A Bad Mine Leads To A Good Mine

This mine started out rather badly, but, as you’ll see, became quite a good mine to explore in the end. This is yet another case that demonstrates the value of running things out… And, in this case, I can add the value of not just taking someone’s word for something! I can’t even begin to tell you how many times we have been told that a mine is inaccessible because it has caved, has a crazy person squatting at the site, been destroyed by the Forest Service, etc. Quite often, we arrive at the abandoned mine and find a way in or find that the rumors were complete nonsense. These lessons are applicable everywhere in life, not just in the field of mine exploring.

I tried to pick a thumbnail picture where it looked like we were scolding Little Jake. Hopefully, that was successful.

It was difficult to piece together the history of this abandoned mine as there were a number of contradictory reports. So, I’ll stick to what was consistent across all of the reports: This was a gold mine and the ore body was discovered in the early 1900s. It was worked heavily at that time and then abandoned after World War I. At some later date – either the 1950s or the 1970s depending on the report I was reading – the mine had some rehabilitation work done for sampling and exploration, but this came to nothing.

There was a lot of history on the hill where this mine is located. I found the remains of some very old, primitive stone cabins and we found the remains of a lot of surface workings and prospecting activity. There was also modern mining activity taking place, with evidence of recent core drilling and sampling farther up the hill.

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You can see the full TVR Exploring playlist of abandoned mines here: https://goo.gl/TEKq9L

You can see the gear that I use for mine exploring here: https://bit.ly/2wqcBDD and here: https://bit.ly/2p6Jip6

Several kind viewers have asked about donating to help cover some of the many expenses associated with exploring these abandoned mines. Inspired by their generosity, I set up a Patreon account. So, if anyone would care to chip in, I’m under TVR Exploring on Patreon.

Thanks for watching!

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Growing up in California’s “Gold Rush Country” made it easy to take all of the history around us for granted. However, abandoned mine sites have a lot working against them – nature, vandals, scrappers and various government agencies… The old prospectors and miners that used to roam our lonely mountains and toil away deep underground are disappearing quickly as well.

These losses finally caught our attention and we felt compelled to make an effort to document as many of the ghost towns and abandoned mines that we could before that colorful niche of our history is gone forever. But, you know what? We enjoy doing it! This is exploring history firsthand – bushwhacking down steep canyons and over rough mountains, figuring out the techniques the miners used and the equipment they worked with, seeing the innovations they came up with, discovering lost mines that no one has been in for a century, wandering through ghost towns where the only sound is the wind... These journeys allow a feeling of connection to a time when the world was a very different place. And I’d love to think that in some small way we are paying tribute to those hardy miners that worked these mines before we were even born.

So, yes, in short, we are adit addicts… I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!

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