Finding Fish In An Abandoned Mine

What kind of abandoned mine did we explore here? Yes, there was hydraulic mining that took place on the surface for decades in the 1800s, but we have underground mining equipment, wooden platforms and electrical control panels present. What would they be doing down in a drain tunnel for a hydraulic mine? Drain tunnels normally get scoured out by rock-filled water that blasts through them during periods of heavy rain. So, how did that stuff in there survive? Obviously, there HAS been violent activity in there given the large boulders that have been tossed around and how the pipes have been beaten up. Not to mention, it would have taken a hell of a lot of force to move that giant (presumed) skip car…
After hydraulic mining was banned in California in the late 1800s, sporadic drift mining took place at this site in the early 1900s. However, the equipment we found in the tunnel is obviously more modern though… So, what was going on down there?
Adit Addicts (Mr. McBride) arrived after we went underground and so he isn’t featured in the video, but he was present. When we connected with him outside, he claimed to have been hearing lions roaring and hyenas laughing while sitting and waiting for us in the dark. This had seriously unnerved him… Naturally, I didn’t believe him, but I could see that he was quite serious. This mine is in California though, so I knew there was no way that lions and hyenas were out stalking us. But, then I heard them as well! You can imagine the conversations that were taking place at this point... I’ve spent enough time in Africa in order to be able to instantly recognize hyenas or an African lion. So, now I was sketched out also, but more than anything else, I just couldn’t get my mind around how there could be lions and hyenas moving around us in the woods. Regardless, I can tell you though that when you’re crawling through thick brush at night into the unknown, you don’t really want to hear a bunch of lions and hyenas. Haha, well, after doing a little research when we got back to our vehicles, it turned out that there was a wildlife sanctuary of sorts bordering the mine that has a number of African animals.
Another point about Mr. McBride… He actually visited this site a couple of years before I did. When he visited, there was a massive plug of rock and industrial debris that was completely blocking the tunnel just before the wooden platform. If you go to 16:46 in his video below (I can't stop the timestamp from linking to my video, so be sure to go to 16:46 in HIS video), you can see the plug and how different things looked when he visited:
• Video
Me getting stuck in that mud was no joke… I was really, REALLY stuck. The mud had gotten up to around my belly button and my efforts to get out were only causing me to sink deeper. As I mentioned in the video, I was surrounded by the sucking mud. So, there was nothing I could grab onto or push off of. When I was thinking about it afterwards, I thought that if I had been alone, my only chance would have been to kick my way out of my waders, sacrifice all of my equipment and try to worm my way out over the mud. By laying directly on top of it, I would have spread my weight around and so, likely, would not have started sinking into the mud so quickly. This, I thought, would have given me a chance to wriggle my way along it until I was able to break free.
To put the size of this mine and tunnel in some perspective, I should also add that it took a good fifteen to twenty minutes of walking to reach the section with the wooden platform and the junction. I edited this section heavily as I didn't think that twenty minutes of me splashing through a featureless tunnel would make for particularly compelling viewing.
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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.
I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!
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