Sump Diver Needed for Abandoned Mine

[JohnnyC]

Cool area. There's some neat stuff around there. If I were you I'd offer flight and incidentals to anyone willing to go considering the rather......"interesting" state of most old mines, especially considering it's nowhere near most cave divers.

Modern mines like the Bell Island expedition are generally of well-known pedigree, at least insofar as hazards are concerned. Who knows what's kicking around a mine that closed in 1903!!!! Seems like every year here in Arizona either someone is getting trapped, there's a cave in, or someone steps on a rattlesnake crawling around in an abandoned mine.

[TracyN]

I lived in the Black Hills most of my life before moving to Florida. Found a lot of mines hiking. Most of them are very unstable and you are tempting fate by entering them. Also don't get caught tresspassing in a mine on federal property.

[Kelly Jessop]

. It is on federal lands so we would not be doing anything that required permission.

?????

If that was the case then Big Dismal here I come.

[Pullnglide]

I don't know much about them but I posted once about entering a water filled mine that I found and was informed to have the water tested for contaminants before entering.

[FW]

I don't dive mines anymore. I dove a few back in my early diving days. I have had zero viz on exit, due to percolation. I have had stuff fall near me. The worst was diving a mine one day, and coming back a week later, and finding a boulder the size of a car on the line.

[Jax]

Some friends and I are exploring an old mine shaft. However, we have hit water. Before we try to pump the water out, we were considering having a cave diver take a look beneath the surface to make sure there is no significant water intrusion that we cannot detect. Are there cave divers that would be willing to do this kind of a thing? And, if so, how much does such a thing cost?

Thanks,

Blake

As others have mentioned, mines are a rather special kind of cave. Man-made, they do not have the years to get stable as most water-carved caves do.

Yes, please get the water tested for contaminants.

When a caver-diver explores a cave, and then dives a water-filled passage, it is called sump diving. Generally, such divers would be happy to help you to explore.

Perhaps you would modify the title to show "Sump diver"? I am not a sump diver, but they tell some fantastic stories.

[Blake]

Thanks to all of you who have posted various concerns. It is true that a man-made, underground passage warrants caution. We believe it to be very stable because the mine is cut into slate bedrock.

[Blake]

I tried to change the title, but was unable to do so.

[FW]

I tried to change the title, but was unable to do so.

What would you like it changed to? FWIW, I am a sump diver, but I don't dive in mines.

[JE]

You may want to search the Royal Mtn range expeditions to the flooded silver mines above tree line in Frisco, Colorado posted on here a few years ago. Personally i have poked around in them & the standing support timbers were rotten & unstable. Not a good dive site !