Exploring one of The Largest Abandoned Mines in Washington
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- čas přidán 28. 08. 2024
- This is a small portion of an explore we recently performed within one of the largest abandoned mines in the state of Washington. This mine was an enormous producer of Lead, Zinc, and Silver from the 1800's to the 1950's or so before shutting down. A lot has been left behind, and this site proved to be an incredible experience.
Accessing this mine is very difficult. It is at the end of a long hike, steep hills, and roads that have not been maintained in decades. At the end of all of that, there is an entrance perhaps 9-10 inches tall by a foot and a half wide. Once in, there is 3 feet of water to then contend with, and this fills in the first few thousand feet of the mine. This site really challenges on access, but what remains inside is more than worth it. Stopes hundreds of feet tall by hundreds of feet wide, mazes of tunnels, and miles of workings. This site is one we will remember for a long time, and one we hope remains open long enough for us to go back to in the future.
Loved every minute of it!!! Awesome video, wow some areas in there were huge!!!
Thank you very much! This was an incredible site, and I'm sure we maybe hit only 5% of the tunnels here. Of the bits that are still open, I am sure we have literal miles left to see if we ever go back!
What an amazing site to see. I lost count of how many "Woooow..." and "Oh Wow!" 's I said during this. Thanks for sharing your adventure!
Thank you very much! I'm glad so many people are enjoying this mine as much as we did!
That Manchild with the Hammer Needs to just Wait outside if He cant Conduct and Control Himself like an Adult! Smh
very cool!
Thank you very much! Watched a bunch of your videos, so it's very exciting to see you comment!
53:35 Also Dad is a very patient man 😄 heehee
Thanks for info !
very cool video!!
Thank you for watching! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I've watched alot of these style/type videos, hundreds, and I think this has to be the biggest open area/mined out I've ever seen.....
I cannot agree more. This mine is enormous, and we are missing out on so much being underwater. This mine used to be open to a full 1,000 feet deeper than the parts we explored, so there had to have been incredible amounts of ore pulled out of this one!
@@SomethingDifferently Massive amounts pulled out of this mine....
I'm only a few minutes in, and I'm new to your channel, but I HOPE yall have better lighting than you started this explore with.
Oh, don't worry! We have plenty of lights, especially for this explore. We just didn't want to have them all out at once during the wettest part of the explore. Risking losing lights is a good way to actually lose them, and when you are underground as long as we were this day you need as much extra as you can carry.
They also ran electric locomotives upper part probably has one unless they pulled it out.
Yeah, in a lot of the photos and documentation from the days this mine was worked, the locos were all over the upper levels. I never managed to see one in any of the few visits I made to this site, but it may be below the waterline now. There is a level just barely below the ground-level water table that is just out of sight, so there is likely incredible artifacts left down there. Older and bigger mines like this one though, they often had the money and manpower to remove all of the older machinery and sell it for scrap or to mines that still wanted to use it.
With the info you have given, I can find the name quite easy but I'm not interested since it's not a gold producer..I'll give you a mine to look for, it's north of Denny creek with no access. My mining partner worked there in 1968. They flew all the equipment in with a copter.. It's at a very small lake or pond with the tunnel going in under a large rock overhang. Keith said they drove east toward the peak of the Cascades. The tunnel is over 1,700 ft. long.It was part of a multi million dollar mineral survey. Keith said they left all the equipment in the tunnel and just up and left on the last copter. Keith took pictures of the mine and pond.
Interesting. I know of a few mines that are basically just exploratory tunnels in the Cascades, North of Denny creek. I am unaware of any that drive practically straight on East though. The one I know that is just a straight on tunnel is about 3,000 feet long, so there are quite a few up there.
Bren Mac mine.
Det. cord won't go off if you step on it! It looks like a lead,silver and zinc mine.
Indeed! This one is a Zinc, Silver and Lead mine in order of how much they pulled out. I just assume that everything could be dangerous in a mine around here. Been into a couple with the remains of dynamite and det cord inside, and I just try hard to keep caution at the front of my mind during explores.
Awesome mine! What is this one called? If you are willing to share the name.
I unfortunately can't share the name of this one, as it is so accessible it would have enough people visiting that the Land Management agencies would close it quickly. All I can say is that it is a well-known locale within Washington state for those of us in the Mine Exploration community.
That was a slush plate.
Sure hope you brought your oxygen monitor, very bad idea to go in with water and Gas you will pass out before you can turn around.
I’m trying to find information about a gold mine my grandfather worked at as boy during the depression. He was a helper, but was mostly a hunter and fisherman for the miners. It was close to Sullivan Lake in Pend Oreille county. I can’t really find any hard rock gold mines around there. The man he worked for was named Miller. Any thoughts on how to research?
I would start off by trying to use a resource such as mindat.org and seeing if anything comes up within that region. That is likely the best source if there are records from that area. Otherwise, I would start looking into geologic records from the state. Around the Sullivan lake area, there aren't really a lot of hard rock mines, but more placer mines, which means they dug into stream and river beds and searched through the gravels. There are a lot of mines the further you go west from there, but the Sullivan area specifically just doesn't have a lot of tunnel-dug mines as far as I am aware.
I’ve been in a few of them in that area. Do you know the name by chance? One of the ones I was is was MASSIVE big cavern that went 100 feet wide diameter and about 600 or so feet down
I think that said 🌪 tornado, cuz those things holding up the ceiling look like tornados....
They do! The pillars and formations they worked around in this mine are incredible, and really twist like a tornado.
What did you figure out what blue was? My guess would be azurite. Not sure we have that here. Copper can also be blue as well as green. You light was too bright to really see the color. :/
I think it was a blue limestone, slightly different in color from the rest, but still part of the rock the mine was driven into. I'm not really aware that this site had more than a tiny amount of copper minerals. It was almost entirely silver zinc and lead, with very few other minerals listed as occurring on site.
This the Black Diamond mine or the one at the top of that bear trail?
I'm afraid that this mine is in a different section of the state than where you are thinking. This is in the Eastern half of the state, but I can't get too much more specific here. This site is all over the place in terms of ownership, so I'm trying to keep it mostly under wraps.
@@SomethingDifferently wouldn't even ask too claustrophobic for that kind of stuff. Just cool to see amazing things like this in the state :D
@@ericday980 Don't worry about it, I completely agree! This one just feels like it should be in the Silver Valley or up in the mountains of Nevada with all they pulled out of it!
@@ericday980 there's an entrance to the Mine in Black Diamond? I've been all around that area
don"t call this man old man
Can you cover nuttyputty caves somehow if possible
I believe that is the cave that a caver died in upside down, and is now closed? Will have to see. I am planning on doing some informational videos on closed up mines, so there is plenty of ideas for the future!
Probably coal or coke
Don’t tell your dad what to do. I’m a dad and I wouldn’t put up with that.
What is the name of it ?wtf
Unfortunately I can't share the name, as this site is just so important and well known around here. It's an incredible site though.
11:40 let the man smash some rock! lol chippin a bit from that behemouth wouldn't harm a thing
I know, but I always worry way too much underground. It isn't always a rational fear, but this mine had such stable ground that we will find a spot where we will take a good whack at the wall the next time we are in!
Get some better lighting can see f all
First of all you don't tell the viewers what kind of mine this is.? And I think it kind of chicken shit to hide the name unless you have a claim on it. I'm a retired gold miner and past president of the North Central Cascades Miners Assn.
In cases such as a mine this large, I try to hide a bit due to the Forest Service and BLM closing up mines that are this open and this large. This mine was a Lead/Zinc/Silver mine, and many details can be found online by searching certain areas, but due to the entrance being directly on public land, I try to err on the side of caution. Perhaps I do so a bit too much, but I always want to keep places like this one open for us to go back to, or for future explorers to see in the same ways.
@@SomethingDifferently If we create a small opening to the tunnel, we close it back up to keep the feds out.
True, and we do that for sites like this with an entrance small enough for that. The problem with mines up here in the North Eastern section of Washington, Idaho, and Montana is that many mines have entrances that are so secure that they will likely not collapse for a very long time. Combine that with adits sometimes 12 feet tall, and keeping things closed or hidden can be very rough. I've been to mines I've never published videos for due to the entrance being so tall and wide that it can't be concealed. I just try to err on the side of caution as often as I can, is all.
@@SomethingDifferently We used to have upwards of a dozen mining claims from Barstow north to the border. My mining partner, Leo Bruce's dad founded many of them. You might still be able to get into the "MobyDick" but watchout for the Sasquatch, he scared the hell out of me one night.
@@robertsnyder5149 As much as I hate to say it, I agree the names should be kept out of it because the Dick heads at the forest circus and BLM really get their rocks off when they find a mine they can close off.