We are here at this big, huge, timbered adit. This is a portico sticking out, and here on
the right you can see a little pegboard where the miners would have hung their name tags when they
came off of their work shift. That way, if there was an accident in the mine such as a collapse
they would check and see which name tags were here and which weren't. Whoever's name tag wasn't
here meant that was who was left in the mine and possibly trapped. That's what that was used for.
Here inside the portico you can see some of the timbers in the ceiling
that have snapped and are about to snap.
Okay, this is the Last Chance Mine. I'm here with Tom and Julie from their YouTube channel.
There will be a slide-out card that will appear in the upper right hand corner of the screen
right about now with a link to their channel, so check out some of their videos.
Check out this main haulage tunnel. It's about 12 feet wide (3.6 m) and
12 feet tall (3.6 m). Almost a perfect square! There are some really heavy duty timbers here.
There is a massive amount of cold air blowing through the portal,
so this must lead somewhere and have some extensive workings if there's that much airflow.
Here's a little little pocket that they dug out.
That might go up -- no, that's just a dead end. Look right here -- here's a wedge
hooked onto that big, metal hook right there.
Interesting!
Here's an Iris Cola can, and that's got the old-fashioned pull top, so that's a really old can
that somebody hid behind those rocks. I've never heard of Iris Cola. I will have to look that up.
So we'll keep going down here and see where this goes. Okay, here's another timbered section. Keep
in mind that they only timbered in the areas of the tunnel that were prone to collapse. You can
see here how this section was kind of like that. See all the debris? It's also rather fractured
all through here. That's why they timbered here.
What's this?
So that's why they timbered there. That's looking back
at the portal. We have come in about 150 feet (46 m).
So we'll keep going down here through another heavily timbered section. Look how they used
drill bits up in there! See? There are about four drill bits acting as part of the support here.
That's why they timbered here because of that. Right there
is a collapse that came from behind the side wall.
And look what's above us! Wow! That's just a jumble of boulders
being held up by all these timbers in the overhead.
Here's another drill bit
jammed into the rock.
Here's another timbered section, and you can see why they timbered here because of all this
collapse. They knew this was a very unstable, fractured, and weak part of the tunnel.
You can tell that by all this debris that's on the tunnel floor right there in front of me.
It's always cool to see the timbering but that means you're passing through a very
unstable part of the mine. It's best not to linger too long in the timbered sections.
And that's pretty much it for the timbering.
Now we're back in the main part of the tunnel. My voice sounds like it has more reverberation here.
Back in that timbered section my voice was kind of muffled. I don't know if it
came across in the video, but that's a section of very weak, soft rock.
So there's the portal. We are 200 to 300 feet in (61 m to 91 m), and here's the first junction
off to the right. It looks like it was a dead end, and the main tunnel continues that way.
Here is where a big chunk of the ceiling (or what miners call the "back") fell down from up there.
See that? All of that is right here. I hope there's not a mine explorer underneath it.
We'll never know unless we start digging. Anyway, the tunnel continues.
The miners probably should have timbered
this section, but they didn't. So that's what happened -- a big collapse.
Here is some timbering that's on an angle. Look at where the side of the tunnel meets
the overhead. Look at how smooth that is! So I guess miners refer to the
ceiling as the "back" and the sides of the tunnel as the "ribs." So right there is where the rib
meets the back, and it's kind of on an angle.
Here's a big ladder! I've never seen a ladder that wide before. Usually they're half that
that width. That's a big ladder!
More support timbering in the overhead just for support
because that was a weak area. We'll keep going down the tunnel this way.
So we've hit the first major junction. The main tunnel continues that way,
and then here's a branch to the right which looks like it might be a dead
end. Then we have a huge ladder here that goes to upper levels.
That goes way up with alternating platforms and ladders.
We just noticed this says 6600 Manway. This is the manway to the 6600 Level. The number 6600
refers to the elevation on the mountainside which that particular level is at. So it's 6600
feet above sea level (2011 m). We are lower than that, so this is probably the
6200 Level or something like that. Check this out over here. Look at these big ore
chutes! I've never seen an ore chute with a piston like that before.
There is some chain. There's one behind it, too, back there where my light is.
So here's the second chute. It's metal with a piston -- that's pretty amazing!
You can see the pipe there in the back. I don't know much about how these would work.
Air or water? I don't know. If anybody knows how this would have worked,
let us know in the comments. Yes, that's another massive ore chute,
and you can see lots of timbering up there above us.
We will keep going down here. Let's follow Tom and Julie. We are still in the main haulage tunnel.
Looking up here -- wow! Just a lot of really heavy timbering! It looks like there are some pipes
there going up behind that timbering. We'll keep going down the main tunnel.
Here is the 918 Raise. And that's this. A raise is
usually a vertical passageway between levels in a mine and is used to transport the ore
from one level to the next lower level. That must go up off to the left there. This raise
is not really vertical. It might turn vertical up there, but that's what that's indicating.
And we finally picked up the ore cart tracks
right here in front of me.
To 669 Drift? Here are some ladders going up.
We are approaching the end of the main haulage tunnel. It smells kind of funny back here.
Tom and Julie were just down here.
This might be sulfur. It has sort of a sulfur smell.
Yes, they timbered here. You can see the ore cart tracks.
I think Julie said her oxygen meter went off when they got here which makes sense because
there's no airflow in this part of the tunnel. There is also sulfur here, and it kind of smells
funny. She said her oxygen meter only measured 19.5 percent oxygen, so that's still optimal.
There is the face of the mine. I'm zooming into it. That's as far as the miners got.
So we're heading back out, but we're going to take this branching tunnel
that we skipped on the way in. I am assuming that "X" means a dead end or somebody died.
Here is
some interesting graffiti. SB 79? I'm assuming that means 1979 but I'm not sure.
Smoke pods. And here's another ladder. The remnants of a ladder. Here's a big, heavy timbered
section right here, and the tunnel is curving to the left.
Wow! Look! That goes up into a stoped area.
Here are lots of discarded piping. They were probably ventilation tubing.
I think that's pretty lightweight pipe. That was probably for ventilation.
That piping would be hanging from the tunnel ceiling -- from the back -- and
they would pump air through that if that's what that actually is. So this drift ends right here.
We're going to climb these ladders to the 6600 Level. Tom is going first. These ladders are in
pretty good shape. We found here in the mine a pair of rubber coveralls that are yellow in color
that the miners probably wore. TOM: "Julie is doing a nice job of modeling them.
She could be on the Price Is Right!"
So we're continuing down the
6600 Level. It says right here that they did some ore sampling, and this says "no good."
We're approaching a junction. Wow! Branches off of branches off of branches!
Tom is making his descent back down to the main haulage tunnel. TOM: "Don't
drop rocks on my head!" Yes, right! Then we are going to go down in turn.