Biggest Abandoned Mine In Nevada - Part 1
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 พ.ย. 2024
- Before declaring this the biggest abandoned mine in Nevada, which is quite a claim considering the number of abandoned mines in Nevada, I sat on this video for a while after exploring it… I did not wish to make an unsubstantiated claim about the “biggest abandoned mine” without a lot of research and a lot of talking to others in the field first. Well, having done so, I am confident in my declaration about this, indeed, being the biggest abandoned mine.
I will not be showing off the entire mine in this series. Instead, I will be showing just one level of the mine. Just one level? Yes, one level of this mine alone will take several videos… Now, consider the fact that there are many, many levels of this mine! I believe it would be tedious for viewers to see this entire abandoned mine showcased over a mega-series of something like 100+ videos. So, it is my intention to show this level now and then show other mines after the series on this level is complete. If the interest is there, I can show other levels of this mine in the future under the “Biggest Abandoned Mine In Nevada” heading so that viewers will know that it is the same mine.
Sure, there are bigger abandoned mines in existence around the world... Underneath Butte, Montana there are a series of interconnected mines that have a staggering number of miles of workings (It is my understanding that few, if any, of these are accessible though). I know that the Empire Mine in Grass Valley, California has 367 miles of underground workings. The miners took 5,800,000 ounces of gold out of the Empire Mine and so the effort was worth it, but that is still a staggering number... Alas, almost all of those workings are now underwater (The Empire Mine was turned into a State Park and is worth a visit for anyone interested).
The abandoned mine being showcased in this video also has flooded sections that are inaccessible. However, fortunately, large parts of the mine are still accessible. The accessible sections provide plenty to keep even a dedicated and large team of mine explorers busy for quite a long time!
This was a tungsten (wolfram) mine, although plenty of secondary minerals, such as silver and zinc were also extracted. As with countless other abandoned mines, this mine has been worked, abandoned and then worked again several times as the price of tungsten has fluctuated. Active mining may resume in the future if tungsten prices move up sufficiently.
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All of these videos are uploaded in HD, so I’d encourage you to adjust your settings to the highest quality if it is not done automatically.
You can see the gear that I use for mine exploring here: bit.ly/2wqcBDD
As well as a small gear update here: bit.ly/2p6Jip6
You can see the full TVR Exploring playlist of abandoned mines here: goo.gl/TEKq9L
Thanks for watching!
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Growing up in California’s “Gold Rush Country” made it easy to take all of the history around us for granted. However, abandoned mine sites have a lot working against them - nature, vandals, scrappers and various government agencies… The old prospectors and miners that used to roam our lonely mountains and toil away deep underground are disappearing quickly as well.
These losses finally caught our attention and we felt compelled to make an effort to document as many of the ghost towns and abandoned mines that we could before that colorful niche of our history is gone forever. But, you know what? We enjoy doing it! This is exploring history firsthand - bushwhacking down steep canyons and over rough mountains, figuring out the techniques the miners used and the equipment they worked with, seeing the innovations they came up with, discovering lost mines that no one has been in for a century, wandering through ghost towns where the only sound is the wind... These journeys allow a feeling of connection to a time when the world was a very different place. And I’d love to think that in some small way we are paying tribute to those hardy miners that worked these mines before we were even born.
So, yes, in short, we are adit addicts… I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!
#ExploringAbandonedMines
#MineExploring
#AbandonedMines
#UndergroundMineExploring
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Electrical power engineer here -- would love it if you focused in on some of those old electrical boxes and equipment, even popped open the doors just to see if any interesting old switches or transformers were left behind. Don't get to see much of it around here in Colorado anymore because the scrappers have found and stripped most of it.
Aaron -- Lots of Transformers & Buss Bar Switch Boxes in that Mine .
My goodness, that place is enormous! The bit you added in the comments about wanting to confirm the size of this mine is one of the reasons why I've loved this channel for a long time now... your honesty, as well as your reticence to invoke or inject any unnecessary drama or exaggerations into your adventures, puts you in a very different category than most (to me, anyway). I assume those strengths of character keep you in high demand in your day job, too. 😉
Thank you for the kind words. Indeed, I do try to avoid sensationalizing things (unless I'm doing it as an obvious joke). It definitely helps with the day job... Well, at least for those that matter to me.
TVR -- Know exactly where you're at , I've been there . When you get further back into the mine , there's a Ballroom intersection and one Rib and part of the Back are all fine-grained Iron Pyrite with Pyrite crystals littering the floor ( Beautiful ) . @ 7:58 - On that steel Ore Chute , those are Pneumatic cylinders ( AIR ) not Hydraulic , note the large Bull Hoses ( AIR ) running to them . I hope you have a 4-Gas Detector and not just a plain Oxygen Meter because there are some areas where there is a build-up of Hydrogen Sulfide . Have fun & stay Safe . Oh , there are several other Portals besides the one you entered . A person could spend a couple of weeks exploring that place and still not see all of it . --
< Doc >
There are many other portals... I think it would definitely take longer than a couple of weeks.
@Lovelock Matt -- NOPE ! I'm not going to disclose the location , but it's not too hard to figure out .
001DesertRat I know it’s a tungsten mine 😉😉
I guess Im asking the wrong place but does someone know a way to log back into an instagram account..?
I stupidly forgot the login password. I appreciate any help you can offer me
@Nikolai Coen instablaster ;)
The amount of work to put in that elevator is amazing. You just know that mine made someone rich because of the trouble they put into doing that.
“Gly”: Nice job! Your getting into parts of that mine that I was going to document myself. If I’m not mistaken one of those big bore holes has a metal ladder in it and that was another area I wanted to climb into. I hope you got a chance to climb up that caged shaft, could be some interesting things at higher levels. Also, it would sure be interesting to see where that giant bore hole comes out top side. Looking forward to part 2! Keep up the good work!
Will we ever see you two collab? 👍😁
Thanks, Gly... I've had enough rusted metal fail on me that I'm fairly skeptical of old metal in mines. So, it may be easier to rope down from above rather than trying to go from the bottom up in the elevator. And, of course, the levels below are flooded. No matter where you go, block off a LOT of time for this one! You could literally spend weeks here. Also, we didn't have any problems, but others have told me that the locals will sometimes keep an eye on vehicles heading up to the mine and break into them while people are underground. Just FYI...
TVR Exploring
“Gly”: Thanks for the heads up Justin. I probably won’t be documenting this site... I feel you did a fine job and there’s no sense in filming it twice. I wasn’t there to observe the condition of the elevator but if you say it’s a bit sketchy I’ll take your word on it. Besides the elevator, you explored the areas I wanted to cover so I think we can both stick a pin in this site and call it done. Your reply came in at just the right time! I’m back near civilization on a re-supply run after spending two days searching for the remains of three miners entombed in the 50’s and there bodies never recovered. My hope is these recent earthquakes might have moved some material to allow access back into the older workings. Headed back out tomorrow for a third day of searching. Take care, and be safe out there... a few small rocks rolled down from the hillside yesterday right before I entered the portal. It would seem we’re still getting aftershocks.
Doggone it, where is part 2??? You got me foaming at the mouth!!!
Big Red Chemical Cleaner is made by Texas Refinery Corporation which was founded in 1922 by A.M. Pate Sr. and Carl Wollner. It was originally called Panther Oil and Grease Manufacturing Company, and started out in a tin barn on the north side of Fort Worth, Texas. The company was renamed Texas Refinery Corp in 1947 because they didn't think people outside of Texas would relate to the Panther reference. Due to changes in EPA rules in November 2015, their grease and lubricant production plant was moved from Fort Worth to Mansfield, Texas.
Cool Info & Love the Name “Big Red”
Thank you, as always, for the research!
That's a really cool mine - must have been operating pretty late judging by the electrical equipment.
Another great start on a "series". That 8 ft bore hole was staggering. Very cool stuff. Keep it up.
Pretty cool stuff, Justin! I think the echo was my favorite part.
That was wild!
100 + videos of this mine ?
Me: Yes PLEASE !
I love it, looking forward to more of this one! They must have had some serious rail equipment for haulage...either battery or diesel trammers with huge cars. I found a bunch of rail equipment of that size in Magdalena, New Mexico...we bought the battery trammer and left the cars.
I'd be interested to see the upper levels here. This looks to have been solely the haulage level, with stopes above...that huge metal ore chute could very well lead into an angled ore pass that was fed by LHDs working out of a stope. The 70s and 80s were funny that way, mixing rail and rubber-tire. I encourage solutions like that presently; rail is great for long, consistent hauls.
Since you mentioned gauge, the newer mines appear to run a larger gauge than the old prob for additional weight. off hand do you know the history and varying gauges used in mines, and how standardized were said gauges?
@@olivei2484 I've run into a bit of 18" equipment that was very old, definitely pre-World War II. The conventional track mine I'm involved with uses 24" gauge. Across multiple sites and lots of rail equipment for sale, 24" is the most common. There's also a fair bit of 36" equipment out there, but I've personally never been to a mine that used it. Most of the accessible mines in New Mexico are either quite old and used 24" gauge or smaller, or are smaller modern mines that exclusively used rubber-tire. We don't have many huge 20th-century mines like you'd see in Nevada or Idaho, other than the uranium mines which are essentially all flooded or inaccessible.
@@Porty1119 -- The big Mine at Gold Point, Nevada ran 10 Yard Side-Dump Ore Cars that were on 36" Gauge . They had about 30 of them sitting out on the surface for many years up until the early 1970's . I don't know if they were sold or hauled away as scrap but when i went there in 1974 they were all gone along with the Huge Inline 6 Cyl. Engine ( 4 ft. Diameter Cylinders , I actually stood inside one of them . ) . -- < Doc > .
Seeing tha narrow gauge rail you knew that had to be a big time operation. No hand pushed carts here... Thanks for the great video and am looking forward to seeing more of this one or others that you go to.
Awesome production. I followed the link from Gly's channel to see more from your exploration. Cheers.
Thank you very much! Glad you found it interesting... I appreciate you letting me know about Gly's link as well. I'll thank him for that.
You are very welcome. Check my latest video. You may find it interesting.
I really like watching your videos, even though the thought of doing what you do makes me anxious to put it mildly. I mean this video not so much, because the space is big enough to walk, but still, being underground is scary for me. You have a nice voice, and the history of these places you go to and share is interesting.
Nice! I like those iron arches. The reflectors kind of threw me at first, I thought they might be Darth Vader!!
They startled me a few times!
the giant bore hole is actually bigger than some mines you have explored Justin lol amazing
That's true!
That bore hole was amazing great video thanks for sharing.
That is quite a infrastructure left behind forever.nice work
Wow that sure is one HUGE mine. Bring on Part 2!!
have you ever considered getting a laser range finder, just to see how deep some of those shafts you cant get down are?
I always bring one plus blacklight stream light plus regular light plus back up wheat light and air monitor,live in lyon county .Raced and played in area since i was a kid .You have to be careful of focusing on whats ahead and not looking at floor right in front of you .Air monitor is most important
Yes, but I keep breaking them. Mine exploring is really hard on gear.
That is an impressive ore shoot! Dam, you shouldn't have explained the heavy breathing, I was having fun thinking it was Darth you were exploring with, he is from the Dark Side afterall! ;o) I've never seen a metal ore shoot before. Biggest borehole I've seen too! I was twitching with you when you went through that knarley section.
Haven't heard that term "Bull Hose" in years. At the Star Mine where I use to work many years ago, they use to say; " if you fall down the shaft, you better hope you have a Bull Hose with you. They hang up on everything".
Very cool I worked at knob hill mine
That's the size chutes in most Timmins area mines , and the track gauge is about if not bigger just by looking, an our ore carts were ore cars with a minimum 5 ton capacity at the gold mines that I worked in for 43 years....great video just the same, bringing really good memories back to me.
With the slight bobbing up and down and the dark light of videos like this, it makes me feel like I am playing Doom back in the day.
What a great game that was...
I got about as far as the signal box and turned around 🤣 Was alone and got a really uneasy feeling going any further in.
SO amazing to see the working of this mine. The man-hours to took to build all of that and to mine everything out. Are you going to show us the outside of the mine? Wondering how big the operation would have been back then. Still doesn't compare to the underground lake or the quartz ballroom from other mines.
No, I'm not going to show the outside. It'd make it too easy to find and then the BLM would race to seal it up... And, no, it is impressive, but does not compare to the underground lake or to the quartz ballrooms!
@@TVRExploring Makes sense. I would think something that big would already be on the radar of monitoring.
You might want to check out a mine called Dolly Varden in Nevada. It was huge when we were last there about 15 years ago. GoogleMaps shows a similar but different area, but it is not too far off. Easy to spot from the valley into the area. We found canvas ore bags, sample boxes, etc. Oh-- the intercom /phone at the Medical(?) Station still had static. I'd LOVE to go back there, but might have difficulties in a wheelchair....~ Stay Safe and Keep Exploring!
Thank you for the information and the support. I've been told that particular mine was reclaimed (destroyed), but I have not seen it myself... What you described sounds really cool! Unfortunately, so many of these great sites are gone now.
I was really getting into that when it cut off. Now I want part 2. Great mine though.
Well that was a "big"surprize, what a big mine, everything is big, sadly also the collapses :-) if you need a elevator in a mine, you have a big one, hope you have a map, or a bag of maps if this place is as big as i think wow, cant wait for part 2 thanks mate.
Very neat huge mine. Can’t wait for 2 part. Thank you.
Did you see the wire with the loops tied into it hanging a long right side they would hang reflectors from it to use for escape route in case of cave in or fire.
Very impressive mine regardless if it's the largest or not Thanks for sharing.
It is impressive! Being as big as it is, is also an interesting feature...
Looks promising. 👌🏻 Great work as always.
You look at all that and think about the manpower, machinery, and material moved ... those were some hardy people.
The decay was fantastic especially the dual compartment shaft.
I love the steel roof support. Looks like a great place to work
We don't see the steel sets as often in the U.S., but they do look cool...
England built a lot of underground bunkers using this structure. Unleashed exploring has quite a few vids on these.
What a great find, you could spend days down there looking around! That bore hole though! WOW, reminded me of AVP movie for some reason! That is some echo up the bore hole!
It's going to take 3 or 4 videos just for this level... The entire mine would literally take weeks. No exaggeration. The bore holes are wild. In the next video, I look up one and you can see a pinprick of daylight from the surface.
Yes, that adit is pretty windy. And did you explore the entire portion that is not flooded?
Thanks Pal for another great video .
Thanks for the information on the mine I always wonder what was worked out of these mines.
Nice explore. What was this? Looks kind of like a tungsten mine. I’ve heard other people say the name of it and since you didn’t mention it I won’t either. Lol. Wonder how many levels are still accessible? Can’t wait to see part 2.
Yes, it was a tungsten mine. We avoid names because disclosing locations causes the BLM to go racing to seal up sites. There are a fair number of levels that are still accessible.
Brilliant as always. stay safe
You always get me at the end!
looks pretty modern! last worked in the 70s?
Amazing place, thanks for sharing bro 😊
Thank you. Yes, this one is wild...
@@TVRExploring 😊
Never cease to amaze me what you come across👍👍😀
This was an interesting one, to be sure...
Amazing place, judging by just those ore chutes they were moving a LOT of material through there...that bore shaft was out of this world as well. The perspective of looking up one of those is not something you see every day.
Some of the old timers I knew as a kid, men who were in their 70's and 80's in the early 70's used to say that there was a room in the Empire that is about directly under the Safeway store in downtown Grass Valley, that room was purported to be bigger than 3 of the stores it sat beneath at whatever level it was.
Speaking to some of those guys was a treat. I wish that I had taken the time to record some of those conversations. They had great stories, and the gnarled hands that looked like they had spent a lot of time doing hard work.
I have a story about the cottage up there that I will save for that cup of coffee...
It's definitely an impressive mine... I'd love to have talked with those old timers from the Empire that you described!
Wow, that mine is huge. Them ore chutes too. Neat explore, looks like massive amounts of silver mined out of there and gold too. Would to have seen the headframe and hoist for that mine. Thoroughly impressive.
Yes, it's an impressive site, for sure... The headframe and hoist are gone, I'm afraid.
@@TVRExploring oh darn, I bet it was huge. Several hundred feet high and had two drums with lots of cable.
Those are the biggest ore chutes I have ever seen. The metal one with the hydraulic arm is like holy shit. You can tell by the tracks that the cars were big. Nice explore so far.
Thank you. Yes, those ore chutes blew my mind! If they're the biggest that you've seen as well, that is really saying something...
Your my favorite mine explorer.
Sweet, very impressive! Thanks Man!
Has this been uploaded before? It seems familiar to me for some reason.
Yeah same here. I also subscribe to the "Exploring Abandoned Mines and Unusual Places" and I recognize this mine from two videos they did a while back. The vertical shaft and bore holes along with tungsten mining in Nevada gave it away!
@@gfox4534 That's true. I was sure at the huge metal ore chute at last
How did they do that, that 8 feet wide upwards oriented bore hole! How did they create that hole, what method, what equipment would leave such perfectly smooth sides?
I like that you can hear the sound of the wind
Great episode. Thank you!
The first portions of the lower level sure are sketchy! Nicely done!
Thank you. Ha, I'd forgotten how sketchy some sections were until I was editing the video!
@@TVRExploring -- And you were in the "New" Drift , want to see sketchy , go into some of the older workings .
-- < Doc > .
@@001desertrat3 Oh, we have!
Awesome video, you should take a metal detector, too,
Love to hear someone answer the echo in the bore hole !!
Jim Rossi
-- And what if you heard a deep throaty GROWL come back out of that bore hole . OOPS ! lol .
Cool mine. Are you sure about drilling up? They must have come down from another level?
Down, then up. They drilled a pilot hole down, then pulled a reamer up to expand the bore to its final diameter.
@@Porty1119 thanks, that makes sense, drilling up seems to present many problems.
I might have jumped from the frying pan into the fire I've never heard that I like it LOL 😀
how deep are those bore holes and what are they exactly? also, what keeps the ceilings from caving in in all of these caves??! love the vids man! but no wayyyyy id ever go into one of these :)
Those timbers and steel sets keep the mine from caving (in theory). I'm not sure how deep the boreholes ran...
carminewords
-- The bore holes (the ones they dropped the rocks down) are ''Core Drill'' holes and were drilled looking for more Ore Bodies to mine . As for the 'ceilings' , the arch shape allows the compressive pressure of the rock to be evenly distributed across the arch and redirected into the Ribs (walls) . A flat-backed roof ('ceiling') will naturally collapse to form an arch shape because it is more stable . < Doc > .
There is an old map somewhere of this mine(s), the different levels, however I haven't been able to find it.
There are a series of detailed maps that were done a few years ago that are excellent... However, yes, as you indicated, there must be a warehouse full of older maps of this mine from when it was still operational.
What ore was taken from this mine complex?
@@runnikcatti5997 tungsten
@@TVRExploring Lee made those maps. I was there before the mine got trashed and looted.
@@JohnDoe-bf1fw Yes, his maps are phenomenal. Would've been nice to see that one before it got stripped...
Could that bore hole be a exploratory well drilled from the surface?
It could've been. I'm not certain of the purpose.
Harry -- Large bore holes are VENTILATION SHAFTS .
Awesome...Now your getting to the good part
Totally Awsum Mine Fine 👍🏻
The moose jaw location on that big red refinery corp is probably owned by the Coop refinery now.
Interesting... Thank you.
Very Very interesting 👍
If i learned anything from Rust, 2:27 you best smack that barrel until it breaks and get whatever juicy loot that falls out.
Thats some diggings. Put me down as in favor of more videos of this mine.
great content, keep it up
Thank you.
Watching in HD makes a Big difference.
Would you ever do a collaboration with another TH-camr on exploring abandoned mines.
I'm doing a collaboration with another TH-camr in this very video... That's Mines of the West with me. I've gone out with many other mine exploring TH-camrs and I am always up for going out with others.
I noticed that the black pipe has Victaulic fittings. Which I believe means that this mine is not that old.
It was worked until the 1980s.
I wish you told us the name and location of the mine
We use them small bore holes to run utilities (wire or sand pipe) to another level
wow... way sketchy.... not me.. But thanks that you do.. Interesting stuff...
When do u think this mine shutdown? It looks pretty recent.
It shut down in the later 1980s.
3 minutes 40 seconds coolest part of this mine
This mine looks mega!
It is... This is just one level of many!
Did anyone notice the big paw print around 7:18 ?
Camera moved to fast to see more
the hole is TBM drilling straight down
Could you help us newbies out and say what TBM stands for?
@@duanelohr1869 Tunnel Boring Machine! Elon Musk is getting into this industry and there may be a lot more civillian tunnels available in 20 years
I would assume he means Tunnel Bore Machine.
Ok that clears the mud of understanding a little. Why would a mining company do a drill like that? I understand the idea of core samples, or maybe ventilation, but the absolute cost of doing such a thing is mind boggling. And the rest of the money spent on this mine ( the distance mined, the metal 4 foot Metal (!) Ore chute, like wow.) . I think the mine was to get tungsten and I believe it was successful.
@@duanelohr1869 It's a hell of a lot cheaper than a conventional raise, and those get impractical beyond maybe a hundred feet anyways.
Are you willing to share where this is?
Skips/cadges for people and ore...versus elevators on the vertical shafts....esoteric mine speak...family history....miners....good stuff
WOW amazing
been shareing your vids with friends that dont get on yt.........but there is not a share button anymore...whats up with that...thats less veiws and less revenue for adds......yt is f... up.....
Yeah, I don't like a lot of the changes that TH-cam makes...
WOW!!! They must of gotten a lot of tungsten out of that mine!!!!
I don't know the production figures, but, yes, it must have been a LOT!
At one time it was the number one world producer
What County in Nevada?
_OOOoooooh_ that hole at 8:54 was CREEPY! Lmao (edit: holes, those holes gawd!)
Wait until you see the giant, smooth-sided boreholes in the next video... The idea of falling down one of those (they were not marked well at all) really creeps me out when I think about it. There was water at the bottom and so you wouldn't die from the fall. Instead, you'd eventually drown in freezing, black mine water in complete darkness, desperately grabbing at the perfectly smooth walls of the borehole. Not a nice way to go!
Where is this at
I’ve been to this mine before in one of the minds somebody nailed a Twinkie to the wall from 2012 they still haven’t gotten back to me with their email address that was attached
Very cool
I'm a bored housewife in Henderson.......can somebody tell me where this is !?
TEXAS in big bold letters
Moose Jaw Sask on the bottom hahaha
Awesome
Mary mother of god. New bucket list vacation: Nevada
Nevada's got some pretty wild mines... It has dry mines too, which would probably be a welcome change for you!
Nice one . So what was the purpose of that 7-8 ft bore hole ? Emergency escape route , air inlet ? What really amazes me when I see these kind of things you show us is . How did they bore down from the surface and hit the mine ? Or , did they bore down first and expand the mine from there . Course I am assuming they didn't bore that hole up from the mine out ? Can't wait for Part 2 ... gubs
Since it's not furnished with ladders, it was used for ventilation. That was done with what's called a raise bore. They drilled a pilot hole down from another level, then pulled a reamer up to expand the borehole. It's much cheaper than sinking a shaft or driving a conventional raise, and the walls are slick which helps with ventilation efficiency.
@@Porty1119 Sweet . I kind of figured it might be for ventilation . But , not knowing anything about Mines , I thought maybe they had some kind of rolling cart lowered from the surface J.I.C of emergency . Thanks for the information about it's purpose and how it is done .... gubs
Large bore hole was made by an RBM.
The only abandoned mines I’ve explored are in Minecraft :D
A little wd-40 those hydraulic cylinders be good as new.
They run on air I have used many in my mining career. They still use them