I Bought A 125 Year-Old Gold Mine!! Season 1, Part 1

The 2024 mining season is officially underway at this 125-year-old hard rock gold mine, and before any gold can come out of the mountain, the crew has to do the kind of dirty, difficult underground work that most people never see. Last season, more than 1,000 feet of old mine workings were reopened and rehabbed, the crew reached the gold vein, and drilling and blasting finally began. Now the focus is on getting the mine safe, accessible, organized, and ready for real production. In this episode, the work starts outside the mine with road access, portal preparation, and timber. Instead of buying lumber, Jason cuts trees from his own property, scales the logs for board footage, hauls them to the sawmill, and mills true-dimension 6x6s, 4x4s, and heavy lagging for underground support. Those timbers are then hauled up to the mine and put to work securing the portals, building access platforms, adding handrails, closing off unsafe openings, and creating a safer entry into the workings. Once underground, the real mine rehab begins. Chad and Harry from @mineoperator join the project to help inspect, scale, muck, and timber the old workings. The crew bars down loose ground, removes old rail, clears broken timber and air line, improves drainage, and starts turning a cold, wet, muddy drift into a usable haulageway. Several sections are badly flooded or packed with muck, so drainage ditches have to be reopened and the floor built up with gravel, rock, and hand-mucked material just to make wheelbarrow travel possible. One of the biggest jobs is securing a dangerous open raise above the main haulageway. The old-timers followed the vein upward decades ago, leaving a big open hole above the drift where loose rock could come down onto anyone working below. After scaling off a massive chunk of quartz and checking the surrounding ground, the crew installs heavy timber stalls, wedges them tight into the rock, adds spreaders, and stacks thick lagging to block off the raise. It is classic hard rock mine timbering: awkward, heavy, physical, and absolutely necessary. The episode also shows the practical side of getting a gold mine ready for production—crushing rock with a Mount Baker Mining and Metals jaw crusher, spreading gravel over soft muck, organizing an underground shop area, hanging tools and PPE, improving footing, inspecting headings, marking restricted areas, and making decisions about which old workings need to be maintained and which should be sealed off. Every step is aimed at one goal: reaching the stope safely and getting back to the gold vein. This is not the glamorous part of gold mining, but it is the part that makes everything else possible. Before the drilling, blasting, mucking, and gold recovery can happen, the mine has to be drained, scaled, timbered, cleaned, and made safe enough to work. Follow along as the crew brings this historic underground gold mine back to life, one timber set, one wheelbarrow load, and one muddy section of drift at a time. Check out our Shopify and eBay stores for ore, specimens, cabochons, and more from our mines: Shopify: https://mbmmllc.myshopify.com/ eBay: https://www.ebay.com/usr/mtbakerminingandmetals FOR MORE INFO PLEASE EMAIL OR CALL Email: info@MBMMLLC.com Phone: 360-595-4445 Website: http://www.mbmmllc.com/ Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/MBMMLLC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MBMMLLC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mbmmllc/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MBMMLLC AFFILIATE LINKS What's an affiliate link? If you use our link to buy something, MBMM gets a small percentage of the money you spend. This DOES NOT mean you will spend more money using our link, you will spend the SAME AMOUNT of money while also supporting a small business and channel. UNDERGROUND MINING EQUIPMENT Milwaukee Hammer drill bits: https://amzn.to/3MjLf8A Milwaukee Sawzall: https://amzn.to/3Qt6Yyv Milwaukee Flood Light: https://amzn.to/3NmvYEc Milwaukee Driver: https://amzn.to/3OqKoDT Milwaukee Grinder: https://amzn.to/3Qwro9C Hard hat with light clip: https://amzn.to/3Iss7nL Head lamp for hard hat: https://amzn.to/433G5US Hammer drill: https://amzn.to/3ORKSVi Safety glasses: https://amzn.to/439w8Fo Gloves: https://amzn.to/45ceXoF Feather and wedge set: https://amzn.to/3Om1kNz Respirator: https://amzn.to/3IqbclD #goldmining #undergroundmining #abandonedmine