Spectacular Underground Features, The Killer Hill Mine

[Music] nestled within the incredible vistas of southern nevada lies an abandoned lead mine situated 600 feet above the valley floor [Music] with production beginning in 1913 and sporadic production continuing up until 1973 the killer hill mine produced lead copper gold silver zinc and uranium at an elevation of 1200 feet above sea level the main portal of this mine can only be accessed by a man-made walking path zigzagging its way up to the main haulage level and orbin [Music] with over 70 pounds of gear in tow climbing the hill to reach this abandoned mine was no easy task dwarfed by the sheer size of the surrounding landscape this mine was not about to give up its secrets until the two of us climbed to the top now come with me as we explore one of our most ambitious locations yet and reaching the very depths of the killer hill mine [Music] [Music] so so well hey everybody welcome back okay well do i have a spectacular location for you guys this weekend look at this incredible location we've got a um a zinc and a lead mine right here and an incline shaft um now there's been a few people up on this hill that have explored this mine but i don't think everybody has been into the deepest part of this mine because as it goes further in it gets steeper and steeper so i brought the ropes i brought the rigging we're gonna head into it first to see if we can get into the bottom without having to use that equipment but if we need it we have it here okay but before i get started i just wanted to say thank you real quick to the incredible outpouring of positive comments that uh you guys sent my direction uh because of last week's video i i told you a little bit about my my cancer story and guys you are great um i i really wish that i could have replied to all of your comments they were so terrific i i'm not able to get to all of them but thank you so much that was just incredible okay guys what do you say we explore this old mine okay to kick things off what we have up here is this great big ore bin looking off across the valley here just a beautiful sight looking off that direction i do love avista all right so behind me here what they were doing is on this level they were hauling the ore over to a tram and tramming the ore down the side of the mountain um to a station down in the bottom and then hauling it off to be processed now like i said this was a a zinc and a lead mine so when we get down in here there's a good chance mr m we're gonna find a lot of that uh fluffy zinc snow at least we found that in the past well let's go look because it took almost everything i got to get all the way up here yeah i mean mr m i mean he climbed all the way up here i'm i'm pretty proud of him he did a heck of a good job i i i had to wonder about you there for a while mr m but you did it man thank you all right let's head down in here and see what we can see i'm right behind you okay all righty let's climb over that so right off the bat we're kind of starting things off in a stop here let's see footing here first here we go okay now let me show you guys what we've got going on here right there would be your incline okay off to the left they work the stop there and off to my right it goes down that direction now more than likely they're going to be passing that ore down to the first level we come to so instead of scurrying down the dope we're going to scurry down the incline shaft oh this is easy mr m this is a walk in the park here man there we have in here off to my left there's some vent pipe and i can see a small carbide tin to the left there um yeah and some what's what's left of some muck sheets all right let's keep going down here so like i said uh there have been people already in this mine and a lot of them got to this there's like a chasm right here this can be real tricky to try to get across but we're gonna try oh we're gonna have lots of fun with this mr m [Music] yeah okay so below me here it drops off to right there then it also the stop continues on with ladders down there in that hole we're going to see if we can get down into there that's probably about 30 35 feet deep in front of me here it still goes uh deeper and deeper now okay let's see we're gonna i'm just kind of waiting on mr m here for a moment oh this sucker's steep yeah what do you think huh so here's where most people's right here here's where most people stop mr m okay yeah well that makes sense and you can see why they don't go any further and the reason that they stop is because they have to they got to do this little number so what you do put this foot let me show you what i'm doing here okay put your right butt cheek on the rail guide yourself with your right foot put your left foot on the rail okay put this hand on that pulp post and just slide oh let me get my camera here and then just slide on down like so you can even use the rock there we go to get to that there all right now here's how we're gonna do this um because that's a little bit dangerous for we do need some teamwork here okay since when so let me uh let me set the camera here for a moment give me just a minute okay okay give me a second before you start heading down yeah well look at that down there though yeah i know we'll get to it that's a pretty good drop okay all right all right be real careful i'll try to get out of your way here okey-dokey there you go we good job there you go all right that's what the crack your ass is for we just learned why uh we have a a split in our tail and that's why okay look what we have here we just got to go a little while further yeah okay well there's only one way to do that and shove mr m out of the way and keep going i kind of prefer i think what i'm gonna do is like that oh that wouldn't be a that'd be kind of an ugly fall there wouldn't it you guys probably want to see what what is below me here let me show you so if i did fall down there it would hurt but i'm only going to go 20 or 30 feet all right continuing on yeah yeah this is just a bunch of fun free climbing okay i'm gonna get down to a safe spot here oh wow it just keeps opening up bigger and bigger let me show you guys this oh just incredible look at the size of this space okay oop alrighty your turn do you need me to hold your camera oh um let's find out okay i think i'm just going to try to go like this yeah i tell you what i'll let me help you uh i can do this too blaine let me set it i'll set my camera down here no i got it keep your camera on me you sure yeah all right i don't want you falling into that pit i ain't volunteer just take your time bam oh there you go good job nice tada all right okay oh that's pretty down isn't this cool oh my god nice and nice uh-huh we've got so much to explore so my strategy today i i just want to go for the depths of this place okay and then on the way back up we'll explore these um these giant stoves coming back okay there we go that looks good oh this is a walk in the park nice okay all right so here we have a small raise going into the upper part of the stops oh what a beautiful wait till you get down here mr m the the brachiated limestone matrix here this is just classic look at that something so what i mean by brachiated limestone you see all them chunky chunky limestone pieces so at one time that was all fluid like like oatmeal and it got squeezed up through the rocks under heat and pressure and as it did all this pieces of limestone broke off and so you end up with a matrix that looks just like that and uh that is the perfect scenario to find lead zinc uh silver gold you can find golden in breccia all kinds of goodies super cool okay here we go going deeper yeah wow this is great okay now we're kind of coming to a thing here this is gonna get a little bit more difficult um yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna need my hands for this okay so i'll tell you what come on down to right here mr m let me pan across show everybody what we're getting ourselves into look at the size of this cavern can you believe that wow it's like carl's bad in here yeah it actually was well worth the uh the walk up the hill for this mine mr m oh yeah okay come on down and meet me over here all right i see what you mean about needing your hands here yeah oh glad that thing was solid oh you pick them quiet [Laughter] i do don't i yeah it's great oh look at this uh-huh what a beautiful place oh my god look at the leaf pillars that they've left oh that's breca isn't that great yeah okay okay um i'm gonna hand you i gotta hand you my cam okay you just point that at me all right i will okay good at that and i'm gonna try to target i'm gonna try get on my butt here okay got it you want me to hold yours no i got her chase i hang them all right now when you get down here i don't fall in that big hole don't fall in that big hole yeah it's just a little drop you'll be fine nasty just so everybody knows mr m is 64 going on 65. that's right that's right happy birthday mr m you the man good job let's keep it up let's look over here all right what do we have in this room i got you again okay wow super duper yeah you can tell we're just all excited today i've been wanting to get to this mine for quite a long time and do a really good job of documenting it and exploring it well okay now the question is over here the pipes do continue on so can we go even further or would it be easier yeah i just wonder i'm we're on top of a big old false floor right here gly yeah we are kind of kind of our kind of our yeah oh my god okay i have to set my camera down yeah i gotta zip mine down too let's see what we have down in here oh this is easy easy easy no problems tell me what's under here uh yeah well it's a false floor with a bunch of crumble no doubt about it all right now i got to get my footing here um okay so the trick to this is just hold on to the pipe okay just grab the pipe with your right hand nice and hard and work your way to the bottom just like that i know you're not talking to me yeah i'm talking oh we have a level we got to drift here all right let me get to a safe spot whoops what's going on here my cameras is freaking out there we go okay let me get to a safe spot oh there we go come on down mr m you can do it you know if mary sees any of this stuff she's gonna have you i know it's it's gonna be no salisbury steak for you you're trying to get my honey hurt all right now this is just a nice little free climb you'll be fine see now if you guys remember as we watch mr m slowly work his way down here um [Laughter] he just had to throw the slowly works his way down here like i'm just meandering oh my god go ahead and finish the important thing you were gonna say okay remember when we remember remember the silver souls mine guys and mr m coming down to the i think he made it to the 300 level and that's as far as he got that's because i was tired see because back then he was having trouble with his knees but hanging out with me now look what he can do there you go look at you like a like a spring chicken i am uh-huh oh good okay all right which way you want to go first uh left and right i didn't want to come here i'm following you okay i am going to go off this direction because we've got rail down here how sweet is this now i guess what i should show everybody first is what we have below us here okay looking down it goes steeper and steeper down to another level again it looks like something i can possibly free climb i don't think mr m would do that one but there's a lot of wind there's a lot more likely when you say i won't do it that i'll do it there's air blowing up from that down there yeah uh that that's that's cool because that it links to the outside somehow all right so we're gonna go to the left side of this incline shaft follow the rail let's see what we have down here okay look at all the gobbing now gobbing is when the miners stack up the rocks within the mine and a lot of times they'll stack the rocks in such a way to offer a place to backfill waste rock it's a lot easier doing it that way than to try to haul it haul all that back out of the mine now we're getting pretty dusty here we have an attic going off that direction and the drift with the rail continues on this direction let's go this way mr m okay i'm seeing remnants of explosives boxes the aligners that were inside of the explosive boxes and it just goes around the corner and stops okay that's it they quit right there all right turn it back around we're gonna go take a look at that next drift ouch okay good thing i'm wearing a helmet you're used to that though yeah i'm used to hitting my head on things no wearing a helmet yeah okay now let's go up this drift and see what it's all about oh it's dusty in here who made all that dust mr m now okay the drift goes off that direction looking off to my left that's looking back towards the incline shaft that we just came down so this thing is just hollowed out like a giant beehive going every which direction old jed was in here in 1985 yeah okay a little bit of backfill here no that's not collapse that's just backfill and we've got good old rail heading off this direction nice i like that now on the side of the hill outside there's a whole bunch of other places where um the uh there's other added so it makes me wonder if any if we're gonna run into anything that might pop back out of the hill somewhere else we'll just have to keep exploring and find out we have here now here look at this you can almost somewhat make out part of the vein that they were mining going up and looking up this raise right there okay what's up here well it looks like it comes right to the end don't find out [Applause] yep here's the end i wonder right there that could be let me turn the laser on i see i'm what i'm looking at here if you can kind of see the laser it goes from here all the way down to the floor about five feet thick that could be what they're mining and they just quit okay turn it back around yeah when you're in a lead and zinc mine the or the ore body as i over this here the ore body is what's called tabular okay and well that can help you let's try that yeah you have what's called a tabular ore body and that's why this my the layout of this mine is like a big honeycomb okay [Applause] or no i i said that wrong darn it mr m ah not tabular sorry this is a lensed ore body okay that's why it's shaped like this and they're just kind of burrowing every which direction yeah i didn't i didn't want to correct you in front of the public because i know that you're likely to storm back to your wardrobe trailer and stay there for a week or two and never open the door i contradict you it's okay mister you can correct me all right all right here we go let's head back and we're gonna head off to the uh right side of the incline shaft so i'll see you guys over there okay guys we're back over here by the incline shaft next place we're gonna explore in this mine is headed off that direction we'll see where that drift takes us but before we do that um i was taking a break over here kind of catching my breath i know you guys drives you crazy to hear me going in the microphone all day long so um take a look at what i found here so the miners must have found a really nice pocket of goodness through here because they actually went in here with hand tools and picked out that layer going between this rock and that rock and they reached up in there and they picked at that and picked at that and cleaned it out so there must have been some high grade running right through here see that i can stick my arm in there and that's their leaf pillar and yeah and this is so this is a pillar so it kind of makes you wonder you know they they leave the pillars in place to maintain the structural integrity of the mine then fast forward years later a prospector somebody else could have come in here and they started whacking away at this pillar going after the goodness right through this vein kind of neat okay we're gonna head on this direction and go explore the next rift okay guys let's see what this one's all about now the first interesting thing down here i i saw was oh it's uh oil shell oil that contained one five gallon can and uh don't see if i can see a date on it anywhere don't see anything there yep uh possibly 8k 48 wl so possibly 1948 mr m let's look over here nothing really on that side yeah nothing on the back it's got the bursting values on the cardboard box on the bottom dated 60s or 70s yeah okay oh great big ore bin not an opinion i mean or shoot through here look at that working them stops now i want you guys to as we walk through this to imagine uh the best way i can describe it is so when when the stratification of the layers of the surrounding geology in this area was flat okay and uh these hydrothermal brachiated fluids pushed up they pushed up and then when they hit the cracks in the in the limestone they it pushed out laterally so if you can imagine this this goopy oatmeal like rock squeezing its way laterally left and right and then it works higher up and squeezes some more we gotta drift off to the left we'll explore that in a minute we're gonna keep following the rail here to the right okay then it then it goes up a little bit more squishes some more and it keeps doing that layer after layer after layer and as you get close it gets closer to the earth's crust it starts to solidify into what you see right now okay and turn hard now then tectonics come into play and you got the pacific plate and the north american plate bump into each other and all the mountains uplift and uh and what that does is it exposes all those layers of brachiated rock and that's what we are walking through right now this has all been uh backfilled mr m we're not going any further that way let's turn around here we're gonna have to go back to that other drift and see what's over there so as that fluid squeezes through the different layers of limestone it forms these lensed type structures basically they look like uh curved curved lenses like the top of a mushroom kind of a curve filling in all those voids that's what you got going on all right now rail continues off to the right we'll explore that in a minute but i got a little thing here going off to the left yeah there's boards and debris laying everywhere if something pops out that looks like a really nice artifact i can point out to you guys i'll show it to you but right now there's nothing too exciting as far as artifacts all right oh this is kind of cool um it just does this neat little bend here and heads off this direction so some of you might be asking me well why how come when you get down in these mines why do they twist and bend and go all these different crazy directions well these are exploratory okay generally what they're looking for is the outer edge of the ore body and this is as far as we go on this one you can see the drill holes there yep okay turn it back around okay because back then they didn't uh they didn't drill the hills like they do today with uh um you know drill bits and diamond cutters the only way to really explore mountain is you had to blast right into it wiggle around every which direction and looking for the goodies all right what do we have this direction well this is promising we've got rail we've got compressor pipe off to my right here there is a repurposed kerosene tin we've seen a lot of those in many different episodes the miners would cut the cut a kerosene tin and turn it into things like um a little little thing you can carry your tools in and whatnot they're also used for honey buckets we do have a drift going this way i'll bet this is another exploratory let's go check it out yep indeed it is it just stops right there all right turning it back around you lost yet mr m a little bit oh yeah you turned around no you kidding oh wow this is great look what we got here now here is a great spot mr m for the 360 camera and this is why i thank all of you for contributing to the tip jar helping the channel out because it was you guys that ultimately purchased the 360 cam for the channel and these are the cool things that we can do with it look at the size of this cavern fantastic okay let's turn let's look over here now we've got uh an ore chute coming down from that upper level and the drift keeps going this way oh that looks like so much fun a ladder with one rung on it yeah yeah you know i'm gonna set the camera down here for a moment right there i want to see what's up there let's see here i got my footing here if i can no wait let me get my angle here i don't need that thing it's not as slimpy as i used to be jeez that's straight up for the most part oh wow okay see we have up here holy macaroni you're not gonna believe all right give me a second oh my gosh oh my god would you look at that next week on abandoned and forgotten places you have to experience this there's just no way you have to see this here let me set my stuff down hey give me a second here i'll wait and see it on saturday oh no no no no you've come this far there's no way that that you're gonna come this far into an awesome mind like this and not experience this level of goodness come here how am i gonna get down i'll help you what does that even mean so [Music] you

Channel: Abandoned and Forgotten Places

Views: 55,553

Keywords: A&FP, Abandoned, Forgotten, Places, Mine, Mines, Tunnel, Exploring, Adventure, Hiking, Artifacts, Antiques, Geology, Prospecting, Gold, Silver, Quartz, Dynamite, Blasting, Adit, Gly, Bobbie, Quackers, Gly Coolness, Old Bob, Old Mine, Old Building, Gold Mine, Ghost Town, Abandoned Mine, Abandoned Mines, Abandoned Place, Abandoned Places, Forgotten Place, Forgotten Places, Mine Exploring, Abandoned Mine Exploring, Exploring Abandoned Mines, Abandoned and Forgotten Places, Abandoned & Forgotten Places

Id: BPbkC6qPtVk

Length: 39min 10sec (2350 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 27 2021