Mine Exploration

Share info and ask questions about great places to hike throughout the Death Valley and adjacent areas!

Mine Exploration

Postby dzrtdwg » Thu Oct 18, 2018 7:09 pm

Man rescued after two days in mine shaft
This is a pretty good example of why it's a good idea to be careful when exploring old mine sites!
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Re: Mine Exploration

Postby surfsteve » Fri Oct 19, 2018 6:25 am

Bring plenty of water and always take a friend with you. That way at least one of you will have something to eat while waiting to be rescued... :lol:
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Re: Mine Exploration

Postby mrgreen » Fri Oct 19, 2018 6:44 pm

Exploring the Abandoned Whorehouse and Tunnels at the Wayward Wench Mine
An abandoned brothel and an abandoned mine in one video. Lots of fun!
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Re: Mine Exploration

Postby ergot » Fri Oct 19, 2018 7:08 pm

Woman Died in Tungsten Peak Mine Near Ridgecrest in 2009
A woman by the name of Linda Marie Rose (age 30) fell 100 feet down a mine shaft she was exploring. The mine, known as the Tungsten Peak Mine, is located northwest of Inyokern and west of Highway 14 just south of the 395 junction.
The Indian Wells Mine Rescue Team was dispatched to the scene and worked with Kern County Fire crews to reach Linda Marie Rose, 30, of Ridgecrest, who was found dead from the fall by rescuers.

https://www.turnto23.com/news/woman-dies-after-falling-in-mine-shaft
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Re: Mine Exploration

Postby CrustyOldFart » Tue Oct 23, 2018 6:11 am

I haven't explored a mine in a few years, but there was a time I was visiting mines on a fairly regular basis and I've probably been in at least a few dozen differnt mines. I had my share of close calls, but I was always pretty careful. Extra flashlights was the main precaution I recall being especially persnickety about, but there was one time when a group of three of us were down to one dim bulb before we finally found our way back out of a particularly large mine we were exploring. Of course that was back when flashlights went through batteries a lot faster than is the case now. It seems to take forever for batteries to run out of juice nowadays!
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Re: LED Flashlights

Postby pdm » Tue Oct 23, 2018 8:43 am

Not only do batteries last longer in modern flashlights, but the flashlights themselves are smaller and brighter. I recall feeling nervous about only bringing along two flashlights for each person with an extra set of batteries for each flashlight when exploring mines just fifteen years ago. Now it almost seems unlikely that a flashlight will fail. I still bring along backups, but I haven't had a flashlight need a change of batteries for years while in a mine. It used to be that battery changes were the norm or at least that it happened pretty frequently. Nowadays a backup the size of an AAA battery is all you need and the main flashlight doesn't need to be much bigger. You can even get an LED headband light for less than ten dollars and it'll burn brightly for several trips with incredible reliability.
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Re: Mine Exploration

Postby recluse » Tue Oct 23, 2018 8:16 pm

Woman's body found in Mojave Desert mine shaft
The body of 71-year-old Sandra Jean McKinney of Red Mountain was found in an abandoned mine shaft near a tiny community in the Mojave Desert south of Ridgecrest according to a report posted April 24, 2014. The death was investigated as a possible homicide due to suspicious circumstances.
LINK: https://www.scpr.org/news/2014/04/24/43757/woman-s-body-found-in-mojave-desert-mine-shaft/
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Re: Mine Exploration

Postby JanuaryJones » Wed Oct 24, 2018 6:29 am

It's a miracle that more people don't get hurt or injured or killed in the mines around this area. There's so many of them and many are very unstable. People can fall down shafts, get bitten by rattlers, or who knows what and if they don't tell anyone where they're going there's no telling how long it would take to discover their dead bodies.
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Re: Mine Exploration

Postby MojaveMike » Thu Oct 25, 2018 6:17 am

Toxic waste around minesites is a bit of a hazard. That's why the mine in Death Valley was closed down for years. That and issues having to do with instability, but usually it's just a matter of caging the mine so that no one can enter in either case. I visited the Keane Wonder Mine several times before it was closed and I thought it was just fine without anything needing to be done, but then I'm not in charge of protecting the park service against lawsuits filed by opportunistic individuals either.
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Re: Mine Exploration

Postby CrustyOldFart » Fri Oct 26, 2018 6:14 am

MojaveMike: I'd hate to think how many times I was exposed to toxic waste when I was exploring mine tunnels back when I was actively doing that kind of thing. I suppose it's a wonder that I don't have some kind of ailment at this point in my life as a result, but apparently I'm lucky enough to only have pleasant memories of those outings. It makes me wonder whether or not people nowadays worry too much over insignificant things and fail to even acknowledge things that really matter.
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