201103004-06 Dale mining district

[troyboy162]

A chance of a life time to hang with socals mine exploring rock stars "The Underground Explorers". This was not much of a wheeling trip although there was plenty of real world application of 4L and lockers to get where we wanted to go. The dale mining district, I learned, is a favorite among offroaders due to the miles and miles of trails. Its full of old mine roads going to every hill top and basically traversing the landscape in almost every desirable direction. Many of you may have seen previous mine exploring pictures that I have posted up... I can tell you that these guys would not get out of bed for all the places I have been put together. They measure mines by the hundreds of vertical feet and navigate them by sophisticated climbing gear and countless hours of first hand knowledge.

My first impression was that they were a very tight knit group, similar to a combat squads comradery . As we gathered around the frame head of the mine the next morning I soon found out why. this was serious business... Safety and complete trust of each other was 110% of their daily routine.

We hit some beautiful terrain out there and the guys did some amazing mines. I did alot of watching but got in on the fun at the last mine where they taught me how to use there equipment and even let me try it out! The ability to look at something scary in a mine and do it safely is a really awesome feeling!

UE mobile command


UE morning warm ups aka toilet paper hacky sack


beautiful hand built mining roads


safety checks


Dave dropping


dave out of sight


Stacy after 7 hours under ground


beautiful!




Stacy going down


half way down


Mike heading down


this was a huge rock with alot of green mineral in it.

[Crinale]

Looks awesome! I love that Mike had a GoPro on his helmet should make for some awesome videos

[some_odd_girl]

Sweet pics! I'd love to do something like that.

...I sat here trying to figure out what that 'green mineral' might be haha. My best guess is unoxidized iron, but I'm really not sure. My favorite mineral, olivine, is green but a different shade. :P

[troyboy162]

it was a lot of fun. that area is one i could never explore on my own. all the ore veins are vertical so the shafts are too. one shaft was 900 feet deep.

that green stuff is what i was previously told was turqoise. but these guys told me its not. what ever it is, its a sure sign of gold ore since i only ever see it in mines.

[some_odd_girl]

900 feet?! That's crazy! I would definitely feel a bit claustrophobic in that case haha.

Yeah, I don't think turquoise is that common. But idk how certain it is to be an indicator of gold, because it'd have to be something that only formed under the same conditions as gold...

[corax]

Sweet . . . but how'd they get back up? I can't imagine it was hand-over-hand, did they use ascenders? I saw the one guy had a mask, did they also have gas meters?

[Scuba]

Really wish I could have made that. It looks like a LOT of fun. Glad you have a good time buddy!

[troyboy162]

the 900 foot one was plugged at many levels so we only made it down 100 feet or so and two levels. its quite an old one and was in bad shape on the main shafts. the entrence was a small crack at the bottom of a otherwise uninteresting pit.

they use assenders and crulls for coming back up. although the 275 foot assent they did looked like it would have taken me all day to do. they also carry gas meters with them. and backup equipment.

it was a good trip but now i have to buy climbing gear lol