I Found An Abandoned Cabin In The Woods (And Fixed It Up)

hey guys my name is brent and we are at cerro goro california right now i am on the back side of this former mining town overlooking death valley national park and this week that's where i'm headed i am headed back that way to try to find something called the end of the road mine and this mine was told to me by a guy who's been coming up and exploring this area for 40 years and he told me there's stone cabins there's mine shafts and there's all sorts of artifacts the problem is he hasn't been to this mine in over a decade so his instructions were a little hazy but that's what we do this week take an adventure try to find this mine let's hope for mines cabins and levi jeans this first day of the adventure i basically had no idea where i was going you know i had some vague instructions so i started down the back side of the property going towards death valley national park all right we're getting out here again i wasn't given too many directions on how to get to this place and it was quite vague the direction i was given but i was sold at first i would get to a mine operation that had an open pit which appears to be here and then there's a wash over there so i need to take the wash to another wash to take a right at the certain tree and apparently about a mile up the wash i'm going to come to a barrel a steel barrel and then from there i have to walk straight up a mountain top and then at the mountaintop i'm going to come upon a campsite and maybe some mines i guess i'm going that way for now so stick with me we're gonna figure this out but this is pretty cool like this little shifter and uh or shoot but we're headed that way there's our razor so let's get back in this thing and continue to the end of the road of mine when people talk about cerro gordon in the 1800s what they're really talking about is a collection of a dozen or so mines that together was known as the cerro gordo mining district and a lot of these mines were massive operations with their own hoists and smelters and many men working them you know and others are just small claims worked by a handful of guys but they all shared a central point in cerro gordo's town core you know they all walk these same streets that i walk these days you know and over the years the different minds would change names when the ownership changed or run out of ore or be abandoned or dynamite shut and others still were purposely obscured you know they would allow vegetation to overgrow and physically hide these things or misdirect people based upon spoken myths and lore of mining and so while i do my best each week to research the different minds in the area sometimes there's no record of these minds in any of the official books and so at some point you have to listen to the stories of the people that have been around here and try to separate that fact from fiction and in the high desert there is a lot of fiction to wade through i was told of this substantial mind by a guy who's been exploring these areas for over 40 years you know he's become a friend and someone i trust so i was willing to dedicate a few days exploring i've come up on a barrel and i was told a barrel is a point to start hiking up but i was told that there would be a road there and here is a barrel on the left side as it should be no road so i found a barrel but unfortunately that barrel was in the wash and it could have been washed down there over the past you know decade since the person giving me the instructions had been there and so that was an unreliable clue i went further and thought i found a different barrel this barrel seemed a little more promising but i couldn't see any mines above it so i kind of altered my plans you know i i wanted to take this road that had established itself as far as i could go nothing so we're moving on and so i drove it further and it hit a snow bank well i may not be moving on actually and so at that point i figured you know i'd come this far i might as well hike and so i hiked and this hike was just to the middle of nowhere you know the road completely disappeared and washed out over the years on top of that i had snow but there's still some cribbing visible you know rocks that were stacked on top of each other so i knew that at one point in time humans had been coming this way you know you look for context clues so i saw the stacked rocks i saw cut down trees and after hiking about an hour or so i started seeing more scrap metal and milled lumber which means hey you know maybe there was this camp out here that i was looking for look at this the sheet metals turn into a tube you think of some type of ventilation or just an ore down no matter what it is there's obviously something up here or the water pipe or for steam for the tools what in the world i have no idea where we are but i'm dropping a pin and it's in the gps and i hiked up another 15 minutes to this small mine and unfortunately the mine didn't lead anywhere but i remember as i turned to my right i looked down into the wash and bam oh look at that there's a cabin my voice is cracking so there's an old cabin down there oh you see that that is awesome man i've been here two years i have no idea what that is there's wash to go up why are they the day's turning around i didn't find a stone cabin but that looks like an awesome little cabin down there see it when i was living in new york city i taped a map of manhattan to my wall and i made it my goal to walk every single street in the city so each day i would take the subway to a new part of the city get off and walk streets i'd never been to before and then at night i'd come home highlight where i'd been and just think back on the day and it just gave me this purpose and meaning to my free time you know it led to some of my favorite moments from the city and it connected me deeper to the city and my time there because exploration is how we better understand how the world fits together and how we fit within that world and on a really micro scale that's why i'm trying to do it here at cerro gordo i'm trying to figure out how all these minds fit together with each other and how i fit within all these minds you know each of these side adventures leads me to a new discovery and this week definitely didn't disappoint well folks there it is there's that cabin i saw from way up there and there's all sorts of stuff around here there's mattresses there's huge ventilation pipes i mean there must have been a massive operation here somewhere i'm wondering if it's up the wash further that way you know i was miles from any established road i'm like at this point miles from cerro gordo which is already remote mile is from any geographic indicator but there's this camp there you know there's this visible sign of somebody's daily life and it was amazing it was kind of that surprise that i had set myself up for you know i didn't know there was gonna be a cabin but to see that was beautiful i'll just say something super creepy sign on it look there's another engine over there there's just stuff everywhere okay it looks like the cab needs to be much bigger and it's falling down that's so cool i've actually never found a cabin i completely didn't know it was there you know unfortunately the sun was going down so it was time for me to head back on my hike you know i had a couple hour hike back to my razor and then a long drive back to cerro gordo so i left the cabin but the cabin didn't leave my mind okay i gotta tell you i have been thinking a lot about this little cabin that i found off in the middle of nowhere and so today i have a free day and my goal is this i want to go and restore it to the point where it's comfortable it's kind of uh the ultimate getaway you know it's the hideout if my writer's cabin is a hideout or the hideout this is the hideout of the hideout of the hideout and so i'm thinking is i got enough other projects going on so i can't spend that much time on it but i may collect tools and i will spend one day on it that's all i can give it so in one day i'm gonna see how renovated i can make that little cabin to the point where if i need to i can get away and go spend the night in it or something so for now what i need to do is i need to pack up my gear i need to pack up some tools and i need to hit the road well sun isn't even out yet and we're loading in trying to get a full day out there really renovate this place well so we're headed over there you can't even see where i'm pointing because it's dark so we got the tools and the shovel some water i'm gonna keep packing in grab a cup of coffee and then we're off we are headed over that way hopefully we'll see a beautiful sunrise and a sunset [Music] wow hello again good to see you kevin how you been you ready for a little facelift because i hey look my table's still there so that was a hike um so here's the plan what i'm gonna do today clean this out get some new wood up put some more wood over there [Music] okay so cleanup took a little bit longer than i thought because there's just piles and piles of pile stuff in top of each other but now if you look in here don't get me wrong it's not clean but it is at least cleaner i don't love cleaning up the rat stuff because there's haunta virus and things so i'm gonna take a break from cleaning you know the final little bit of poop because if you look here roof's leaking so i think as far as priorities i might just put like a plastic tarp over this so i'm not breathing in any mouse poop dust and there seems to be a decent amount of sheet metal around here so i'd like to do is put sheet metal on top of the wood roof that it has now just so it's a little bit better and then close up anywhere that's not closed up so obviously close up there close up there close up there and then you know start putting a facade back on that'll be the most fun part but i think first priority is you know stopping that drip even though it's not supposed to rain i just feel like that takes more priority right now than you know facading and making it look pretty because i want to find wood like this you know i want to find old kind of brownish wood and there's just something beautiful about bringing old buildings back to life and reusing not replacing you know there's obviously plenty of material around here and so that's what i try to do everywhere at cerro gordo is just reuse as much of this stuff as i can one it's greener you know i'm not having to buy new stuff but two it just gives it a character you know when when this cabin is done it's gonna have all sorts of character i mean it already does obviously people have been putting their own touches on and you see this wood that they just didn't even cut and over there the different pieces of metal to fill in holes and then that chimney and you can see it's been added onto over the years and so that's what gives it characters i think that's what gives an individual building character but that gives let's give us the town character what gives a city character you know that's why everybody's in love with those old cities in europe you think of some other place like rome it's beautiful because there's obviously additions over hundreds and hundreds of years and it just provides a variety and a context and a character that you can't get if you built all the buildings right at once i was able to collect a decent amount of sheet metal so i i'm gonna get up there put it on the roof but i also realized i don't have a ladder so i need to fashion some type of ladder to get me up there hopefully not ruin my day so now ladder sheet metal on roof close with other stuff uh it's gonna be a big day it's gonna be a lot i'm only gonna get to get one day to this right now and this will probably just be a project over the coming months honestly if i have a day away from my other projects i'll be able to come out here but right now let's talk let's get that up there [Music] so [Music] you know if i was in a job interview five years ago someone's like where do you see yourself in five years i don't think it would be sitting on the roof of an ancient building with this is my secure line rebuilding it for no other reason that i want to stay here it's even further away than my ghost town but that is what it is i'm going to finish this up i gotta secure those ones in screw this one in we're going to have a water water-resistant roof i don't fall off in the interim beautiful though it's getting hot [Applause] there it is half the roof done now he's gonna go over here because if you look over here [Music] we got stuff like that whoa [Music] all right so the roof is where it's gonna be today you walk in here now no more light coming through which is big i'm gonna put down the plastic sheet so there's somewhere to camp those leaks will stop because now no holes and i want to patch this i want to fill in this wall um we'll need that window for now so before taking off to find the mine i'm going to fill in that little corner there set up the tent so i don't have to do too much when i get back and let's see look at that no more hole in the side of the wall we got a roof we got a full wall this thing's starting to come together there's a lot of cleaning that i'm not gonna do today so i'm gonna put this plastic tarp over all this i don't have to deal with cleaning up anymore for a little bit there's plastic all over the disgustingness yes i'll one day have to clean it up but for now i feel like a roof a wall let's get that final wall up that'll be enough for the day this kind of looks like a murder scene now unfortunately but uh you do what you can all right that's after we'll work for back wall for tonight it's basically just to block the wind anyways let's set up this tent probably got about two hours oh last hour and a half and i'm gonna walk up this wash i was hoping to fly my drone up the wash and do a little scouting for me but on the walk over here this morning the drone decided to crash itself once again so for now r.i.p drone no flying that's why you haven't seen drone shots of me on the roof i thought that'd be a beautiful shot drone shot of me on the roof no no crashed so we have to do the old-fashioned way hiking let's find this mine i know it's here let me look at all this stuff there's all the telltale signs of mine maybe 10 minutes in barrel can they've got you washing down from somewhere so where are they well i find it tonight more signs massive timbers i mean you thought getting these up here is insane it's almost like there's a tramway back here which would be amazing look cut cut tree sign of humans oh it's like a oil can like an oil can oh like a machine an engine what is this oh it's a it's a car it's a truck there's wheels on it what is this somebody that's better than mechanics tell me what this is how did it get up here and where was it going oh man now the plot thickens belt's still on it that's crazy spark plugs are still in there too well let's keep going you know the benefit is this if i don't find anything tonight because they're not sunlight at least i have a base of operation now and next time i want to spend the whole day getting the place ready it's ready and i can just spend the day walking up this wash seeing what's out there this is a bit of a steep little wash we got going on i feel like this is in my entrance platform of some type i'm in the middle of nowhere huh nothing there but the ventilation shafts are there man all the signs are here where oh where are you so i came up to this side and you guys see that tube going all the way up the mountain i don't know if it's a ventilation tube i don't know why they would ventilate that much so maybe it was for water or ore or something else that i'm not thinking of but what i did notice is you know it's kind of funny so if you look once upon a time maybe this wash was actually a road and there's a mine here and it seems like the road ends so maybe after getting turned around and lost this is the end of the road mine i just can't see it because all this smell it doesn't have those stone cabins that i was told about so i'm not convinced but for me this is my end of the road mine my road has ended today this is an exploration for another day that's a steep hill i don't have much light left and i can't wait to one day try to describe how to get here to a young whippersnapper and see them get lost and discover their own end of the road mine back down the wash we go want to get back instead of a fire before it gets dark what have we got a bucket on our hands ah it's a regular old bucket any treasure inside hey look at that oh that's cool huh i was joking but look at that you see what these are ha ha surprise these are drill bits there's a ton of them in there look at different sizes drill bit drill bit oh no way yes look how many there are puns there's probably like 50 of them in there look at that that one's sharper drill bit so they were drilling they were blasting look at that you know and i made this little walk on the water i'd given up i was done i was done for the day i was talking about how you know no matter what you're still blah blah blah now we got drill bits and to you these may not be exciting but to me they are very exciting because that indicates that there was some serious mining up here and sirius mining very close to where maybe maybe i was looking around place but all these that's treasure to me what's going on up there see now i'm curious i'm pumped up again i got energy for days started before the sun even came up today day's not going to end until the sun goes down that's how i like it especially when you're doing stuff you love right oh now perfect boom yeah yes you'll see why i'm excited in a second so just above us we found drill bits so you want to know a little bit about mining this would be the drill so come on oh it's a long one [Music] it's been in this wash for a very long time beat it tree i got things to teach people see how at the end here it's got that it's because this was a drill so you see how long it is now on six two this drill bit is two feet ahead of me so this might be eight feet long so what we would do is this would go into the rock like so back here this would attach in and then jerk burt you're drilling into the rock right so then you have this long opening then you pack it in with dynamite throw a sticker diamond in there pack it you want to pack it because you don't want it to blow out you want to blow in and get more rock so imagine throwing this stick of diamond back in packing it boom then it explodes then you have rock like this and then the guy who connects collects the rock is called a mucker and so they go and they muck it take out the rock and then again drill with one of those bits drill in dynamite boom blow up what do we got this is a sandvik corman swede drill guys this is a good day you know i was turned around different perspective new treasure ah yes home once again home with a new roof that's gotta help the appraisal it's just such a beautiful feeling coming home after a day doing what you love and to finally sit take off your boots i mean we've all felt that before you come home from a long day of work and you finally can just relax i remember my first two jobs i was a paper boy and i worked at honey baked pam and my paper route i had to do on roller blades because i wasn't old enough to drive i remember coming home from that every day i was just ah you know finally the day was done and i knew i had given it my all it's not quite the same feeling as doing something you loved you know because i didn't love delivering papers i was doing it because my job but it's probably my most favorite feeling in the world is just exploring all day coming back home and being able to reminisce so that's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna sit right here and i wish two things for you this week i wish more surprises in your life i hope you get out there and figure out a way to find more interesting things whether that's going to a park you've ever been to or hiking anything and i hope at the end of that day you feel exhausted in the best way possible much like i do right now this was a before sunrise day for me so i'm not even sure if i'm making sense anymore so i'm gonna call it at that and i'm gonna say this i hope you guys have an amazing week i will see you all next week oh i can't even stand up you

Channel: Ghost Town Living

Views: 563,930

Rating: 4.9676013 out of 5

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Id: qCMStV3xB44

Length: 29min 51sec (1791 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/tcgaatl]

Rat droppings suck. The only I’ve found to safely clean them is to use a shop vac with appropriate hepa filter plus respirator. This would be tough to deal with off grid.