-This footage is what's going to be shown, like, at my funeral
if I should die in a mine. My name is Brit Eaton.
You know, I have some rental property,
I have some investments, I have a vintage clothing business.
When I'm not at home, I come out here
and go explore old mines.
♪♪
Ooh, really gnarly smell coming out of there.
I mean this could be a dead body.
I mean, obviously people dumped human bodies out here, too.
We're not that far from Vegas.
They call me the fashion archaeologist, denim collector,
I started with The New York Times.
They're the ones that called me Indiana Jeans.
Come on, where's the jeans? I'm willing to bet $50,000
that there's a $50,000 pair of jeans
somewhere in a 10-mile radius of where we are right now.
Finding it, good luck.
That's a fucking rattle snake for you.
You might get a rattlesnake
and you might get hit by a rock or you might fall.
There's things like deadly poisonous gases.
All I know is that the second I believe I'm going to die,
that's when I'm going to freaking die.
And until then I'm going to stay freaking alive.
♪♪
Alright.
Yeah, we're in the middle of nowhere
on the loneliest highway in America.
So, in the van here, I've got a pretty good setup.
It's four-wheel drive, diesel, I sleep up there.
I've got ice cold beer in my fridge here 24/7.
So I had this thing kind of custom
designed for an adventure killer mine
find here from the other day,
as you can tell, it is a petrified Coyote,
which I am going to return into the mine today.
I just brought it out for the sake of showing people.
I've been called eccentric before
and it's not one of my favorite words.
But you know, I guess it does fit the bill a little bit.
If eccentric means somebody who doesn't want to work
in an office or work in a job or work in a city
or have to listen to a boss,
then I'll take eccentric all day long.
What a place. I moved to Colorado in 1997.
I started a vintage store, and I would source stuff
by traveling around to thrift stores
for about half of my life.
I think in like 1999 an old pair of Levi's were found in a mine
and it kind of blew up and everybody knew about it.
Made, like, The New York Times or something.
So I started thinking maybe that's where I need
to go look for stuff.
Well, I'm loving this guy's roof rack on his car, right now.
I like your roof rack, man. That thing's sweet.
What do you use the winch for? You go down to mines?
-Yeah.
-Do you ever find any old clothing or any cool artifacts?
-No.
-My name is Brit by the way. -How you doing?
-Hey, good man. Pretty -- Santos.
You ever heard the band Sublime? -No.
-Oh, they sing about a guy named Santos.
-Oh, yeah? -I think so.
Yeah.
Going out here and doing this is more of a side hustle for me.
Like, coming out here, mine exploring,
you're probably not going to make a bunch of money,
but there is a payoff if I get really lucky.
Loneliest road in America.
I don't really know where we're going right now.
We're going to some mines that I found on the map
that I've wanted to go for 25 years.
And I'm excited because I've never been there.
I was getting much more excited about places.
I've never been than places I have been.
Mainly because the places I have been have all proven
to be giant disappointments.
And yet, I'm an optimist anyway.
Everything I find is a trophy of the hunt for me.
Whoa! Jesus!
Sorry. Ooh.
Alright, I'm getting all my gear going.
And as you can see,
I have probably over 100 pieces of gear here.
My van was probably around $100,000.
You know, my GoPro was probably I don't know, 500 bucks.
All my climbing equipment, probably 2,000 bucks.
It's probably $500 round trip just for gas.
Even with the van I probably spend three nights at hotels.
So, what's that, $100 bucks a pop,
$150 bucks a pop now?
A lot of up-front costs in this deal.
This kind of stuff, no, you're not making any money.
However, if I did find something awesome,
I'd probably keep it for my collection.
Then I could rent it out.
There was one time where I had a pair of jeans
that I rented for $750 a month for five months.
And then when I got it back, I sold it for $7,500 bucks.
I've worked with all these big, you know, Abercrombie,
Polo, you know, Levi's, The Gap.
This one-time, a person told me, said, "Oh, that's great
that Ralph Lauren is doing a pair of jeans
named after you, the Eaton jeans,"
and I'm like, "Really?"
I think we're ready for an exploratory program here.
[ Speaks French ]
I have got to tell you that I've been pretty lucky.
I mean, call it skill, luck, you know, knowledge, whatever.
I've gotten some great leads from some people over the years
that have helped me out. I've found some amazing places.
And I've gotten underground where I'm the first one there,
or at least the first one
looking for clothing in 100 years.
Snake, snake. This rattlesnake thing is no joke.
Fuck, this is a killer mine, guys.
Anybody watching this has to understand,
this is a 25-year process of learning.
You can't just go into a mine and walk around.
You're going to get killed.
And people watching right now might be thinking,
"Oh, I know what might kill you. You might get a rattlesnake
or you might be hit by a rock or you might fall."
All true.
But there's things like deadly poisonous gases,
and you get in there and next thing you know,
you're dead. These hills are littered with
wannabe mine explorers who died,
all the way back from the 1800s to modern day,
but they do fall in mines, and there are rattlesnakes,
I had to kill a rattlesnake two days ago to keep exploring.
[ Shrieks ]
That's a fucking rattlesnake alright.
Come on, you fucking dumbass.
Sorry, bud.
-What do you see down there?
-Oh, an old piece of a can but not much.
I knew this wasn't going to be that great,
just based on how many footprints I saw.
Well, we've seen this, let's get the heck out of here.
I'm not a big fan of sticking around.
I'm experienced that I know what's a risk
and what isn't a risk. So if I look at something,
I can analyze it in my risk calculator,
you know, algorithm inside me. It's honed, you know?
People ask me, how do I sort of justify the risks that I take?
And I have a family, my kids are older,
and what kind of role model would I be for my kids,
if I lived my life in a conservative way,
in order to be there for them? Then wouldn't they, in turn,
then live their lives not to their fullest, as well?
To be honest with you, it's completely selfish.
It's very selfish for me to go out there
and risk my life doing this.
Like, they worry more than children
should have to worry about their father.
And, you know, I feel guilty about that.
But at the same time, if you live your whole life
for what other people want you to be,
or you work in an office and you're miserable --
most people sit around on Monday, wishing it was Friday.
Essentially, they're wishing for their fucking lives to be over.
When I wake up in the morning, I'm stoked like a freaking fire
every fucking day because I have an awesome life.
So that's the person that I want to be for my children,
I want them to look at me and say,
"You know, my dad's a freaking badass.
You know, he kills rattlesnakes
to get through mines to keep exploring,"
and I want them to live their lives like that.
And if something happens to them on the way, well, my God,
you know, better to burn out than fade a-fricking-way.
Mine exploring is -- 99% of the time,
it's going around trying to find a place to get in.
And most of the time you can't do it
and then when you do find a place to go in
it usually dead-ends.
It basically sucks, is what it does.
A lot of activity and yet nothing
that looks really like some sort of portal
or an add-in or anything, even a shaft.
We thought we were going to some cooler place,
but we ended up at the same stupid place.
I don't see didilly dick up here, guys.
Anybody see dick?
Oh, cool, there's some town kind of stuff here.
♪♪
Ooh, really gnarly smell coming out of there.
Alright, this could be a dead body.
I mean, honestly, people dump human bodies out here, too.
We're not that far from Vegas. So who wants to go first?
You guys want to go first, this time?
Kind of nervous in this one because of that dead smell.
That probably means something's alive eating
that thing that's dead.
Uh-oh.
I mean, this thing goes down,
and I guess I got to go down it, you know?
I don't think you're going to want to come down here, but...
[ Grunts ]
Fuck, this sucks. Old beer bottle.
Piece. Some old bossing filled with some dynamite.
When I'm doing a first descent,
sometimes I'm by myself, which is not smart.
But I have this sort of running mantra that goes in my head.
"This is not the end of Brit Eaton.
This is not the end of Brit Eaton.
This is not the end of Brit Eaton," just over and over.
"This will not be the end of me."
Because it is dangerous.
I'm critically aware that I could get killed at any moment.
I mean, I've had a lot of friends --
just in the last freaking four months,
I've had like four friends die.
Four good friends in the last four months.
[ Grunting ]
Shit. Maybe find some treasures. Come on.
Anywhere can be something.
Come on, where's the jeans?
Where are those jeans at, man?
I just find the great irony about what I do
is I'm searching for something
that the people who were wearing that something,
they were searching for their treasure.
Needless to say, 150 years later,
here comes this crazy guy searching for the treasure
they were wearing on them
while they were searching for their treasure.
Can you imagine how they must get a kick out of that
when you're up there looking down or something
and going, "Look at this freaking maniac
out here looking for old clothing.
We threw that crap away
while we were looking for gold," you know?
That's an artifact. It's there. Let's get the hell out of here.
Alright, well, we've seen some stuff here.
Alright, I'm completely freaking wiped out.
I believe I just achieved a first descent,
which is what I've told you I've looked for,
where it's like I'm the first one
that's been down there since the miners left.
So now it's hat time and Miller time.
So got a few treasures here.
That's a really old dynamite box right there.
That's probably like 1895 or something like that.
This is an old sack.
Oh, there's a piece of an old shirt.
Here's a Levi pocket.
This is like a turn-of-the-century
Levi pocket with candle wax on it.
That's the candle wax that dates it kind of
in its exposed rivets. It's hard to tell the era,
but I'd say anywhere from 1905 to 1920.
That's a 1915 Levi item right there.
So this is what you call a shield shirt.
So this is something that us clothing geeks
are really going to think is the greatest, you know?
I think things want to be found. The cream rises to the top.
So many times I go in a mine or I go in an old building
or even a thrift store
and something's, like, right on the surface
and you're, like -- you just go into a shock.
Like, literally, it's like a shock.
I'm like...
And I just think it's because the stuff wants to be found.
I can't describe it.
If it's karma, or it's an energy or it's kinetic where I want it
so therefore it's there.
I've done something good in my life.
I don't know. I mean,
I know there's a theory called universal law.
I don't know if you're familiar with that.
But universal law is just
yin-yang and this kind of karma stuff.
I'll have to say it exists, man. I would bet on it actually.
♪♪
-Thanks for watching.
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