Oh, the Places We've Been. 2016 DCLB OR 4X4

I am going to leave this place nameless due to this being a public forum. Message me and I will tell you where it is.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHsH2dhDYo5/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHwFsUvDwqk/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHwFY9LjAIC/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

 

Same trip through the El Pasos.

Red Rock Canyon parts.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BH8sSkfDSvk/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

Cabin porch. There was a fountain on this wall.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BH8rrXQDw1H/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

This cabin is farther in and it's trashed.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHyoZDRj1Bl/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

Visitor Log
https://www.instagram.com/p/BH8rYbyjtbY/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

My mom and I at the South end of the Burro Schmidt Tunnel. Not much to loot or destroy here, so I'll list the location name
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHsHiJhjonQ/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

 

While these shafts were short, these were some of the first vertical passages I had ever seen in person.

waste piles on mountain-sides are a sure sign on driven adits or shafts.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHrzU4bjy-T/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHrzqIXjnDO/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

the shelf on the right is an example of a waste pile turned into a short road.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHry_73DlHV/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

airing tires is a ritual
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHvLStkD2Gs/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

 

I went to Hungry Valley one day when my wife was somewhere else with her side of the family.

I found some ranch roads on the East side of the 5 off Smokey Bear.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIuoEXJjKQ6/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIwtTV-jiOy/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

Then I stopped here to take a picture and........
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIveNVpjD3T/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

.... backed up into the pole fence on the right. The horiztonal pole ONLY hit the brake light, so I was lucky! No metal damage
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIuoTlXDJeX/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJE8R26Dvon/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

I'm not even going to post the first video I made here when I did a simple trail in 4LO.... idk what I was doing back then.... lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvXHO3weGe0

 

I post most of my adventures on instagram. this guy shows up. does anybody know him?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJZTPqijqle/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

 

Took my wife, mom, and step dad for a day trip around the Rodman and Ord mountains. This is South of the 40, East of Barstow. This is the very top of Johnson Valley BLM land.

did about 60 miles. The off ramp we exited and the off ramp we got on at the end of the day were 25 miles apart.
There are still things I want to see in this area. the cameras in the middle were missed due to time.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKD5HFvhHGT/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

the mines were perched up on these hillsides. I think this is Grandview Mine
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKEPnsthUF8/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

massive waste piles in the back ground
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKFcjzNBQ_g/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKIA2_zD7yd/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

I think this is the Ford Mine. Took a sketchy mine road along the hillside between GV and Ford instead of going back down to the main road. My mom had her eyes closed and was praying in some spots.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKNQksXhUQK/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

Disclaimer: Exploring abandoned mines is dangerous. Entering abandoned mines may be harmful to your health and may cause death or dismemberment. I practice caution when in abandoned mines and have done much research on mining processes and safety. I do not take, hold, or carry any responsibility for your actions should you choose to enter or explore any abandoned mine.

If you are interested in exploring abandoned mines, please message me privately before doing so. I will not post mine site locations in this thread. Contact me privately and we can talk more about locations.

 

Same trip to Rodman and Ords. We found these gourds along the road. You should not eat them....

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKNQ2QGh0BQ/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

The area crosses into basalt flows from nearby volcanoes.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKNRCsZBgMd/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

The bums were hitch hiking on powerline road. (actually mom and step dad)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKNRLU9Bvpg/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

 

Most of my wife's side of the family lives near Yucca Valley. We started exploring around there with them. Usually it was my wife, her mom, and our nephew. Sometimes her sister and brother in law would come with us.

"Old Dale" area. If you are interested in locations, message me privately. All of the major mines in this area are privately owned, patented mining claims.

We found one major mine site along with some sample adits behind the site. Not much to see this close to the highway.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKQ1nW3hMHA/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKUxTgZhkL1/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

My nephew at the portal of a sample adit. Only went 50 feet back
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKRvan5hXDL/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

Disclaimer: Exploring abandoned mines is dangerous. Entering abandoned mines may be harmful to your health and may cause death or dismemberment. I practice caution when in abandoned mines and have done much research on mining processes and safety. I do not take, hold, or carry any responsibility for your actions should you choose to enter or explore any abandoned mine.

If you are interested in exploring abandoned mines, please message me privately before doing so. I will not post mine site locations in this thread. Contact me privately and we can talk more about locations.

 

Then I took my truck in for the howling rear differential, (before the community knew Toyota was saying it was normal) and my local Toyota Service Center chose to keep the truck for safety reasons after hearing the howl and finding "metal shavings" in the differential oil. This was on a Friday before a big trip we were taking with NotARubicon, on Saturady. I was so mad. They were taking a day trip through Joshua Tree and Old Dale to visit a few mine sites I hadn't been to. I was pissed. They gave me a Nissan Frontier in 2 wheel drive. yuck

After many calls with Toyota, they replaced the entire carrier and differential. Corporate also extended my Toyota Care to 75000 miles, so I get 5 extra oil changes. I didn't have enough issues to get a platinum warranty...

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKePPBjhhXW/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

Got a few diff, tho
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKnpek1hIRN/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

 

Took a trip to Sunfair Dry Lake. There are supposed turquoise mines, but we haven't found them yet

I like Sunfair. It has a lake bed, mountains, sand dunes, canyons, usually mud on the lake bed in winter, and lots of other varying terrain.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BL4xKiyDWMa/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BL7J_RcjotE/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

 

Went back through the West Side of the Old Dale.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMF9p5DjuEZ/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMDQUdejrAG/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BL_9bSRjAnu/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

 

Finally replaced the tail light. You must replace the entire assembly

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMQVHVgjzEK/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

 

Major mine exploration trip next time.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMz-4jmjPUh/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BN6IlxHjalQ/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

 

Disclaimer: Exploring abandoned mines is dangerous. Entering abandoned mines may be harmful to your health and may cause death or dismemberment. I practice caution when in abandoned mines and have done much research on mining processes and safety. I do not take, hold, or carry any responsibility for your actions should you choose to enter or explore any abandoned mine.

If you are interested in exploring abandoned mines, please message me privately before doing so. I will not post mine site locations in this thread. Contact me privately and we can talk more about locations.
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Underground 2016. Shoshone Mines near Tecopa, CA.

***This mining area is probably one of the most visited abandoned mine areas in the world. You can easily find information about these mines online, including exact locations. You can also message me privately or post in here if you want more information.

Underground 2017 is approaching in November! Join us with on the waste pile for a weekend of camping and above and under ground exploring! Read more about it on the facebook event page for the weekend:

My mom and step dad have a HUGE camper on their GMC Sierra 3500 Dually. They brought that and we brought our Tacoma. We slept in the Tacoma in the bed tent. We have the Napier 57044 and Airbedz mattress.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BM0ejdejnwO/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

We slid the tent out of the bed when we wheeled to the other mine sites.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BNTVavmDztq/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

Their camper is MASSIVE.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BM8LseODp2J/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

The entrance sign
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOZFH1jDW4t/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

This is the mountain that the mine was driven through. The waste pile and portal where the campsite is to the right, around the corner. The other portals are on the other side of the mountain, to the left edge.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMz-4jmjPUh/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en


There were about 90 people camped on the waste pile and 10 to 15 camped in the pit.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BNbELbABhX3/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

This is the portal at the campsite. It was driven as the secondary haulage adit after it became too expensive to move the ore and waste from the new stopes on this side of the hill. I believe it is 6 feet wide and 8 feet tall from portal to hoist room. The track starts back up a few thousand feet in
https://www.instagram.com/p/BM5hxidjrBe/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

 

This was my first major mine exploration trip. Before this, I had only explored test holes in the sides of mountains. This mine is very different. I will list some notables here:

W.E. West Portal:

• Patented Load Mining Claim (Private property)

• Main Haulage Adit is ~1600 feet long and was driven straight from the portal to the hoist room. It was driven from the surface to the already completed hoist room. The adit was off by inches when it was completed.
  
• Distance from Portal (surface) to Face (end) is 7450 feet. That's almost 1.5 miles!
• The decline at the hoist room descends at 40 degrees and goes down 5 levels (~500 vertical feet). It has 3 compartments: 2 for ore carts and 1 for a manway. There is a giant hoist room at the top but all the equipment is gone.
  
• There is also an incline that follows the path of the decline behind the hoist room. This isn't built out like the decline because material was just pushed down the slope. No track or wood was needed for this movement. Most people stay away from this because of the loose material.
  
• There are a few boilers pushed into winzes (shafts inside a mine) near the face. There are 7 major drifts between the hoist room and face. Two of these drifts connect to the W.E. West Portal and G. mine.

Just inside the portal, you can still see the sunlight on the sets. I didn't have my flood lights back then.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMz_ntHjz2c/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

The decline. We only went down 1 level. It is amazing. The levels are awesome, too. I didn't get any pictures of the gang ways where the tracks lift out of the way for carts to come from the lower levels. It was soo cool.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMx0IwuDtrb/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

This was probably ~5000 feet back. The switches still work!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMx77WND4B5/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

in one of the stopes. I didn't get any good pictures inside the stopes. the stopes are freaking massive
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMzxunNDC3X/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

Ore chutes and chute gates near the face. These came from the stopes above the hoist room. I love ore chutes. ~6000 feet in
https://www.instagram.com/p/BN_UmwKjBcs/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

~1600 feet in. Hoist room and decline ~50 feet to the left. Adit continues ~5800 feet straight to the face. Stope immediately to the right.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOne0LGDTcN/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

Somewhere inside. idk where
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOoL7v-j_-1/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

 

We wear hard hats and head lamps when going underground. We also carry back up light sources, batteries, and dust masks.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOWPIfwjaWJ/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

I never hit my head in this mine, but I have smacked it hard in other, smaller mines. Hard hats have saved me!

 

We took the truck out with some friends to explore the area South of the camp site. This was a mill where they processed the ore before shipping it out by truck or rail. They mostly processed the silver out of the material on site and then shipped the rest out for lead processing off site.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BM-NjGJDSLt/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

The roof came down long ago
https://www.instagram.com/p/BM6zo47D7vn/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

video spin
https://www.instagram.com/p/BNudKhjjADP/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

This was beside the mill. Must have held liquid or something.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOWWDN7D8Zk/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en

Someone lived here. There was a shelf cut into one side.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BPHJ9s3AEqq/?taken-by=z50king&hl=en