[Rockhounds] Abandoned mine exploration

[linda at middleearthminerals.com]

When I first moved to Nevada, I remember a TV news story about a fellow who
had fallen into an old mine.  The ground had caved in under him while he was
outside the mine.  There was an attempt to call down to him and get some
sort of response, but within a day or two, it simply stopped being covered
on TV.  Over the years, there have been a few similar stories, but I suspect
fewer stories than incidents.

Nevada doesn't like to put too many downer stories in their newspapers and
on TV, at least not compared to Los Angeles where I lived before and where
every news story was followed to the bitter end.  I wondered if this was a
policy agreed upon by the police and reporters and sure enough, a woman
married to a police officer confirmed that negative stories were just not
covered, perhaps so as not to spook the tourists.  For example, she said the
number of people who jumped to their deaths from casinos & hotels downtown
was a big shock to her.  Those are of course never mentioned on the news.
And an industrial accident where I worked that resulted in the death of one
person was only given a paragraph in the Reno newspaper.  They said they
would follow up on it, but hmmm... they never did (I kept checking).  The
2011 Reno Air Races crash killed 11 and injured 69 but the TV stopped
covering it within a few days.

I truly wonder how many people we lose in these old mines?
  
-----Original Message-----
From: Rockhounds <rockhounds-bounces at rockhounds.drizzle.com> On Behalf Of J.
R. Hodel
Sent: Monday, March 8, 2021 3:01 PM
To: rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com
Subject: [Rockhounds] Abandoned mine exploration

I watched a couple more of his videos, it's pretty interesting to an old
rock-hound. My late rock-hounding buddy Danny Kebles would have loved it,
would have wanted to do it so bad!
But the second video I watched he was solo, in a mine by himself, going
across 50-90 year old wooden floors around ore chutes, etc. So very
dangerous, if you hurt yourself, you're probably dead before they find you.
Because no one appears to know in advance where he's going underground.
First thing they teach cavers is "never go underground alone!" 

The people I went caving with had a 3-person team rule, that way an injured
person would have someone with them while the third person went for help.
Maybe the tradition with abandoned mines is "you're on your own?" 

Otherwise he seems like a guy who enjoys going into abandoned mines more
than he's a mineral collector. A collector would have a rock pick with (and
probably other rock-hounding tools like chisels etc), and containers for any
specimens they wanted to bring out, as opposed to his hip pocket.

The one time Danny and I went out west to spend 3 weeks rock-hounding in
Colorado and Wyoming, we found our way to an abandoned mine, about half-way
up a mountain side north of Bonanza CO, with a talus slope to climb up to
get to the adit. There was an old cable hanging that they had used to
man-trip up and down, and for ore.
But once we were up there and knew there was a mine, we had no lights, and
no helmets. So we dug through the tailings around the mine face, I still
have a couple of nice rocks from there. Finally I looked up from the rocks
at the sky, which was suddenly dark gray billowing clouds, soon in late May
it started snowing hard before we got off the mountain. "Uh, Danny, maybe we
need to get down off this mountain now?"

My little Ford Ranger had a lot of tools and supplies under the topper, so
we had pretty good traction, and made it to our friend's mountain cabin
where we were staying between rock-hounding trips. Built a fire in the stove
late in the evening. Stopped in Salida for dinner on the way home. I will
always wonder what if we had lights and helmets, what would it have been
like in the mine? What kind of rocks would we have found? What would the
weather have been like when we got back out?
I miss Danny, he was struck with Pick's Disease, which is a hereditary
dementia, and died relative young in a VA nursing home. I don't go out
collecting much any more, partly because I'm 70 now... & partly because
Danny isn't here to poke me awake. Also Covid, of course.
You all take care, best of luck with finding great rocks!
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