Now, with this video, we’re getting into the good stuff at this abandoned gold mine… There were a number of things I liked about exploring this mine and some of them are things that really stood out for me as being features I have not seen in other mines. We can start with that crazy network of fault lines revealed by the miners…
That was pretty unique. I can’t think of any mines that I have explored where the fault lines were that fully exposed. Furthermore, they ran in, apparently, contradictory patterns to each other. So, mix in the quartz veins resting on those fault lines and we have ample evidence of significant geological violence centered around the location of this mine in the ancient past.
For the miners to dedicate as much effort as they did to following those faults, they must have recovered a good amount of gold from at least one of them! That four-way junction where drifts ran off toward each compass point seems a promising candidate for the “golden ground zero” given the amount of activity dedicated to that zone.
I have not seen miners work their way under the fault lines as they did in this mine. It reminded me of the breasting we see in the underground placer gold mines. It cannot have been fun to carve out those little chambers under the faults and so for the miners to put themselves through that tedious process of carving every little piece of quartz out - like scraping plaque off of a tooth - would suggest that they were being rewarded for their suffering.
I am, of course, happy that we connected with the mine shaft that we observed on the surface and now know how that fits into the layout of this mine. However, I am also most unhappy that we could not determine what was beyond that plugged mine shaft.
The location of the shaft and the lower adit also raises some questions…
Did the miners start at the upper workings after seeing an outcropping on the surface and then try to punch in from the side (the lower adit), discovering the other gold and quartz veins along the way? If that was the case though, why did the miners drive the adit ahead to that four-way junction (the one I referred to as the “golden ground zero) when the drift that ran to the shaft took off to the left far before the four-way junction?
And why was the shaft driven down there? It seems a somewhat odd location… Was it to follow a vein? For ventilation? Again, perhaps the upper adit or shaft were the first activity at this mine and after following a vein down with the shaft (and realizing how good the ore was), the miners decided to run in from the side with the lower adit.
All I know, is that I would love to have gotten beyond those rocks blocking the drift at the point where it met the shaft. Did the Forest Service drop all of those rocks down there? It’s hard to say… Given the activity along the fault in the lower adit, I’m assuming that there must have been some really good gold there because there is minimal stoping in this mine (at least on the accessible side of the shaft).
Unfortunately, the answers to such questions can really only be answered by those that were there mining and it saddens me that they are no longer of this world. Even if we could locate maps of this mine, they don’t answer the “why” questions. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t love to see a map of this mine to know how far the drift extended beyond that shaft though!
Aside from the large crew of miners that I discussed in the description below the first video, we have further evidence that this was a profitable - or at least very promising - gold mine as evidenced by the presence of the mill for processing the ore coming out of the mine. One simply does not see a mill at mines that were not delivering something.
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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: bit.ly/2wqcBDD
As well as a small gear update here: bit.ly/2p6Jip6
You can see the full TVR Exploring playlist of abandoned mines here: 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!
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