The Bonanza Mine: Finding a Skip Car and Descending Down to the 800 Level (Part 2 of 2)

hello everyone this will be the final part of our exploration of the bonanza mine part one had a whole bunch of incredible artifacts so i'd recommend checking that one out before you watch this one as you'll see though this mine still had a lot left to offer we end up finding the main incline and we take it all the way down to the 800 level of the mine we also find some pretty cool things along the way hope you guys enjoy okay so we're down on the next level this one has a beautiful tracks heading off both directions but we're gonna stick to this side first there's a lot of airflow glowing in here as well it seems to be going for a really long ways all right we have a junction right here this just goes to a collapsed stop by the looks of it we have another stop heading down further see a bunch of uh ladders stacked in a little corner over there oh this is a running for quite a long ways i was expecting to run into a big collapse already it's a very low ceiling yeah so we must be on the 500 level all right looks like we have a split here another collapse stop and here's a really cool junction here's the attract switch right here and looks like this uh branch doesn't go very far looks like they may have been dubbing or right into this pocket right here all right oh cool we have some uh stalactites so there is a bit of moisture in here as you can see that's really interesting beautiful colors in here too so all right we have something cool up ahead this is it this is the incline my friends this is the incline oh badass this is so cool careful this wood looks pretty rotten oh yeah wow and it carries on down keeps going and here's there's the collapse there yeah we couldn't um get into this mine from the main incline it's all collapsed but this drift took us all the way to it this has been incredible all right so here's the main incline um before we head down we actually found another incline going up we didn't see this at first um and right before i head up i wanted to show you this it's like a metal saw horse it's pretty neat all right let's go follow and hit up this incline and we didn't see this on the level above so this might lead to areas that were behind that collapse see they had rails in here all right looks like we have another drift level that heads uh back over to the shaft that heads up into a collapse and there's a drift that runs this way i'm guessing it'll end in a collapse right up here this is a really tall in here about 10 feet tall in that section so looks like we've got a barrel here and uh it just collapses right there huh yeah this this is the other side of the one we're looking at all right cool yeah i think we can head across the incline now all right we just checked out that drift this was the incline we came up and this drift should head to the main incline i believe that's the orbit for it right there okay there's a branch to the left okay this is where they would dump the ore so here's the orbit into the main incline and uh this just loops around the coil it continues past the incline on this level [Music] oh really there's an axle on it and it's wood that's the way you probably hit the wheels in the car that's pretty neat all right so the minion incline is collapsed right there and collapse right up here but uh there's a drift uh beyond it on this level very beautiful colors in here though all right just made it back down from here and now we're going to climb down into the main incline and continue down to the lower levels of the mine okay so i just climbed down the short ladder and now i'm in the main incline uh here's a look behind me that's the 400 foot level orbit and we were just up there above that a moment ago but now we're going to continue down deeper into this mine you can see we have a roller right here for the cable and i want to see the other side of this orbin gotta watch your head in here oh there's the shoot gate it's a metal one huh there's another little ladder coming down there and uh i think i see the next level shortly down here okay this mine has been incredible so far i think that's actually the skip down there it is that's the skip for the incline all right well i'm really excited to see that but i gotta stick to uh the rules we've been following and explore this level first beautiful yellow colors in here got some gobbing and it looks like we've reached a major collapse there's another um winds going down with some rails guessing xavier worked his way behind this collapse so uh i'll turn the camera back on after i do that all right i just worked my way beyond this collapse all this material fell from the back right here and this is just a massive mass of soap you can see the the next level down is right there it looks pretty rough there's a short raise heading up here but it looks like it just faces out and this which i believe is the 600 level continues and it looks like we picked up some airflow got our rusted uh bulkhen there whoa this is a very tall drift that's probably 15 feet high and uh got some gobbing here but there's very strong airflow in this drift which is always a good sign because we're in a pretty remote section of the mine and it's very it's very likely that there's bad air in some sections especially because uh a lot of these timbers look rotted that's why there's so many collapses good this is a cool stop yeah you felt the breeze back there right yeah there's definitely air flow i'm guessing it's circulating through the stoves from the level above when you get towards the face there's a beautiful vein on the left side yeah hey did you see that the skiff is down there would you see it yeah it's right down right below this level oh this must be the vein that xavier was talking about almost looks like it was it's like some sort of copper mineral that's really pretty and there's a dead end incline down there with a dynamite box and this drift keeps going this keeps turning twisting and turning and it ends right here all right let's go uh down to the main incline and see that skip car that's gonna be really cool all right we just finished exploring that level and continuing down the incline looks like uh the skip cars down here looks like even has a set of wheels on it seemingly impact car down here see the cables all cleared up right here and it looks like we've reached the next level too huh i guess this is um like the shoot gate looks very strange never seen one like this and here we have a level running off the 700 and right here we have the the skip oh this is awesome so you can see the the back wheels are intact but these uh two front ones have been broken this is awesome you can see that the rear rails are wider and um this would allow the uh to skip to dump when i reach the top of the incline so on the rear wheels would ride up a wider set of tracks and i'll tip the car downward and dump out all the ore okay on the 700 level let's see where it goes there's some nice rail in here that i twist around again i'm feeling airflow so that means there's pretty good circulation in this mine and there's a bit of collapse here uh i think this is the uh stop we were looking down i remember that big boulder sorry i'm not holding the camera too seti it's a bit tricky walking around in here there we go okay we have another collapse this might be backfill actually all right here's the skip car and we're gonna continue down the shaft um down there about 50 feet i can see the the water line the incline is flooded beyond that but it looks like there's at least one more level that we can explore this is just a short little stub level i just want to see if there's anything in it not really just a piece of a dynamite box this is the seven or eight ah this down here i believe it's the eight the one wonder you're just in does that go anywhere no yeah so you can see the the water line this incline did go down to one more level but obviously that's underwater i was really expecting uh the water line to go up to the 700 so i'm really glad we've been able to make it down this far that is crystal clear water that's really cool we toss a rocking can you see the next level ah no all right i'm on the 800 now let's see where this goes i'm not really expecting a whole lot but this mine had a lot of surprises so huh okay looks like we have a major collapse here um there is a decline going down right into the water uh we might be able to get above this collapse but it looks pretty dangerous i'll have to take a closer look at it i'm curious to see what's down this incline looks like it just drops off into the water well it looks like xavier may have found a little drift level uh level here okay yeah the claps up above doesn't really seem worth it it's uh very dangerous okay so this is like an overshoot right here yeah probably going down so the next level is probably right below this yeah there's uh some stopping up here i'm actually i might climb up there and see because it goes off more that direction this looks all filled you know we might be able to get past that collapse by heading up here i'm not too sure about that but uh there's a little stop over here disturb the surface and get a little clearer oh yeah there we go we got a clear spot there oh yeah it keeps going down a little ways yeah the other level has to be only like 20 feet 20 feet down the bottom right there yeah that's right possible oh oh i left my scuba gear in my other pants well i guess we're going to have to dude i told you you got to bring it i it was in my other pants back to the camp you know next time yeah we'll be back oh yeah yeah all right we're heading up here's the skip car again and it's gonna be a very long climb out of here but it was so so worth it this mine blew away my expectations so you can see right here on the right there's a shelf and a bunch of holes for our pegs to keep track of the ore loads coming out of this chute right here and right here on the rails we have a track spacer i'm guessing they would have used this while they're setting up the rails and we have another decline um looks like it might just end it doesn't look like it connects to anything but there are some rails left for the skip and let's see what's down here this is a very clean drift [Music] so there should be a stock here yep

Channel: Forgotten Mining History

Views: 100,314

Rating: 4.937871 out of 5

Keywords: mine, mines, mine exploring, mine exploration, abandoned, abandoned mines, exploring, exploration, shaft, incline, inclined shaft, mineshaft, skip, skip car, ore car, skip cart, cart, mining, gold, gold mining, silver, copper, gold mine, underground, stope, stopes, drift, rail, track, mojave desert, history, historic

Id: 1Oi03VK9iz0

Length: 24min 23sec (1463 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 27 2020