Exploring The 900 Level of The Union Mine!

Thank you all so so much for all the support! I hope if you aren't already, you'll subscribe because there are TONS more explorations and renovations coming up in the next weeks. The American Hotel is underway, new mines to find, and all sorts of other adventures! If you're curious about other levels of the Union Mine, here are the 200 Level: https://youtu.be/eGgMfDTcum8 700 Level: https://youtu.be/6c7MiqYdTEw THANK YOU!

The "Chattering" that was happening when the cable and car were free was mostly likely caused by the "memory" of the cable releasing. Since nobody had run the cable out that far in likely decades, it had never had a chance to adjust from its spooled condition, to bearing tension... Cable, depending on type and quality will gain or lose several inches per 100ft depending on diameter, load, temperature of the cable. Although this may seem like a small change over time, you can imagine that only part of your spool of cable for the lift has been used and "trained" to bear a load. And the other part has remained rigid/static for a long time. The differential in the structure of the cable as part of it relaxes and the other "stiffer" part of it finally gains tension could easily cause some very odd behavior. I would recommend sending a test load of several hundred pounds down the shaft at least 2x a year so you can inspect and manage the cable if you intend to use it into the future. I'd hate to see you and your neighbors end up as new ghosts. ;) I'm a contractor/engineer by trade and I specialize in historic structures. So I'd love to pay a visit sometime and offer whatever help I can on the trickier aspects of archaic buildings and machinery. Also love me some wilderness.

Lord give this man his long desired pair of hundred year old blue jeans.

I was intrigued by the graffiti "DDH UCLA 1927" at the 900 level. I did a search to see if this person was in yearbook for the class of 1927 at UCLA, but they were not. However, UCLA did for a long time have a mining course! The earliest mention of it was in the curriculum for 1921; I also found a course "Pre-mining" listed in 1935. It was a fun search, and I have not totally given up. I am a UCLA retiree and still have connections in the libraries there, so I may dig deeper to see if I can uncover this "mystery miner".

94 years from now, some explorers are gonna come across that cave and end up going down there, then find his youtube plaque. mans just made history and we got to witness it

"Does your Mother know what you're doing down here?!" Had me dying laughing for some reason. These old fellas are a trip man.

I think the thing that made me appreciate just how deep they were was remembering that the top observation deck of the Eiffel Tower is 906ft.

Hi Brent, I am an Engineer with experience troubleshooting process equipment in factories. After following your pump issues, I have a couple of suggestions: 1) please consider installing 1x or more Check Valves downstream of your pump to relieve some of the load on it from the 700ft water column. The fact this pump has been relatively recently replaced & is drinking oil suggests it may be working too hard 2) please consider installing a monitoring system for the sump level. A very simple low cost solution for this could be using timelapse cameras aimed at the the sump. After seeing the state of the supply to the sump, I wonder whether you are pumping more water from the sump than is being replenished by that supply, so over a week or so you are possibly draining the sump near dry, then "losing prime" as there is nothing left to pump, and then by the time you get down there to check it, it is mostly replenished. If you had timestamped timelapse images of the sump level, it would be interesting to identify the moment that the pump fails to provide a flow to within an hour or so, and compare that to the image of the sump level at time of failure.

Holy crap I was riding with you guys the whole time what a awesome video. I'm 75 and used to do that fun stuff and it's so cool to be able to sit in my living room and enjoy being with you guys on that elevator wow what a a ticket ride. Thanks for that. May God be with you and always be safe

The duck with the hat drawing is implied to watch your head and duck down !

“Does your mother know what you’re doin’ down here?” 😆 Another way of saying “Keep your hands away from the dynamite box Brent.” Brent: “But jeans!!!!!”

what would be really cool is making a 3d scan of the whole mine and town so people can visit it in VR

I want to thank you for making this channel. I am the great granddaughter of a goldminer in Cripple Creek, CO. I have him to thank for my massive rockhounding fever. He was the boss of the Crescent Mine which is still being mined today but in a most different way. I am vicariously living through you to understand more about what his life must have been like and share in your excitement as you find cool stuff, rocks and history. As a young girl I was given a burlap sack of ore from my grandma and have been carrying it with me my whole life. Thanks for reading this. I will be watching your adventures. Be safe and take care.

The feeling you get when you make it back to the top and step off the cage onto safe ground is one that can't be explained. I spent 4 years working in a 1200 foot deep lead and copper mine and I always had that feeling of safety when I hit the top. Thanks for your content, it's very intriguing!!

@Ghost Town Living - I was a miner (mechanic) in a German coal mine. There were 2 shafts here and 3 others several miles away. In the coal shaft (4265 ft / 1300m deep) the coal was pulled up in large vessels. The workers and material were driven in the transport shaft (2800 ft / 854m deep). The deeper you went down, the higher the temperature got. The highest annual production was 3,135,415 tons of coal in 1979. The highest workforce was in 1958 with 5,234 employees. The mine was closed in 2005. Coal mining in Germany has began in the 17th century. The last coal mine closed in 2018. All because of money and cheap coal from abroad.

Non-fictional minecraft is damn fascinating!

I stopped at the 12 minute mark to say this: with the water source being farther back and having to trickle in I believe that after a few days/week(s) of pumping the water level is dropping in the pool there cause the drip can not keep up with the pump so the pump starts sucking air looses its “prime” and then runs dry on oil due to not enough water! So you need to instal a water level sensing switch of some kind so it’ll turn off the pump before it sucks air and turns it back on when there is sufficient water to pump again

People today: Why would anyone back then leave their denim jeans in a mine? People in the future: Why would anyone back then leave their Youtube Golden Plaque in a mine?

You may not realize this but your an inspiration to people. And not because people want to live isolated in a ghost town, but because the genuine loyalty you have for what you do….that’s an inspiration 💫

It’s amazing how good of shape all the equipment is