This home and gold mining operation hidden away in the forest really left an impression on me… Perhaps it was the remoteness and the mist-covered forests giving it an otherworldly feel - or just how well it was preserved - but it seemed very easy to imagine what a life there would have been like. I couldn’t help feeling a wave of nostalgia when making our way through the abandoned mine and especially the home. Undoubtedly, my imagination is romanticizing what a life there would have been like, but being there in the 1930s with the local, gold-driven economy booming and far away from the problems of the world, it is hard not to view it as being a paradise. That was also a time before the world was as crowded as it is now and when plentiful adventures were still easy to find, which also appeals to me.
I am using the word “home” intentionally and I don’t think I have ever used that word when describing the accommodations at a mine before. Normally, we’ll see a bunkhouse or a cabin. Or even just a lean-to at some of the older, smaller mines… This, however, was a proper home and so I can only assume that it was probably the mine superintendent’s home.
The steep hills, extremely remote location and the era in which this home was constructed makes it almost state-of-the-art for its time with running water, electricity, etc. I didn’t show it in the video because the video was already getting very long, but there was a large water tank on the hill running up behind the mine. There was some evidence of past mining activity on the hill and even in the creek in the form of waste rock piles and scraps of rusted metal, but it is now just an extremely pretty hike (complete with wildflowers, giant old growth conifers and more) up to the top of the hill.
Records on this mine were sporadic, but seemed to indicate activity dating back to the 1800s. The presence of the mill was confirmed and a description of the workings from the early 1900s describes a raise leading to older workings. I don’t remember seeing something like that and so it may be behind some of those caved workings.
As you saw in the video, the ground in these adits was a bit sporty and so I am unsure how much longer the area we accessed may be possible to visit. In fact, it may already be gone. Hopefully, that home has many years left, but it also seemed that its days were numbered.
*****
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!
*****
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!
#ExploringAbandonedMines
#MineExploring
#AbandonedMines
#UndergroundMineExploring