Honerine Mine and the Jeremiah Etherington Trajedy

[Mike Schriber]

We do indeed want to do that. However, since the Honerine is going to be closed, it seems like it should be a priority. I'm sure even two days wouldn't be enough judging by how big the mine looks.

Some of us MIGHT be able to come out the third or fourth weekend in June if the mine really is going to be closed soon.

Mike

[Mike]

The Honerine used to be huge, but backfills internally have closed off many tunnels. We explored the entire mine in several hours. HT and Ophir are by far better mines.

[Mike Schriber]

Ahhhh, bummer. All this talk of miles in, huge tunnels and hidden locomotives really got my interest!

Mike

[Stuart]

Ahhhh, bummer. All this talk of miles in, huge tunnels and hidden locomotives really got my interest!

Don't worry those things do exist, but getting to them inside the Honerine is something that I don't think anyone has done in the past 100 years or so. Now the miles of tunnels and locomotive are part of the Bauer tunnel which has connections to many mines in that area, but it will require quite a drop down some sketchy shafts.

I agree with Fish that the Ophir Hill and Hidden Treasure offer much more adventure and easily 300+ hours of exploring. You guys should fly up here and spend the weekend underground with us in the Ophir Hill we can camp in there and explore nonstop for days if you want. The Hidden Treasure - Buckhorn through trip that I did last weekend was one of the best mine exploring days I have ever had hands down.

[Mark1955]

Well, The Bauer Tunnel does have an exit for drainage. I know one of the other infrequent members on here that knows someone who happens to know it's drainage location... I don't know if this person has divulged the actual location this to the member or not. But the tunnel did and still does drain out west of Stockton as far as I know... Might be easier to research it from that end than to drop down the shaft.. County records would perhaps be the best place to start. I also seriously doubt there would still be locomotives inside the tunnel or tracks for that matter. They'd have been long ago scrapped out. If they are in there they'd be half disentegrated down to rust by the present amount of drainage. I was told it was large enough to run two trains side by side...

Mark

[cherokeepilot85]

Wow, that is interesting that the Bauer may still be draining.
Do you know anything about the inside conditions?

[Derek]

The exit in Bauer from what I could tell is capped with a drain pipe coming out of it, but there might be other ways in that I don't know about. The first several hundred feet are the same rock that makes up the gravel bar that the batch uses to make cement. When I went into it a little ways back in the early nineties it was in pretty rough shape back then so who knows what it is like now.

[Derek]

Here is a pic or where the drain tunnel use to exit.

http://mojaveunderground.com/gallery..._5786.JPG.html

[Mark1955]

Geez, Thats not much of a man hole for a tunnel that large! I wonder if the drainage was re-routed somewhere else... underground piping perhaps??? There's got to be alot of water flow considering the number of mines that still drain into it...

Mark

[Mark1955]

A bunch of us went into the Honerine today... man thats quite a hike to the back of the mine, plus 4 crawls over cave-ins/backfills. Along the way there were quite a number of incline shafts going both down and up. We made it all the way in to the hoist and boiler as well as explored another very long part of it that also led had a number of inclines and a large shaft going straight up. It also appeared that you could see a number of other levels above where we were if you looked up those inclines. The mine cart was cool... They are a rare commodity in this state these days! Pretty neat place but a very dangerious mine.... lots of large loose rocks on the ceilings and lots of areas that were nothing but mud and gravel mixed. It's not your typical hard rock mine by any means!! I shot a video almost all the way in... had to save some record time for the back area by the hoist and shaft. All in all a great day and the video looks pretty good too...

Mark

[Troy]

Interesting....

I would be interested in a copy of the video.....possibility??

[Mark1955]

I shot it on Betacam SP... I don't yet have accessories to convert it and render it to DVD although I do have editing / rendering software. It looks pretty good, the Sony camera is 3-chip and maintains VERY LOW noise at +9db gain and produces still very usable video with the gain at +18db... You only need one 12 LED flashlight to get good video out of this camera. I'd call it "The Blair Mine Project". All shot hand held while walking through the mine... with an 18 pound camera!!! Anyone else on here have a Canopus or equivelent video to DV convertor box I can use for a couple of days? I also shot a bit of video of Mike down in the Wilson mine that needs to be converted.

Mark

[Derek]

What resolution does the camera shoot in and what are the outputs on the camera?

[Mark1955]

It's standard definition NTSC. I have a high end Betacam SP player with built in Time Base Corrector we could use to do the conversion. It has BNC video out and XLR audio out... I can furnish wnat ever adaptors we might need. I still prefer High End SD over cheap HD because the 3 chip camera has far superior color and much lower video noise floor than single chip cameras afford. Allows one to record inside dark areas with just a simple LED flashlight. The camera/recorder/lens I have was just over 25K new in about 2003... I have less then 500 bucks tied up in it.

Mark

[lobster68w]

A bunch of us went into the Honerine today... man thats quite a hike to the back of the mine, plus 4 crawls over cave-ins/backfills. Along the way there were quite a number of incline shafts going both down and up. We made it all the way in to the hoist and boiler as well as explored another very long part of it that also led had a number of inclines and a large shaft going straight up. It also appeared that you could see a number of other levels above where we were if you looked up those inclines. The mine cart was cool... They are a rare commodity in this state these days! Pretty neat place but a very dangerious mine.... lots of large loose rocks on the ceilings and lots of areas that were nothing but mud and gravel mixed. It's not your typical hard rock mine by any means!! I shot a video almost all the way in... had to save some record time for the back area by the hoist and shaft. All in all a great day and the video looks pretty good too...

Mark

Here are a few pics from that day. The last two are from the Silver Reef near Jacob City.

http://www.pbase.com/lobster7/honerine_mine