My Biggest Mine Discovery Yet (Down A 1,100 Ft Pit)

all right i'm just i'm just going for it so see ya [Music] oh [Music] this is the wildest one yet [Music] so today could be a very big day for me today could be the day that i finally get into the union mine without having to use the hoist if you don't know what that means let me rewind very quickly right now i am sitting at cerro gordo california once upon a time this used to be a massive mine the biggest silver mine in california is history and the main mine here is called the union mine and the union mine is massive there's something like 30 miles of underground workings as part of the union mine right now the only way to explore the union mine is to take a cage a hoist from 1865 down in which requires a lot of people now the main deposits in the union mine were called the union chimney in the north and the jefferson chimney in the south and when we say chimney in this regard we mean an ore body that kind of runs like this that's very high grade so the main things they were going after was the union and the jefferson chimney so that is where the main hoist would be and over here you can see the jefferson chimney massive ore body that intersects almost every level this mine now for the past year or so i have been hunting searching exploring ways to get into this mine without having to use the hoist because when i'm down there it just brings history to life you know to me it's important to understand these minds people that work there and so it just gives me a better appreciation for my personal time here and the history that this place has and so i love being in the mines but it's difficult for me to ask five guys to take time out of their day to lower me down in a hoist so for about six months or so i've been searching for ways in i've used backhoes dynamite shovels rope anything you can imagine to try different ways to get into the union mine i'll be honest after a year of this i was kind of running out of leads enthusiasm was low and yesterday there was a big breakthrough yesterday i was out exploring some different mines you know poking my head into a variety of different smaller mines here and some volunteers that we had here went on a hike and they hiked just up from the hoist house and the hoist house is the building here that houses the union mine and they were hiking to the peak and when i came back from exploring around 7pm they slightly came up to me and described this crack in the ground that went deeper than they could see and for me i figured you know what i'm already dirty i'm already in my mind exploration gear let's go give it a look and so being there i kind of hesitantly tied in leaned over looked and dropped down you know i decided you know why not let's see what's there at least get to this first little outpost that i saw that i could take a break on all right i'm just i'm just going for it so see ya at this point i had no idea what this crack was i didn't know that it could be the jefferson chimney or what it could be you know i just knew there was a new hole in the ground i hadn't been into it i was in mine exploration mode so i decided to give it a go you know i figured it might go 20 or 30 feet down at the most i was on these old ladders looked around immediately i found this little tunnel that they started mining a little bit and maybe only 150 feet back but on the right holy sh [Music] blasting captains tons of them [Music] oh dying in my box with dynamite in it holy sh this is the most full hercules box i've ever seen and these are all blasting caps look california blasting capcom this keeps going down to this huge scope and what i think this is i think this is one of the chimneys into the union mine i'm going down again uh and at the end of the 150 feet of rope that i had allotted i stole about 50 feet of rope but it didn't look like it was going to touch the bottom of where i wanted to go and so given that that my batteries were dying i was running out of rope i decided to make a better plan and come back the next day with johnny you know somebody had a partner to explore this thing hey i'm coming up that wasn't enough rope all right that's pretty cool i got it so it went down to like the 200 foot you go down like another 100 feet and then there's another drop off that's just like another 100 foot drop i think it used to snake all the way into the union i mean it definitely does like the jefferson chimney so as far as leads into the union mine so that night i got back to the house and i just unrolled the map i started orienting it as it should and try to figure out what this massive hole could be and immediately the jefferson chimney was the only thing i could be it was exactly where we were standing it was a massive thing that seemed to touch every single level of the mind and so i was excited you know i i called johnny in over and i was like hey johnny see you down and go tomorrow yes take a peek so the jefferson chimney see where it goes too yes now read it 900 [Laughter] you wanted an easier way in a harder way i don't believe it well there's only one way to find out these are the guys that saw it earlier so thank you of course always happy to stumble upon minecraft you could have could have changed the game you know that could be the union yeah maybe now we gotta go all the way down and to do that i'm gonna need another person a volunteer the jefferson chimney was the deepest and most rich ore deposit here at cerro gordo if you look at this book which outlines all the deposits the union chimney having been mined from the surface where i was to the termination below the 900 foot level meaning this poor body that i started going down into yesterday at one point in time was mine all the way from the surface all the way down to the 900 foot level below which would mean the jefferson chimney would extend every single level of the union mine and so this hole that was randomly stumbled upon yesterday could be the ticket not just into the union mine but into every single level of the union mine and parts of the union mine that are inaccessible through the hoist itself because you imagine the hoist goes down and the levels branch out like this and i as i explore from the shaft you know i'll come across a collapse here but there might be this much more of the mine to explore that i can't get to because it's past the collapse now if i enter over here i get behind the collapse and i get to explore all of these parts of the mind of the union mind that not only have i not explored i can't imagine anybody has explored because people have been down into the union mine through the main shaft before i was here you know people have explored it not in depths but the people have been down there but nobody is going on this random crack in the side of the mountain and then repelling 900 feet down observe here in the geology of cerro gordo mining district we have the jefferson chimney outcrop which is where i roped into if you see this thing goes past the buena vista tunnel level which is around 86 past the 200 past the 400 past the 550 past the 700 past the 900 down to the below so today there's a chance starting there and going all the way down [Music] into the belly of the beast and so with that knowledge you know we got packed up johnny packed a big pack i packed a big pack and we hit it before going down the second day i knew it might be a long exploration just because of what i'd seen the night before but i had no idea it would be my longest and most intense mind exploration i'd ever done it's just about go time i think today's a day that is the union mine that is the rope that will lead us to the union mine johnny will be here until i give him the air horn sound one air horn has come down two is i'm coming back up three is we got a problem test it works let's do this so the plan was i would go down first i would go down as far as i could go and then i would signal to johnny with an air horn all right so this is the first area i got down to last night and today it's a lot easier to see kind of what we're going down into i started down and immediately the rope that we dropped down was just tangled beyond belief you know it was wrapped around the different ladders a hundred times and so the first 30 minutes that's exploration was just properly routing the rope that i had down the path i wanted to go [Music] cdc getting down this ledge is where i got yesterday and after that there's another drop but just trying to weave this rope through all these maze of ladders super frustrating and annoying but i'm getting there i want to go there regroup see how far that drop is there all right as you may be able to see i'm on a ledge now but below this ledge so the main rope we sent down the hole before going was 300 feet long and i remember when i started going down i was having to untangle it around all these ladders i thought this is ridiculous to bring 300 feet of rope plus a backup 250 feet of rope for a shaft that probably goes down 100 feet but it turns out in the end we could have brought even more rope and still run out it's just another drop down so i think that's where i think that level down there would be the union mine if it is anywhere so that's the next step see that's the main stop over there but then this might also go down into the union [Music] this is weird snaking of thomas [Music] i made my way down to what initially i thought might be the union mine guys it is it it's it right over there that wood goes directly into the union mine if you go over here that leads down to the 86 level that's the 86 right there so he's got rope down into that so you can see it was not easy i was amazed to get here but uh we did it and i signaled up to johnny you know one to come on down i guided johnny down the path i needed to go so that way he knew the route to get to where i was so you're gonna go down that always it's gonna be like a like a gradual thing then there's gonna be a ladder down take the ladder down no stay clipped in just to be safe because there's gonna be one more ladder to go down and then he will show up right over here don't fall down that hole hello there how's fun that pretty gnarly look up look up now so from there i remember there's two options there's an option over kind of to our left where it went off and then dropped off this cliff all right but the issue there was there's a lot of cribbed rock like stacked rock at the top and the thing they're worried about is pulling one of those rocks down as you're repelling down because one you know boiling size ball rock hitting on the head it might be the end of your repelling days dude this just goes right into the main shaft i'd almost rather try to use that ladder because this is just a stack of rocks that if one of these rocks falls i'm dead option two when we were down there there's this whole not much bigger than i am you know it's too small to even bring a pack through and there was just this ladder to what looked like infinity all right johnny's gonna take this next pitch first and let me know when he gets down to the 86 and not steal all the levi jeans jesus no wrong tight squeeze [Music] while ladders aren't structurally sound it means that the humans were going that way in some capacity right there was humans there so they must have built some type of thing for them to land on and maybe if there's humans there there's artifacts there about 30 feet down this ladder there's this wooden platform and at first i was relieved i was on this platform you know there's this kind of like sense of security that you're standing on something and then in between the cracks of this platform i shined my light and realized this was just like a ledge that they created in this massive stoke and below the ledge was just an infinite drop that i couldn't see the bottom off this is the wildest one yet [Music] oh that's super sketchy over there yeah that's that's the sketchy ladder option this is the bullying option you can either go that way hold on this way let me get a good look at our options so that's where i was going to go down right that's yeah dude that void over here i looked down that already well we can go down it this way this is the way i think the miners went they went down this way that jeans over there just kidding that no no no no dude this no that's just this you can't see anywhere near the bottom that's just like i know because it goes to the 900 yeah that's like a drop to the 900 foot level this way this is sketchier though let's call me old jimmy chin oh more like chimney jim at this point yeah okay there's probably two options you can probably go in front of you too right yeah i can but that's the okay the death hit a death pit pit to hell that you don't want to go on what's going to take this side yep stoke scoopage about 40 50 feet i'm going straight rappel yep straight repel no batters you can't do that why not it's the rope on the bottom yes it's right there i can see it all right i'm going see at the bottom okay good boy take it easy move it's not good what nothing i'm stuck on a nail my atc device is stuck and nail you off okay i got it i'm done all right let me know johnny led he rappelled down and then he yelled to me again he's like hey i think you're going to want to get down here so i latched in went down straight rappel it definitely takes a little bit to fully trust your equipment you know as you're going down i think for the first half of my descent down i was looking up at the rope trying to remind myself that these things are rated for thousands of pounds or look at my harness and remember that you know millions of people go rock climbing every day and it's fine and about halfway down i finally loosened up and i thought i got into a groove you know i was enjoying myself and then on about this 50-foot rappel down halfway down where you're looking at just this infinite pit of who knows what my sleeve got wrapped up in my descender [Music] wow and the progress that i had made to being fully comfortable with my equipment backtracked a little bit being mostly comfortable with my equipment where are you johnny how far buy from you [Music] i'd watch out below and rappel down and as soon as i hit the bottom there it just felt like we were finally at something of substance you know all the way down we were on these little ledges that they had left in the rock but once we got down there it was more than a ledge it was tunnels to me it felt like this had to be part of the union mine you know why else would there be these tunnels going every direction this way in is it yeah we're in the union mine so we set out you know and immediately found treasures you know there's an old tobacco tin there's this there's that oh look a stag that's so cool an old grease tin still with the grease in it oh we got a shaft on the next levels of the union mine and the pit of despair and as we crossed pass past this pit of despair i'll call it [Music] there was a powder room you know there was these doors so these clues started hitting that you know they wouldn't have this powder room here for no reason powder room with a door oh we got some artifacts i should probably go through that make sure there's no blue jeans in there we got whatever that is there's an old lantern you're right where the blue jeans at oh brand new hercules boxes box one [Music] oh and if you guys are wondering hey wonder when this uh was last here may 5th 1913. good men need that's so perfect night may 5th 1913 right in the dynamite box oh man so we got some uh california capco blasting captains a bunch of them back in the spot room i'm actually standing on a piece of dynamite right now which we will try to avoid got the giant powder company the various brands of gelatin manufacturing are giant are particularly adapted bunch of different stuff i've never seen anything look how new it looks from 100 years ago over 100 years ago put this in the artifacts bin keep going oh baby this is crazy johnny got the dynamite bin and so everything just felt exciting you know i couldn't confirm yet i wanted proof that i was inside the union mind somewhere and that wasn't it i didn't recognize anything there was nothing to see yet but as we kept going further suddenly i saw a track track you know you know what track would mean they weren't taken out through that where where we roped in from so they're taking it out through the main union shaft this is an area that nobody will be able to get to from the shaft area because it will be collapsed which we might be running up on right now nope we ain't done yet left or right right all right speaking of collapse [Music] yeah drops back down into the shaft right no i'm just going to stay here and crack [Music] oh oh the ladder start going back up holy it's huge we open up the whole mine that's the ladder of nowhere dude i know where we are i know watch this yeah watch this watch this everybody if you guys want proof that we're actually in the union line you're about to get it so cool look at this guys and just like this we made our way around about ta-da [Music] right there was the main union shaft that i had been down many times you know in the cage but it was just this monumental task that i built up over the past year yeah and it was done dude it'd be so much easier just to go up this yeah call craig or uh oh cody we're both we made it look at this we're here and we did have to use that take that there's more levels that way too and now next time we take the shaft down we have some beautiful dynamite boxes instructions newspaper tin lantern and then the real fun started because going down is one thing going back up rope something else [Music] now comes the much less fun part of ascending back over 200 feet you ready for that not really but yes we don't really have an option unless we camp here for the night i've done that before this is the 86 after all all right headed back up all right see top side [Music] huh hell yeah i can't even see that was quite the exploration yeah we're not done yet but final descent johnny garcia johnny beautiful sunset too we did it johnny found the in your mind that was joke is that your favorite mine exploration yet yes yes yes how did you feel sitting there four and a half hours while you were exploring pretty bored and i needed to pee a lot

Channel: Ghost Town Living

Views: 1,027,789

Rating: 4.9713678 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: lJyraaYtni4

Length: 33min 35sec (2015 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 24 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/capable_basilisk]

Woohoo. I'm hungover, it's a crappy rainy day and I have nothing to other than make an enormous lunch and watch some cave antics :)

[u/theHerbieZ]

Epic video. I really get the feeling of his "mine exploration" mode. It's akin to the gold rush, just that insatiable urge to keep going and the world outside is put on the back burner.

I was thinking all the mines Brent has explored have been mostly dry cause of where Cerro Gordo is. I went into a lead mine here in the UK and it was seriously damp AF. It had a river and boat in it. There was a colossal cavern inside it that would be entirely flooded dependent on weather.

I could genuinely watch a 2-3 hour mine exploration epic video if he made one, there is something really cathartic about it.

[u/I_Like_Pizza159]

This exploration was epic, but does anyone else not get worried about how much dust they must be breathing in?