Desert Surprises in Death Valley

so here we are again way out in the middle of nowhere at a uh dilapidated mining site we saw the ore bin way in the distance and i've come over to take a look you see here is an incline shaft but what i'm about to show you is also another reason why some of these more sensitive sites we won't give out the location because people decide it's really fun i don't know if you can make that out those are some old bed frames like miners era bed frames somebody thought it would be a good idea to throw them down there why i just don't know what goes through people's minds and we're fairly close to an old miners cabin so we're assuming that those two bed frames came from the miners cabin go figure there's where it remains have this little oar chute see the bottom is still lined with metal there some nice timbers still remaining so or would come down there for more processing this cool piece baker iron works from los angeles and the aura would continue down in this direction for a little more processing so this does look like it was a smaller operation and this unique guy right here in the shape of kind of like a shell almost i think this would have been for water a little collection pool not sure but that's my guess okay so it looks like the initial theory may be deemed correct as this is a natural spring so they must have tapped into it to feed down into that pool right in the heart of death valley would you believe it it's a beautiful sight to see pretty impressive lots of donkeys have come here and drunk [Music] wow oh hello there hello so it's a cave shelter that's pretty neat and then it looks like somebody has yeah they're stacking rocks to kind of make it into a little cabin that's pretty neat so i wonder if this was uh what the miners did because they used to do that didn't they maybe just to get out of the heat or get out of a storm or i guess maybe even to live get away from the guy they're working with for the day andrea found something quite spectacular in this boulder field oh quite unusual look at this it's a little heart-shaped was a soaking pool at one point looks like you can see the pipes at the bottom yeah too bad that wasn't filled with piping hot water right now that would be the perfect end to today has to a perfect day as the snow starts to fall another little mining camp yeah and we've stumbled upon looks like their tool shed they got so many bits and pieces there's a top of a tool tray a jack for a car some bottles pulleys a 60s can sprockets chains just all kinds of nickels in here another coors beer can motor oil on the top another car jack got hoses shovel yep oh and a jack leg for the mine so they would attach this would be up in the mine they could wedge it in jack it up to the top the back of the mine place the drill on here for you know stability yeah that's pretty neat to see you don't see a lot of those this is really cool yeah bags of cement this is nice poor little sheep it's a big horn isn't it it is oh it was i wonder how long it's been up here for [Music] okay [Music] so two more sure i guess we'll leave leave the big one till last yeah cause there might be more in there but this is a cool little again cabin if you're way out here i know it's kind of getting late for us it could save your life though absolutely and the park ranger that we just met said we must not disclose this location absolutely ah look at the little frying pan fry some eggs oh this is so cute so it will save your life if you got stranded up here yeah i see nothing to excess oh that's a squeaky dough yeah nothing too much just the pots and pans yep enough to get you through logbook to sign tools here to uh help restore the cabin or make any repairs big horn sheep antlers are they horns or atlas they're horns aren't they horns yeah big horn sheep having a bit of a blonde moment there books for reading they get you through the night the exorcist don't fancy that one yeah brooms things to clean up after yourself that's cool and then of course five gallons yeah god imagine the heat that thing puts off and uh they've even got wood and what i like about this is the chimney smokestack yeah isn't through the wood it's actually through metal yeah because a lot of them you see that they're through the wood in it i always think oh if someone lights a fire in it the whole thing's going to go up right oh wow nice right let's check out that long one because i'm getting a bit chilly okay it's a it's a bit stiff i think you might need to do that i mean it's locked but that's okay isn't it yeah won't blow open [Music] so this must have been the bunk house wow look at the stone fireplace oh yeah that is right now that would keep you warm and they put some work into that for sure oh it doesn't open it doesn't open oh i can't open it whirlpool i look at the stove oh look at the coffee pot oh wow oh clean now this cabinets with the sink is that looks just like the one at the other mining camp we've done oh really same kind of style oh yeah with the um well it was the same era yeah must have had a sail on them then over here cabinetry got some just some old coffee tins and such now so yeah definitely definitely the bunk house all right and the general captain water heater here next to the toilet and i look at used 20 gallon tank 15. i wonder how long ago that was yeah or if somebody just came up and wrote that recently okay wood floor yeah and it looks in bad shape i'll be careful [Music] [Music] [Music] okay we've got a mile and a half walk back to tonte so we need to just pick up our backpacks right and it's getting cold and i'm hungry and i'm tired so for the amount of time it took us to get up here we're a little bit disappointed with what's left over there are a few things like this truck there are two trucks here this is the first one not enough left for us to hazard a guess so we need one of the experts to tell us and then also what this other one is right here it's pretty color oh it was what's four wheel drive heavy duty that was such a chick thing isn't it pretty color yeah that's all right that there's a famoco is that the exhaust there brand you see they got wire wrapped around the rear rim here cool and then as you can see the rest of the camp there's that skeleton of a building and those two and that's it so that's why we're a bit bummed what yeah it's ten miles out in the middle of nowhere the road said it was a class three in actual fact it was a jeep road and we barely made it through only because of the width but um this used to be a tungsten mine in the early 40s peak was in early 1950s and it mined until 1971 or 72. and the view inside the steel skeleton the building up on the hill so that's the truck bed that they made a shelving unit pretty neat and that's ford so if this is the truck bed off the vehicle down there there's our clue if not must be more vehicles up here hello tonto cement pad like i said not much left no i was looking for a date but sometimes they have them carved into the cement but i can't see anything right and we did see a photograph which looks exactly the same as what it does now except for that structure in front of us was still standing but due to the ravages of time decided to give up the ghost and if this isn't a sight for sore eyes this is a pretty nice front porch area so they did take some time to make this look how homey i guess homie i guess they had electricity i guess that would have been in the later years or maybe even in the 40s right and uh screen door yeah unfortunately the glass has been broken yeah in all of the windows as you can see absolutely none of them have glass anymore so this would be looks kind of like a bit of like a mess hall it could be there's just like a little this is like a there's a coat thing at the side where they could hang up their grubbies oh i see their coats and then come in maybe this was the dining area water heater in here still plumbed up bathroom with a shower so they had running water somebody's plugged up the toilet there's your shower head still attached glass mirror and there's some there's some water yeah somebody's left water fresh water yeah we've actually checked the date it doesn't expire until 2023 so maybe earlier this year they put it up here huh interesting i don't know that's an old bottle that was found in the wash or whether or not someone stood up here and had a couple and the kitchen area and i would imagine this is too big just to be uh a single minus cabin which makes me think it's more like a bit of a mess hall that's just my thought i do like the look of the countertops the drawers the oven see if i could just clear coat that i like the the rusted up historic look there's an old spoon down there well i must admit there's no wrapper in here and i haven't seen any signs of um nests nope no oh that's pretty clean it is that's jack jump in just empty cupboards a little bit of rat poop nothing though now that's where a board would have come out wasn't it yeah the chopping board cool and then the last piece is the trailer and let's inspect what's left again looks pretty yeah it does look fairly pretty clean [Music] there's more uh rat droppings in here oh there is big time in the middle okay yeah don't won't risk stepping up into here and then there is one more door that's the lou and i would guess a bedroom i guess the uh the master suite so the roads at the time must have been pretty good to get this trailer up here yeah this is a decent sized trailer so in this exploratory mine here we found a makeshift cross and a small pile of rocks don't know if the two are connected just seems a bit ominous [Music] okay i know this is going to be a bit the sun's in the wrong spot for this but came up the mountain a little ways to this open stop you can see there's a few stalls remaining in there and then down this direction it just drops off there is however it might just be able to make it out you can see some light and see some of the rocks on the floor so we'll climb down a little ways see if we can find the source there we go there's a look down the ore chute which leads off to another one just beyond you can see those roads kind of mishmashing throughout here andrews on our way down to the road on this show that's a stoked-out area that's all collapsed in we were just at so we're going to work our way down to the road see if we can find the other opening at it there's a better side angle view that or pass you see there's some more tailings some other interesting things looks like a car out there in the wash definitely have to check that out too we followed this road around to the other side where i saw the source of light coming through i believe we may have found it see under here first side there's a little door in there and further up kind of the sun's in the way but right in the center right in there there's another opening but this is just too unstable looking for us to to even bother getting too much closer to to see what anything is and so it's just the two of us out here and it's just not worth it [Music] there you go you can see where we've started and how far down we've worked on this mountain following the path of the ore the whole way trying to look as graceful as possible but sometimes there you go you can get kind of a there's no bucket so there you go there's a size comparison five foot three and a half and you know what i'm going to say that half an inch is really important what's that that's a lid inland 1655-44 icc 5b usn nx sx7601t so lead carbonate was discovered in the area in 1908 but it wasn't until around 1913 that the mining started now during world war one the price of lead doubled in value and by 1915 there was 60 men employed in these there's two mines here so 60 men were employed in these two mines now there was only a few up here mining the others were transporting the oar and they used donkeys or mules to haul the ore out now after world war one ended the price dropped so this mining operation was off and on off and on off and on one of them closed in the 50s the other one closed in 1972 but combined five million pounds of lead 146 000 pounds of copper 100 000 ounces of silver and 1500 ounces of gold was mined here true story now see that's really cool as a you know photo wise the old miner's bed frame in there some wood timbering and that mine shaft there just goes back into the darkness i guess it's a mine added main college tunnel perhaps just just goes straight back in there okay two things i have a question one every single addict we've seen here's had a miner's bed frame in it right and also this one has got a concrete or cement um [Music] door frame with these used to have really really huge so i would have thought initially when we first saw this that it was going to be explosive storage but it's not unless maybe they used it later but why is there always a bed frame in all the edits that we've seen i don't know comment down below i said was it a security guard at night to keep people from coming in to mine out the aura unexpectedly and then with the cement here with the would have been a large cement door i guess on it or a large maybe metal door attached to the cement were they trying to keep people out or were they trying to keep something in now you know how i love canned dumps this is the first one that we've seen yeah and it's uh i mean we've seen cans and debris just scattered all throughout the whole wash and what's made it more difficult kind of make out all the rocks in the background they're that darker color so you always think that they're cans when they're not and also on the the side of the mountain it looks like the whole mountains caught fire but it's not it's just black rock yeah but there's uh you never know what you're gonna find but lots of condensed milk tins yeah just your normal pilchard or sardines normal normal cans i saw an ajax lid tobacco tins prince albert oh that would have been a nice mason jar it's busted there in the bottom here let's see the thickness is there a date on the bottom no that's what i was kind of looking for yeah not a huge can dump but no no considering time for everyone's favorite game guess the car or at least tell us what the car is yes jan we're gonna need your help with this one i thought it was a beetle from way in the distance because i just saw the back but as we got closer we realized it wasn't yeah nz salt flat racer is another one and there was another gentleman that helped us out quite a bit with the lost cars so i don't think this is a series one uh hyundai elantra i could be wrong [Laughter] again joke stop taking things so seriously everybody got to learn to have a sense of humor now this has obviously been washed down in flash floods yeah because did you know there was a small city here really yeah and it it was a tent city and they even had a saloon and a shop this is back in the early 1900s when they were first mining but of course the tent city was in the wash and what happens when you put something in the wash it gets washed away it gets washed away so i'm wondering whether or not obviously in later years same thing happened to this because it's been smashed around a bit it doesn't apart from the fact that it's got no tyre uh no tyres there's no graffiti or anything on it which is good no bullet holes which is a bonus yep but again i mean even back in the day the miners drove up to the mining style look at that but it's been stripped the miners had to come a very long way to get their meal this looks like the remains of a stove out here there's some more uh car parts etc just a whole bunch of things cut out here in the wash the other end the other bit of the stove right oh and i found an old an old miners boot oh wow some more can't do oh you can even see the metal tongue inside you see that see the metal tongue i don't know what you'd call that yeah kind of looks like a tongue yeah the metal shank in the bottom now that wouldn't be a hobnail boot would it it's just it's it's all wrinkled and little it's just deteriorated like me wrinkled and little [Laughter] so yeah on the other side of the cooker other end of the cooker another little mining cabin hello is anyone home i know it's not because the door's locked oh this is this is really cute [Music] [Music] very windy though but hey in a pinch if you were stuck oh it used to have paneling looks like yeah i was gonna say it because this won't uh in a super huge windstorm this probably won't i mean it'll provide a little bit of shelter but yeah i can see where they did have some extra bits to protect you from the elements outside which are mostly gone now i wonder what happened to them hey look at the window does it be one of those ones that you latch up not a brilliant view just one of the mine you got two beds in here makeshift beds shut the door just so it doesn't slam and that wind is starting to howl outside i don't know if you can hear it or not let's let's listen i've just looked a lot the door [Music] yeah really howling isn't it a stormy night but hey look at the stove 55 gallon drum [Music] for the makeshift door yep that'll do on her oh it's a shame actually because obviously people have dropped coals and they've burnt the floor so you'd have to be really careful otherwise the whole lot would go up in it like a tinderbox a few little supplies nothing major an old skillet and a log book which i've already signed and left our card and unfortunately the flag is a little bit worse for wear yeah that's uh now is it am i correct in saying that when an american flag gets too tatty you're meant to burn it and replace it yeah there are honorable ways to dispose of the american flag and the flag burning is one of the one way to do it do it properly not just don't light it with a lighter and set it on fire in a field or anything there's their proper protocols okay so i was right though yes now i wonder if this is another little cabin wood looks in really good shape boil for choice so the last of the mining was done here in 1972 i did i say oh it's not you know it's a shower house would you take a look at that oh nice so there would have been three basins there would have been one there as well you can see where the anchor points were two showers this one's still got the floor very breezy no shower heads or anything used said the roof well some of the roof looks modern i might have replaced a few or maybe not i it's kind of uh i don't know when these were built that's hard to tell because some look in really bad shape but then well some of them look really decent so it does say national park service okay so the parks so the park service has yeah and the book i signed was a log from the park service as well okay you