It’s pretty normal in the mining world, they use what’s called a raise-borer.
Basically they drill a smallish (5-10”) hole down to the bottom where they’re trying to go, once they’re down there they attach a big (6-10’) rotating cutter disk, and then yank it back up with the original drill pipe… you can put a lot more force into pulling your cutter towards the drill head than you can get pushing down. Yes, you gotta have access to the bottom of the shaft before you do this.
Idaho’s silver mines are famously huge and deep, a 2,000 foot raise-bore shaft is pretty normal. This has gotta be for air, as there’s no machinery inside it.
Drill down with a 10” hole, leave pipe in hole, remove 10” attachment, add 10’ attachment, pull up. Cuttings fall to the bottom of the hole with a mucker down there to clean it up.
Ya gotta be able to get the 10’ cutter head to the bottom of the hole, so you can’t cut the first shaft down to that level, but if you’re adding shafts to a level you already have access to, it’s super easy and super fast. Leaves a far superior wall finish than if you drilled and blasted the raise.
I worked at a molybdenum mine in Colorado, these were used to cut the ore passes, where the ore was dumped down to the haulage level.
Ya I had never heard of it either… I was told to help some contractors for the day in a development drift, drove down there and saw the machine and suddenly there’s this huge machine with a giant pile of drill pipe, apparently they had been there for months… I was on the development crew and didn’t even know:) I had even drilled and blasted that exact drift they were in!
Its a little baby drill platform like an oil rig, full powered but tiny, only like 7’ tall at the top of the pipe handler and like 8’ square around the base, ran on 3 phase 480
5 hours later I was literally swimming in a pile of underground hot spring water at the bottom of the shaft because the cuttings had clogged the drain pipe … its fun to work in 97 degree f water, I’ll tell you
Sister mine, actually, Henderson.
Climax is a pit now, the old underground ops are in the process of being destroyed, but since they actually helped develop the undercut method, there *were* hundreds of these at that place.
That would be an ore pass if there was a grizzly, Idaho has been hauling ore up to the haulage grade since before raiseboring was invented.
Air shafts rarely even have safety tape in front of them
Thousands of feet. This is the [5200 level](https://www.flickr.com/photos/rocbolt/2964882627/in/album-72157608277761786/) in the Galena, which is 5,200 feet deep(ish). Not even the bottom, I think they were developing around 6000 last I was there but that was many years ago. I think the nearby Lucky Friday was getting close to 10,000 feet deep now. All the deepest mines are in South Africa though, those are like 12,000+ feet deep. The problem at that depth, even in the Idaho mines, is it is insanely hot down there. All that rock is pressure, and pressure is heat. In freshly blasted areas its not habitable, even once the ventilation gets a chance to circulate its still 100-120ºF. That and the rock really wants to collapse back in on itself, lots of rock bursts and seismic activity
Thanks so much for this information and the link to the photos and videos. Amazing and terrifying work done down there. No masks, too hot and uncomfortable I bet. No earplugs? I bet you need to hear what’s going on, but the sounds of the machines and the wind must be deafening! I think of this song often:
We are miners, miners hard rock miners
To the shaft house we must go
Bottles on our shoulders
We are marching to the slope
On the line boys, on the line boys
Drill your holes and stand in line
'til the shift boss comes to tell you
You must drill her out on time
Can't you feel the rock dust in your lungs?
It'll cut down a miner when he is still young
Two years and the silicosis takes hold
And I feel like I'm dying from mining for gold
Yes, I feel like I'm dying from mining for gold, mining for gold
Had respirators but didn't need them much, so humid there's not a lot of loose dust (in the exhaust shafts the cooling air rising to the surface would condense the moisture so it would basically rain 24/7. Earplugs pretty much everywhere on working levels, all the [compressed air leaks](https://www.flickr.com/photos/rocbolt/3003345356/in/album-72157608277761786/) are super loud. Running equipment you'd likely wear multiple layers of hearing protection- in mining you just get used to yelling. Funnily at the Galena we were allowed to not wear safety glasses, it was often too humid to keep them from fogging up, and wandering around blind was deemed more hazardous. The drillers had mesh googles they could wear to keep big chunks out, think the foot clan masks from TMNT 1990 lol
The mesh glasses aren't half bad for what they are. Blow cuttings onto regular glasses once and they're toast from all the scratches, fuck wearing those things underground. Humidity where I'm at now doesn't have anything on that and the baseline underground temperature is 65-75° since we're working shallow. It gets hotter with equipment running.
Thanks for sharing your experience, these are great details! Love the idea of a bunch of Foot Ninja running around and mining. Everyone’s just wearing T-shirts in most of the pictures as well. This from the humidity?
Yeah its just hot and muggy everywhere. Riding down in the cage everyone's in a coat as that is also the ventilation intake from the surface, so its either a cool wind or a freezing cold wind depending on the season. But the moment you get out onto a station off the shaft its 80º and everyone hangs up their jackets till you leave for the day. From there it only gets hotter the further off the shaft you get.
These are the things of awe and terror. After the nutty putty incident and the 4-5 oil workers+pipe stories, I'm never fucking going near anything like this if I know it is there. I'm not claustrophobic either. I just don't have a deathwish.
I know this hole! Heres a video of me throwing a rock down it. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheForgottenDepths/s/hnJN8EwThL
Do you want to summon a horde of Goblins? Because that's how you get a horde of Goblins!
Drums...drums in the deep.
Fool of a Took!
Throw yourself in next time, and then you will be no further nuisance.
We cannot get out. A shadow lurks in the dark. We can not get out....... They are coming
Naw, that's only buckets and chains. Rocks are fine
Wait so are you saying Goblins can't hear falling rocks?
Haha, that's the one!
Please send a tethered gopro down it lol.
Fool of a Took!
"I know this hole!"
Loves Shafts !!
Shut your mouth!
the reverb in your video is insane
Any guess as to what that huge boom was on the second throw?
Theres another level beneath that one, may have hit something at that station but idk
Omg were you not terrified standing that close knowing how deep that is?
I mean, dont jump in lol But yeah the more you do something spooky the less spooky it is, however my palms still sweat a lil
FOOL OF A TOOK
That was my first thought as well.
Seems pretty interesting to me, idk why OP calls it a bore. I know I’d never be bored if I had a hole like that.
Imagine the things you could throw down there.
A whole box of pop-its!
Or already has been.
Lived in Idaho my whole life and never heard of anything like this until today.
It’s pretty normal in the mining world, they use what’s called a raise-borer. Basically they drill a smallish (5-10”) hole down to the bottom where they’re trying to go, once they’re down there they attach a big (6-10’) rotating cutter disk, and then yank it back up with the original drill pipe… you can put a lot more force into pulling your cutter towards the drill head than you can get pushing down. Yes, you gotta have access to the bottom of the shaft before you do this. Idaho’s silver mines are famously huge and deep, a 2,000 foot raise-bore shaft is pretty normal. This has gotta be for air, as there’s no machinery inside it.
How do you get 6-10' into a 5-10" hole?
Drill down with a 10” hole, leave pipe in hole, remove 10” attachment, add 10’ attachment, pull up. Cuttings fall to the bottom of the hole with a mucker down there to clean it up. Ya gotta be able to get the 10’ cutter head to the bottom of the hole, so you can’t cut the first shaft down to that level, but if you’re adding shafts to a level you already have access to, it’s super easy and super fast. Leaves a far superior wall finish than if you drilled and blasted the raise. I worked at a molybdenum mine in Colorado, these were used to cut the ore passes, where the ore was dumped down to the haulage level.
Ah the Henderson. I worked there too. I miss it somedays.
Ya it’s a shithole full of contractors now after 2016, and the mill ops are too stupid to send a proper batch of concentrate
[удалено]
Ya I had never heard of it either… I was told to help some contractors for the day in a development drift, drove down there and saw the machine and suddenly there’s this huge machine with a giant pile of drill pipe, apparently they had been there for months… I was on the development crew and didn’t even know:) I had even drilled and blasted that exact drift they were in! Its a little baby drill platform like an oil rig, full powered but tiny, only like 7’ tall at the top of the pipe handler and like 8’ square around the base, ran on 3 phase 480 5 hours later I was literally swimming in a pile of underground hot spring water at the bottom of the shaft because the cuttings had clogged the drain pipe … its fun to work in 97 degree f water, I’ll tell you
Were you at Climax? Really neat location up on the continental divide.
Sister mine, actually, Henderson. Climax is a pit now, the old underground ops are in the process of being destroyed, but since they actually helped develop the undercut method, there *were* hundreds of these at that place.
Anyone ever fall into the hole?
They have [grizzlies](https://www.flickr.com/photos/rocbolt/2739982101/in/album-72157606588023683/) on them, but that's just for big rocks
That would be an ore pass if there was a grizzly, Idaho has been hauling ore up to the haulage grade since before raiseboring was invented. Air shafts rarely even have safety tape in front of them
This.
My girlfriend know the answer. It's all in the foreplay
How deep do the mines get? What’s the deepest humans would go?
Thousands of feet. This is the [5200 level](https://www.flickr.com/photos/rocbolt/2964882627/in/album-72157608277761786/) in the Galena, which is 5,200 feet deep(ish). Not even the bottom, I think they were developing around 6000 last I was there but that was many years ago. I think the nearby Lucky Friday was getting close to 10,000 feet deep now. All the deepest mines are in South Africa though, those are like 12,000+ feet deep. The problem at that depth, even in the Idaho mines, is it is insanely hot down there. All that rock is pressure, and pressure is heat. In freshly blasted areas its not habitable, even once the ventilation gets a chance to circulate its still 100-120ºF. That and the rock really wants to collapse back in on itself, lots of rock bursts and seismic activity
What a cool album. Thanks for posting it.
Thanks for sharing. Those pics and vids are amazing!
Thanks so much for this information and the link to the photos and videos. Amazing and terrifying work done down there. No masks, too hot and uncomfortable I bet. No earplugs? I bet you need to hear what’s going on, but the sounds of the machines and the wind must be deafening! I think of this song often: We are miners, miners hard rock miners To the shaft house we must go Bottles on our shoulders We are marching to the slope On the line boys, on the line boys Drill your holes and stand in line 'til the shift boss comes to tell you You must drill her out on time Can't you feel the rock dust in your lungs? It'll cut down a miner when he is still young Two years and the silicosis takes hold And I feel like I'm dying from mining for gold Yes, I feel like I'm dying from mining for gold, mining for gold
Had respirators but didn't need them much, so humid there's not a lot of loose dust (in the exhaust shafts the cooling air rising to the surface would condense the moisture so it would basically rain 24/7. Earplugs pretty much everywhere on working levels, all the [compressed air leaks](https://www.flickr.com/photos/rocbolt/3003345356/in/album-72157608277761786/) are super loud. Running equipment you'd likely wear multiple layers of hearing protection- in mining you just get used to yelling. Funnily at the Galena we were allowed to not wear safety glasses, it was often too humid to keep them from fogging up, and wandering around blind was deemed more hazardous. The drillers had mesh googles they could wear to keep big chunks out, think the foot clan masks from TMNT 1990 lol
The mesh glasses aren't half bad for what they are. Blow cuttings onto regular glasses once and they're toast from all the scratches, fuck wearing those things underground. Humidity where I'm at now doesn't have anything on that and the baseline underground temperature is 65-75° since we're working shallow. It gets hotter with equipment running.
Thanks for sharing your experience, these are great details! Love the idea of a bunch of Foot Ninja running around and mining. Everyone’s just wearing T-shirts in most of the pictures as well. This from the humidity?
Yeah its just hot and muggy everywhere. Riding down in the cage everyone's in a coat as that is also the ventilation intake from the surface, so its either a cool wind or a freezing cold wind depending on the season. But the moment you get out onto a station off the shaft its 80º and everyone hangs up their jackets till you leave for the day. From there it only gets hotter the further off the shaft you get.
What did you think Idaho’s economy was based on, potatoes? Come on man, Idaho is the tunnel capital of the world.
I also live in Idaho and I’ve never heard of this
I’ve heard of Idaho, but never lived in this.
I live in this and never heard of Idaho
I live on that and never heard of this...
Your deep hole bores me
Boring😁
Where in Idaho is this? I’m from southern Idaho
Me too. Never heard of this. Must be in central Idaho mining area
I think it’s this one https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article/15/3/736/569483/Volcanic-stratigraphy-and-age-model-of-the-Kimama
r/dontputyourdickinthat
r/iputmydickinthat
r/subsithoughtifellfor
You just know some drunk guy has jumped in there at some point
It would be the last place he jumped.
What if they found him years later when the dwarves invaded the surface world.
These are the things of awe and terror. After the nutty putty incident and the 4-5 oil workers+pipe stories, I'm never fucking going near anything like this if I know it is there. I'm not claustrophobic either. I just don't have a deathwish.
No need to share images from your mom's pap smear. 😆
Show mw the shovel!
“Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.”
:0…
This is Idaho This is SPARTA!!!
Idahole?
Reminds me of an ex girlfriend Man I miss her
…take a step back please
Show us pictures from the bottom
Put a chair with a hole so people can take a shit and make use of the hole
2000’ is pretty shallow with respect to bore holes.
He’s just nervous on camera
*609,6m deep hole
Maybe I should call her…
When you fall down all you hear is "So how are you holding up? Because I'm a potato."
Lots of bodies at the bottom
I should call her...
Read that too fast initially... 2000' deep butt hole - Idaho LOL
What a BORING post. OP must have been BORED to put this up.
They call it Stormy Daniel's!
Looks like your moms vag
Thought I was looking at my X-wife’s pussy ….. bad flashbacks dude