape but i think that was an orb there's more of the iron stuff so i think that that wasn't at it and i think that was the rail came out it looks like they took the rail bit but that huge structure was for an attic i think so i think that was the exit of an attic uh that might even be like the incline structure all right so we've come down below that structure there's a giant orbit almost in line with the very bottom of it actually i should bring guys back up to show you because [Applause] they definitely dumped a lot of waste rock out here so we think now especially that this is probably the exit to an attic very likely coming off the inclined shaft inside the mine and considering the size of this orbit and the amount of waste rock out here they were doing a lot see that metal structure right there on the side yeah on the side of it yeah i think it's a tank or something i don't know it's hard to tell but they did all sorts of things out here it's kind of crazy it's almost like that had a roof it does seem like that doesn't it there's a giant spider web crossing that opening right there i can see but uh it's like there is a road down below it which is interesting because it's not on any of my maps and it's coming out of what looks like an at it underneath a huge building like an enormous building two to three stories tall it's just i wish i knew what was going on here yeah we can in just a minute here i just want to walk to the end of this and see what's up on this you can start walking down there if you want so he's going to check out what's at the bottom of that orbin i'm going to take you guys this way real quick [Applause] spread around these trees and walk around these huge chunks of rock hard lima night just enormous stuff [Applause] there's a little washout right here where they uh lighter dug something out because i'm not seeing anything in the woods interesting oh it looks more like a washout it looks like it ends right over here right above another flat spot giant flat area looks like there's timbers and stuff down there huh [Applause] yeah that's the end of it here this has to be a way strong pile coming out of that mine has to be it's so long i think i've walked easily to 300 feet i'm gonna walk right on back and uh see if i can find my dad down the bottom of that orbit so there's no pictures of stuff not this one no so we're down at the bottom of this orbit it's definitely an orbit there's a couple small shoots there there's definitely a tank here for water or something right at the bottom looks like a little flume down to it or something probably to recollect it so they definitely had water problems up here in that it was just too dry inside the mine to supply any water and the creeks are like 2 000 feet down the hillside so really yeah it is took a lot of good work to build that but there's not a whole lot else down here [Applause] yeah i think this is kind of the lowest extent of the actual mines yeah there's another one there that's where you think of that oh we gotta go back up to get to that road to get to it yeah where are we going here i think we'll probably just head back up the hill okay i think this is probably the end of here i think this is the lowest extent of the mines yeah like they probably drove the ore out of here to get it where it needed to go seems like a big road good place to turn around yeah yeah like big trucks and stuff because especially later years this was when trucks were starting to be very popular for this sort of thing instead of trains and tram systems so yeah pretty cool yeah it is it's awesome i'm guessing this road just coming out of here yeah i'd be surprised if it didn't so yeah we're gonna head up the hill then and see we can find hopefully before it gets too hot yeah we're good ways down the road now [Applause] very good ways down the road to or just past the uh that we saw a little bit ago supposed to be to add it down this side of the mountain [Applause] that apparently cuts way in like good three-quarters of a mile to a mile into the side of the hill to connect into the incline there's definitely something right here at least [Applause] well this one is uh [Applause] that one's a collapse is that it i don't think so i hope not anyway there are so many nets flying around this right now we could dig that out we could yes yeah it's mostly just roots and stuff that's left in i'm gonna see if we can climb in from the top or anything i wouldn't probably try it it looks like a really tiny opening it looks like we can get in from the top or maybe squeeze in through there the top yeah i'm gonna oh my gosh foot just fell a good six inches in uh no you can't squeeze in that you can squeeze in probably on that side there but not from up here i don't think this is the one that i was thinking of now off the air didn't you no no we don't have to climb off the road yeah so there should be one more because there's a super obvious waste rock pile and this one doesn't have an obvious waste rock pile yeah so yeah nothing but gnats dust and flies at least there's supposed to be an obvious waste pile for all this hold on hold on thank you [Applause] yeah that's what it looks like yeah yeah this looks more like a waste rock pile here [Applause] oh wait mosquito oh there's concrete structures and everything right here i think i hear running water that's the entrance or holy cow these gnats they literally just keep flying right to my eye oh yeah there's the edit it's open at least a little bit oh mama yeah oh god these nets but anyway here's the view over the waste rock pile it is a beautiful day lots of cool mountain in the distance here there's a structure right there oh there was a structure right there yeah didn't even see that it's just right down the hill that looks like a bunch of pipes and stuff so probably like a compressor house this is a big spot yeah this is a big waste trail i told you it's gonna be a long tunnel i think if this is if this is the right tunnel so investigate around here real quick [Applause] i don't know what this ditch was for god these nets are just flying into my ears and everything man go away so i'm gonna get across and see what i can see [Applause] pipe right there oh this is like a boiler right here [Applause] okay apparently there's rail behind us here probably coming out of the edit [Applause] oh yeah it's open wow yeah there's there's rail coming down all right oh it stinks [Applause] that's not six feet of water is there i can't tell but i don't think so i'm gonna pull flashlight out because these nuts are getting bad thank you oh yeah oh no it is open but it collapses a little bit inside yeah we're going to take a look at this just take a quick look at it right now yeah i'm going to take my backpack and everything off yeah i'll catch you in just a second inside all right well we're in the attic trying to escape from that so i'm not wearing my big headlamp or anything this is a solid at it i gotta put my headlamp on man oh there's a frog over here yeah a little froggy probably doesn't like that i'm shining him on it i'm gonna put my headlamp on all right then we can continue all right we're back in the mine now after getting our helmets on and lights on the helmets glasses no we won't be in here too long i don't think oh yeah he was bringing in fresh greens there's a whole bunch of greens in here and this ground is not very good the less echo is the less good it is and also the more timbers they hold the cow that's a lot of timbers they put in here your back is covered in sweat oh this wood is rotten come yeah he was building up his nest don't ruin it man don't ruin his nest i didn't right now how do i get up here how far do you think it goes on oh that's a big collapse right here this ground's not very good no more echo nope no more echo at all i can see the rails again okay so the ground will probably get better here in just a second i'm going to scramble across this and i'm going to scribble across this and we'll catch you again here all right we're now just past that series of collapses and all the timbers involved there we're gonna be continuing on here this would just give his way up to the feet which makes sense if it's been here for over 100 years so i think this is one of the original tunnels that they did at this moment okay there's the echo again yeah whenever lima knights present the rock there's just no echo at all all right let's see where the sleepers used to be there's a little bit of water dripping so the sleepers is what they call the ties yeah good there's a big big bats oh where is that no that's a giant piece of wood holding the electrical 90 degrees outside it goes on man i'm just hoping it continues to stay a good ground because no i don't have boots my last boots disintegrated and i just haven't gotten any new ones yet so they braced it oh yeah they did go up there so they were planning on going further it looks like interesting yeah you gotta slow down the smell i know i'm excited i can't help it don't hit too much please just with the ground already being that bad back there and it being even worse possibly further on this is a really cool line here track dipped off this way a little bit oh there's two drifts here dad don't do that in here please so there's two lines here the rails turn that way yeah except with the way the wood's placed in here this one doesn't look too good neither really do the other one does continue on beyond the wood but not very far it looks like so this one no i'm going to come with you okay oh my god it stinks over here dad like what i don't know just keep walking get out of it for a minute thank you you got a few more in you we got to come back this way oh this is just a trash wait where's the jeans i don't know but these are carbide barrels oh wow the ground is not getting confidence introducing here looks like it keeps going yeah there's some carbide graffiti here chasing somebody cvj i don't know cvj wrote there probably uh it looks like we might just be entering a maze of a sword wow ground's soft right there yeah it's soft all over here oh wow all the graffiti miners graffiti this is undeciding all their names for the original miners that is awesome that's pretty rare even around here so looks like it stops up ahead careful in this this looks like it's mostly just boulders kind of stuck together by the rock yeah it stops up ahead here but i don't know if it goes up no it doesn't it just kind of stops here sure it doesn't turn no it looks like it might turn right for a small pocket it looks like they found the ore or a small amount of it i'm just concerned because that limonite is easy to break through there's another redness it's pretty deep for redness i found that whatever it is yeah then the mind just ends there otherwise huh you're probably going to drill into the over here start blasting turn down yeah so why didn't probably it doesn't look like it continued it looks like this is probably just a little shoot or my pictures what's that you gonna take some pictures yeah a couple pictures i'm just looking at here first so yeah this is just a little shoot of ore it's barely two feet thick some of the ore in this mine was 75 feet thick so this is almost nothing for them so there's little bits of silver inside it though i do see that so that's pretty neat so yeah i'm gonna take a few pictures and we'll head back to that other tunnel okay sounds good and that's the drift we just went down we're gonna go ahead and walk this way now the old man's picking at the wall a little bit getting the very good looking stuff here looks like there's quartz beads in there or something yeah nothing really exciting not in this section no there's little bits of line tonight picking out of the walls but you can just see i think the sweat on your back's starting to crystallize and turn nice did you want to go first uh hang on what the heck is that that's a really old bottle really old bottle look at that fungus yeah that lima knight it's just it's basically sand yeah oh careful please i can hear that stuff going underneath you look at that wow that is awesome i gotta get closer to that oh you farted again oh just smells white probably a bit oh there's rotten wood underneath where i stepped oh wow look at that that is it's like a obstacle course here yeah maybe down here and you can shine your fancy bright light see if it's worth going any further yeah it goes on further all right i'll be over there in just a second just trying to walk easier on all those this is this is rough ground i don't want to hold on to it also like subconsciously need to hold on to the rock so be careful picking out there sir all right you wanna wait for me to turn my light on yeah but this is interesting oh that's called a bug it's a pocket of crystals we'll get over there in just a second to see that all right got the big light on oh it just gets worse i don't think i want to continue with this it might go to the left yeah it looks like there is another drift there yeah especially if you like this thing oh yeah so i did see some stuff similar to that oh my god my foot just seemed like a foot in that oh that's awesome it's really hard to see this without screen popped out a bug huh yeah a lot of old mining terms from like cornwall and stuff that looks like a bug to me where it's a an air bubble that appeared in likely the magma that came up here or the uh incredibly mineral rich water and uh it just the air bubbles stuck around and then crystal started forming that's awesome there's definitely crystals then i don't want to dig it out that whole wall looks like it can come down yeah it's got a huge crack like the whole the whole thing is it's just mud here this ground is rough that whole wall could come down easily yes so what's it look like it goes to the left alright does the left look good okay i'm just trying not to there's no rail it's not this freaking nice no the rails do continue that way though do you want to flash your big one yeah okay just a sec i'm just going to come down where you are oh my gosh that rock that i put my weight on starting to crumble look at that yeah yeah it looks like it keeps going that way but i'm kind of scrambled out well we could go all the way to there and see well we me go this way first uh unless it stops but i'm willing to walk down at least looks like it had rail yeah they had rail one point they were exploring it for sure sleepers yeah man this is just insanity holy cow a little bit of quartz or something but i don't peel too much off there's still just a lot of dirt it's like all this stuff it's just dirt so yeah just more yeah this is good ground for the most part until they reach more limonite my mind yeah but it just crumbles so easily chasing something right oh there's a lot of nails in these ones so i'm kind of cautious here oh okay more miner's graffiti you know there's a house a house yeah there's a house for the well-drawn one oh my flash my headlamps run out of battery i thought i charged definitely but i guess i'm using it on the highest setting you got other ones i got other flashlights yes but not headlight batteries not right now yeah holy cow that is a minor spoon yeah my headline is going on holy cow it's dark in here hold on hold on there's another there's that way in this way geez that's well i'm gonna film the spider's boot first look at that that is in very good shape for being here for well over a hundred years i'd say so you only have another headlight no i don't have another headlight battery either i thought i fully charged it up it was sitting on the charger for like six hours the day before we left yeah that one goes down a long ways there's more miners graffiti 39 it says so 1939 maybe interesting oh here's yeah here's some dots indicating how many loads of or they carried out online that's what those indicate so they pulled a lot of water out of this apparently which is interesting it's a little soft up there i'm thinking yeah i'm not going to look up that you go ahead and take a peek about 20 feet 20 feet okay yeah it's all sam come down yeah the ground's not it's good here again it's still kind of it's the end here's more graffiti here's bui oh yeah and another thing around there cb is next gen dl looks like oh well there's a very nice message there what did you say look at that one on the side there fork yeah can't read what a whole lot of this says cj39 and then jk yeah i don't know what back something on and then there's another two here another 1939 and jkj we're here why it's on course i think that's i think that's some of the ore they're going after right there it is shiny well they didn't leave very much if they left it here this probably didn't pan out very much so you didn't find that in there just quartz looks like a lot of quartz yeah so it could be fungus or staining or something up there let's leave the miner's graffiti here because that's pretty historic even if it is from 39 that might be like a blasting captain maybe i'm thinking that's what it is i'm not 100 sure so i'm going to go ahead and take a few pictures and we can check out that other small drift that was off the other way we just finished off that direction and we have come from that way so now we're going to check out the way that c v c looks like denoted in 1939 it's a little bit bigger of a drift here on the ground is concerningly quiet again oh there's the echo one more time looks like it might end up here probably but i still want to see it right oh there's sulfur and stuff coming out of the rock here very cool a lot of quartz crystals in that too earning and a cool oil can looks like more rock to hit up [Applause] make sure there's no minor graffiti up there's a few bits of miner's graffiti here just a few dots on the wall but still pretty cool stuff all things considered i don't know what's in oh she's fit c v c 1939 another one what's going on there's again yeah 134 it looks like it says yep me too so yeah just 134 it looks like it says there so maybe how long this one is some weird yellow sulfur picking up probably through everything yeah interesting [Applause] i think this is a piece of miners graffiti but i don't know what it is you saw that i drove it on there oh yeah i was too busy looking up this is right next to that other bit of miner car feed i think i saw there's a good drill bit good junk drill steel let's see if it's newer type it is so that's 30s and 40s drill yeah so that definitely corroborates the 1939 date we've seen in a few of these drifts here so that's pretty cool it's nice and cool yeah it feels good in here it's 90 plus degrees outside and it's hot so this is vastly preferable to that nothing up here just loose dirt in the ground some more markings here saw the dots here oh yeah 15 says there then there's a two so there might have been one right there yeah so yeah then there's the honors boot it's really cool to see that fully intact we saw that at the other mine partially oh yeah but it's fully intact in terms of not having decayed like that other mine we went to there's more limonite up through there crazy amount of stuff crazy all right let's make our way back to the main tunnel here i'm not seeing any other minor graffiti so considering that we're going to stop here due to how bad the tunnel is getting and this will probably be the end of things and then on high note and look at this lower body there man look at that that's really cool to see i don't know if that's silver in there or just even denser and iron but that's really cool to see so we're gonna head on out from here and uh i think this will be the end of this mine adventure at least on video so thanks for joining us

Channel: SomethingDifferently

Views: 3,000

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Id: 79B_nEFBfgY

Length: 53min 27sec (3207 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 03 2022