Back For More Pain: Returning to Sierra County's West Coast Mine...
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- čas přidán 15. 03. 2017
- Exploring abandoned mines can be quite a test sometimes. Sometimes the test is physical and sometimes the test is mental. In this case, it was our patience that was tested! We usually can give some background on a mine - especially if we know the name of it and can research it. However, with this mine, we just chased down a site on a map and could not find records on its history. Well, of course, the upper adit that was easy to get to was eroded shut. So, we started down a trail to the bottom of the canyon that went past the second adit that was marked for the West Coast Mine. Aside from admiring the enormous trees on the way down, we couldn’t help but notice that the trail was wide and was in quite good shape. It was very steep getting down to the second adit, but with a trail like this, we figured that a lot of work must have been done at this lower adit. Well, a lot of work WAS done, but not by the miners! We arrived to discover that the second adit did not merit a place on the topographic map at all as it was literally a small hole in a rock. Nevertheless, the U.S. Forest Service had bulldozed the trail we hiked down on all of the way to this adit and had placed an expensive grate over… A. Hole. In. A. Rock. I’m not exaggerating… As if this wasn’t enough, they also pushed all of the mining equipment that was there over the edge of the cliff. A colossal waste of money and time! We decided to keep exploring the area and below the lower adit, we discovered the largest water ditch that either of us had ever seen. These ditches were used to transport water for use in mining and would serve multiple mines in the area. Chuck decided to hike along the water ditch to see if he could find anything interesting, while I decided to hike down to the bottom of the canyon to see the creek down there (Canyon Creek) and also to see if I could find a trail that supposedly climbed out the other side of the canyon to the site where Morristown used to be. Well, I didn’t find a trace of the trail, but I did find an abandoned dredging claim. These are more common now that California has banned dredging, but this one had more gear that they had abandoned than any other claim I have ever seen. I thought it was interesting to see all of their equipment and the spot they had along the creek was absolutely beautiful. It was a long, long hike out of that canyon though…
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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 niche of our history is gone forever. But, guess what? We have fun 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 hundred years, 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
Nice intro. Its so funny. Well done
Love the opening. That is funny. Thanks for the chuckle.
Perfect site...!
Thanks for sharing it with us...!
This is the first of your videos I've seen.
Great job and you have a new subscriber...!
Stay safe out there...!
Troy in Northern IN.
Yes, the site was perfect - no question about that. Haha, however, we were a little underwhelmed by the mine. Thank you very much for the positive feedback as well as your subscription!
I'm glad you cut my screaming rant on the " you know who " out of this! lol I was really pissed that day! The beginning btw.......priceless!
Haha, I think our sentiments on the "you know who" came through in the video just fine... Glad you liked the intro - I thought it pretty much summed up the day. As is, unfortunately, all too common, not a lot worked out that day on the mine exploring front! Canyon Creek sure looked beautiful though, no?
The Velvet Rocket TV Oh yea nice n deep too! You know there's that cabin about half a mile up Creek that is below the mine we couldn't find?
No, actually I didn't know about the cabin close to the lost mine? That mine is pretty freakin' lost, by the way. I don't know anyone that has found it or knows where it is/was.
I think if I was those guys and I owned that place and had the clame rights, I would never leave, I would hunt in the mornings and fish at night and when I felt like looking for gold. I still can't believe that creek is only 22 miles away from me. Thanks again for your show.
It's definitely a beautiful spot. no people at all around either.
Lol that 🐜 intro was freaking hilarious
Gorgeous countryside. I'm far too old now to enjoy a rigorous hike like that, but the video reminded me of the peace and quiet the forest provides. I could almost smell the forest air watching this.
Yes, this area is particularly remote and so one can really find that peace and quiet here... There is a lot of beauty to be found in our world still if one looks for it.
If those guys were dredging all up and down that creek, you can see that they didn't do any damage. I suspect that it was not their choice to leave behind the trash and equipment.
Sure is beautiful! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you. Yes, there are some beautiful spots in the remote parts of California.
Loved the intro!
Great vid as usual
Thank you!
If you want to see a ditch, try quartz creek above Galice, Oregon or the miners ditch that brought water to Auburn, Oregon called the Auburn ditch.
One of the dredging pump engines was brand new; No rust just clean blue paint. Some of the activity there was probably recent and illegible. Maybe they left all that stuff behind because the exited by different means then they entered... like handcuffed in the back of a forest service truck.
That is entirely possible.
The opening was hilarious! I died laughing!
Glad you enjoyed that... That was completely spontaneous.
@@TVRExploring It was delightfully whimsical. You have a sharp and unique sense of humor.
Love the ant mining, it was a funny movie. :-)
Thank you :)
Skeeters can be brutal to say the least. Increase your altitude to escape them. Great campsites with water and views are Gods gift to those who are willing to sweat it out and hump the passes.
Loved the ant intro! LOL Damn, that was a huge Pondarosa that Chuck was standing next to! There is the mine in the Laguna Mountains where they did the exact same thing - they installed a bat gate in the tunnel which only went in about 15 or 20 feet. Say, did that investigator ever get back to you about that equipment Daniel Dull took? PM me!
Yes, there are some huge old growth trees down in some of those canyons that were, fortunately, too inaccessible to be logged... The bat gates on these little holes in the rocks are ridiculous. I was hoping that this was a one-off event, but evidently not.
Those ants had me cracking up!! If only you'd had some kind of miniature camera on a stick or in a tube you could have visited a working mine in action. Security may not have liked it, those guys bite!
I responded to this last night, but my response disappeared? CZcams shenanigans, I guess...
I did notice all of them had there hard hats on too ! And worked real fast. Regards Ody Slim
so much could have been seen and i am sure it would have been interesting if we could have seen it but we had a camera flopper on the dang camera. give him E for effort and work he did getting there.
I have very little patience for this kind of stupidity on the part of the USFS and NPS. I dealt with a USFS road closure in NM, that happened to involve attempting to block access to an (admittedly abandoned) patented claim that was owned by an active mining company at the time. The closure order had expired more than three years before we showed up; we considered blowing the lock apart but settled for accessing the mine via private property owned by a guy who was sufficiently pro-mining that he worked a hard-rock gold claim for a summer and got permission for us to access an ASARCO site. I'm surprised that the USFS gate lasted that long; locals in the area seem to enjoy bulldozing gates and dumping them into canyons, shooting the locks apart with high-powered rifles, or creating new roads around the gate.
I used to think that people railing against the Forest Service were paranoid wack jobs. However, since I have started spending a lot more time in the forests in this context, I have become one of those critics myself. I have just seen too much senseless destruction, wasted money and unnecessary or vindictive obstruction of roads or trails. And they surely aren't doing anything to help the forests... It sounds as if the locals have adapted well out in New Mexico!
Nice AnTbandoned mine, Regards from Ody slim
I cant believe I missed this one! I agree, it is a beautiful place to be. I will clean it up if i can work it for a month!
Sure beats sitting behind a desk, huh? It is a tough hike down there, but I think it'd be a great place to spend a summer gathering up a lot of gold.
Yeah, those poor desk nesters. I would rather walk around in dirty clothes, covered with ticks and poisonoak, eating berries and worms than be a desk nester. I will meet you in that spot in September
Their dumping spoil not ore,one thinks.
As for the FS look at that Forest Mis-management,if a fire starts there it will be huge
The intro mad me laugh so hard I almost pee'd
Haha, glad you enjoyed it. Nothing else was working out that day, so that is one of those times you just have to have a laugh and try to enjoy it...
Huh, that vehicle/tractor looks to have some decent salvageable parts on it!
Whether it's worth it though, that's the question! Dang, almost enough stuff at that abandoned claim to equip a camping trip! (and a generous supply of tools too!)
Yes, after I stopped filming, I pushed through the brush to get a better look at the equipment and it was in pretty good shape. It's a shame that the Forest Service just pitched it off of the cliff. I was really amazed by how much stuff was left at that dredging camp by the river. I don't normally include a simple mining camp in a video, but that was unbelievable and I thought others might find it interesting as well. Plus, it was a nice spot along the river...
Agreed on all counts, thanks for including it!
Haha that intro...cool video!
Man the Forest Service is ridiculous. They act like these mines are going to jump out of the woods and attack you. I saw down below you said you never really criticized the FS until you started going out and seeing their "accomplishments". I was the same way, then I started to see their skewed priorities. It really bothers me because we have so many run down campsites and roads yet they decide to spend thousands of dollars on these mine gates instead...at least they aren't dynamiting them I guess...rant over lol
Haha, thanks. Yes, we have the same situation here... There are abandoned campgrounds and unmaintained trails all over the National Forests in California. Yet, somehow it is reasonable to build a large, graded trail down a steep canyon in order to grate a small hole in a rock? It's ridiculous.
that hole in the wall was gated for the protection of bat habitat it happins to a lot of caves and old open mine portals here in the eastern part of the country
in wayne national they blew up the portals and left..you can get in some but now more dangerous than ever. thanks government for spending my money and fucking with my hobby...
How have i never seen this one before, i about pissed myself with the ants part, that shit is so dam funny lmao.
Glad you enjoyed that... LOL.
The Forest Service putting so much effort into blocking that exploratory might be for more of a reason than we know. When govt has access to toys like ground penetrating radar, etc., maybe they know what sort of deposit would be found there if someone was to dig just a little more.
The dredge camp was either illegal, or if approved by the Forest Service it was bonded. The bond could have ranged as high as a few thousand dollars and would guarantee the camp cleanup after the gold operations are over. This is the kind of mess the Forest Service should be cleaning up, not a 25" adit. When I worked for the Forest Service if I found a mess like this modern day dredge camp I packed it out with horses/mules...
Hell I would love to just go fishing there, I'm so tired of creeks with a thousand other fisherman. Great show I just started watching your show. And I can't believe how many of these mines are in my back yard. I live in Chico CA. and I have looked up where you go and half the time it's with in 50 miles.
Yeah, Chico is definitely within our main area of operations!
I talked to my wife and she doesn't work tomorrow and I will go up for a ride and I can see if it is even open to go up there, they are doing a lot of hazmat work in Paradise and Magalia and at the same time I will go to see if it is even worth it. I know how to get there but I rather see if it goes back or not.
Thank you for looking into that.
Having grown up in western Sierra county I can give you directions to a perfectly intact port hole about a mile from paved roads if you're crazy enough to enter an abandoned mine. I'd love to see the footage if you do. I know of 19 intact mine entrances within 3 miles of Sierra city.
We would love to check out and explore the abandoned mine you're talking about... And, yes, I would certainly post the footage for you. Can you send me a private message? I would like to chat with you some more about these and Sierra County. Thanks.
My email address is justin.ames@gmail.com if you can't find the "messages" section on CZcams (they hide it pretty well).
All that trash is sad man , id love to clean that shit up and salvage some of it : (
I'd love to see someone like you do that... It's a shame to see it like that.
No shit! Think with that road they built you'd think they'd cleaned up on the way out for fuk sake! Some booger eater falls in a hole an a concerned parent lobyies to have them all sealed.
Witt Graham I agree 100%
I live on Vancouver island here surfers formed a group that cleans a beach a weekend of the crap that washes up. Its made a real differance. I've gone out and found the experiance very rewarding an a lot of fun. Met some cool people as well. Give it a try. Tarps are better than bags for moving junk out to a truck.
I'll bet you clean up a of plastic! And have probably found some interesting things... I've been involved in a couple of river cleanups and we certainly found some unexpected items.
Thanks, the first part made me laugh, to bad they spent all the dollars on the gate and not picking up the mess.
Love the miner ants, better on the enviroment hey! :)
That was one massive tree! Shame the mine didn't amount to anything and wtf they thinking with that grate! Seriously man, they are ffcked up lol
Seeing that lovely clean river you can understand why they don't want it dredged up, stunning place to explore, that was well worth the trek down and up again!
The grate is ridiculous - it's essentially a "make work" scheme to keep that team of Forest Service personnel employed. We're paying a high price for it though in terms of history destroyed and money wasted... Ha, I wasn't so sure when I was climbing out, but in hindsight, yes, it was definitely worth the hike...
Thank you for your great videos! I watched your videos with my young kids and this was the first time I've heard you drop an F-bomb. Keep it clean brother.
Big ditch, little mine.
Pretty much sums up a day like your "Pit of Gold" video...
Great videl and that Tree was huge do you think that gated off mine that it might turn left or right and not dead end like it looked, I dont know why anyone would waste so much money on a gate for 20 or 30 feet. I think the creek below was a placer dredging claim at one point but it seems funny they would leave all that equipment behind like that kind of strange like they were run off by someone or something who knows just a thought, Im posting your video on my FB page for all to enjoy, thanks for taking us along.
Thank you for sharing the video! I didn't include it in the video, but I used a small mirror and a lot of other tricks to make 100% certain that there really wasn't more to the mine. I just couldn't believe that the Forest Service would go to that much effort over such a silly thing, but they did. It really does just go back for 20 feet. Yes, the claim down by the creek was for placer dredging. That isn't the first abandoned placer dredging claim we have come across, but it had more equipment left behind than at other abandoned dredging sites... These sites are in really remote areas and the claim owners would have had to go through a lot of work to get the equipment in there. When California banned dredging, I guess they figured it just wasn't worth the hassle of hauling everything out and they walked away.
@@TVRExploring That is the answer.
abandoned camp was for dredge maybe they caught enough big nuggets to quit or the bears ate them....the key clue was the water pump....suction mining the bottom of the creek...any signs of them pouring gold bars?
look for a cobbed kiln or forge, charcoal would do the job...the plastic barrels would float a dredge pump and sluice left over screens etc...
Its probably just a hobby for them, they put the stuff up intending to come back next season, and life interfered. Maybe just lack of interest, an illness, family issues, who knows.
Do you have GPS info. for that last dredging claim camp ? I would love to see it in person. Thanx
This one is out in Northern California near La Porte...
The "vehicle" looks to be a portable air compressor. Note the riveted tank on the far end.
Yes, I think you're 100% correct about that.
I would love to get out to more spots like that. Guess I need to hop on the pc.
I live near the ghost town of Monte Christo, Washington
How do I find more information on history and locations of the old tramways and adits? Maybe you could recommend some websites?
You can find topographic maps online that will show you the locations of adits and tramways. There is also the MRDS database (which you can download and overlay onto Google Earth). Those are good places to start. You can also just try Googling "adits" in the county you live in or nearby counties and start digging down into research that way by seeing what comes up.
And by ore you mean fungus, dirt and dead bodies
I would file a formal complaint report with whatever Govt. Agency oversees the local Forestry Service Office that authorized their staff to do that !
Many people have complained about such behavior and the agencies just really don't care... They don't have to because there are hardly ever any consequences for government employees.
I've looked for that trail from the Diggins on the other side, didn't find it.
The fs loves to spend super fund money no need for a valid project lol
We did our first try to this spot from the Diggings as well. It was a disaster - did 3 different attempts, just too steep. There is supposed to be a trail down as well, but we never found it. It's too steep. Also, every 10 yards or so there was bear poo and it freaked us out!
Since I haven't done any dredging in the past 15 years I wasn't aware that California had changed the rules, but it doesn't surprise me. With a quick google search I found the new rules, under the guise of "water purity" and again wasn't surprised to find how poorly worded they are to make it difficult to impossible to figure what they actually mean. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to find out that large corporations like Nestles (who want to own all water in this country) lobbied (greased palms) to get this through. All that equipment left behind makes me wonder what really happened to the minors. Were they "attacked" by Forestry Service / Bureau of Land Mismanagment. Were the minors imprisoned.. or killed? The only thing I've ever left behind at a dredge site was nice tailings gravel bars that fish love to lay eggs in. Don't ya just love living in a state run by liberal globalists?
Yeah, the mountains are full of abandoned dredging claims now... The rule is so broadly written that it has completely shut down dredging. Now, they are even working on limiting panning and the size of the shovel you can use. It is a back door way to ban mining, really. They can't come right out and ban mining because there would be an outcry, but they make it impossible to mine and it has the same effect. And don't even get me started on California's gun laws. Thanks for the subscription and the comments.
It's really strange that there is no evidence of a fire in the pit that was built and the pumps had no hoses hooked to them and the tent was still in the bag and all cooking dishes were clean and no evidence of any panning going on. No evidence when they were actually there.@@TVRExploring
@@russkubly5211 And folding chairs left folded on the ground. Like they planned to come back the next day.
Thanks for posting this. We actually own this claim down near the river since 2020, and just wanted to thank you for this video. We did extensive research in finding a claim near this creek, and while 99% around this creek is claimed, this little spot remained unclaimed since the last group abandoned it. According to BLM records, they abandoned the dredge claim in the late 90's I believe. We're also re-using most of the trash left behind for our own operation now. Dredging is no longer allowed, but we're going to rework some of the hills and dredge piles. For readers who are wondering why all the trash was left behind, it is extremely difficult or nearly impossible to carry anything backup. It's almost an hour walk back up a 1000ft incline. Any pound weighs and feels like 10 pounds. I just wonder how they got it all down. The other side of the hills is similarly challenging. According to Google Earth, the path down is marked as a 'bike and hike' map! hahaha. There is no access for atv since the path down is separated by a creek with large rocks.
Ohh. and by the way, we've been carrying small amounts of stuff out of there uphill, but like I mentioned, it's nearly impossible.
@@user-ug1sn2vh7s Wow, you're very fortunate because that is an absolutely phenomenal spot. And, yes, the climb out of there is not an easy one, to be sure!
The prior claim owners laid concrete over the rocks in the ravine, which we could see the remains of when we visited. I'm assuming it has all washed away now... That allowed them to take ATVs down there.
@@TVRExploring Did this walk with my son quite a few times, it never gets easier. I was wondering about the concrete as well and why it was there. Must have been a lot of concrete to cover up the boulder gaps. I had a similar idea to fill it with dirt to drive a 4-wheeler down. it's a big chore! Anyway, appreciate your comments. Thanks.
@@user-ug1sn2vh7s At one time, I believe there was a lot of concrete, but that wash seems to get some pretty big flows in the spring and it doesn't seem that much can hold up to those flows.
I wonder if it would be possible to float a raft with all those small engines and some of the cast cookware and conduit down stream and out of there, you know, to help clean up that area.
I suspect that you would run into trouble with areas with large boulders and rapids... That was an unusually smooth section of that creek.
I've been down in the canyon creek drainage several times looking for old trails and crossing points.
There were a fair number of them down there. There is supposedly a trail to Morristown that takes off from below this mine.
@@TVRExploring Ya its on the topo, my friend and I spent a hour or so as we where loosing light hiking below the diggens at Moorestown. We didn't find anything conclusive. Do you have a FB page?
some of the gas motors are pre 60's so maybe it has been limited if any used
at least 500 bucks worth of gear there.
Yeah, I was amazed they just left it all.
I would certainly like to drink or smoke whatever you do from time to time. :)
I swear, the U.S. Forest Service despises history. There was a major mine near my home town dating back to the 1800s and they demolished everything in the 1990s. A bunch of SOB's.
It is difficult to escape that conclusion about the Forest Service... I could give so many examples of things they have destroyed.
When Kalifornia shut down dredging Oregon received a major spike in dredging specifically Douglas Cty. hundreds of thousand's of dollars in permits and one year later Oregon effectively shuts down dredging in the name of Salmon spawning grounds, WTF they spawn in the mountain streams not the main rivers where most of the dredging has been especially around the S. Umpqua below Cow Creek I spoke with many dredge operators who asked me to help for 100.00 a day and 10% to freeze my ass off ALL day in a rushing river of ice melt..... no fun indeed. A hard days work for a few grams of placer and thirty dollars worth of gas in commute.
while I'm on my soapbox that piece of sh!t O Bummie stopped offshore Salmon fishing here in Oregon killing our economy in a one two punch after the housing crash of 07 that put me out of a home and lively hood and pumping gas to pay my vocational rehab. student loan. WTF, being an ant sounds good bout now.
I am a tree hugger myself, but I like to think that I'm a sensible one. For example, I think the dredging ban is nuts... Dredging takes the blobs of mercury, lead weights, etc. out of the rivers and the terrain features they create on the bottom of the river are loved by fish. There was a lot of dredging that took place in the local rivers when I was a kid and there were a lot more fish then too! I also hear people talking about banning all logging in our forests, which I think is even more nuts. Fires historically used to burn through our forests every 8-12 years and would clean out all of the brush and slash. Well, now that we extinguish every fire, the forests are terribly unhealthy - totally overgrown. If you walk through a modern, overgrown forest, the ground levels are practically sterile. There is no vegetation on the ground because it is always in shade. There is just a thick carpet of slash and pine needles. There is nothing to support much more than insect life there... Logging is not a perfect replication of fire, but it does a hell of a lot to keep the forests thinned out. Well, I think you get the idea where I'm coming from. Ha, yeah, being an ant definitely sounds appealing at times. You sure avoid a lot of headaches!
+TVR Exploring only gripe I have is if you stop cutting trees, building material prices skyrocket thousands of loggers are on unemployment, taxes increase to feed drained coffers, food prices go up, gas becomes 5.00 a gallon, everyone loses. Douglas Cty. is timber capital of the World, this place becomes a ghost town. the wood has to come from somewhere, most comes from lumber planted in blocks fifty to sixty years ago on private and BLM property. Its a very sustainable operation. ty for your reply.
I'm wondering if you or any of your guys have ever had any Bigfoot/Sasquatch encounters during your explorations ?
Not that we know of...
They got company at 1.24 Left edge!
damn i would be down there with a truck loading that shit up to use that hose looks like its in great shape
It is a shame to see all of that stuff going to waste, but even at its best, there was just an ATV trail going down there.
I would love to have known what that old truck was they pushed over the bank. Shows a lack of concern for the environment though, once up side down,that big crankcase and sump would have lost all it's oil .
I believe it was a portable air compressor. And, yes, it was totally irresponsible on a number of levels for the Forest Service to simply push it over the cliff...
@@TVRExploring Yeah, but it no longer had tires, and would be really expensive to haul out.
How do you know that the Forest Service is destroying these places?
It wasn't that they left the stuff there, they were kicked out and weren't allowed back to get it!
👍
I Ran across Larger Ponderosa Pines’ than that one -way Down in the Yolla Bolly’ wilderness 18 years ago. They’re likely gone now!!! The massive arsonist fires of 2018,19,20 have hit California hard! Sadly Much of the Feather River and other Wilderness areas I enjoyed are wiped out from meth labs, fires etc. creeks used to be full of wild trout 35+ years ago
So many areas have changed for the worse in the past decades...
TVR Exploring -yes my friend. So true! Great work on your Videos 👍
@@ACOUSTIC_4LOVE Thank you.
Make sure the brace and set up a head frame... looks a little flaky at the entrance...
That's good advice. The collar of the shaft does seem a bit dodgy...
They should be made to clean up their mess.
They should have to clean that shit up. The people who were mining at the end.bull shit
When you see the government doing stupid projects like that gate on the mine it makes you want to rip it down. That tractor looked very interesting, maybe even savable.
Maybe someone died or somthing. Thats way too much stuff to abandon. That was a whole dredge.
0.08 Phrasing.
lets hope forestry service pursues the folks to clean up all that abandoned dredging site
I wouldn't count on it...
@@TVRExploring Lawyers can bun up a lot of money really quick. Sometimes you have to cut your losses.
Man I spent my whole life working for the government and losing a lot of bodyparts in the process, they do some stupid shit to protect the sheeple...Back before 9/11 I was working in Alaska up north of Fairbanks, there is a place there where they where dredging for gold, back in the early 1900s, they had a huge barge but ran out of water, those bad asses dug a ditch about 17 miles to drain another lake to float the barge again. I rode my bike down the trail and could find camp sites about every 3 miles they ate a lot of beans. its called the Davidson ditch if memory serves...
Working for the government in your capacity is often a thankless job, I'm afraid (as you well know)... The effort that would have been required to construct that ditch is incredible, but those old timers sure were tough.
11:00 Looks like they left in a hurry.
Well, dredging was banned in California fairly abruptly. So, these guys may have left for the season before the ban (fully expecting to return) and then just never bothered when the ban was announced. Or maybe they just didn't feel like hauling all of that equipment out of there.
Funny how people will clean out abandoned places but all that stuff is sitting untouched?
Ha, you're right about that!
It would indeed be way better mining there then stuck behind a desk...... !!!
Gold mining equals freedom
You're right about that!
Freedom to fail, lol. Depending on a lot of factors.
Best intro ever! You should mail me that pickaxe that was laying there
Haha, glad you enjoyed it. That was completely spur of the moment.
There's all that crap by the creek because... Who wants to carry it out of there?
One can climb cliffs and mountains go in caves and underwater caves but an abandoned mine ? NO !!
cute onec on the "ANT MINE" STILL ACTIVE, NOT AFFECTED THE NATIONS ECONOMY, SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS DOING WELL...... OK I'M PUSH IT.
First pics look like ant hills
Nah... It must have been the bad light when I was filming.
@@TVRExploring I'm just saying ..
so to be clear the forest dis-service bulldozed historical vehicles that are maybe 100 yrs old but left intact a camp full of modern plastics and trash. I'd facepalm but these past 3 yrs caused me to run out.
maybe the sasquactch got them
Holy shit is that an ore car wheel next to the fire ring at 11:01?!!
Man, you've got good eyes... Yes, that does look like an ore cart wheel. I wonder if they pulled that out of the creek since that was a dredging claim or if that came from the Bella Union or Bon Ton?
TVR Exploring it actually most likely came from the West coast.
The upper one - definitely not the lower one... Imagine rolling one of these wheels off of the top of the ridge! It would probably go all of the way down to the bottom there once it built up sufficient momentum. Remember that huge boulder you sent down to Canyon Creek?
I would love to take that machine
You mean what's left of it after the Forest Service pitched it off of the side of the cliff?
Why does the forest service do this shit?
Seems like the NFS would do better to remove all that trash than to waste time with a shallow dig.
Yes, I would agree with you on that.
What is this? A mine for ants?
Yes, they're great workers. No unions, no workers' comp insurance payments, they don't complain...
OMG who else thinks the inside of that stump needs reviewed ?
Doesn't make sense!! It's like they were abducted and hauled away.and left everything behind...
Why??? They had vehicles and pumps and generators.. they were dredging the creek with wet suits.
You just dont leave that stuff behind...
A lot of the miners with these dredging claims would leave their gear secured at these sites over the winter since it is hard to move the gear in and out. When the dredging ban went into place in California, a lot of them seemed like they just never bothered returning for the next mining season. We've come across a good number of these dredging claims that still have all of the (often expensive) gear scattered about.
We found 3 full dredges on this old claim (also across this creek). All covered with Tarp, but wasted away.
@@TVRExploring Oh Ok.!! Now that fits together perfectly. Yes I understand now.
Thanks,✌️😎
my guess is bat habitat
Yes, but the bats would be perfectly happy to have used that little pocket without the gate over it as well. In other words, it wasn't necessary to push all of the equipment off of the cliff, to spend a fortune bulldozing that large (and destructive) trail down to the lower adit and to then put that gate over a tiny pocket in a rock that no one ever visited anyway...
@@TVRExploring Like they say, "good enough for Government work...".
🤣
You make me want to quit my great job and become a miner... Which is not a good thing lol. awesome videos as always but please be more careful... we want more videos not you dead from the worst causes.
A ton of trash left behind. sad.
Yes, the plastic in particular really bothers me...
Yeah only dumb dumbs still mine that way, we have much better ways now.
those ants are mining for bitcoins
Probably an illegal pot farm
why does people come and take all the gold then leave so much trash behind,peoples should have some respect and clean up after themselves
I was surprised by how much was left behind at this one...
Never, Ever, try to understand government spending, or lack thereof; or justification for.....
How sadly accurate...