High Desert Gold & Silver Mine

Описание: Gold and silver deposits were located at this site in the late 1800s and for several years there was a significant amount of mining activity to support the extraction of this gold and silver ore. At that time, there was a small town (now a ghost town), several mills and multiple small shafts and adits. In other words, it was a proper mining camp.

Following this initial boom, there have been periodic resumptions of activity that have been driven by the prices of precious metals or those keen on the idea of being mining barons. That is why we see the mix of equipment and techniques from different eras scattered through the mine and mill.

However, the other mills are now almost completely gone, all of the shafts are caved and what is left of the ghost town and other adits will be in a future video…

Interestingly (at least to me), the adit shown in this video was bone dry (which is why it was preserved so well). The reason that is interesting to me is that most of the other workings in the area (with one notable exception) were fairly damp and, as a result, were mostly caved and in horrible shape. I’m not used to seeing such differing moisture levels underground in a small area.

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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: https://bit.ly/2wqcBDD

As well as a small gear update here: https://bit.ly/2p6Jip6

You can see the full TVR Exploring playlist of abandoned mines here: https://goo.gl/TEKq9L

Several kind viewers have asked about donating to help cover some of the many expenses associated with exploring these abandoned mines. Inspired by their generosity, I set up a Patreon account. So, if anyone would care to chip in, I’m under TVR Exploring on Patreon.

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!

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