Sunflower Mine Part 2
This is a group of 14 mercury mines. We have explored a few of them.
This was our second trip. We knew exactly where we were going.. Sorta.. Kinda..
We knew we needed a 4x4 but we had no idea how ruff it would be.
I REALLY NEED TO POINT OUT THAT EVEN A GOOD 4X4 wont make it all the way.
This is a road. Well it was once, about 80 years ago.
It would in fact be faster to walk then to go very slowly over all the rocks in a 4x4 anyway. A ATV might be fun and would be THE way to do this.
Most of the road is like the below, so you can get within about 1/2 mi of the mine site on roads like the below. 4x4 still required. If you don't mind walking about a 1 mi then you can get to a spot with a normal car on dirt roads and walk.
The place is stunning ravines and has a awesome creek. Hard to believe they got tons of machinery in here. If you look carefully there is a creek in this shot.
Nice view point
In the middle of no where..... A power pole. We could not find another and it is a LONG way to any power anyway. We never found a second pole anywhere. This did go to the mine site however and other debris was along this creek bed. While this creek bed does go to the mine, its impassable. We continue forward.
There are other signs of life here. At one time this area had about 100 people living in it somehow. How these things made it up the ravines and rocks is beyond explanation.
Up the road a bit we do indeed find a mine shaft. However it looked like someone had been living in it and it was not really a mine anymore and was not very deep anyway.
Then up over the hill......
What we were looking for.. The mill / distilling structure.
This was a impressively large structure.
The scale of this was quite impressive..
This is the rotary mill which crushed the ore while heating it. It was quite a machine.
This then caused the super heated mercury vapor from the rocks to go to the distilling tubes which were chilled and this then led to the mercury.
This was a industrial scale operation that produced A LOT of mercury. Very impressive indeed.
The ore was brought by trucks and dropped into a ore chute above the plant.
The ore then collected in a huge wooden bin and fed the huge metal tube to mill and heat it.
This whole process was highly toxic. While nothing SEEMED toxic I am sure it was.
So Alright.... Where was the mine...
We WALKED and we WALKED and we WALKED... SERIOUSLY UPHILL.. And we WALKED..
Still NO SIGN WHAT SO EVER of ANY MINE...
We reached limits of exaustion.
Dave started to chew on rocks in delierium. Notice the rock at his feet he was chewing on it.
We were getting discouraged...
Dave then INSISTED on following his smell-a-graph.
Sure enough..
Not 1, not 2 but 3 mine shafts..
The mine we eneded up calling the cavern was most impressive. Its entrance was Dave sized.
It was HUGE inside. At points 2 stories tall.
At the end of what was left was a vertical shaft that went up a LONG ways and DOWN a long ways. It was dangerous.
Down..
Up
we were not prepaired for spelunking so we did not explore further. BUT this was a nice one...
On the other side were 2 fairly normal but quite nice shafts. Roomy and cool, but had some bugs.
These were a good few hundred feet horiz into the mountain.
One of them ended with a collapsed section
These were quite long shafts. This shot halfway out looking towards the entrance.
Overall.... Good mines... The Cavern deserves more exploring. This will require a rope and spelunking tho..
AND if you think your 4x4 can handle this drive then you should watch this video.
I was not shaking the camera, it was the truck going over huge boulders on our way out. Notice Dave is bracing himself as we go.