The Giant Gold Mine: The Truth Comes Out

I hope that my comments about the mine shaft throughout the video made sense in the end. It was not until the very end of the mine exploration that we realized that there was only one shaft rather than several. It was also at the very end of the mine exploration that we realized that it had been the same shaft that we had been intercepting all of the way down. And, of course, it was not until the very end of the mine exploration that we then realized what I had been standing on halfway down the shaft. Now, to be fair, you saw how much dirt had tumbled down on top of the wood and rock debris that had plugged the shaft. So, the odds that my additional weight could have dislodged it are almost incalculably small. However, it is still somewhat unsettling to consider what was beneath the plug that I was tromping around on.

It may be somewhat difficult to understand why we were left so confused by the shaft at this abandoned mine without having been there. I believe the key source of this confusion has to do with the direction of the shaft itself. The shaft starts out vertically and runs vertically for the first 150 feet or so. Therefore, when we hit the shaft at the 100 level, we assumed that it kept dropping vertically. Well, as you saw, it did not! Just below where we intercepted it at the 100 level, the shaft bends and then starts dropping at an increasingly shallow angle. This really threw off our mental calculations. Furthermore, in mapping the layout of the mine at the end of the mine, the stopes and winze wrapped around the shaft in an odd way that only added to the confusion. All in all, it was a good lesson about not making assumptions.

We came close to getting beneath that plug in the mine shaft in a couple of places on that bottom level of the winze, but in each case we were ultimately thwarted by collapses. I have to confess that my disappointment on this matter is not extreme. The clay-filled ground in there was terrible and I cannot imagine that it improved as the mine got deeper and things got more wet. The incredible amount of groundfall had eliminated most of the workings that we tried to explore (a lot was left hidden behind caved sections) and the moisture levels had destroyed most of the artifacts. Completely aside from the danger, it was simply slow and tedious to be constantly fighting through the caved sections for little reward.

I’m very glad that we ran this one out as much as possible though as that scene with all of the ore cars perched next to the inviting winze would definitely have been eating at me for a while.

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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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Видео The Giant Gold Mine: The Truth Comes Out канала TVR Exploring