Yeah, I'm perfectly fine with not being underground. It's as much a terror as flight or being underwater.

That sounds like it was created by someone with an obnoxiously new-age way of thinking.

My uncle spent two years in Vietnam as a tunnel rat. Apparently, most tunnel rats were short guys, but my uncle is 6 feet tall. To this day, he has never talked about with anyone.

yeah, we have a family friend who was a tunnel rat in nam, he is shelled the fuck out because of it and has basically degenerated into a alcoholic zombie. seemingly one of the worst positions to be put in during that conflct.

It's step #6 in his foolproof scheme to acquire trim.

Sounds like a lady is holding his camera later in the video.

Walls: shored.
Trim: acquired.

i was doing a little research so i could ask you a good question, but i got distracted by discovering the existence of online communities based around exploring abandoned mines

i'm basically at a loss given its specific risk-to-reward ratio and have safely come to the conclusion that this is an entirely sexual hobby, like spelunking's sloppy seconds

Underground mines are definitely fascinating, but the list of deadly hazards is as long as your arm. Most people that actually work in mining know better than to fuck with abandoned workings, the amount of equipment and help needed to limit the risk, not eliminate mind you, is not something the average person would be willing to spend on dicking around in a crumbling tunnel.

A decent multigas meter is k and up, not counting the literal infrastructure needed to keep such a device calibrated. The hazard from lack of oxygen and hydrogen sulfide in underground areas is an almost certainty. Rotting ground support (timber sets/rockbolts) is also overwhelmingly likely, as mines are excavated by design to not be more durable than the lifespan of their operation. Deep stopes and winzes can be anywhere, disguised by water or debris. Animals love taking up residence in old adits, like mountain lions. Mines are excavated following the orebody, not by any sensible or predictable pattern, workings are a chaotic maze that can be difficult to navigate even with a map. Even have a map? Its probably wrong. To minimize the risk of being squashed you should be sounding and barring down every square foot of rock from your waist up that you pass by. That's fun. Hopefully you don't kick a box of old dynamite or caps. The nitro crystallizes out of it after several years and it can become hair-trigger sensitive.

Much like how firefighter training can involve watching videos of what it looks like when people are hit by trains, professional mining types get to watch home movies of idiots exploring deeper and deeper into a rotten set of workings till they fall down a shaft or whatever they are walking on collapses. Its not pleasant.

Exploring old historical stuff is neat, I won't say otherwise, but old mines? Even if you know what you are doing the risk is beyond not worth it, and none of those idiots have a clue.

Not to turn into a government psa cliche, but stay out and stay alive- if only to save the mine rescue people from having to put themselves at risk just to recover your body.

I'm guessing this guys is smart enough to know he couldn't do this kind of crap in anything much larger and live long enough to make a youtube series.

Even as mining cosplay it's pretty fun.

so, all that aside there's, like, uh diamonds and stuff in there right *moves lighter towards candle*

really tho thanks for the read rockbolt, geology was one of those superficial childhood careers that i didnt find any path towards, so i get a buzz reading that related industry knowledge

oh yea, given this is poe i tried to see if there were any real records kept regarding abandoned mine fatalties, but all i could scope was a meagre (volunteer assembled) pdf from colorado

http://mining.state.co.us/Programs/Abandoned/Tourist/Documents /Abandoned%20Mine%20Fatalities.pdf

it must have been really cool to die in a mine in the 80s i guess

Well, it was the most recent era where rampant greed was made a virtue to aspire to.

Some people just tragically misinterpreted "Fuck you, I got mine"

well now looking at its release year "sweet child of mine" just got a lot sadder too

In past mining areas, like the Colorado mountains or Arizona desert, there are areas just littered with open stopes and shafts. They aren't easy to see from a distance, that's why there are also a lot of instances where people just fall, ski, or drive into them. State reclamation bureaus work to gate things off and put fences around open holes, but its a slow process with the funding and manpower they have, and again there isn't really thorough mapping or even a rhyme or reason to why people excavated where they did, so its hard to even find everything much less make it safe. Also as seen in that list, people break into them later anyway.

I'm in an open pit now days, there was lots of old mining excavations in the area and we are constantly drilling into. Its a huge risk and entire trucks or shovels can fall into old workings. We digitized every historical map we had access to, and at least half the time we break into something not mapped, or that is close but wrong when compared to the maps.

It is fun when we blast through old workings though and some of the timber sees the light of day again. Broken and splintered in the shot, it smells like fresh cut lumber even though its easily been underground for 100 years. Recently dug up an old ore cart, our shovel smashed it up a bit but the wheels still had grease on them and turned probably as smoothly as they ever did.

I just hope we never find bones. Even with the meager statistics of known fatalities in abandoned mines, I shudder to wonder how many people just went missing and ended up in an old mine no one will ever find.