Alright! Who’s crazy enough to go in this abandoned mine? Check out this entrance!
That is a mess, but we're going to check it out.
We’re at this abandoned mine that is flooded. I'm right at the portal, and that's looking into
a major collapse that we can get past. I'm here with Justin and Joe and Todd. There will be links
to their respective channels in the right-hand corner of the screen right about now, so if you
get a chance you should check out those channels. We’re going to go in here and check this out.
Here’s looking at the portal I just came through. That’s Joe coming through, and Justin is behind
him. You can see the water here. It’s about a foot or so deep — halfway up to my knees. I’ll
turn around and let's go check this out! Big, heavy timbers here at the portal and a
lot of flies, too. See that? A lot of flies flying around. We’ve got to get past that collapse there.
Now Justin is coming through the portal. That big metal pipe above him
where my light is was the ventilation tubing. They would pump fresh air through the mine, so that
pipe would have extended all the way through the workings. There’s Justin! Todd is already in front
of us. JUSTIN: “Yes sir!” So we have to go up this collapse. We have to go up that way to the right.
I’m on top of the collapse making my way through. I can see the timbers where all this has come
down, and we have to get down through that little hole right there where my light is. Okay, we're
just almost through the portal here. This is the last little bit of collapse we have to get over,
and there you can see the tunnel there with the water. Joe and Todd are all the way down there.
Here is a shot looking down the tunnel. Right up here is a very small bat.
Looking back, there’s Justin right there just beyond the collapse that we all just came through.
This water may look stagnant, but it actually does flow out of the mine.
That collapse in the portal is not acting as a full-fledged dam. Like I had said before,
it's better to have flowing water because it just keeps things stirred up. Stagnant water
can harbor deadly gases and other bad stuff when you disturb it. This mine does have flowing water,
and it's almost two feet deep — maybe a foot deep — and is still below my knees. You can
see here in front of me the ore cart tracks. That’s where we're headed. Let’s keep going!
Okay, I’m still making my way forward,
and looking back towards the portal you can hear Justin coming.
But we'll keep going forward.
It’s a straight shot!
You can see next to the tracks here on both sides that there's a large pipe right there,
and then on this side there's a smaller pipe right there. Those were
lines for the water, air, steam or whatever that were used to power
the drills. It’s very common to find these pipes in mines next to the ore cart tracks.
We’re still headed this way.
Right there is some water coming out of the wall. It’s making all this flowstone here.
Check that out! It’s coming down the wall here.
You can see here how the water is flowing out of the mine as it goes across that timber.
That’s always a good sign!
You can see why they put chain-link fencing up here. This was a really unstable area,
and some of it did collapse right there.
Yes, they installed chain-link fencing for support. You can see here where it broke.
It all came down right here. I have to climb over this and continue that way.
Okay, this tunnel is a straight shot. We believe it's about a half a mile long —
2600 feet — or something like that. Here’s a timbered section. It’s really one of the
first ones we've seen in this haulage tunnel. In most mines, they have a large, straight haulage
tunnel like this to get the ore outside. So let’s keep going down here. Again you can see the water
flowing out of the mine.
A significant flow, actually!
Okay, we just came over that major collapse.
Justin is the last one to make it through. He’s coming here in a minute. Right in front of us
is another major collapse in a timbered section. Remember — they always timbered in the areas
that were prone to collapse, and it looks like they were right because this area did collapse!
Here’s a little more collapse on the right. That retaining wall is kind of bowed outward.
We just came through a pretty bad section back there.
You can see Justin coming there. In the back is all that collapse. There he is!
Here’s a timbered section — another timbered section — that hasn't collapsed yet. These timbers
look pretty soaked. They’re soaking in the water, so I'm sure these are like sticks of butter.
Yes, this is all soaking wet. See that? See the water glistening and dripping down?
That says “KEEP OUT.” I’m not sure what's down there, but
it looks like a lot of flowstone. We will keep going this way.
I'm continuing forward in this massively flooded mine.
Okay, here's a Y intersection! The main tunnel continues straight ahead. There are some silver
doors down there. This branch to the left…. Let’s go down there where Todd is and check out the
silver doors!
Let’s continue through the silver doors here. There’s the door.
Wow! It’s very shallow in here.
Check that out! There’s a little bit more over here.
Look at all the glistening here where water is seeping out of the tunnel walls. Here’s a little
bit of flowstone right here. There’s some more flowstone right there, and here comes Justin.
Right over there the water is coming up out of the ground in a large quantity. I think
Justin said that there's some kind of artesian spring or something that's bubbling up out of
the ground and pushing all the water out of the mine. Right there's the end of the drift.
Here comes Justin with blinding lights! He’s got a nice lighting rig. That’s what you need.
Okay, right here you have some timbers that are waterlogged and soaked. This can
be really dangerous. Hydrogen sulfide gas can come off of wet timbers like this, so we have
hydrogen sulfide gas detectors. Yes, this is a big hazard in flooded mines or any mine with wet
timbers like this. We’re headed back out and are going to take that branching tunnel.
This is
some kind of ore pass. TODD: “Yes, I think this is the one that connects. It has to be!”
The tunnel stops there? TODD: “Yes, it sure does! It faces out.”
So we're heading back out. We just came from that way, and we're going to take
this drift that we didn't take on the way in. It goes pretty far. Let’s check it out!
Check out this mound! There’s a hole there on top. It looks like a volcano
right there where my light is. There is some water seeping out of it.
I’m still headed that way. Check this out! It’s more seepage coming out of
the tunnel wall or what the miners would call the “rib.” Some of that is like a black color
and some are like regular water. Right here next to the ore cart tracks and the
pipe you can see that the water is flowing out of the mine. That’s something you always
want to check for in flooded mines. Avoid the ones with stagnant, standing water
unless you have the appropriate oxygen meter and hydrogen sulfide gas detector.
We’re approaching the face of this drift tunnel — or maybe there's a curve. Here is some old rope.
That’s an or pass there.
There is a hose coming down. It might have been used to drain this mine. I don't know.
We saw that in the Admiral Aaron Ward Mine a bunch of years ago. That was a flooded mine.
There was a pass like this with a hose hanging down. I think somebody told me
in the comments that the was used to drain the mine like a big vacuum. I don't know. Look here!
See the track split? There's a dead-end there, but drift continues to the left.
Is that part of the old track switch?
Continuing down this drift, it curves here to the left.
Oh, that's a long, straight section! Check that out!
There
really isn’t much water in this drift — just a little bit flowing
out here between the ore cart rails. It’s nothing deep like it has been.
Here are some leftover remnants — a bucket, some cable, and a miner’s ladder.
It like a piece of machinery might have sat there. There are two big boards and a board
in front. So we're approaching the end of this drift. It a timbered section with water — a lot
of water — dripping down. This is something you’d see in one of those carnival fun-house rides.
Yes, the water is pretty much coming out right there. See that?
Let’s get down here and see the end.
Here’s a part where this collapse here came from right up in there. See that hole?
Like I said before, they only timbered in sections of the tunnel that were prone to collapse,
and this is one of those areas. Back there they put chain-link fencing where my light is
to provide even more support. They stopped mining right there, though.
Here’s looking back to where we have to go to reach the portal.
There is our exit sign! We’re headed in the right direction.
We’ll keep going that way off to the right.