Lost Gold Mines Of The Sierras

i think we're onto something good with this one this is a huge huge waste rock pile in front of us this probably runs up 300 feet or more you see my buddy starting up on the left there um i know the scale is kind of hard to tell on the camera but that usually runs up 300 feet now i don't know what's up there yet but if you're watching a video of this that i posted that means we found something good there so i'm gonna have some suspense about what's up there but you'll have the satisfaction of knowing there must be something good up there from post in the video we are out in middle of nowhere and there's no sign of anybody having been up here no trails or anything like that and behind me is what makes that all worth it because look at this look at this beautiful at it right here just add it with an awesome echo and hear that echo runs back as far as i can see this is what i would describe as a lost mine because this is not on any maps at all it's not on the mrds it's not on usgs it's on the forest service maps it's on the topo maps it's not on any of the maps or sources that i consult can't find anything out about this mine at all uh it was a chance discovery there's a bunch of cool stuff out here i want to show you uh just look guys this metal here at the uh portal i mean it's just stuff all over the place i'm gonna get inside first though because i'm super curious about what is underground but i promise i'll show you some of the outside stuff too but wow lost my sierra right here this is really amazing all right we just crossed through the water there and this is even better than i expected you can hear the echo better in here see it really opens up ahead at my feet are some ties as you can see i saw the spikes on them right there the warning signs very cool this is really really wide and impressive and those are large like core sample large inserts i cannot believe how wide this is especially for an older mine this is obviously an older mine this is absolutely gigantic it's got some sulfides or iron staining right there and the rest of this kind of looks like flow stone huh the mineralization looks a lot drier but yeah i mean i mean there's no water now but it's got that look [Music] i was only one of those large got holes bunch of track ties here and okay so mane hauls at it keeps shooting ahead getting more colorful here looks like we have a four-way intersection because there's stuff uh oh yeah all right there's as he correctly identified there's a vein right there nice quartz oh it gets fat too no surprise they ran off in each direction here huh so we'll take a closer look at that but there's stuff running off that way i already showed you that one and this goes off this these aren't just little ring of dink cross cut so let's go off as far as i can see well i'll do a little right hand rule i guess that's a thick vein man yeah it could have been for ventilation or lighter who knows what no surprise they chased this there must have been an outcropping of this on the surface back there that they saw and followed in yeah that's impressive it runs over here looks like they tossed some waste rock here a little water oh he's right yeah there's water flowing from that direction too [Music] that's quartz actually i don't even know if i would call that waste rock hmm see the wrong looking things yeah it looks like they took a bunch of samples out of this doesn't it [Music] spot there spot there there all through there this is impressive there's that other vein running through it [Music] a little piece of wood right there this is all quartz through here it's got a bunch of dust and such on the walls okay this ends here so i guess it didn't assay out too well but it looks like they were taking samples man that's all quartz right there so although it looks good from our perspective it must not have assayed out well wow that's good-looking quartz though all right let's go check out that other drift okay we just looked down that drift there back in the main haulage out of here which runs off that way still we've got other drift over here to check out but i noticed this stuff here that okay that's metal that's drill steel right there i don't know what that would have been used for this i got some old strap rail right there all right let's see what awaits us down here that's like a tamping stick right there or blasting is that wood or that metal okay never mind [Music] never mind it looks like a champion stick though some of the mineralization back here not got more of those hooks in the wall or the rib that they added and looks like i stoked this out a little bit here this echo is insane i feel like i'm in a cathedral it keeps running that way there's a timbers tossed aside here there's absolutely no ground hole in here at all this is incredibly solid that's flowstone right there and a huge bolt right there right there anyway as i was saying there's absolutely no ground fall in here at all and so the mine's still intact and so you can see in an active mine you'll see the water draining out the side and even though this mine is so old it doesn't appear at any records so we're talking like 150 years old or more because this is an old mining district it still looks like you know it left a week or so ago because some of the water draining now as it should support timbers down there means of them and of course there's got to be a little bit of ground fall here just to make me a lighter but my point remains drift keeps going obviously a stove here stolen right there and runs up and it looks like it terminates over there i'll get a different perspective on that in a second but they ran this one up away so that they used to run up one way buddy right there let's see those pieces of wood jammed in the ribs and that round fall that must have come off the top of that stove another look up that stove just wanna make sure i didn't miss any angles somebody said shoot off to the left or the right you know what i'm saying i want to make sure i didn't miss anything back that way but yeah i did not there's something hanging right there i can't tell what that is that's not rock but i can't tell what it is anyway so yeah there's that section above us and now let's go check out where the rest of this goes continuing along a little bit muddy back here but not bad lots of those hooks and pieces of wood jammed in for the ribs look it's going away more mineralization very distinctive obviously looks like some granite there possibly below ooh looks like another big chamber here there's a great line wow this is huge man that's insane that's my buddy right there gives you a sense of how big this is this is crazy so support timbers there actually those look like ties that were pulled up either way a bunch of wood right there there is [Music] i can't tell i thought it might have been like a flooded winds or something at first but i think it's just a low point those boards are sitting there and they're not yeah they're not moving so i think that's just a low point but to my left is definitely a high point that stole right there and this stop running all through here pretty wild mineralization in here that right there is actually a big pillar because the drift keeps running that way and then you see it opens up there and connects to the other side of the stove and there's some pretty impressive flowstone over our heads here too very very cool [Music] all right well i am quite curious what's up there so let's go look support numbers here you know that must have pained them to leave that because that's a pillar of quartz right there they must have thought that was very necessary to leave that good looking quartz looks like some stuff has come down here you see all this stoles and timbers here a lot of busted up ports on the ground oh cool we've got an overshoot right there and drift keeps going another pillar here on my left as you can see it still carries on up that way make sure to help with the light there's still there and there's the other side of that pillar we saw on the way in silent quartz there there must have been a huge band of quartz here that pillar gives you an idea of what was here before that's awesome and then i can't see all the way up that hopefully we can get a better angle on that but it looks like it runs up a ways a little bit a little shelf right there i've got candles and things like that set up there getting old as mine is see there's more quartz here so yeah this must just been a huge ball of quartz they work through that horseshoe is incredible people see the whole thing like that [Applause] sorry i didn't bring my really bright light it tastes better it gets better look at this man oh wow that's a huge win and that's the skid going down oh man what an awesome lion for a random discovery this is an incredible mind so there's looking up that section i couldn't see the top of i still can't see the top of it looks like it runs off to the left a bit this pile of rubber hose over here oh cool so this dope stems over to there you see the top part of the ore sheet there and of course it drops down here this jumble of wood so obviously that looks like the top part of the horseshoe field and dumped everything down that's crazy look you can see they had a skip [Applause] so there would have been a hoist up there a pop this must have been sort of this is crazy okay so you see there's an ore sheet here and it looks like these are the remains of an ore bin right here and i would say that they were hauling skips out from down here okay yeah that makes sense what i was saying is that they must have hauled the oar out and dumped it in this bin here and then dumped it into the dumped it down the ore sheet to an ore car where i'm standing now when they're ready see what i'm saying so i assume this i mean they want to use the war shoot for the stop above too but from where i'm at oh there's still railing here wow it does like there's a hoist over there isn't it yeah pretty good bolts here and there pretty substantial timbers i mean i don't know why else they would have cleared out that big space right there unless there's a hoist there this is a pretty serious winds man i can't tell how far we can see i can see the edge over there turn it flat how far they get over where you are oh yeah that doesn't you can't see it down we're more than five feet or so before that water turns black there's part of the uh pump system right there what do you see height oh yeah there's a file file on a bunch of nails the round nails or the other wire nails so okay hold the hose all around see how the flow stones accumulated on the side of that support that's pretty wild yeah the heart of the rock okay so there's that flow stone there and my friend jake has a glow stick we are going to fire that up and see how far down the winds we can see with that finish this up i'm going to tie this to a rock good call good call okay he's gonna tie that to a rock if you didn't hear that i'm just geeking out on all the stuff that's here still like that might have been the handle for the the gate on the chute bits and pieces of rail around over here that's a piece of rail right there it looks like it was serving as a stop perhaps see how it curves like that so i'm sure it was attached farther up and it was sort of a stop for the skipped car pretty elaborate infrastructure here okay crossing over all right gets a bit deep right there looks like i can cross over on the left and it keeps running back wow there's some rocks stacked up there for some reason here's the other side of that winds you can see the man way here dropping down into the black [Music] below they had a pretty substantial head frame here this is a large amount of infrastructure for them to put in that must have been a pretty serious winds he's looking up the rails are running up there or the uh the skids right there right up there and he's right yeah i don't see any place for a hoist up there really huh [Music] look at that worksheet over there man another pillar right here as you can see and then that stop continues over to there and runs up there which reminds me i wanted to see how far i could see up that one over there i have to do that on the way out okay i got the glow stick tied to the rock let's go ahead and drop it down oh perfect we're turning it to its home hung up on something you can see in the middle of the screen right there yeah hung up on the on the timber supports i think it's pretty far though oh it goes deeper than that for sure all right there's the winds right there the swimming pool here that's probably about six feet deep i would guess crystal clear water as you can see a couple slabs in it that came down from the stove it keeps running ahead there there's a stoller support term that came down [Music] looking up on the stove looks like they didn't leave anything up on this one so let's carry on oh you're right yeah i saw the quartz on the floor that's a floor of quartz you're right dug it out look at all the edges this is just a pin of course yeah you're absolutely right keeps going that way let's just left this to show up the winds yeah absolutely wow yeah there's an insane amount of courts in here [Applause] [Music] all right through that section and it opens up see more here more of that mineralization that's the kind of thing miners like to see because you got those blending in with all those quartz here see all the shelves of all the hardware and popping up yeah it's an old railroad that looks like a rubber spike and some round nails there's some water seeping out right there see that huh all right you are correct there's an old one possibly an old dynamite box too oh yeah a little side drift running off here so go to the right and man this keeps going this is huge and way better than i expected just make sure this doesn't go anywhere okay yeah it just runs there and stops a little exploratory crosscut more remains with dynamite blocks it's a drill still right there [Music] still in place it's nice i haven't seen that i don't think i've ever seen that actually it's still right there on top of the wood yep he's right the wood's pretty rotted away but those strap rails are indeed still in place that's really really cool am so impressed with this mine that no one knows about straps all through here you're right it is that thick that whole hillside is covered with the old strapping yeah when we're coming up the uh the whitewater powers covered in this stuff all right 1933. oh nice you got a date august 6 1933 frank romney there's more here too i can't make this around something this says 23 here i've got a 1940 over here i this mine is much older than that i don't know if these are guys just scoping it out or mine explorers or what but it's mine it's definitely older than that it could have been a second crew after the uh the old timers i don't know there's so much old stuff here i just i don't see it i don't see anybody mine here in 1940 that's really cool normally the sear lines don't have graffiti because it's too wet 33. oh these guys are long gone now i'm afraid i'm gonna check my dog i'll put you back in the hole routine 40 something and faces out right here really really cool can't wait to see what else is in here all right coming out of this drift now i'm back at the winds and the horseshoe and i said that i would look up that section of the stove that we haven't seen yet and i don't know it's coming across the camera but it does stop there so we've seen all there is to see at the scope but what an impressive sight this stoke is massive especially considering the era that we're working with all right we're back in the main haulage at it and just finished looking down that drift which wildly exceeded expectations now we've got this bad boy to check out punches straight back for a way as you can see trying some colored rock in here extra flowstone and all kinds of host rock that i'm not sure what it is that's kind of wild that starburst right there i wonder what created that effect [Music] hey the car got some big pockets on the side big solid slab right there ready like that that's pretty cool i cannot believe how spacious this we can is have cars past each other in this section keeps going that's it all granite actually don't see that too often unless it's kind of surprising to the area wow this keeps it going a little hole right there that burns actually looks like acorns that means the water must get high enough to leave those acorns there that's three and a half feet off the ground huh that looks like a single jacking drill bit right there that's old we were thinking that this is a very old mine you're talking 1800 gold because of that strap rail and other clues and that another more modern crew came in and worked it and that's really common i don't know what that is is it railroad uh spikes oh that's just spikes or just anyway another more modern crew came in possibly as recently as 20s it was the trend it up because there's no way miners from 20 the furious would have hiked up what we did we did see some evidence for a tram full metallization here that is so orange right there that's crazy nice quartzy flow stone right there [Music] keeps running ahead i can't believe it's mine these cubbies are wild [Music] that's full of acorns too and that's five feet high i can't imagine it fills up the water that much but who knows you get some pretty intense winners here sometimes okay another four-way junction keeps running ahead to the strap rail right there runs to the right see a bunch of metally bits there that might face out right there i can't tell if it faces out our fins and then a huge stopy looking chamber back there keeps running back away so looks like a wind seems like rail coming out of that oh those are oh you're right yeah i wonder if that was on the winds here man can't believe this mine well let's do the uh the whole right-hand rule look at the slabs here getting ready to delaminate that that's crazy yeah i definitely need some stuffy action here as you can see i ran up here this tiny little support timber or stole i mean that's probably more of an indicator than actually providing any support no bends there's not the end it just bends i detail or not but that's quartz through there [Music] man this thing just keeps going this mine is awesome this is uh this is rail rail okay so this this might be uh how the dog fault is in um that okay this might be more modern workings and if that's proper rail you know the strap rail might have been the older stuff oh yeah i can see the i was looking up i'm heading the clouds i missed that right there i'll have to be careful with the dog all right so that's what we're gonna go with these are the older are these are the newer workings okay those obviously are not miners 1972 huh early mine explorers this could have been a minor though name and the other drift the frank the whipple 1872 is new and that's just a piece of wood what is it with frank and mine explorers all my explorers have the same names this is all this is just charred wood okay okay so the top so that's the top of seven that's okay that guy said i think he was 33 also with that same name yeah any other drift so that's that's probably a minor that's carbide lantern and that's just just a piece of wood okay huh let's see the drill mark and the rock right there that's kind of cool and yeah this is legit real right here this is cool the hook right there and that just keeps running ahead this way all right back to strap rail huh it's kind of weird keeps going that way i've got a stop here that runs up to there huh did you see this coming batter starting i don't know put my head up in the clouds again except the wrong clouds get your weaving flowstone with this iron yourself like color that's it's all cool out of that uh drill hole there huh yeah i'll float stuff that way and then on this iron this way yeah that's cool oranges yellows reds grounds that's really cool looking and it's all highlighted in here yeah now yeah you can see the flowstone accumulating down there imagine come back in 500 years what that's going to look like i guarantee this mine will be there the 500 years as attacked as this is at least underground part is okay another big chamber here man be careful not to fall down the winds okay we uh stop there looks like there was something here and we've got a big stoke chamber here that oh man [Music] that runs way up there how far is 75 feet um it looks like it goes around the side of it too yeah it looks right you can probably scramble this yeah but that looks like you're going up through there yeah it does here's looking up that stove um you see it stops right there so we don't need to climb up there i wouldn't i would give that a shot because it does look doable but it stops right there i don't see a sound of quartz in here do you a little bit right there oh there's not a lot of courts in here let's say it looks like they cleaned it out and this whole rock you know the cords are okay yeah so maybe just this vein heading up and then some bit of pop over here the tamping stick right here see that you guys are packing the dynamite in which looks like they did a fair amount of here those holes [Music] so this one you get right the star burst out yeah cracked the rock yeah for sure yeah that's the power of explosives kids i had a little piece of quartz right there yeah some corn they did a good job of cleaning the courts out of here though must have been pretty rich [Music] it's a good view here that's still working what's that there's like a piece of metal on that stove yeah i was looking at that i'm not sure what that is i can't tell from your guard for uh lowering dragging you know raising and lowering a bucket or something possibly yeah all right we'll head out and continue down the main at it i'm heading out to the main haulage at it and saw this miner's graffiti here that i missed because i was facing the wrong way on the way in and that's carbide i had to look at it make sure it wasn't modern but that is old carbide and you can tell from how weathered it is it's been there a while step back a bit get a better view of it pretty cool we just checked out that drift and i know i said i would go down i mean holes at it but my buddy is checking it out now and it looks like it keeps going a long way so i think i'm going to check out this drift off the left here first because it looks like it might not go too far back and there's a look back at the portal so we've come in a way but not you know miles and miles which you would think we would have for how much stuff's in this mine but not yet so i still had track back here as you can see this looks like another winds and beams wow it is smaller one see the rail right there dropping down in the water that's true god knows how far how your light helps how far does that mean at it go uh it goes another 100 less than 100 feet oh okay i'll check it out all the time you can sort it with your light in there i can sort of see that wood over there on the left you sort of see some infrastructure in there substantial it's really wide yeah it's really wide it's kind of odd how wide it is all right it looks like there's a fault up there see how the sharp side of that right there i know if there's any uh drops dog's gonna worry about i'll keep him with me until we clear up okay sounds good a huge pillar in front of me here and the stop runs up out of sight there definitely a fault line see how flat and smooth that is it must have just a big layer of quartz uh pressed up against that this continues overhead back that way get over to deal with that a sec that's where we came in and then you can see it's just a rock piled up in the corner there really curious about this one so i don't see any room for a hoist or anything which means i wonder if they just hold this up by hand you know what i'm saying [Music] that's really trying to see how deep that i guess sort of faintly see stuff down there and then it looks i don't know if it's even coming across on the camera but i can see the rail plunging down this angle pretty good can you yeah okay second glow stick in the water and it floats unfortunately well all right i'll swim in and get it i'm so curious i can just faintly see stuff down there which is really intriguing you see you can see it from this side be better over there get my light on the rail yeah i can see it the rail plunges down into something deeper there but it looks fairly shallow on either side gotta come back to the scuba gear i guess i would actually consider it given how clear this water is and how solid this mine is i would actually uh do that would be nice yeah one of those uh underwater drones some timber supports here the drift continues there oh yeah so i was gonna look back okay so that stop stops are there it looks like there's a quartz vein there and there's quartz just overhead i can see big oh wow this veins carrying on through here the contact zone is impressive see where it squeezes in there so yeah fault on the right that's what sharp flat angle is and uh the quartz just squeezed up in between countless ages ago big boards back here big big boards i don't see any immediate dangers for the dog uh looks like that might be the end up there that's true another stoke chamber here runs up there there's a big pillar of quartz there's rocks stacked on it yeah the rocks stacked on it right there and actually more another rock pile right there if you guys can see that camera's a rock pile there and stole there and extends up but i'm glad those floors there because that's showing you what was here you know everything around that used to look like that they cleaned it out but they had to leave the pillar that's so cool and then yeah really obvious fault here on the right support timbers have fallen down completely rotted yeah those are definitely stoles rather than tractors uh oh it keeps going there's a bunch of i don't know if there's other winds up there or something you might wanna wow that is another wind man yeah it looks like a big one check that out in a second um another slab quartz right there uh i guess that's not a pillar just a big slab of quartz and that runs way up there just store it there and then it runs probably 100 feet or more up there let's get near the edge of what my light can illuminate back here there's a stolen filled right there there's a bunch of stacked rockets there's so much stacked rock is up there wow that's weird that's all that looks like it's a little bit of a shelf right there yeah i wonder why they stacked all that rock there some dangers no it's just like kind of like gobbing but you know get out of the way or what huh this is all dropped yeah so i really see the angle on that fault line on the left there okay so yeah we uh have another winds here guys uh i'm gonna be careful this one man look at the infrastructure on that that's wild that center pool yeah look at that that's strange crystal clear yes that's really strange the water's clear here on the right it's deeper than it looks right in front of me um clear there and then it's got that funk and the water there and that one looks clear over there too they must have had the like you said they must have had the hoist over there because there's no space for it behind me looking up this it's a pretty solid rail oh really i'm gonna bat it but there is that you have these huge these brackets here it's all rotted away but yeah it looks like there might have been something here yeah i don't know why you would have that big space right there i gotta stand where you are look up that there are those rails leading up out of the winds the area up there there's another rock pile there stacked up and there's a rail extending up yeah i'm trying to figure out what's up there see some bits of metal i don't see a hoist but yeah he's there definitely could have been a voice up there it looks like it might have made a platform of some sort there the stoke keeps running up there i don't see any way up there though definitely some yeah it has something up there that's for sure is that your light shining through yeah okay you know i think if there was a voice that was here is there there okay there's this there's a bunch of lumber over here but the angle unless they're really ingenious angles really steep okay there's more pile of rock here oh okay well that probably settles out then there's a look at the infrastructure again it's down there that's huge huge and deep all right let's uh get over there this obviously all came down that stoop above ah we have some bones here that's pretty deep inside here for the bones curious i love the other side of that winds this is a really beefy one we've got the big pipes yeah that must go down a long long way i'd love to know what's down there i mean if these stops are any indication they've got anything like that underground that's impressive okay that was a i thought that was just a slab of course but i should do another pillar right there because that's the other stop we're looking up right there this i guess i was a pillar and of course that's the way we came in and that's where we're going that's the winds we were just checking out and this pillar of quartz here and that's the area i was looking up to i thought that maybe they had a hoist up there but yeah i agree with my friend um the angle is way too steep i believe for anything substantial to have been up there like they had some kind of platform up there probably to work these stops uh they're still right there you can see they went way up there at a pretty steep uh pretty steep angle the vein obviously ran at a steep angle through here this goes way up there another pillar right there see stuff on the side of it up there keeps running and this is a pillar right here in front of me and a lot of materials come down from above i was just standing over there to look up that stop and i continued on the drift it's kind of hard to walk back here there's a lot of stuff that's come down and uh well try to walk on there is a massive pillar above me here that's a good 20 feet across and the stop extends up beyond it up uh let's show you the light up there up there you can see there's the stove extending up that way i had to turn on both lights to uh give you a better view of that because that goes way up there so we've got this big pillar here and again we've got more of that rock that's piled up there and stacked that's stacked intentionally right there that's not stuff that's caved you can see the board sit on top of it right there really i didn't i can't think i've ever seen anything like that before uh where they've got a bunch of rocks stacked up inside stopes like that that is unusual to be sure really cool uh drift keeps running ahead that way got some mineralization here and that's all quartz right there running up so no surprise that they chased that let me keep going through here hard to walk on i just came from that pile there and we have faced out as you can see there are the remains of an ore shoot here very faint remains an horseshoe it's definitely seen better days there's a single jacking drill bit right there obviously an old one and you may be curious what this ore sheet was tied into perfectly fair question it ties into this really large scope here i'm using both lights to try and illuminate that it's around about 3 000 combined lumens and it's not doing a great job that's a really large stove you guys uh it probably runs 200 feet back and i don't know if i can see the top that's looking up towards the top of the stove uh i think that's the top but i don't even know because it goes a long way absolutely massive massive stove really incredibly taking a ton of gold out of this mine really rich promising line for the looks of it all right there's that side drift we just checked out see the wind's right there that's the one we flew with the through the blue uh light stick into as you recall we already went down this way which means we just have the main hauls out in front of us you can see we've got some strap rail here in front of us even off in the distance there's a blast sheet here from looks of it well maybe not they might have had a turntable on top of this i'm saying that based on the rail right there normally you see blast sheets toward the end they lay them down and all the muck and such from the blast and dump down them and be easier to scoop it up and also not damage the rail it's a good flow stone right there and down there i've got some gobbing i always think goblins kind of cool rock wall underground let's look at the track here more gobbing on the right now lots of goblin back here actually seem like gobbing four timbers flowstone maybe some cool features back here in a few hundred years huge piece of wood right there and i think we faced out yep that is a face with pool water down there what an amazing mine wow this was a chance discovery again it's not on any maps didn't know this was here this was just pretty much following a hunch up the mountain i mean this man this is probably the best chance discovery i've ever made i mean we've had some cool chance discoveries but this is a really really incredible mine really hard to find really out of the middle of nowhere there's a lost mind i'm so glad we found it back out of the mind and as promised i want to show you some of the stuff on the surface here something that i didn't call my time before but is really apparent is that there is bear [ __ ] absolutely everywhere around here i mean it's absolutely covering the ground so they must be coming down to have a drink here i see a trail run up there a bunch of bear tracks there so yeah i mean okay here's a better view look at that it's all bear [ __ ] right there all of it so this is a very popular spot for bears anyway uh so i'm gonna show you some stuff here there are bits of metal all over the place as you can see and now most of them just don't have any contacts at all so for example i don't know what that is it could be anything of any context over here look at the size of that fair shape that is huge oh perfectly cubed too huh um got the strap rail right here there's an older there's an old shovel right there we were thinking that as i said underground there are two separate generations of work done here some old old old timers with the um single jacking drill bits and such and then it seems like a new crew came in and made the haulage out of it wider widened it up and brought up some newer equipment and so based on the stuff over here we kind of had the impression that the old timers had their stuff thrown out here that was when the new crew came in it took all the stuff that the old timers had left behind here it kind of jumbled it here and then a lot of it went down the waste rock pile there we saw a ton of really old uh metal equipment and such on the way up so that's kind of the theory we're going with now a lot of other stuff running back running back this way what's that riveted equipment riveted equipment yes thank you for that yeah riveted air pipe riveted blower old old stuff so we think the old timers had their stuff tossed down the hill there's stuff right off here the size of these trees on top of the waste rock pile gives you an idea of how old this is these are mature trees like i said there's a bunch of stuff over here and there's also something down there if you see that flat area down there with a flat area down there so we'll uh give you a quick tour here and then head down below that's a knife old pocket knife no like a intense eating utensil knife huh hey right well i guess that means they spent some time up here utensils are not often found there's probably a ton of stuff underneath all the leaves so that portal is right there i was just showing you the stuff over there and you can see that they created a landing here that runs off this way is that pipe right there that's probably uh 12 inches across right there anyway landing here it runs over this way a bunch of metal stacked up here and you can see where the compressor was down there check that out we've got the biggest well not world's biggest the biggest bolt we've ever seen out except that is an absolute incredible insane bolt it's got a i'm going to guess 25 to 30 pounds probably closer to 30. where the hell could they have used that for this must have been part of the foundation for some piece of equipment i'm guessing man that's insane wow that's substantial yeah there's a little there's a platform here as you can see they made rock or multiple tiers of rocks leading down to some stuff i see down there impressive that board right there it's still lumber here yeah it's a lumber piece of lumber did burn huh so i'm sure there was a lot more that didn't survive for sure yeah inevitably there must have been a forest fire through here at some point yeah as old as this side of more bits of metal here and then it's still a fair amount of equipment here huh yeah i don't know what this is broke all right those are your home what's no this on it huh i don't know man you got me this one right not light yeah that's definitely the compressor uh stand huh or foundation for a compressor all kinds of stuff over here i don't know what a bunch of this stuff does part of a drill here oh wow i don't know if this is an impeller or something air water pump or water maybe that drill is really cool uh i just saw oh a new ingersoll doesn't say ingersoll ran it says ingersoll is there anything on the other side serial number on top that's that screw there [Music] oh cool it's got dates and stuff on it ingersoll drill company patents september 22nd 1988 and uh 1888 85 1885. yeah i see july 16 1899 1894. it says new york something sergeant new york that's really amazing more uh i'm not going to touch it because it's pretty frail but more the rubber hose the reinforced rubber hose oh yeah you're absolutely right that is old old hose this piece of a drill is crazy i mean that's so rare to see even pieces of a drill wow some more stuff over here don't know what this is oh looks like there's something else mounted over here there's a little concrete foundation right here and it looks like trail actually starts running this way but is that a trailer on uh huh kind of peters out but there's a rock platform right there a closer look so that trail runs up from down there there's a rock platform here as you can see and we pretty much cliff out right here what's interesting is that there is a bolt coming out right there hopefully you can see it and i spotted another bolt right up there and the only time i've seen bolts in the rock like that or when there was a tramway and there's a large open space down there which you probably can't see through the brush there's a large open space and given that there are no trails or anything leading up here i'm pretty convinced that they had a tram system set up here and this is the trail would lead up to the tram where i'm standing right now and they had uh you know tram system set up through here which that's the only thing that makes sense given how steep this uh is up here because it's pretty much like this good part of the way up these uh these cliffs i was shooting up there before it's kind of hard to tell but there's uh that landing and everything up there before i was shooting on i made a terrible rookie mistake and seemed to have forgotten extra batteries and my battery died up there so we're on the phone and down at that lower area i was pointing out and it looks like there may have been something right here uh jake went up and checked it out instead it looks like something ran under there but it's all caved down uh this may have been a stove right here a wood stove but at this point it's so deteriorated i'm not sure but as possible that's what that was this landing here comes over here and ends here but you can see it's got this rock well maybe you can't see it's got this rock wall here that's supporting it and that area oh wow look at that rock wall there remember i was speculating about the uh the tramway up above that looks like a perfect platform for it right there i did not see that from above i'm really convinced now that's what that was so big platform right there the bolts up above i want to run down this big ravine right here i was just shooting from over there and i had to come over and check out this platform um i felt for missing my duties but i didn't do that really beefy platform here and the rocks have caved a bit but obviously this ran over and connected to where i was shooting before so it just really makes sense with the tram there's this uh retaining wall running up to a level spot up there where i go check out and then a bunch of food cans tons of food trash huh and also uh a road or trail continues this way as well we'll go check out but first i'll go check this out just climbed up this trail here and look there may have been a residence here looks like that may be the front of a stove and there's food trash all over the place here and a fair amount of dirt to come down it looks like this could have uh run back more room for a miner's cabin all the cans at the same time period okay yeah i mean i don't know what they could be other than a residence maybe somebody keep an eye on the tram you got platforms down there so that platform i was checking out is around the bend there and i've been following this trail here which i'm gonna put a lot of work into that's a serious rock wall here to uh set this up it keeps going this way see more of the rock wall here keeps going this way at least to that bend up there so let's go see what's there the mine is over that way and follow the trail over here and it's a whole series of terraces here there here i'm right here uh up there and up there i think this is where the miners lived in the first batch because there's crockery and glassware and all kinds of household stuff all over the place i was just standing back there and as i was telling my buddy you can see all these pottery fragments and dish fragments and such right here on the ground and probably stove right here on a melted glass melted glass green stove and then there's another one up there and the trail that came in on us right there so the miners working here would have had a hell of a view those rock platforms and such we were checking out or over that way uh got sidetracked but now i am back at that main landing we were starting to check out uh that's that possible cave data right there and then the attitude we went in it's up there anyways want to show off some of the stuff here i don't know what this stuff is i don't have enough context but i'm sure some of the audience does it's a huge man's needle right there that's my stuff there somebody else's um this is interesting i'm not sure what it was looks like it was intended for pulling or as an anchor or something but you can see it's growing right into the tree right there so that's pretty cool there is a shaft right there i'll show you in a second you can see how things just dropped down the mountain here that's very steep if that's not coming across on the camera pieces of metal all over the place there is a stamp shoe right there for a stamp mill so obviously they had a mill here looks like that might be part of it right there all kinds of pipes and such here and you pointed out how they connected the pipes here so that was really interesting they would hook them around and essentially pull them together with a screw yeah i just noticed that i believe these correctly i'm wrong our components to the uh the mounted drills oh yeah you're right feet it's a tread on the feet here and there and that one's pretty worn i recognize it up here because this is where the uh you stick it to the ground you screw it tight to the ceiling you mount your drill to it and uh that's exactly what that is i just assumed those are pipes but yeah exactly what that is oh man yeah those got some use wow yeah these these are pipes over here more pipes over here there's another landing down there looks like part of a stamp mill down there too or if it's a pipe there i don't know what this was another stamp shoe right there definitely a stamp mill here and oh there's an old hand saw right there gone of course but definitely an old hand saw that's really cool that other attitude is just right up there put this in some context for you nice rock retaining wall right there a lot of good stuff here we're not used to seeing this much stuff at mines man that tells us or i should tell you as a viewer how remote this is let's go down the shaft real quickly yeah they definitely missed the scrap dryer yeah for the accessible mines this stuff got hauled away it's part of the war effort to make bombs and bullets and such here's the shaft you see it actually directly under those other retaining walls down the shaft get my light up for you here there's looking down the shaft and it looks plugged actually i can see some support timbers down there uh so it looks like it dropped down farther one time but it seems full plugged full of dirt and debris now which given how steep this hillside is i'm not surprised huh see what i mean so much stuff would have been tumbling down there over the years well it's a hell of a mind man definitely the best uh chance discovery we've ever had for sure

Channel: TVR Exploring

Views: 159,231

Rating: 4.8876252 out of 5

Keywords: Lost Gold Mines Of The Sierras, Lost Gold Mines, Lost Mines, Exploring Abandoned Mines, Mine Exploring, Abandoned Mine, Underground Mine Exploring, Gold Mining, Quartz Gold Vein, Gold Vein, TVR, Geology, Minecraft, Mine Shaft, Stope, Adit, Winze, Mining History, Old Mining Equipment, Antique Mining Equipment, Sampson Ledge, Sierra Nevada Gold, Sierra Nevada Geology, California Gold Mining, Stamp Mill Gold Mining, Ghost Towns, Mystery Mine

Id: 9aU8bwSqJ88

Length: 71min 24sec (4284 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 15 2020