Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
We hiked down to this site expecting to find NOTHING… After more than a century of forest fires, erosion, and reclamation, most historic mines like this have been completely erased. Collapsed adits, burned structures, and nothing left to tell their story. This location felt no different—on paper, it was a long shot at best.
But against all expectations, this place delivered in a huge way.
What we found was an extensive underground operation carved into slate, with multiple open adits stacked along the canyon wall, intact workings, and unmistakable evidence of large-scale hard-rock gold mining to work the quartz vein here that ranged in size from just a few inches to almost twenty feet in width. The mine followed steeply dipping quartz veins, worked through a series of adits driven hundreds—sometimes thousands—of feet into the side of the canyon.
Inside, the adits were wide, cleanly cut, and remarkably well preserved. Stoped sections rose overhead, tracing the ore shoots upward toward the surface. This was not a small prospect—this was a serious industrial operation that once moved enormous volumes of rock.
In this first part of the series, we focus on the initial exploration: entering the main workings, examining the underground layout, and taking in just how much of this site has survived when so many others have vanished completely.
Part 2 will dive deeper into the scale of the operation that once ran here—along with more of the underground workings that made this place so special. In addition, we will also see some of the milling process.
We met up with Kenner Underground for the first time for this explore and give him a thumbs up. Check out his channel here:
youtube.com/@Kennerunderground
*****
You can view the full TVR Exploring playlist of abandoned mines here: goo.gl/TEKq9L
*****
Several kind viewers have asked about donating to help with the many costs of exploring these abandoned mines. Thanks to their generosity, I set up a Patreon account. If you’d like to contribute, you can find me under TVR Exploring on Patreon. Thanks for watching!
*****
Growing up in California’s Gold Rush Country made it easy to take all the history around us for granted. But abandoned mines face many threats—nature, vandals, scrappers, and government agencies. The prospectors and miners who once roamed these mountains and worked deep underground are fading into history as well.
That reality inspired us to start documenting as many ghost towns and abandoned mines as we can—before this colorful piece of our past is lost forever. I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!
We hiked down to this site expecting to find NOTHING… After more than a century of forest fires, erosion, and reclamation, most historic mines like this have been completely erased. Collapsed adits, burned structures, and nothing left to tell their story. This location felt no different—on paper, it was a long shot at best.
But against all expectations, this place delivered in a huge way.
What we found was an extensive underground operation carved into slate, with multiple open adits stacked along the canyon wall, intact workings, and unmistakable evidence of large-scale hard-rock gold mining to work the quartz vein here that ranged in size from just a few inches to almost twenty feet in width. The mine followed steeply dipping quartz veins, worked through a series of adits driven hundreds—sometimes thousands—of feet into the side of the canyon.
Inside, the adits were wide, cleanly cut, and remarkably well preserved. Stoped sections rose overhead, tracing the ore shoots upward toward the surface. This was not a small prospect—this was a serious industrial operation that once moved enormous volumes of rock.
In this first part of the series, we focus on the initial exploration: entering the main workings, examining the underground layout, and taking in just how much of this site has survived when so many others have vanished completely.
Part 2 will dive deeper into the scale of the operation that once ran here—along with more of the underground workings that made this place so special. In addition, we will also see some of the milling process.
We met up with Kenner Underground for the first time for this explore and give him a thumbs up. Check out his channel here:
youtube.com/@Kennerunderground
*****
You can view the full TVR Exploring playlist of abandoned mines here: goo.gl/TEKq9L
*****
Several kind viewers have asked about donating to help with the many costs of exploring these abandoned mines. Thanks to their generosity, I set up a Patreon account. If you’d like to contribute, you can find me under TVR Exploring on Patreon. Thanks for watching!
*****
Growing up in California’s Gold Rush Country made it easy to take all the history around us for granted. But abandoned mines face many threats—nature, vandals, scrappers, and government agencies. The prospectors and miners who once roamed these mountains and worked deep underground are fading into history as well.
That reality inspired us to start documenting as many ghost towns and abandoned mines as we can—before this colorful piece of our past is lost forever. I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!
