Mines, Mountains & Desert: A Nevada Summer

Any month is a good month for mine exploring, but believe it or not, August is actually a particularly good time to explore the mines of northern and central Nevada. The days are long, and despite the August heat in the low desert, the higher elevations of central and northern Nevada can be surprisingly temperate, with cool mountain nights and comfortable conditions for exploring. There are still plenty of places where you can spend the night beside an abandoned mine and wake up ready to explore. This video is a little different from my usual mine explorations. Rather than focusing on one particular mine, this is a collection of explorations from two weeks spent traveling around Nevada with several different groups of friends. We visited a variety of abandoned mines, each with its own character, and covered a surprisingly large amount of Nevada in the process. Some of these mines were little more than prospects, while others had extensive underground workings. Along the way, we encountered interesting artifacts, old mining equipment, unusual geology, and the sort of unexpected things that tend to turn up when you spend several weeks traveling through the Nevada backcountry. There was also plenty of time spent simply getting from one place to another: long drives, rough roads, changing vehicles, changing terrain, changing weather, and camping out at remote mine sites. In many ways, that is as much a part of mine exploring as the time spent underground. So, rather than one particularly spectacular mine, think of this video as a record of two weeks of wandering around Nevada with good friends, looking for old mines and seeing what we could find. Mines, mountains, desert — and a very good August. ***** You can view the full TVR Exploring playlist of abandoned mines here: https://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!