The Most Dangerous Mine We've Been In For A While

We’ve been doing too many nice, dry desert mines lately… It was time to return to our roots of exploring flooded, muddy and dangerous abandoned mines. This mine certainly ticked the boxes regarding those requirements. And, really, with the ore car, the ore chutes, the cool geology and the impressive stopes, this was a hell of a pleasant surprise for a mine that we had low expectations for!

This abandoned gold mine is unusual in that it is a lode mine beneath a large section of ancient river channel that was hydraulicly mined. Typically, lode deposits will be above placer deposits (the lode deposits feed into the placer workings). However, the rules of the ancient river channels are very different (as evidenced by their frequent presence on mountaintops). Having seen no evidence of quartz outcropping on the surface, I still believe the lode elements of this mine were an accidental discovery. It was very common for gold miners to run drain tunnels underneath the ancient river channels or adits to tap the sweet spot where the placer material meets the bedrock. An adit run in toward this contact zone sweet spot can be more profitable and less work than removing massive amounts of rock and gravel overburden. I would imagine the miners were probably fairly surprised to encounter rich quartz veins on the way to where they thought the ancient river channels were hidden.

The miners may even have reached the ancient river channel. I have only seen that orange mine mud that we were wallowing in on one or two occasions where a mine did not directly hit the ancient river channel. The point where I was forced to stop by that mud wall spilling down in front of me is a feature I have seen in underground placer mines where the miners hit the ancient river channel. Right at that spot, it will often be impossible to proceed in these mines.

I can’t tell you about the history of this mine because all we have is a point on a map. No name. It’s in one of the oldest mining districts in California though.

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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.
I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!

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