This was a happy little accidental surprise that BigMel and I stumbled upon while we were out shooting and just dicking around. Not a ton of exciting stuff, or much to write about so I figured it would be a good place to start the adventuring series. So let's talk about this happy little surprise.
What is that
Generally, when I go out to explore, I have a destination in mind. After narrowing down an area I usually know what to expect or what I will find. This was not one of those situations. This was a day off where BigMel and I just went out to drive around and do a bit of shooting. This turned into a case of "Well let's see what is at the top of this road". Well, turns out, there was something cool. Once we got to the top of a shit powerline road, I saw something obviously manmade on a hill a couple miles away. BigMel needs to go to the eye doctor, so she did not see it immediately. Also, when we first saw this it was in January, (the above picture was from our second trip in June) so there was snow which made it slightly harder for the average human to make out what I knew was a mining shack of some sort. After getting a basic idea on how to get there using my ElkoCountyStrong navigation skills, we set off to go check it out.
Once again I will reiterate that I am five quarters retarded. So what I thought was the road that would lead to the shack, turned out to be a wash. It might have been a road 50 years ago, but in 2022 it turned out to be bullshit resulting in me having to execute an attempted 87 point turn before saying fuckit and driving through some brush.
Once we got up to peak above the shack, we got out of the truck and started checking out debris and waste items. Found a pretty cool old dry cell battery, or what was left of one.
Once we got up to peak above the shack, we got out of the truck and started checking out debris and waste items. Found a pretty cool old dry cell battery, or what was left of one.
Heading down to the shack there was a bit of waste rock, some shallow pits, and a pretty cool view of the valley that the shack overlooked.
Coming down to the shack itself, it was in major disrepair due to time taking its toll on the structure. This was obviously the living quarters for the mine next to it. Still in this condition it would be at least a half million dollar house in Reno.
Below the shack there were two exposed adits. One the fun nazis from the state fenced off, but the other was open. At this time we went in the exposed adit. This adit only went about 50 feet, with stopes going up and timber shoring up the adit.
The second adit that the state fun nazis fenced off went down at a 45 degree angle, and had wooden tracks going downward. However, BigMel had reached her limits of "Going into sketchy mineshafts" for the day, and said that we could come back to it when I got a 4 gas monitor.
Needless to say, when we got back to town, I ordered a 4 gas monitor. However, we did not come back until the end of June. By this time it was easier to get to since I did not have to bust through snow drifts and mud. Someone in the time between visits also stole the states "Danger unsafe mine" sign and had taken down the fence. We went in the adit and found it only went down approximately 150 feet. About 100 feet down there was a drift that went about 10 feet to the left, and roughly 50 feet to the right. There were stopes following the tungsten vein with timber shoring it up similar to the open adit. Weirdly I found the remnants of two straw brooms, something I have not found in a mine before.
Not that exciting of a place, but it was still a cool little accidental adventure.
Doing research later on, I found that it was a tungsten mine that was last active in the 30's. Judging by the small waste rock piles and small adits, obviously it was not that successful. Still, cool little adventure.
EZ
Doing research later on, I found that it was a tungsten mine that was last active in the 30's. Judging by the small waste rock piles and small adits, obviously it was not that successful. Still, cool little adventure.
EZ
