Old mines, ghost towns, etc......

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Daniel Etter

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These are incredible photos! There are a ton of abandoned towns and mines here in SD and this thread is making me plan future excursions already lol
 

Vyscera

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Hey Nor Cal mining junkies! In doing research into my family history here in Oregon I came across one black sheep that headed south to seek his fortune. I found a reference to a La Follette claim and found the coordinates. Anybody poked around in this area? 39°09'53.6"N 120°33'29.7"W I'll continue to run it down and see if it is related to this lost relation. I'm pretty sure he ended up in LA in his later years and is buried there. He would have gone south sometime after 1871... Seems gold was in the blood of the clan in those early years. Great-great-great grandpa Jerome Bonaparte La Follette had a claim he sold in 1870 near Sweet Home, OR for $2000 in gold coin according to the Albany newspaper....

Fun stuff digging into the past. May be interested in hooking up and exploring next spring if anyone is game. Cheers!
that's a beautiful area. The trails seem to go on forever in the Sierras.
 

Bergi85

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9Mike2

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Just a word of warning, dead air in the mines can be really dangerous.. I you are going in these dead spaces I would invest in an air sniffer . I would hate to hear something to one of people here .....
 
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Veggie Man

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This would make for some great designations for overlanding/road trips. Do you have any that you'd recommend? Maybe some that are in the Colorado or Utah area?
 

XL.Overland

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@Maxterra what are you doing to get your pictures to look like that? Is that some kind of filter you're using, photoshop, or ?


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Egan

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I was planning a trip to The Stanislaus National Forest a couple of weeks ago and on the Forest Service map I saw "Fahey Cabin". My Route was going right passed it so I stopped by. It was built in the 1870's by a failed gold miner that started raising cattle.20170604_125825.jpg 20170604_125638.jpg 20170604_125545.jpg Fahey 1.jpg Fahey 2.jpg
 

Randy P

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Please be careful in old mine shafts. I have pulled more then a couple bodies out of mines in the Superstition Mountains. Bad air will kill you before you even realize that you are in any danger. We are not allowed to step an inch into a cave or mine with out SCBAs running.


Have fun but please be safe.
What is "bad air" and how does it happen?

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Ron Clark

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Bad air is just slang.
Old Mines have a tendency of harboring toxic gas that leaks into the mine and collects over time. Sometimes you can smell it, but most of the time you can not. Pretty much all land will have some gas seepage. This is normally of no concern since even the smallest breeze will send it on its merry way. Mines do not generally have air flow. No airflow means that the gas is not blown away. And with many of these gasses being heavier then O2 they push fresh air out.

The same thing happens to cave divers. There is a video (Go Pro style) of a diver coming up into a air pocket and spitting out his regulator. He takes one breath, passes out and dies from drowning. It all takes less then three seconds.