Worms Of Destruction Infest The Lower Workings Of A 10/10 Mine

In case it was not apparent from the title, this is a continuation of our explore of the abandoned mine I first started showing last week. The lower workings are being featured now and, for reasons that will become obvious in the video, this will, unfortunately, be my last video of this mine. Yes, the worms are us, as it really was necessary to worm our way into this mine, and the destruction is personal – our knees and cameras…

This trip cost me over $2,000 in destroyed mine exploring equipment. It was a great trip for seeing some awesome abandoned mines and spending time with friends, but that isn’t cheap for one trip as that number does not include travel costs, food, etc. Fortunately, this channel has a few generous supporters on Patreon that help smooth out the rough edges on experiences like that (the channel is easy to find as “TVR Exploring” on that site).

The worst part for me though was not the cost, but that this happened early in the trip and so I was not able to document some really spectacular historical mines we visited that are scheduled for destruction by the government next year (Their destruction was actually planned for THIS summer/fall, which was a driving inspiration for the trip earlier in the year, but the destruction was postponed until next year because of Covid).

Those forces that are acting to destroy these historical sites are another inspiration for the “worms of destruction” title after I heard a retired Forest Service employee describe those individuals at his former employer pushing the closure programs that way (although he placed the word “greedy” in front of that description as, according to him, the closure programs were all about bringing in money).

Lessons learned from this experience? Well, I purchased a new phone that is higher end than I normally would have gone, but it has a great camera and has a stabilization feature for video. The light meter isn’t as good as with the primary camera, but, to be fair, the light meter on the GoPro sucks as well. So, I now have three cameras that I can destroy underground in a mine before a trip is seriously disrupted. Yes, I had a phone with a camera on me during our explore of this mine, but the camera was terrible and the battery was only several percent away from being completely dead. Really, though, was I wrong to think that the odds of destroying two cameras were pretty remote and, therefore, that worrying about having a third camera was unnecessary? Well, it is mine exploring and so everything that can go wrong, WILL go wrong... I suppose I should thank the mine exploring gods for the reminder. I now bring three fully charged cameras on every trip (including the phone).

These lower workings of the 10/10 mine seemed more rough and less polished than those above. I am not sure why that is, but these lower workings seemed like more of a haulage adit than the extensive workings we saw above. Those ore passes we saw dropping down from above in the first video, undoubtedly, tied into the ore chutes we saw in this video. Yes, there were some stopes and a couple of winzes on this level, but the actual mining that took place here was less than that above. Given the greater focus on haulage with these lower workings, I would guess that is why there was more backfill and piles of waste rock here.

In case you missed it in the first video, work at this mine started in the early 1870s and had already stopped by the turn of the last century. The main focus of the mine was on gold, silver and lead.

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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

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.

So, yes, in short, we are adit addicts… I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!

#ExploringAbandonedMines
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Видео Worms Of Destruction Infest The Lower Workings Of A 10/10 Mine канала TVR Exploring