An Underground Adventure in the Hidden Treasure Mine
An Underground Adventure in the Hidden Treasure Mine
Hidden treasures? This abandoned mine certainly had its fair share of them that Justin and I found while exploring and documenting it. The Hidden Treasure Mine was first dug in the early 1900s and was mined for gold, silver, and silica. According to old mining reports, it was last worked in the 1970s but might’ve been worked later than that. Several vertical shafts are onsite that intersect with more modern, downward-sloping tunnels. We entered one of the large, modern portals that continually sloped down into the mine’s depths. Along the way we found ore chutes, looked into gaping stopes, examined an empty bag of blasting agent, peered over the edge of a 975-foot vertical shaft, climbed over collapses, discovered a large ventilation fan, and much more. It was quite an adventure and exploration! I hope you enjoy the video!
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Justin’s superb YouTube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPkhh9gS5c4-4ycC1Bkz2Cw. Be sure to stop by his channel titled “Southern New Mexico Explorer” and check out his fantastic, abandoned mine videos from the last few years. And why not take a couple seconds and subscribe to Justin’s A+ channel while you’re there so you can support his work. He’s almost at 1000 subscribers, so let’s all get together and put him over the top! I’d appreciate that and so would he. Thank you very much for supporting a fellow abandoned mine explorer!
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Ever think about getting a gopro on a rope to wind down into some 900 foot shafts? Love the videos, strong work!
Great Vid keep up the work. 😁😁👍👍👍👍Btw how did you start your hobby?
Enough awesome Explore bro , those support bracing ( bacon strips) look very intresting and i bet they were heavy to bolt into the walls cause just by the size of them.
God damn Frank thank u for the great video
Great video as usual Frank..you need to get Paul out of retirement so he can climb down those winze’s like he did in past videos…LOL
those old mines terrify me unless someone is outside with a communication device
Hey Frank, do you think the ”bacon strips” were stronger than wood timbering? Thanks.
2:17 those aren’t jeans right? If so then that’s a pretty penny laying there.
I’m so lost. Need a virtual map so I can get out.
You keep calling them rock bolts the correct term is roof bolts and the ones in the wall of the mine is called rib bolts (14 years of coal mine experience)
Excellent exploration Frank, the number of Bacon Strips needed in this mine is cringe worthy, I never realized how long the bolts are. Hope all is well, stay safe and thanks for sharing.
LoL Bacon strips! I’ve seen ’em before but was unaware of their title. Sketchy but fascinating mine. Thx for the explore!
I gotta wonder what valuable minerals they discovered that would compel them to make a nearly 1000 foot vertical shaft downwards, as was found. Imagine the effort that would take. I really can’t.
Great video as always!
🤣🤣🤣🤣 Bacon strips!!! I love it!!!
An impressive mine, a lot of artefacts which were of interest. The tank looked quite old as it appears to be rivetted construction. What is the best form of stabilization, would it be the ‘bacon strips’ or the wooden bracing or would it depend on the environment which they found themselves in? Many thanks for a terrific video.
Wow really looked like an interesting mine 😀
Very big tank . Really old also
this adventure is amazing
Another awesome video documentary! If gold and silver were mined there when will it be profitable to reopen the mine? If ever? You know that there are mines like the Bingham Canyon Complex in Utah that don’t see closing anytime soon. Just asking as to how long before they rip that 200 or so feet off the mountain and processing it for ore?
I’ve been looking forward to this one! I wish I could have gone down with y’all but I needed to be up at 4:30 for work the next morning.
Being in the Electrical Mechanical Trade, I would love to put some power⚡on that old ventilation fan and see if it would run. The water table must be low in that mine with that deep shaft although they may have had pumps down there once. Is that mine on a hill maybe? Great video👌. I’m viewing all your older one’s👍.
This was a cool mine. It was quite tall, and the strappings were an interesting feature. Sure do enjoy finding doors inside the mines! Can’t wait for the next one. Nice video, Frank!
Why would they install a door? In any mine?
Almost cave like. With the size of the tunnels, the waste rock outside must be mountainous.
mmmmmm….. b a c o n… mn mnnm nnm mnm
The stope at 5:35 intimidated me since my lighting is not as good as yours and it was hard to see exactly what I’d come across! It goes down to at least the Shamrock 200S level if not further. Since the 100 level shaft station didn’t have an ore pocket, I think that opening on the 100 level was an ore pass done as a drop raise from the 200. Come to think of it, I think it actually goes down to the 300 level – I recall a conversation with the old superintendent to that effect. If I remember correctly, a 90-degree double slusher arrangement was used to load the skip. A similar arrangement was used a couple years ago in another mine nearby.
Note that the stope before that ore pass was done "blind", with no upper access sublevel, which requires loading powder from the lower drill drift against gravity. That whole longhole stope deal was borderline experimental technology at the time. They brought in a crew from Boart Longyear to do the drilling with what I believe was a BCI-2 pneumatic buggy drill. Boart Longyear sells a product-improved BCI-2 as the Stopemate, it’ll set you back a cool quarter million which is actually cheap for new narrow-vein equipment! Powder loading was done with a high-pressure pneumatic prill loader versus a cartridge loader – definitely had to cut down on costs since grades there aren’t that good (~10opt Ag, minimal Au). I’ve seen references to an ANFO prill product that incorporated styrofoam to get it to stick in upholes – that could have been used here. Funny thing is that they got it all done with old-school pneumatic equipment. I’ve heard that an LHD was used on the 600 level, it was reportedly disassembled and caged back topside after the mine shut down. I have no clue what model it was – there’s been an ST-2D running around this district for a while and there was a larger Elmac machine show up at one point too. All I know is that it wasn’t a 911.
Lastly – at least one Young Buggy was run in the decline-accessed workings there. I know a guy who ran one at this mine right out of high school. There’s a photo of one next to an ore pass with a grizzly but I’ve never found that spot, unless it was the 100 level ore pass and the grizzly isn’t there anymore.
0:39 I kinda wish we have that in minecraft. Cause we have a mineshaft in minecraft but the kind mineshaft isn’t what you expect in real life.
975 feet of ear popping fun, be sure to take your O2 meters
You have a amazing channel! I just have a little suggestion, it’s more like a favor 🙂 Can you activate the automatic subtitles? English is not my native language so it is very hard to follow your voice, but with subtitles it is a lot easier to me understand you. You have very interesting content! 🙂
I am wonderiing all the colapses we see in this video, and also in many of the other abandoned mines you have been in. Don’t you think many of the colapses has happed when there have been some kind of an earthquake in the area ?
Interestingly while ‘winze’ is a word I have heard English miners use once or twice, the feature you describe as a winze would be more commonly called a ‘blind shaft’ here. That is a vertical passage between man levels that doesn’t have an outlet to above ground so cannot ‘see’ daylight. The moment such a ‘winze’ does break through to the surface it is no longer blind and becomes a standard mine-shaft.
In my area there are also the relative terms ‘rise’ and ‘sump’. Any shaft from where you are currently stood that goes up is a rise and any that goes down is a sump–although the latter you might expect to be purely a term for a shaft filled with water, but it isn’t. Obviously if a miner is stood next to the same shaft but on a higher level then your ‘rise’ would be his ‘sump’… Rather confusing but somehow the lead miners still understood one another!!!
keep safe , its looks nice view but inside is look scary , any way new friend here sending full support hope to see u around.
What A Fantastic Video All The Best Frank And Your Friend As Well.
Interesting explore of this giant mine Frank and Justin. You wonder what damage a small earthquake could do to this already unstable mine. Thanks for posting the link to Justin’s channel.
I don’t think I could make it down/up 1000 foot ladder.
I went down like a 100-200 ft ladder in a shaft and that was one of the most intense experiences of my life.
Great interesting discovery Sir. no wood but strips?why
What a cool explore! Did you find any gold? Also, I’ve always wondered if anyone has ever commented that has worked in any of these mines you have explored?
Air tank with rivets, dates the tank to around 1930s. It probably had been used and moved and reused many times over in that mine
have you ever ran into a mask wearing serial killer (jason vhoores / leatherface / mike myres) in any of these mines ??? as its the perfect place to kill someone without getting caught because its so isolated…………………..
Minecraft can be realistic sometimes but Not really. I wish that someone would just reconstruction the mineshaft in the game to look more realistic.
Hey, Justin and I have the same gloves (Mechanix)! Haha
balzy as heck. In my native Utah growing up sometime my boy scout troop would break into an abandoned uranium mine.
great vid frank , i love that steel bacon holding the roof up. looks so cool .
This is awesome. Would love to explore this myself!
👍😊 got a ride in an ore bucket down a 900 foot shaft in WA. The shaft was about 1 meter square. This mine reminded me of that one. Thanks.
Almost at 369k subs
Amazing exploration, you do an amazing job at documenting these mines. Please stay safe!
well that’s sketchy as all hell…
That’s one of the bigger intact tanks I’ve seen that deep in a mine, Frank.