Feature-Filled Sierra Gold Mine: Minecarts, Misfires & More

Not always, but often when our explore of an abandoned mine starts out with a minecart in front, we are going to have a good day. Fortunately, that proved to be the case yet again with this gold mine high in California’s Sierra Nevadas… This mine is in a remote location, one must hike into the site and it is not easily visible from Google Earth. These elements combined to create a nice explore for us.

Too many of the abandoned mines in Nevada and southern California are heavily visited and badly picked over by “collectors.” In those regions, one must really work for it or be in the know to discover relatively unspoiled historic mines. With Polaris RZRs, GPS and Google Earth, it is much easier these days for anyone to track down and to visit abandoned mines in the open spaces of the deserts. These mountain mines have many downsides (more likely to have low oxygen levels, often flooded, often eroded shut, etc.), but one big advantage is that they receive a tiny trickle of the traffic that the desert mines typically receive and some of these mines in the mountains have not been visited for generations.

Obviously, this particular gold mine has not only been visited, but actually worked within the past thirty years or so, however, given how much is still present and intact, it is still indicative of the treasures that can be found in the mountains. So, I may complain about the mud, the bugs, the deep water and other features of the mines found in the mountains, but when we find one that has been relatively unvisited like this, it helps to balance out all of those negatives.

I don’t know when the adit at this gold mine was initially run, but, like many old mines, this one has been worked off and on over the decades. Increases in the gold price renew interest in old abandoned mines, sending a fresh generation of miners into the hills and deserts to enthusiastically seek their fortunes. Then, gold prices decline again, costs exceed anticipated profits, miners grow old, etc. and the mining project is dropped until prices either rise again or the next generation of miners comes along to pursue the ecstasy of gold.

The presence of the old stamp mill at this gold mine is evidence that this mine was taken seriously at some point in its history. This was no simple exploratory prospect… We saw the massive quartz vein in those drifts off to the left and it is clear that a good amount of the quartz that was removed was run through the stamp mill. We can only speculate as to what might be down that drift that was plugged with sand and gravel. Did the miners follow a vein of quartz all of the way to the surface? Did the miners dig out a huge stope that ultimately collapsed with groundwater pushing the dirt and rock that came down out into the drifts? We didn’t see any sign of this on the surface, but our search was not an exhaustive one.

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

And 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

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 Feature-Filled Sierra Gold Mine: Minecarts, Misfires & More канала TVR Exploring