Fantastically Preserved Old Mine Out In The Desert

It is a rare treat to come across an abandoned mine that is preserved as well as this one. Taking the age of this mine into account, having the mining equipment still in working order, having all of those tools still around, still being able to read the paperwork left inside the mine – that’s pretty extraordinary stuff when compared to most abandoned mines (and we’ve been to quite a lot of them now).

We primarily have the dry desert conditions to thank for the mine being in this state as well as the fact that it is exceedingly difficult to get to it (However, I also think that not many people know about this particular abandoned mine). There are no roads to this mine – only the remains of a mule trail, which is now very faint. So, think about the fact that EVERYTHING you see at this site was hauled in on foot by men or mules. That’s impressive considering the amount of rail and some of the heavy equipment at this mining operation.

I love sites like this because they give such a great insight into how the miners lived in the past. Based on the artifacts at this site, for example, we know what the miners read, what they ate, where they washed their hands, where they slept at night, etc. It is not difficult at all to imagine what day-to-day life was like for the crew of miners that worked here.

A few questions I had… I would be very curious to know what the other building next to the intact miner’s cabin that we explored was (the building that had tumbled down the wash). We found artifacts quite a way down that wash, but nothing that gave us an insight into what that particular building was. Given the other bedframe present at the site, it might have just been another place to sleep. Hard to imagine miners sharing a bed and there was just one bed in the cabin we explored! Also, I would be curious to know where the stamp mill was and how large it was. It seems that a fair amount of it may have been buried from the waste rock pile shifting. Lastly, I would love to know more about that caved adit across from the miner’s cabin. Was that the original adit at this site? How far back did it go?

As I said at the introduction to this video, credit for locating this mine goes to my exploring buddy, Adit Addicts, whose YouTube channel can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIXOU8aR7o50X6q2wQ0wbCQ

All of these videos are uploaded in HD, so adjust those settings to ramp up the quality! It really does make a difference…

You can click here for the full playlist of abandoned mines: 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 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 Fantastically Preserved Old Mine Out In The Desert канала TVR Exploring