 And while we're getting close, you can see up ahead there is part of the mine, or mill, or something. So we'll be there in a minute. So we again have ditched the Jeep, and we're on foot. Heading up ahead there, check out the mine. Looks exciting! Here we are at the mill. This was an operation when? From 1916 until 1930s. And I believe it worked on and off after that also. This was a Sheelite mine. Sheelite is one of the main ores that Tungsten is made from. And water is always a problem in this area. You can see three big water tanks up there. Well, one big one, two, three little ones. And at one time, they got water from this drainage down below me here. They had a pipe coming up. And at another time, later on, they had a nine mile pipeline that ran from Pilate Peak. There was a spring up there, I forget the name of the spring. But they ran a pipeline from the spring to this mill. There are some cabins over here too. I'm assuming it was a mining camp, as well as the mill. And this was a 75 ton mill, which means they can crush 75 tons of ore per day. And then later on, I think this mill was decommissioned two or three different times. And at one point, there was a 30 ton mill, I think it was. Which might be that smaller structure on the right. You can see some other rock walls ahead of me. Versus the concrete walls over here of the big mill. So there were actually two mills here over the years. It's a little confusing to figure out, looking at the ruins of it. But that's what I understand the basics of this mill. This was in production during the Korean War for a bit too. So in the 1950s, this was brought back into production. When the need for tungsten for the military was greater. So let's go a little further up. Let's look at these cabins real quick and we'll head on up to the mine, hopefully. Here's one of the cabins. There's a lizard. Hi little buddy. Sorry to come into your cabin. It's in pretty good shape still. Looks like it's about 12 by 16. One rock has come through the wall there it looks like from down the hill, or up the hill. But not bad. It's in good shape. Look at that, it's still pretty straight. Whoever built them did a pretty good job. Let's go over here and look at the other one. So here's another cabin. Looks like it's in happily decent shape. We pasted it off and it's a 36 by 16 cabin. Look at the floor. Looks like a roofing material. It's got a nice view. Nice and roomy. And look at this old boot down here. Look at that, look at the soles. Let's get it in the light. That's hiked a few miles. Here's the third cabin. It's about a 16 by 24 roughly. Raptors are all still in good shape. Roof is all still there. The roofing is gone. The built right is off the walls. That's what they use for the inside. That stuff never lasts very long once it gets wet. Here's the door. It had windows. Three windows. The collapsed cabin. Couldn't take it any longer. No moss. Oh yeah. There's a lizard on the peak there. He's guarding the place. He's the boss. There's a little rock house across the wash there. A neat little wall. Doesn't appear to be a living quarter. There's no ventilation coming out of it or anything. So maybe it was explosives locker or bunker. We're coming up here to a huge waste pile. There are supposedly 25,000 feet of underground workings here. And this looks like more than just the orbit. Maybe this is another mill. It looks like I see a power pole across the way there. It could be an old tree though too, I'm not sure. But I did want to say that at one time, I'm sure they had generator to start with, but later on at one time there was a power line run from mine up to here. We're up here below this structure. And by some big piles here, it looks like there's a lot of quartz in this waste pile here. Look at the size of that pile, man. So it goes from gray to a lighter quartz mixed rock and onward to this tan material. There's a big lever of some sort. Probably a chute gate of some sort. This looks like it's just an elaborate double orb in. That would have come out of the chute. Probably a couple chutes, one for the waste and then one to fill up a truck right here for the valuable ore. And I believe the mill or the concentrator was the one we first saw down below. They do that so they can reduce the shipping costs, concentrate the valuable ore and don't haul as much waste out. There's one of the power lines. I'm not sure which year they ran power up here from mine. It wasn't right off the bat. Probably in the 30s. Still working our way up, Canyon, trying to get to the head of this waste pile. That's looking back at part of it. You can't see the bulk of it. This is just the darker stuff. Here's a very interesting looking header over this portal. It looks like a fairly wide seam was right here. Four feet wide. I like tungsten mines. They always seem to be solid. At least the ones we've been in. Looks like one of the miners was doing a self-portrait there. Plugging away nice and cool in here. The header is in great shape. Just a very small alcove. Here's a junction. Mainline goes straight ahead. This is a left here. It's blocked off. This is an actual movable switch. That would send you straight, and that would send you left. Very simple yet effective. A little battery, it looks like. Still cruising along here. Track ends. That's two things we can take a look at on the way back. One left and one right. Here's a pretty big chute heavily timbered. Also a little workbench over here. Not sure if there are upper levels here. That's some heavy duty timbering. About a four foot wide chute. And there's some more miners graffiti. A couple of faces it looks like. Something from 37 maybe. An old shovel that died. There's something up there. Must be upper level or stoves or something. Here's kind of a big split. Looks like a major intersection. Let's go that way. The right? That tank or whatever is it there. Check it out. That's just part of a barrel. An old riveted. Riveted though. There's a room back there. Let's go up here and see if we can get into that room from that way. Still nice breeze coming through here. I'm sure the air is pretty good. I want to see if this goes back around into this room. There's another big chute here. Another big one there. Let's follow this around. There was some kind of room back here. I'm not sure what it was. Another huge chute. Here's this room. There's a ladder. Huge chute here. And a ladder going up too. Oh boy. Think of the fun. Here's some bottles of booze. Look at all this stuff over here. No cup and hanging can. A few batteries and other stuff. Campbell's soup. A little hot plate for heating up their soup. And there's a gallon jug. No smoking. Let's look down the ladder. See how it looks. Look down there. This is a skip track. Oh yeah. We're almost at the top of it. Tom's going to check this out up here. Just a short ladder. Just a short ladder. I thought it would fall over. Oh it's here. I thought it would go up to the hoist. It doesn't. Come back down. We came from that way. Let's go this way. Another big chute. Small cross cut over there. Here's a big stove. We were just right over there at that room. We were just right over that way. And about a 40 foot tall stove. And here's a smart cost cut. Another couple of chutes. Just to collect stuff that's dropped out of the stove. And we collected in this bin type structure. Come out the chute. Load up the orca right here. Big stove up here. Couple more chutes. Pretty neat stuff. Heavy duty. Timbers. One inch and a half. Little claps here. Here's another ladder going down. I see two sets of ladders. And then a platform. Maybe down a little lower. Another platform. See what happens on this level. We go down. Here's another room of sorts. There's a... several timbers in the middle here holding up the back. And a double shaft. Not terribly deep. Maybe... Maybe the back. Maybe 30 feet. Let's go over here. There's a coffee can. Sugar peas and string beans. Another label from Spinach. Del Monte Spinach. Miners had to eat. They can't run down to the local fast food joint. So this was another skip track. Now there's another bat. I like to leave the bats alone. I like to bother them. One slapped me right in the face yesterday. I was looking down. And he was hanging on the ceiling apparently. Or the back of the mine. Took off right when I went by and slapped me. Like that. Like that one. Kinda like that. That's all jammed up. Big mine. Huge. Yeah, a few bats. It's okay. Bats gotta have a place to live. That's the end. Oh, that's where the bats are. So that's the end of this. That's the end of this kind of the main college level it looks like. Here it looks like some samples were taken. See anything? Can you pick up one of these guys? Tungsten blue. Can you take your light off it? These must be just sample drillings, right? They're pretty small though. From what I'm used to see. That says one-off sign on there. In this little block. Oh, there's a bunch of little blocks. Yeah, a whole bunch. 162.5. Okay, we're back to this spot. So the air was a little deader back there until we just crossed that bridge. There's no air flow again. So apparently it's either going up or down that ore drop. Oh, mine. These dodging bats. Okay, Tom's gonna head down the ladder here. Maybe it's just sitting here. Yeah, it is just sitting there. It should be a little steeper. I'll make it a little less steep, I should say. I'll make it a little less steep for you. Okay, there's the other side over there. Doesn't look great, but we'll see. It comes, Julie. This one's got a couple busted runs. One up there and one here. I think we can do it. There she is. Next, that run is broken. That run's broken, so stay on there. Switch feet up there. Yep. Yep. Okay, it looks like we're almost down to another level. We're down probably. How many ladders, Julie? Eight? Ten? I'm pretty sure we got a level. All right, we're down the ladders to the next level. But just, uh, the, uh, skip track keeps going. Uh, yeah, as far as I can see. But for now, it looks like something goes that way. Oh, there's an old wooden barrel. I always like to see those. And let's go this way. See what this says here. And I'll be right there. And I'll be right there. That looks like a ore chute of some sort. Now, here's, here's one of the mine was in, in, uh, operation during the Korean War. Fifty-five buck. Twelve something. Fifty-five. Let's take this right here first. Right-hand rule. This level probably doesn't get as many visitors as the top one. That goes all the way up. A lot of rotten stuff here. This must have had some water at some point. Nothing to it. There was track in here. Not any more big chute. That's probably that left that we skipped. There's a big chute. Natural round timbers. Not milled. Maybe spun on a lay. Maybe debarker. So they don't rot as quickly. A little left. There's the tungsten blue. The sea light. Double chute. Piece of water pipe. Small cross cut to the right. More tungsten blue. Color. An anchor sticking out of the ground for something. Okay, let's go this way. There's some fuse cord. And is that part of a stick of dynamite? I can't read it. Love Julie Handler. Oh, she's turning around. This is the face. What's the paper say? Is it a rubber or what is it? It's paper. There's a beautiful example of the older drill steels. They're square. Newer ones are not square. And the newer ones have the knockoff tips. Where you can just change the tip to quickly. This one's still sharp even. Nice piece of drill bit. Also here is a... It looks like it was a trouble light. It's kind of smashed. The bow protector. And this also looks like a bow protector for an overhead fixture. We're back to the ladders here. Julie's looking at some newspaper. Do you see a date on it? A real small print leads me to believe it's old because the old papers have a really small print like that. I don't know how you can even read it. Here's this little barrel. Love seeing the wood barrel. I don't know exactly what that is. Here's a nice Prince Albert can. Oh, look at the beautiful... Beautiful can. A little smashed. Parts of a dynamite box. A Prince Albert label. And look here, a lunch box. A little lunch for me today. Parts of the powder boxes. There's a giant... There's a Hercules. A lot of powder paper. That came wrapped in the paper. Let's see what's over this way. Please. The Philip Morris. Coffee Philip Morris. The USA. Wow. That's pretty old. Car by Insert Rock bits. And then the instructions on how to use it. That's cool. I've never seen a bit box. Speaking of bits, there's a more modern one, two, three, four, five, six sided bit. That's it. It's from Baker and Hamilton in San Francisco, California. Ship to commercial renal. What's the box then? Was it nails? Yeah, it was some nails. Seattle, Washington. It looks like something to do with electric. Okay, Julie's going across the bridge. Looks a little sketchy. Huh? A little wobbly. A little bit. There's a ladder going down there, except it ends. You wouldn't want to take that ladder because it ends after the first section and it goes down quite a ways after that. There's a grizzly. Hmm? Oh boy, does it ever. Air coming out of there. So that's a grizzly. That's a door drop. They would have brought stuff along here and dumped it through the bars there. Whatever doesn't drop gets whacked with a hammer or a drill. There's another drill bit. Now that one is dull and broken. That needs to be sent to the sharpener or the replacer. There's a mux sheet. Usually when you see the mux sheets, you're getting close to the working face. Another chute. Oh, look at the old pail. Yeah, that's an old water. Huh? Let's see the bottom of it as it rusted off. That's not even really rusted. Oh, it is a little bit. Yeah, the bottom's come off. But that is cool. Yeah. That's neat. I wondered where you were. Here you are. I'm taking a break. I found a chair. Yes, I did. Yeah, that's so good. Well, I'll go on without you then if you're going to sit there. Another chute. Surprise, surprise. As Gomer and Pile would say, surprise. There's a little can or something there. Probably doesn't have any writing on it. That's legible. The size of the drill bits, I think they were inch and a quarter were they bigger than that. That's a pretty good size level. Wow. That's looking up this above this big chute here. It's a pretty cool mine, isn't it? Oh, look at there. It must have been a... Or is that just hanging there? I thought maybe there was some kind of switch on this thing or something. That's just a piece of electrical faceplate that's just hanging there. People who have been in this mine have done a nice job of not taking everything out of it and kind of setting aside the artifacts so they can be viewed by others like us. Looks like we might be coming up to the end or a big collapse, one or the other. That's a big collapse. That's where this has gotten wet. There was a water in here at some point and this looks like it would have gone further because of the way these pipes are in here. But either all this wood has gotten wet and collapsed because you can see it's all rotten. And so this was some sort of a shaft of some sort that was lined with timbers and it's collapsed and now it's plugged the at it because these pipes would have gone through. So this used to go through. Not anymore. Here we are back to the grizzly. We're walking our way back towards the main shaft, I guess it would be. The big skip rails and the ladders and the manways that we became down. That should be just ahead of us here. Back to the little barrel. That's not even a full piece of wood broken so don't put all your weight on there. Okay. We're going to go down another level, see if we can find another level.