So I'm back at the Wrong Way Reed Mine, and last time I was here I didn't get a shot looking down
this 900-foot inclined shaft. That's about as good as i'm going to be able to get it.
That's a 900 foot drop and this is about an 80- degree incline.
There's no ladder so we can't go down this. But that is pretty pretty deep.
Back there behind the headframe is the winch with all the cable still on it.
So we're leaving the headframe area. When I was here not too long ago, this tunnel was blocked
but it has since been opened up by other explorers and now we can get further into this mine which
is really huge. It's multi-level with thousands and thousands of feet of workings if not miles,
so we should be able to see some cool stuff up here
now that the tunnel has been made passable by fellow explorers. Let's go check it out!
So the last time I was here this tunnel was totally blocked but now it's been dug
open and there's a strong airflow coming out of there, so let's go check it out.
So this is crawling through the tunnel that wasn't dug out when I was here a couple months ago. You
can hear the airflow coming across the microphone. There's lot of airflow coming out of here,
and some bats are down in there flying around. So that's where we're headed.
So I'm almost past this cleared-out tunnel, and it's clear beyond. You can see it going down there
right there where my light is, so that's where we're headed.
So we just came through that little gap, down this pile, and you can see
the ore vein right there. It's kind of a greenish-yellow.
It's primarily silver, copper, and gold. We're headed down that way.
These are really modern tunnels. They are wide, and they would have used rubber-tired
vehicles in these. So Justin was saying this flowstone you see right here is rare
because it's got copper staining it which is that bluish color. Usually the flowstone is
white like this but this one has got some bluish tint to it. And we're headed that way.
Okay, so we're going to climb over this second collapse
and keep on going down. You can see over there
on the timbers on the left-hand side some of those components for the electrical wiring.
There's some right there and then further down there's a couple more, so those are still here.
So we just came over that and now we're approaching a stope.
This mine has over 30,000 feet of drift levels or drifting, so
there are many stopes in this mine. This is one of the big ones
that goes way down there. There are some kind of wooden ore chute remnants,
and we're going to take this side tunnel which kind of skirts the stope
right there where my light is. That's where we're headed. Let's get a shot looking down in here.
So this is looking into the stope, and you can see there
in the center a pillar they left behind for support. And on that pillar you can see a
discarded sheave wheel! Zooming in to it, and that probably came from a headframe up to the left.
There's the sheave wheel kind of just laying on that support pillar. There's
no way to get to that but that probably came from what might have been a headframe or an ore chute
right up there. It was probably a headframe -- they were hauling stuff out of this stope up to
this level which i think was the main drift level or the main haulage tunnel. But, yes, this goes
down we don't know how many feet. You wouldn't want to fall in there, and there goes a rock.
So here we pick up ore cart tracks and now we're skirting that stope that's immediately to my
right behind this wall. Here's the remnants of that collapsed headframe or ore chute.
More wiring....
And we're going to head down that way. So we're continuing down this straight stretch.
Here's a shot of the tracks and the cross ties.
The wood in here is dry-rotted. You just touch it and it crumbles.
So continuing down this straight stretch, right here to my right
is an opening into that stope that we were looking at earlier from the far side.
I don't want to get too close to this because it could collapse and that would be one heck
of a drop. Yes, it goes way down. That's kind of like the end of the stope, I think.
But, yes, we'll head back out to this tunnel and
keep on going down. It's bending to the right up here.
And it looks like another collapse. These are pretty corroded.
So can we get through here? That's the question.
Okay, we just came up through here. Here is a collapsed ore chute
that would have gone up to upper levels, and you see these massive boulders. There's one,
two, and right here in front of me three,
and other boulders that have come down. We're going to continue down. The tunnel keeps going,
so let's let's go check it out. We're really getting pretty far inside this mine, so
it's massive -- just massive!
So there are those big boulders we just crawled past beside that collapsed ore chute.
and picked back up the ore cart tracks.
These pipes on the side -- the two pipes -- would have been for air and water for the
drills. I see this all the time in mines. They always had the pipes running next to the ore cart
tracks. A major collapse here. Look at all this! That timber that's about a foot in diameter!
Okay, so the tunnel continues this way past another collapsed ore chute. That's
what these timbers were for. That's about a foot in diameter I think,
but we're not going to go any further because this big, round timber here on a diagonal
is part of the collapse, and you can see this big boulder right above it. That is a gigantic
boulder, and this wood is so rotten like I showed earlier in the video, so the integrity of that
wooden timber has been compromised and it's going to fail one of these days. It's only
being held up over here on the right up against the wall. It's not even wedged in!
And there are just more boulders beyond that, and if that would come down that would be a serious
accident. You can see a ladder here. There's a ladder right up there that was probably part
of the ore chute. It probably went up the side of the chute or something. It was a man way.
Yes, that's just like a house of cards there, so we're not going to continue up that way. It just
isn't worth the risk, and back there you can see more big timbers right there past the arch.
Someone peeked over here -- I think Justin did -- and he said the tunnel does continue, but we're
not going to chance crawling underneath that big timber with that big boulder suspended above it.
Let's head back out to the portal.
So here's the reason why we didn't go underneath that timber holding up that
big boulder. This is the exact same size timber, and look how it just corrodes.
That's why we didn't go underneath that timber down there where that big boulder is because
this wood is terrible. I've never seen wood in a mine this compromised. I mean it's amazing -- you
just barely touch it and it just crumbles! Yes, so we're going to head back out to the portal.