Another Cool trip we did was go explore some old mines in Death Valley. This was sort of two trips in one, my first and last.
There is something about exploring a ink black shaft for over 10 hours in 80 degree heat that is exciting and beyond exhausting at the same time.
I had a 100oz camelback bladder, two 32oz nalgene bottles and a couple of little store bought water bottles I brought as back up and drank every bit of them and thought I was going to have to drink my own pee I was soo thirsty. Problem was, in the 10 hours we were underground, I never pee'd once. It all came out in sweat.
I know the guys we were with, CAMCE Mine Exolorers, said we went to some of the deepest parts of the shafts and they made sure to tell me that if I never go in another mine again, I'll be fine. These guys have been exploring abandoned mines for years and they all agreed this mine,
The Columbia, was the best one they've ever been in.
This is a picture of me (Taken by my buddy Mike Schriber) starting the 300' rappel into the mine. I'm not as cool as the other guys and have all the right mine exploring equipment, so I'm just wearing my mountain bike helmet and Petzel headlamp
In some of the shafts there are cases of old oil cans scattered around the floor. I'd love to have a few because of how good of condition they were in, but you're not supposed to take anything for historic value
In some sections the shafts would collaspe onto one another and we'd have to inch our way across the narrow gauge track that was left in the shaft. Since I was the photographer, I always got to go last:wings:
Deep into the mine, we found this second Headframe that was in near perfect condition. Think how awesome it would be to salvage some of this hard wood timber to recycle and build a house from.
Notice all the cool things scattered around the ground.
You have to remember this was my first time ever doing this, so all of it was really cool to me. But I guess mine carts with wheels is something you never see. We saw dozens of old mine carts, but none had the wheels on them? Dont know what is so collectable with the wheels, but when we found a cart that had wheels on it, these guys went bezerk.
We probably spent an hour riding this cart up and down this one section that would bring us in a loop back to the Main Frame in the last picture. I thought it was funny that you have 4 grown men, one who is an Attorney in LA, one who is a Firefighter, one who is a computer programmer and me, a fulltime Glamper; and we're having the time of our lives riding narrow gauge mine carts 800' below the surface of Death Valley
One of the guys had a Point & Shoot camera and there is a video of us riding it down the shafts. It's really sweet.
One thing you cant be is afraid of narrow or confined places. This is one of the guys squeezing through an opening we had to climb down into that opened up to a whole nother level.
One thing they forget to tell you at the beginning of the day when you're easily rappelling down the two 300' shafts.....is that you have to climb your way back up the shafts to get out.
I've never been so exhausted and over heated in my life. Two seperate climbs of 300' each while clinging to old wooden ladders nailed to the narrow shaft. You're clipped into the rope incase you fall, but still, you're holding on for dear life and by the time I reached the top of the first shaft, I thought there was no way I'd be able to do the second one.
This was the last picture of the day. The 4 of us back at the top before we walked out into 100degree Death Valley Heat.
Another reason why a full Glamping Rig comes in so handy is most of these guys were camping in tents and had to go to bed without showers after this exhausting day. I think I sat on the floor of our shower with ice cold water running on me for about 5 minutes and that's a long shower while camping.
eepwall:
