Frozen in Time Under Snow and Avalanche | Helicopter Access Only | Destination Adventure

foreign [Music] shut down in late 31 really nothing was done you'll see all their tools are still leaning up against the the wall and and the wheelbarrow and there says if they're going to come back you know they've left for and for whatever reason never made it back [Music] if you went there in the 20s and 30s you probably had had to take a boat to the mouth of the Marmot River and they would get up on trails and then they would Camp beside a little Lake and there'd be fishing it and then they'd get up on the glacier which was like a easy walking once you're on top of the glacier because you can go for miles it's I've crossed the Cambria ice field and it's it's easy walking it's just flat up there and it was take them two days and and you know they didn't know any different [Music] in the winter time I would say conditions were quite severe I've spent time about 10 kilometers south of there in November and the wind would blow off the Cambria ice field and you basically we would put out pickets every few feet with flags on them so that you didn't you didn't get lost in a snowstorm blowing snow is very difficult unless you have goggles you really can't see anything because the wind is blowing and and I'm sure it up there there where the winds that are 100 miles an hour [Music] as they built a tram line a lot of that stuff would get trimmed from one Tower to another and they they slowly work their way up and then haul a lot of that heavy material under that's and a lot of the Wagon Trails here they used to have Wagon Trails it was really all it was was a was a Groove in the hillside one one wheel was over over the bank and one wheel was kind of locked into a groove on a hillside and they probably came from the top I don't know if you've seen the photos of the horses on snowshoes they would go across the cane Ryan glacier all the ice really restricted the early expiration I think once once people got learned how to work around you know with the glaciers and that then became a different story here you know I'd seen the premier mine uh with big steel beams i-beams just twisted up from the snow load and so forth and I was surprised that the building was still standing up there ice was still accumulating when when they were mining back to the 30s that's roughly when the maximum ice level was in this area between 1928 and 1931 they selectively mined there was no Mill and they would take the highest grade and I think the grade was about 2 800 gram silver it's about 20 million ounces of silver up there right now because the depression came along I think that lack lack of money and just probably killed killed whatever operation there was you know some people would say it's an eyesore and some people would say there's a lot of history in that he'll say so depends on how you look at it I'm looking forward to this day since I got my first Glimpse at the porter Idaho mine last year I'm very excited to say I'm partnering up with the Yellowhead helicopters once again and if the weather cooperates they'll be dropping me off as close as they can to the mine and leaving me to explore I'm a little bit nervous and a lot a bit excited so far the weather is looking okay foreign [Music] [Music] foreign foreign these guys with Yellowhead helicopters they're the bee's knees [Music] [Applause] foreign look at that old wheelbarrow that's an interesting little can and I think these two are backings to Miner's lights like headlamps just look at the view from up here it's amazing it's a pretty low ceiling right now so they dropped me off down at the bottom which is perfect because then I can kind of work my way up to the top finding things along the way but it's a bit of a hike so let's get to it big problem in the in the area was actual power for these operations like a lot of them during the summer could could operate using Pelton wheels and they generate electricity and so forth in the wintertime there's no water flowing in it so uh odds are that they would probably haul cold up to that border Idol to to generate power to me I kind of think this is a steam power plant I like that badge that's still on there wow see a Little Rock path going along there I'm gonna check that out before we make our way to the top there's tailings piles all over this place but there's tons to see so I won't be going in any of the mine shafts [Music] I wonder what this was for it's an interesting little hand probably not for a clock to hell to climb so let's keep moving it's our first look up at the old Tramway there [Music] once they had the Tramway in there people would go up in the cars and they'd go up to the mine site in the cars and and that's how they get stuff up there and then they bring the water down it was a short lifespan the actual underground workings are along a sheer Zone and and so it tends to be difficult mining the ground is not very stable when they brought the The Ore from the porter Idaho they would have brought it to the to the Tidewater and then they sorted it they'd load on barges and then they took it to Tacoma and Washington to a smelter that's where the ore got smelted an awful lot of little little tunnels driven in a early days everybody was looking for their Fortune and so when when uh there's not a lot of work you know a little bit of food and a little bit of hard work and I hope to make you Fortune would have been a shaft there but it's collapsed [Music] following some goat tracks up the trail here they're probably having more fun on the Steep stuff than me foreign [Music] starting to clear getting our first look at a couple of the buildings up here that fog just keeps rolling through but here's a good look at the buildings that are left and looking down in the snow here you can see some wood and iron imagine how much is left underneath this big chunk because a good percentage of this is gonna be here all year long ah dang that's not an entrance hey this is pretty cool just outside this first building here these are tiny little crucibles for assaying material I've never seen them so I don't want to say decomposed eroded that one's in good shape pretty neat little find though being so high up here in the Alpine with the amount of snow they have every year surprised how good of shape this building is actually in I'm assuming it would have been partially maybe a cook Shack and then assay shock not sure I never take anything from these old sites but anyone that does reclaimed furniture how cool could you make this old table really neat foreign extinguisher went when I first came in here and thought that this was possibly cook Shack it's because I saw this but I think this is for drying out samples I think this whole shock was just for assaying a couple of really neat things I found right here in the cabin look at this it's the lid or the front of an old box 50 pounds of ground coffee out of Vancouver and there's just one board left from the door but check this out the latch this is going to be base camp here I'm leaving pretty much all of the gear just to lighten things up and then do a couple trips out I have another five hours before the chopper is back this fog is just not lifting here but I want to get up to that building there's a couple mountain goats up there they're so tuned in they uh even just the slightest movement down here they spotted me see if we can make our way up there would have been neat to see this while it was still standing pretty uptown building way up here at the top of the mountain even had radiators for heat check out that DIY barbecue just made a really cool find here well it's not even a find I just spotted it look at this vehicle so this must have run along a track system but look at the friggin engine on that thing holy smokes crazy I like how the front articulates like that and then would have been some sort of tank there probably just a fuel tank not sure though wow big building I love how this is built into the Bedrock like this but even more look at this wall just stacked up rocks there's no bonding cement or anything in there so this is the massive gearbox for the tram that comes all the way up here I kind of expected to see something bigger but I have nothing to compare it to if I'm lucky I can cross over here oh that's interesting wow look at this you can still almost disengage it I don't want to cross this a little bit too risky but I don't see a problem with going down here if I can squeeze through this little Gap there we go there's more over here how the heck do I get in there the stairs to get down to this last level are gone I'm just walking across the Timbers here in this middle section see if I can find a spot that's low enough to drop down wow imagine the force that caused that to break I can't believe everything still moves on this foreign that mountain goat is right there it doesn't care that I'm here at all hey mountain goat hey mountain goat what are you doing bud I cannot believe that mountain goat let me get so close the baby was right here that baby is a cute little thing so I'm guessing this whole rail line that goes along here this is original this will date back to the same era as the mine all these core samples these would be more recent and then just piled up all along this flat section where the line runs foreign did a lot of coring here as we were scoping things out from the helicopter Lewis told me there's a rock building further up here gonna hike up and see if I can find that come across a couple of these flat spots here where buildings were at some point must have burned down hardly anything left of them wild they run power all the way up here I can't risk trying to get across this whole section up here like this little patch of snow is no biggie but that's a long section to try and get across if I slip on that it's a long slide down there so I guess I'll go back and try one of these other roots tried for a bit of a shortcut here maybe not the best choice oh yeah look at that thing wow it's a lot bigger than I expected we've come out along the top of it here oh look at the steps this is amazing this rock work is so neat never seen anything else quite like this I wonder if this was part of the door on the stove it's a really thick piece of glass just think over the years all the people back in the day that have walked up and down these steps okey dokey let's make our way off of this Mountaintop I can see a bunch of cans and stuff hidden way in this crack here I'm hoping since they're out of the weather they might have some sort of marking on them some paint or something left nothing a bunch in there though wow they really put a lot of faith in that one single two by four check this out this must have been where some people were actually living all kinds of stuff up here both fire extinguishers apple juice we got an old fridge that's a mine shaft right there and you got the rails coming out and then out here there's a bunch of tailings and the amount of water that's coming out of this shaft it's crazy went and took a little peek in there it's totally full of water no way to get in there's a lot of water coming out though wow look at this old saw that's cool lots of different layers here in the core samples that's a neat one I've got a couple more hours before the helicopter is back but I know there's more down there and I'd like to check it out it looks so cool when the fog Burns off and you can see all the towers from the air tram it's crazy though in like 30 seconds the fog Will Roll in here so thick I can't even see that building there wow big diesel generator here there's an old Ingersoll Rand ah that's pretty cool oh wow there's more modern stuff there I'm almost 100 certain those are for landing helicopters on for people that are coming up and doing surveying and stuff up here look all kinds of platforms there and there there's something over there and then get back into some old stuff here I'd love to get across here but it's just too much risk it's so steep once you start sliding you're not stopping until down there doing 100 kilometers an hour by then check this one out it's rusted through and leak so there's no contents anymore but it never was opened Chopper arrives in one hour which puts us a little bit behind schedule right now but there's so much to see up here I just couldn't get away from it but we should be able to get down a lot faster than coming up so hopefully that'll score us a bit of time let's get out of here that's wild those are my footprints from coming in they look like they've been there for a long time it is cold up here took an awful lot of force to pull that thing over look how they anchored this thing in here just drill holes in the rock and hammered little Railway spikes in them that's pretty cool I haven't seen that before things aren't looking so good at my pickup spot here all this dense fog just blew in hopefully it'll just kind of Breeze right on past but I'm supposed to be getting picked up at four o'clock which is in 10 minutes so might be in for a bit of a wait but for now just chilling it's just barely clearing up right now I can hear the chopper coming right on time they made it I can hardly believe it here they come lucky for me the weather stayed in our favor so Lewis took me around for some Scenic flying and checked out some other mines in the area saw some wildlife and then dropped down into the valley where we got to fly right up the river to the base of the glacier it was awesome get out of it did a few passes by the lower tram building which is a remarkably good condition but unfortunately inaccessible last year I actually wanted to hike here but now looking from the helicopter it is clearly not possible then back to the hangar while the weather is good I'd like to give a great big thank you to Yellowhead helicopters for making this adventure possible and of course thanks for watching everybody as always take nothing but pictures leave nothing but Footprints I'll catch you on the next one [Music] explode blow your mind one more time hurricane running through my veins [Music] laughs

Channel: Destination Adventure

Views: 745,909

Keywords: abandoned, lost, forgotten, discovered, discovery, doccumentary, abandoned mine, lost under an avalanche, Porter Idaho Mine, stewart bc, hyder alaska, BC, British Columbia, URBEX, Urban Exploring, helicopter, destination adventure, hiking, exploring, explore, explorer, adventure, adventurer, adventure film maker, Travel, travel vlog, history, historic, historical, nat geo, national geographic

Id: 29NJsSEVOlg

Length: 29min 5sec (1745 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 23 2022