Exploring The 900 Level of The Union Mine!

hello today i am taking that 150 year old cage 900 feet down into an abandoned silver mine that's my hope anyways this cage hasn't been down that deep in nobody knows how long along the way there could be tight spots that can't get past who knows you know the cable could break that's the plan and i'm bringing something pretty special down there with me [Music] well well well would you look at this thanks to all of you watching this channel i got the million subscriber plaque button thing look at that look how shiny it is i think it's looking great this is uh crazy to think about that you know 15 months ago i never made a video in my life and now thanks to all your support one million of you have chosen to subscribe to this channel that's mind-blowing i know i say it every week but i said i thank you all so so much look at that there i am this is how i record a little gopro hello meta this is awesome you know what i need to do what i'm gonna do now is bring this out and show the other people that help make this happen you may be wondering what other people will help make this happen well let's take a little walk so i think we all know the real reason that you guys follow this channel watch along and the real reason this plaque is here today is because of you tofu elon maybe a little bit and beretta what do you guys think black no you can't eat it elon calm down what do you think you on oh you're so excited about it huh you guys are the real stars of the show especially you tofu you on look at that that's what you look like that's what the mirror's like guys elon tofu i know this is exciting for you just as exciting for me this plaque it's been a long time coming it's exciting unfortunately tofu you better take the last look of it because this plaque is going underground this plaque is going to join me right above here in the union mine where we're going to take this thing 900 feet down the union mine to leave it for a future generation i love finding things back in the mind so much and can you imagine a long time from now finding this down there and a time capsule of 2021 and what youtube was so without further ado let's take this thing up there and bring it out of mind so inside this building is the union mine which is a vertical shaft that goes 900 feet straight down and every 100 feet there's levels or so i have only been to the 700 level but today it has a special feature to get this black there's dave i'm gonna try to go down to the 900. that's easier said than done so imagine we'll develop a plan what do you think dave hey let's do it you bring enough rope to get down to 900 feet i got 300 feet of rope so if we can get me within 300 foot of it i think we're all right okay so the problem with going to the 900 level is the cage does not go to the 900 level the last 50 feet or more of the guide rail is missing and so it's going to be a another rope down repel ascend up we don't know how far that the cage will actually go down but i'm having to bring a lot of rope just in case so let's talk journey to the 900 foot level of cerro girls union mine the 900 foot level is as deep as it goes it is quite literally rock bottom of this mine shaft well that's not quite true sometime around 1911 they were trying to make the shaft go deeper they want to go to deeper than 900 feet they wanted to take this thing down to 3 000 feet that i've heard but there was a fault in the way so they had to go out into the 900 foot level and they dug down an additional 250 feet in different places all the way down to the 1150 level but as far as our plan is just get to the 900 let's not get too ahead of ourselves first we're going to go to the 700 foot level because that seems to be the case every week the water isn't working and the water is at the 700 foot level of cerro gordo's union mine so we're going to go down investigate hopefully fix the water quickly we'll see and at that point we'll go back to the cage radio up and tell cody who will be sitting here with our lives quite literally in his hands to go into the great unknown the problem is nobody that i've talked to nobody can recall the cage going down to the 900 foot level in who knows how long there's rumors that the guide rails the letter of this cage down are gone at the bottom 100 feet of the mine shaft which would be a problem because that means that this cage would go down lose the railings and start spinning wildly and be almost impossible to pull back up the 900 has always been here right up front of my mind of when i'm gonna go down there and i was just waiting for kind of the right reason to go you know it seemed like a very big adventure for me you know an important one from my understanding of cyril gordo and so i wanted the right reason and thanks to all of you guys i have the right reason and that reason is one million subscribers to this youtube channel it's impossible for me to fathom that you know it's just too much you know to almost think about but all i have to say is thank you thank you all so so much you know this channel has just been such a blessing over this past year as truly helping rebuild this town you know this channel is having an impact on sierra gordo's future and i just think that's so wonderful so the day started we started heading down today's crew was me craig who's kind of the general man who knows everything about the pump and the shaft and dave mull dave's an amazing guy this is kind of the perfect crew that you would want to go down not her feet under the earthwood all right see you later come on 900 here we go what's the ball somebody need to turn the heater on we started our way down everybody's in great moods you know i got a new light on my gopro so i was really excited to show more of the 700 foot level than i've ever been seen before what do you think we're going to find out real quick david one more time brent one more time we're gonna get the water this time oh yeah we're gonna go down to the 700 foot level fix the pump and if the radio is still working so communication is our biggest issue up and down this hole you know without communication we are not going to go 900 feet under the ground with no way to signal to the top you know too many things can go wrong it's too far away to yell there's just no chance it's going to happen and so our metric was if we got a 700 foot level and we were able to fix the water and the radio still worked we'd see what happened you know keep taking it as far as we can go you know who knows what's happening that's cool we're back there's some water okay that should be us [Music] and we're here do we have radio yeah i can eat your laugh oh sweet there we go okay we're going to go check out what's happening let's see what's going on that sounds great [Music] yeah this one has no water i'll go back see if i was the idiot put it down far enough all right yeah there's a lot of theories of what could have happened one of the theories is that i didn't quite put the hose into the water far enough and i was just sucking out the first two inches i didn't think that was happening but i would have put it past me and so we went down there that was not the case the hose is all the way down you're fine there so i figured something out somehow we lost prime again craig you have your sump pump down here so yeah it's in the water can we turn it on i have to just plug it in on the inside so is that it's sucking through the sump pump now no no okay this time when we were down there diagnosing the water situation we decided to follow this pipe that was leading into the water source back deeper in the mine look at that got some old gloves wow yeah work those pretty good what we found is about 80 or 100 yards from the current water source that's really where the water is coming from you know sometime in the past they had created a dam out of wood to block the water that was dripping from the ceiling to pool it and they were piping it all the way back to the current water source and so that led us to believe that in the future if we were able to better capture that water and potentially replace that pipe leading back it could lead to even more water up on the surface so it's all split up everywhere oh just rusted the yeah yeah i mean i got mild well we'd have to get it laid flat we'd put rocks on it the whole damn way but look here craig see there's a little dam they built here yeah oh no [Music] damn it's made out of wood yeah oh yeah they're routing it across there yeah see yeah that's awesome i didn't pay attention yeah this is where it's dripping off the roof right here oh yeah right there so that's actually the water source i think it is and then uh let's see i hate to say but i think there might have been something that way yeah it's wetter and hell down there too looks yeah farther down yeah oh yeah this is just yeah we got water cap out there huh yeah we got standing pressure it was just working and what was that some oil or something no no no that's that's ours [Music] issue need a routine maintenance like every two weeks or every week [Music] hey you want to see if there's water coming out up there [Music] yeah it's coming all right look at that well done guys and it turns out the pump had just ran through the oil you know we don't know what happened but we put a quarter oil in it it took the whole court and started pumping again and so not even 20 minutes after being down there water's back on radio's working it's time to go so we're going to try to go as far as we can now yeah you're gonna do the great unknown i'm gonna try i'm gonna try yeah i mean i don't know we're gonna watch you we've never taken this cage beyond this no not a lifetime so it's the great unknown oh all right got a little two cavalier walking in here [Music] we got water it's party time let's go down bishop you mean independence in a little trailer is that a barrio yep you're the heartbeat of the water i can't rpm let's just keep doing continuous radio checks and uh go to a flashlight when you come to the end of the rail so we started down and very quickly my feelings dropped i think the whole mood in the cage turned from one of great excitement of what's below of oh sh i hope we can make it back up maybe about 50 feet below us or something hanging in the middle hanging on this side of the shaft a little bit you see that oh yeah oh hey hey stop stop stop all right okay don't go ahead and go stop stop i think we're uh yeah he stopped you we're good no we're stuck aren't we no it's a rope well maybe was it in the contract this is the traffic see if he can pull us up or let it down let him down we got rope stuck in the uh track can you pull us up maybe a foot oh yeah it's kind of sticky is that okay let's go a little bit more up that's pretty sticky boys yeah don't know that you're going down on this thing right all right hold down you know the goal was just to cut it give it some roof to breathe to bow out a little bit so the cage could float past it was a tense 15 minutes of just sawing on this guide rail trying not to fall down the shaft passing it from one person to the other so we could sell from different angles trying to get the thing loose not knowing if we could go down any further but not knowing if we could go back up either you probably can't get in that hole oh no it's tight you can't suck it in luckily after a bunch of work cage passed all right passed another uh obstacle of swords [Music] now we're good [Music] i'd say 20 feet we got this thing hanging out it looks like we'll clear it or um [Music] it's just a plank this is the loose plane see it it might flip though it might flip up and drop down the shaft do you want to do well give us all a head slow until we get down let's keep going just call off the feet i might just be able to kick it out of the way let me see uh we're five feet away is it attached no it's a tiny little board yeah okay we're probably gonna clear it we're gonna clear it okay if not it's just gonna flip and it's gonna fall down see how tiny it is right but i don't want to get wet no i know so okay we're clear of obstructions proceed on down your skip is nice and loose make sure you radio me back so we can tell uh if we're getting scratchy or not yeah copy that i can still hear you the further we got down towards the 900 foot level the more the cage started acting up you know it was chattering as if it was stuck but it was free from any obstruction so what do you got going down there craig we're dangling totally free uh but it's it's like it's it's choppy it's jumping as we're going down and we're not getting caught anywhere either we got a problem with the head wheel or something because it's acting weird at the voice too i'm having a hard time keeping it steady but it's not rattling or anything like that it's detecting like the shaft is really tight yeah like i said we're dancing around down here it's just dangling not not touching anything if you want to try another 20 feet if it doesn't feel good we'll figure something out okay the only other thing i can think of is the cable from is in that position for so long and now i mean i haven't moved here forever we're trying to make it move and that could be causing some weird binding and stuff we're looping the head wheel more right [Music] [Applause] people came out and grabbed me look at that there's the bottom yeah i see someone sitting there and then there you got this guy drill popping out though i'm just talking to the camera yeah that's great you got a little bow in this one on this side craig seat right here dancing pretty good though no we've got three inches i think we may be okay we're approaching the bottom 900 feet down the union mine look at that we all get to explore the first time the skiff has been down here yeah who knows when now let's hope it'll pull it back up details details this is it guys holy 900 feet down [Music] maybe stop stop stop [Music] okay you're gonna have to climb out boys all right we have arrived good for me i turned just slightly and immediately i recognized what i was looking at oh man i remember a photo from right here because i realized the photo in the general store here of one of the old owners in the late 1800s or 1900s is taken at this exact point of the 900 foot level where this black and white sign is that so shows different things about the different levels and that sign immediately clicked with me as a sign that's still there that was incredible whoa look at that telephone signals one long ring down on the bottom right it says oh it does yeah you're right it says one long ring hoist one short in newtown newtown yeah it's a long ways away well maybe not maybe not maybe that's the next exploration look at that new town let's say printed orders or united states orders for underground probably mining yeah oh state of california oh it should be dated down the bottom corner usually on the bottom right but it's quarter 1708 you ought to be able to look that order up yeah wow this thing is crazy too cage capacity for men only thank god i want to stay down 117 hang on again uh let's go at least 45 minutes yeah two o'clock 900. four men 900 feet under the ground gone done i'm glad that all everything look at there 1944 november 1944. wow yeah all right let's get into it 900 feet down in the union mine unique carbide make a good drive oh yeah i can come up with this there's a dynamite box and in the dynamite box there's denim oh man but they got jeans in there yeah it does have jeans this is like this is my ultimate quandary always all right well let me get around the corner so when it does explode your mom and dad's gonna lie right yeah i think these are these are definitely look they got buttons your mother know what you're doing down here this is the this is this is jeans and i'm dying like this is a this is exactly yeah 95 40 but no there's nothing in there yeah look at this still got the there's the belt loops i'm bringing that up sweet [Music] must be on that same cell [Music] [Music] this is the most exciting one yet i mean i've thought about the 900 level for so long and just didn't know what was possible and then today i was expecting to repel and all sorts of stuff and so look at all this who knows it's down here [Music] i collapsed like this way [Music] oh i mean this thing is [Music] this is my little blasting room this level is massive i say make sure i don't lose the other guys i think in our excitement we all went different ways so it's got a try to stay close so i'm gonna go back let's try to find them 28. so oh did the casual 93 years ago laying on this track figure everything down here including the track had to get down here in some way and you saw the expedition we just had to go through to get down here so it's just crazy when you think about how difficult all this was you know nothing about this was easy i'm down this way yeah to the west is caved in as well okay oh you mean going from the hoist going this way oh okay yeah no this is dead end of that back that way there's this little thing here i don't know if this goes anywhere right i don't know uh yes it just dead ends eventually yep i'll take a quick i don't know if this this this dead ends too what stood out to me most from the first little bit of being down there is just the amount of carbide graffiti there was oh yeah some old duck graffiti a gooser duck goose yeah same goose or something hat on yeah oh yeah same thing that looks like a coil that's believe so that's the first one i had seen in one of the mines i'll keep looking but that might be a decent place for the old uh yeah yeah exactly yeah i don't know it'll be cool okay yeah let's see what happens you're the owner of the mine here that will be the first guy to explore it i think 23 23 yeah hey july 2016 ruby oh it's a little funny over here i started to see signs for the seven my understanding there isn't a very clear connection between the 700 and the 900 but apparently there is oh look at this this here says uh water to 700 water so water pipe must do i don't know there's water all over the wall here right they've been pumping water out of there for quite a while then yeah oh look at all this the tracks real good back here for me what these mine explorations help do is just bring history to life you know i think it's very easy to see these black and white photos from back in the day and to see history as this static one-dimensional thing and lump all silver miners into this uniform group but then you go down there and you find a glove where you see this carbide graffiti of a duck or a caricature and these different cartoons and it just brings the different personalities of each of these miners to life you know they like to joke around have fun work play they had hopes and dreams much like i have hopes and dreams and being down in there just changes my relationship with these miners and with the past as a whole and so whenever i see these things whenever i see the car by graffiti or anything unique that's showing a little bit of personality i try to sit there and think about what life was like for these guys and it just really helps connect me to the past and i think make my experience here that much more robust well it's in toilet back here so there's this uh water drinking also i don't know if i'd be drinking it but you see there it says drinking water [Music] yeah this is super wet kind of the same as it was in the 700 this it ends here but it's really really wet yeah almost in the same water source pulled up there and collected it yeah but that's the end of the line huh yeah it didn't go up and over no yeah we must be directly below right where that other water is pretty close i guess it seems like well probably because of the fall it's actually to me i think that we're because we're south when we come out of the skip up there right and we're going more east or west here down holy there's a lot of dynamite down there tons look at all that dynamite and sure enough at the bottom of this hole was just so many sticks of red dynamite thicker than i've ever seen any dynamite before all just kind of tossed down there i had to use all of my common sense to not go down there and try to get one of these things they look amazing now the time has come for this let's go somewhere i'm gonna go find a resting place for this fine thing where where should this go goodbye sweet plaque ah thank you all so much for all the support over the time you know i obviously couldn't do this without all of you every single one of you so thank you and since minds are such a big part of this channel's exploration it only feels appropriate to leave this one million subscriber plaque down here at the 900 level of sarah porto [Music] so inside this ore cart i feel is the appropriate place to leave this letter from youtube thank you youtube but it's now staying down in the union mine how do you think we're gonna be going back up not well all right headed back up up up and away it's a long ways up yes it is heading back by the 700 sounds like the water's still on [Music] we survived we're back final descent well i guess it's a little too early to say that [Music] heat warmth and it's pretty cold down there [Music] all right did you have an enjoyable adventure that was fun and we all got to go thank you for not killing us so that is it that is the 900 foot level of serogoro's union mine and now i can officially say i have stepped foot in every single level that that mine has i guess except for the 1150 level i didn't make it down there so put a little asterisk next to that statement but it was there and i'm just so excited because there's still so much more to explore down there you know if i had rope and an exploration partner the 700 foot level is gonna be crazy you know the 550 level had all sorts of stops and ladders and things that i just can't wait to get back down there and explore you know who knows maybe one day i'll make my way back into the 200 level and find some more cool things there i think just all of it gives me this sense of curiosity you know i think curiosity makes life more exciting more interesting probably makes you happier it gives me something to look forward to a little bit so there's still a lot of curiosity around that hole in the ground over there so i hope for you guys this week whatever you're thinking about i hope you stay curious you know see some things out there that you've never seen before and until then i'm signing out i have to say thank you all so so much this past 15 months has been 15 of the best months of my life no small part because of this channel so thank you all i'll see you guys next week and uh get out there [Music] you

Channel: Ghost Town Living

Views: 988,059

Rating: 4.9725132 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: JJSTBl8fFwA

Length: 35min 55sec (2155 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 26 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/hkaustin]

Thanks for checking out the video everyone!

What are your favorite types of videos? Mine explores, building restorations, hikes, animals, etc? Anything you'd like to see more of in the future?

[u/harrisondb]

Another great video! 🙏

[u/osbornec0x]

I may have missed it, but did they find the entrance to the level past the 900?

[u/UzimakiLuffy01]

Hi Brent! Your videos are truly my highlight of the weekend!

[u/Ilikefenderalot]

Whats extremely interesting is that call signal to the Newtown mine all the way from the 900? Could the Newtown and Union be connected in some way?