The 1984 Van Haven Mine: Where In The Hell Does This Thing Go??, Part 2

previously on abandoned and forgotten places episode 62 yep but don't put any weight on the boards above it that's really neat guys look at that here's an area where all the rock bolts failed wow yeah kind of looks like freddy krueger's fingernails hanging down from the back of the mild mine doesn't it wow would you look at the size of this place mr m go ahead and walk out in there so that unbelievable holy cow this is so this is so super cool [Music] okay now guys i think the next fun place to explore is going to be up these ladders to go see where the men were working what do you think i think i figured that that's what you were going to say yeah i mean how can i resist there is another drift that goes to the right when we were first coming in the first one that's right and we've got one more drift off to the right that we still need to look at that we bypassed on the way in but now what we have we've got this ladder here and it definitely goes up to a platform higher up let me get my backpack around this iron thing there we go okay guys come on with me and uh i'm gonna take you to the next level here wait till i get up guys there's some loose material i don't want to knock any rocks on your head okay now let me uh show you where i just came from right over here right down there okay i think i'm gonna do it maybe give these guys some assistance to come up the ladder if they choose to i'll be right back all right guys they decided that this was uh a little bit beyond their comfort level okay so we've got the drift keeps going it's kind of in a t formation we're gonna go to the left here first here's that pass the uh the rays that they installed the venting and went down to the lower level yeah smells like sulfur in here okay let's see where this goes okay it continues up that way and wow this may very well be some some of the original workings right there okay i'll come back and revisit that in a second let's look up here first oh yeah right up there that's let's see if i can get up a little bit higher here for you guys that's good enough the rays used to go up that way and now it appears to be choked off the problem is is the stuff on the hanging wall off to my left is really really sketchy looking and uh yep that's just way too crumbly all right turn it back around let's see if this goes up into old workings here what is that on the floor oh it's just some duct tape okay oh okay this is an exploratory drift they do this type of thing to help uh determine the boundaries of the ore body that they're chasing after and that's what this is all right turning back around i'm just going to take you guys with me because now we've got to go back to where we came up the ladder now if you look down on the floor here you see how the material is piled up to the left piled up to the right okay that tells me that they had a slusher in here and they were bringing the ore back this direction over to an ore pass okay now to get over here i'm gonna have to see we have a false floor um oh that's pretty pretty sketchy [Music] okay i'm just trying to figure out a way how i can navigate around this false floor without the dang thing snapping putting an extra 200 some odd pounds on it let's see if i step there and step here there we go okay perfect indeed we're at the top of of the ore pass let's go we're gonna have to jump down this little ladder here [Applause] okay here we go now what do we have up there oh very nice another big section of the mine but uh we need to keep exploring this direction see what we can find there we go yeah there's been a few collapses in here over the years there certainly has oh here look here guys there's a hole in the floor that goes down to the level that we were just at gotta watch where we're walking in these places something like that could sneak up on you okay well i'll be this thing just keeps on going let's peer up in there real quick yup indeed it just keeps on going all right i'll be right back okay let's see how much further this goes wow still keeps going now we are sitting one level higher than the main haulage at it that we came off of probably that gladder was say 75 feet high so we're 75 feet higher and look here we have we have another exploratory going off this direction and turning around with another one going off that direction i'm going to stay on the primary for right now on my way back i may peek up into those for you let's see what we have up in here well we have sections that have collapsed over the years let me show you right there and all these big boulders came raining down let's uh get out from under that as fast as possible here's another one actually these look like they were pushed up in here by the miners um let's get around that okay wow well i just do not like the looks of this stuff hanging above my head it is really sketchy looking okay goodness gracious this area is really ugly okay let's get up in here and see what we can see there we go i can tell they had a wheeled mucker in here at one time anything hiding up in here interesting no nope nothing at all okay i'm gonna go ahead and take you back through the sketchy part so if a major collapse occurs we can catch it on camera huh oh my goodness there we go now let's go explore these drifts i'm pretty sure they're just exploratory and they don't go anywhere but we're going to take a look anyways so all these different piles of collapsed material that's what's come down over the years from the seismic activity in nevada okay let's go take a look at the one to the right first anything hiding up in here yeah there's an old axe handle and what do we have here is that that's just cable okay and there's some dynamite down on the floor these are the things you have to watch out for guys see you definitely don't want to be stepping on that okay and that's going to be the end of that drift all right turn it back around let's uh take a look up up this other exploratory and then we'll head back over to uh that big wooden structure and see what's behind that wow look at how brittle that andesite material is right there and it's just let me show you all the mold look at you can see there must be some organic material see all the white mold that's growing on it okay anything uh hiding up in here no just uh another pair of slickers and a bucket okay let's turn around now that mold is flaking and falling off the back of the mine in front of the camera so for those of you who call these things orbs that's what just floated in front of the camera was a piece of white mold all right now i'm taking you back to uh that other big wooden structure so i'll see you back there okay i'm back over here that's where the falls floor and the ladders were coming up that's the small ladder we came down over the top of this ore pass and now we have this wooden thing here um and what i want to try to do you can see at one time they had this they had this rock bolted here but now it's all failed i want to try to get around this without the rest of it collapsing on me um let's see here yeah there we go okay right here down on the floor is another ore pass we certainly don't want to slide into that and it does continue on up that way um i gotta try to get around this without falling down into that hole there we go oh yeah yeah they were using they had a slusher up in here you can clearly see the the marks on the side look right here right there yep cable slusher here we have a collapse let's get past that some kind of some pretty looking material up there look at that all right let's get past that looks like we're coming to the end guys is it gonna be a raise nope that's gonna be the end okay all right well that uh explores this level in its entirety i'll meet you guys back to the at the ladder okay guys i am very carefully going back down this ladder here if i get my there we go i'm almost to the bottom and there we are okay let's see if we can meet up with uh with our buddies hey where'd you go hey there they are where'd you go do you guys find anything neat down here a little bit yeah okay well i'm gonna scratch around for a little while too and see if we can't come up with something else before we head to the next site okay guys we just came from right up there now we're gonna head down the drift that we missed when we first came into this mine right there by mr m's head that's a that's a giant uh ventilation duct ducting and there's a whole bunch more of it going back up into this drift so if they're running ventilation ductwork of that size up in here maybe we'll have some substantial workings that's if i can learn how to walk here jeez i'm tripping all over here we go okay yeah it has since all fallen down we're gonna follow it on up in here keeps on going with a whole bunch of uh compressor pipe off to my left oh yeah yeah we're definitely following a vein through here yep oh big collapse you know mr m you see why this is failing look at all the look at the groundwater penetration that's why the back of the mine is all dark see that i do we gotta be real real cautious through here wow okay uh you hang back a second let me let me uh look around this hanging wall here this is really ugly yeah you can see here guys how all of this material has completely failed and fell away from the hanging wall the the attic the drift let me look here yeah it did go that way and it continues to go that way hmm oops yeah we don't need mr laser on here turn that off there we go i don't know if you guys can see that but the compressor pipe goes up there and then turns and goes to the left yeah i am not going to i'm pretty sure it pinches out just past that point that is just too dangerous to crawl underneath that material it's all it's all coming down and with the amount of ground water penetration through this spot nope let's get out of here that's uh way too dangerous mr m besides it looks like it's collapsed and pinched up pinched off around that point yeah i saw that yeah it's just not worth risking going up there for something that's going to be pinched off anyways well you know in these places you just you kind of have to choose your battles you don't want to press your luck too far you can feel the moisture in everything absolutely that and that's why this whole section of the mine is falling apart and the condensation on the five and the rest right yep okay well we're gonna work our way back to the portal and if i do find something cool to show you guys i'll be sure to hit record okay well wasn't that fun so we explored just about every single drift and level of that more modern 1984 1985 mine that was a lot of fun i didn't get to go into that one really sketchy part that just looked that was just too over the top for me didn't want to go into there but we've got two more to do today we've got another horizontal haulage at it right off here to my right and then i'm saving the best for last for you guys don't know if i'm gonna get it in on this weekend but maybe it'll be for next weekend i'm going to take you guys down this incline shaft right here below me but look at this beautiful head frame and the shift wheel the shiv wheel is still in place and it still turns after all these years see that pretty darn cool okay i'm going to take you over here to this other attic and we'll get started on that one next all right so a moment ago we were just right over there on the head frame randy's working his way over here to me and this is the at it that i was telling you about of course the portal is all failed and falling in so now we have to carefully find a way down in here all right turn turn some lights on here there we go okay look out for snakes some electrical conduit that goes down in here and okay just like that that wasn't too hard i can see here where they're running the vein right off the bat there it is nice looking silver vein right there all right let's see what this one has to say first of all we're going to shine our light up there a little ways make sure we don't have any glowing eyes staring back at us lots of pine cones on the floor so you know that the critters have been up in here down there on the floor is a an old dynamite box and a canned ham all right and we've got rail well that's always nice okay well kind of goes up and turns the corner a little bit of a collapse through this section here yep gonna have to be real careful around this all right there we go and we're in some really really soft material through this section um i'll be darn it does make a hard left goes up make a hard left and all that's up in here is a board anything hiding under the board nope but there's a pack rat nest up in there okay short and sweet well but we needed to find out what this one was all about so let's head over to the incline shaft and get started on that one i'll see you over there all right there's the portal i was just getting ready to head out of here until i looked above my head i wanted to point out to you guys this this really beautiful silver my silver vein right here isn't that pretty look at all of the layers in the structure within that hydrothermal vein it is just beautiful and up here look at this right there let's try to get a better light on it right there look at that isn't that pretty how those hydrothermal fluids make all them different layers and these veins good stuff okay i'm headed back over to the incline okay guys back again now for the moment you all been waiting for so here's the building that they had the winch and right up there on that concrete pad a few workbenches and right up there is the head frame you saw me crawling around on okay now down here we got to go around the corner over there that small added that's where we just came out of a moment ago but to get down into this incline we've gotta go right down here [Applause] i poked my head in here a moment ago i'll show you what i found let me turn my lights on here there we go oh there we go yeah let me show you what i found so i'll work my way in here okay okay so it's kind of kind of narrow now right here look at there there's the incline going down and they installed another one of these big metal air air ducts right here and along side of it is another piece of eight inch compressor pipe similar to what we just saw down in that other mine now off to the left is the man way right there and let's take a look down in here see if we can see yeah i can only see it going to that point so it makes me wonder if this pipe somehow connects into the uh the the other workings that we were just in from from the 80s all right let's see if i can carefully out onto this and get down on to buy that next ladder i don't trust this ladder this is just looks too too darn terrible um give me just a moment guys while i need the footing here i don't want to put all my weight on this first ladder it's there we go yeah now we're on the first landing and you can see down in there where i'm going to attempt to go all right let me try uh and put some weight on that ladder okay pretty skinny through here gonna take me a minute there we go [Music] oh almost lost my balance there let me step off on this next landing is that solid i'll take my weight yeah it sure will okay all right working our way to the next ladder here see if this one takes my weight yeah while i'm doing this i'm i'm holding on to a whole bunch of other things just so you know in case the ladder snaps i have something else i can i can grab on to okay that's an ugly looking ladder yikes i'm gonna get off of this one as soon as possible okay i'm down on the next landing let's see what we have down here yeah see how they took the uh that uh trying to think that pieces of old air vent and they stuffed it around around the vent here trying to make a seal so that's what they were doing here guys is is making a they were turning this drift they made a seal out of it so that they could combine itself into a positive air pressure zone probably to force fresh air into those 1980s workings which is smart because they're like well we already have a shaft there why don't we just utilize the shaft and turn that into see let me show you let me show you right there see how they right there they cut plywood and stacked it around the pipe and turned it into a bulkhead all right now now that we're past that bulkhead let's see if we can see anything down there not yet nope all right boy that's a really ugly looking here um i sure hope we get to a drift soon it looks like we might be coming in on one ah just got a whole bunch of dust in my head okay all right what do we have here well first of all oh boy i don't know what my butt's hanging over but it doesn't sound good um i've got this board in the way i gotta move this thing let's see here maybe i can yeah just knocking all sorts of stuff not gonna take my weight i hope so all right let's see what we got going on here well right here there's the metal pipe and here's where it attaches into the more of the fabric looking stuff so that it can be flexible let's step off let's look past the collar section see what we have down here oh yeah indeed this is going to go down and meet up with those uh workings from 84. now let me show you something else guys since i'm right here right there is a drift that cut to the cut to the left and then over here it cuts to the right but i can't get over there not without a rope it's uh 30 feet below me and there's no ladders or any or anything to get to that point let's look one more let's look down there one more time that's exactly where this went was down to those 80s workings okay all right well if i see something interesting i want to turn the camera back on and show you guys but i really want to get out from underneath this nasty collar it's ugly it's too bad i couldn't get to that drift right there yeah this is uh frank where are you when i need you buddy [Laughter] yeah okay i'll be right back guys all right guys wasn't that fun but that's how it goes sometimes you know you just don't know what you're going to find in these mines until you get down in them this one here did live up to its report the report said that it went down 60 feet then drifted out left and right and had 1500 feet worth of workings going left and right and that's what i saw down there but unfortunately we would need a rope to get from that last terrace down to the drift level and did you see how they ran that pipe all the way down further into the mine into the 1984 85 workings so that tells me that when we were all the way down into that big mine and we've made that hard left hand turn this is where they ran the pipe down so that they could bring fresh air into that part of the mine all right guys well once again i really do appreciate you coming along this weekend that was a lot of fun and i'll see you again next weekend all right take care bye bye [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Abandoned and Forgotten Places

Views: 83,145

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: KxeCuBco39w

Length: 40min 26sec (2426 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 25 2020