Bringing An Abandoned Gold Mine Back To Life: Part 6 of ?

As I hope you have learned through this series, there is quite a lot involved in bringing an abandoned gold mine back to life! However, we’re getting there… All of this work we’re doing (well aside from the little projects to satisfy MSHA) is intended to get us to the point where we can begin drilling and blasting. And that is happening soon!

The work we’re completing is connected… In other words, finishing one project allows us to start on another project that we couldn’t have done without finishing the first project. Viewers have asked why we don’t have this or that piece of heavy equipment, for example. We’re going to, but it is all a process. Before bringing in heavy equipment (to return to the earlier example), we had to get the tracks dating back to the 1800s into reasonable shape. To be able to work on the tracks, we had to make the mine safe enough to work in with timber supports and ventilation. See how this works?

Bear in mind, that this gold mine dates back to the 1870s. It was designed for hand tools. It was not designed for muckers, large vent pipes, etc. So, space to work is definitely hard to come by at times and the mine often fights us when we want to use modern equipment. We were joking the other day that the ghosts of the miners from generations past look on our modern equipment with scorn and cause it to break down all of the time. By contrast, when we use the hand tools and equipment of the old timers, it never seems to fail us.

We’re working through the inevitable problems and setbacks though (you'll love the setback that I captured on camera yesterday) and are getting close to starting the next phase of the mine project (drilling and blasting). For those of you that have been following this restoration and mining project, your enthusiasm is greatly appreciated.

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All of these videos are uploaded in HD, so I’d encourage you to adjust your settings to the highest quality if it is not done automatically.

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

As well as a small gear update here: https://bit.ly/2p6Jip6

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

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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Видео Bringing An Abandoned Gold Mine Back To Life: Part 6 of ? канала TVR Exploring