So let's head down this way through this door.
What is this?
Check that out!
Let’s check this out from the back side.
Okay,so we're climbing these ladders to an upper level. It’s about 150 feet of ladders
or something like that. You can see how they're in pretty good condition, and they're notched.
We just climbed up these 100 feet of ladders and we’re on another level. Next to the ladder system
you can see this big slide right here — this big chute — that parallels it. This was used to haul
up the miners’ tools like their drills and other bulky, heavy equipment. You can see the cable
here that goes back to a winch. They would crank that to haul up their really heavy tools. Those
drills are, you know, 80 pounds something like that, so that's how they got the tools up here.
The miners would climb up the ladder. Here is more miners’ graffiti. It looks like some animals.
That’s a burro there where my light is. I think that's 1911. I think that's what that says there.
We’re going to climb some more ladders down here — an even longer section! I think Justin
said a couple hundred feet if not more, and they're a little more vertical, he said.
Those back there were kind of on an incline.
So we're going this way.
Next to this ore chute is a pegboard! These are kind of rare.
This one still has a peg in it! That’s how they kept track of the
loads of ore coming out of the chute shoot instead of using miners’ dots.
More miners’ graffiti here.
More drawings of the burros or donkeys
that probably worked in the mines along with the miners.
Here is some really heavy timbering here. Pretty massive timbers. There’s an ore chute right here.
This stacked rock you see on the side here is called gobbing for those of you who don't know.
It was easier to stack the waste rock than take it all the way out of the mine because
we're pretty far in. Oh my gosh! Look at all this miners’ graffiti on this wall here!
A lot of people worked here.
Here’s
another raise with some ladders, but that's kind of collapsed next to an ore chute here.
Look at all that sparkly stuff in the gray there! It almost looks like galena.
Here’s an ore cart without wheels.
That’s too bad.
I think this left tunnel just comes out down here to the right tunnel. Look at this graffiti!
More miners’ graffiti!
Looks like a self-portrait.
We were just down there. There’s the ore cart right there where my light is,
but right here's an example of a false floor. This goes over a….
That’s a really big drop on an incline into a stope that is massive! Who knows
how far down that goes! You’ve got to watch out for those false floors.
We'll keep going around here to the right.
Here’s
another wall of gobbing blocking off something.
Here’s
another huge ore chute coming down.
Okay, it’s getting kind of tight here. Check out all this really heavy timbering! There’s
a little bit of gobbing right there. This one is starting to break.
They must have timbered this heavily here because this was probably prone to collapse.
That timber there has been…. It’s on an angle. They had to cut out
a notch right there so the ore cart could pass when this all shifted
to the left. I think Justin was telling me there was a big earthquake in this area many
decades ago, and they think this shifting of the timbers was caused by that earthquake. The
mine, however, refused to close. They just kept on mining despite all these timbers that shifted.
Wow! This is amazing!
Look at there! Lincoln Log style!
And here's a ladder on the right.
Let’s see if we can see up here. This is really tight quarters.
It goes somewhere.
Yes, and then in front here is a drop-off. We can't go any further. That is a winze. There
may have been more workings past here. Yes, I think there are. I can see back there, but
that earthquake probably sealed off that passage. Look at that timber there where my light is. It’s
snapped! That’s almost a 90 degree angle, I think. But let's see what's down here in this winze.
I don't want to fall down here, that's for sure!
It’s hard to see where that goes, but all those timbers back there where my light is are just a
mess of broken timbers. That earthquake did a number on this part of the mine.
Here is a shot looking down this timbered tunnel we just came through. We’ve got to go back this
way to get back to the ladder system. Those timbers there on the right are at least a foot
in diameter if not more. A lot of support was needed here especially after that earthquake!
We have to go back that way to get to the ladders to reach some upper levels.
Okay, we're climbing this ladder system. Did you see Justin? He just disappeared up there.
You can see the ladder here. I've come up…. Let me get a shot looking back if I can.
It’s hard to see, but the bottom is right down there. I'm up about 80
feet or something like. Only a couple hundred feet to go.
Here come Todd and Joe.
Up the ladder!
So from the top of the ladder we're headed down this way.
Check out all that timbering!
Okay, I have to squeeze through here. Let me get past this.
Okay, just made it through there and now continuing down the drift.
There’s
a lot of rubble here in the tunnel.
That was probably exploratory in nature.
Here are
more miners’ dots. Those dots represent how many loads of
ore came out of this chute. That’s what those represent. That's how they did it.
There’s a carbide can! That would have held the carbide that the miners used in their lights.
There’s a lot of miners’ graffiti through here. That’s pretty amazing!
Look at all these pictures! All done with carbide lanterns.
I think it says Magge up there. It’s a picture of a woman.
It’s
almost like an art gallery coming through here! Here is another woman.
There’s a horse. There’s a miner.
And another miner.
Another woman.
Here in the tunnel a jack is being used for support
up there. I’ve never really seen one of those before, I don’t think. It’s doing its job, though!
It looks like the tunnel is bending here to the left.
Here’s looking back at what we came through.
This just keeps going and going and going!
The tunnel continues that way to the left, but check this out right here in front of me!
This blue, slippery stuff is copper leaching out of the mine. It looks pretty cool!
We just came from that way.
Here is
more miners’ graffiti and more of this copper that’s leaching out in this wet part of the mine.
It’s pretty cool! We don't see that very often.
Let’s
see what's up here to the right.
Well, the tracks stop there, so we have to go up — up into the stope, I guess.
Approaching a timbered section. A short timbered section.
We just came from that way, and we're going to climb this ladder
system that you see right here in front of me going up here.
Let me zoom-in on that. JUSTIN: “It’s just mixed in with the
copper. I mean the black and the blue make purple, I guess. I don't know.”