So much to talk about with this one and YouTube restricts how much one can write for a video description… As you saw, I couldn’t resist checking out the mill and a little more of the ghost town (well, mostly a ghost town) on the way out to those mine workings in the distant hills. I suppose that would qualify as urban exploring, or “UrbEx” as they call it. If you think about it though, exploring abandoned mines really covers a lot of areas: urban exploring, caving, geology, industrial archaeology, thrill-seeking (for some), history, hiking, weight lifting (carrying all of that gear up steep mountains is a fantastic workout), mechanics (things are always breaking down) and probably several others that I could come up with if I thought about it longer. I guess I’m not that worried about labels though...

What I did worry about a bit was hearing that oxygen meter and hydrogen sulfide meter going off simultaneously and so close to two huge open portals. There was no air flow in there, but I just can’t imagine what would have set the meters off like that. Unless there was something dead back there, it seems very odd that the hydrogen sulfide meter would alert. To put that in some perspective, that is the ONLY time I have ever had the hydrogen sulfide meter alert. I even considered that it was malfunctioning, but there is no way that both gas meters would simultaneously malfunction. So, I do believe there was something that was not good in there. I just don’t understand what it could have been in those circumstances.

Regardless of what it was, it felt pretty demoralizing to hit that bad air in the twin portals I entered and to then hit that caved adit right after. I went in just far enough to get uncomfortably wet and muddy in the set of twin portals and then had to eject with no satisfaction of our curiosity. To make matters worse, I burned too much time getting out to that part of the mine, which prevented me from being able to properly explore that last adit we saw. I can only imagine the underground workings that must be hidden inside of that mountain… As I believe I said in the video, this sprawling mine site in Bayzhansay is definitely one we need to return to.

The GPS coordinates for the mill are: 43.163773, 69.921247

The GPS coordinates for the first site with the three adits are: 43.203811, 69.915564

The GPS coordinates for the last part of the mine we visited are: 43.198745, 69.925281

In hindsight, I obviously should have headed to the last site first, but I made the best decision I could with the information I had at the time (which was limited to a hunch that there was something there based on satellite images from Google Earth). What about my decision to turn back from the open pit workings at the last site? Looking at the imagery using the GPS coordinates above, do you agree that it looks like it was all surface work up on the hill there? I’m second guessing myself on that one now…

Good and bad decisions aside, you can see how directly in line those two sites are. So, clearly, they were following the same vein that ran through there. Also, the two adits that punched in from the opposite sides of the same mountain separating those two sites makes me think that the workings have to connect underground.

And how about those scrappers? I’m used to scrappers pulling out copper wire, catalytic converters (for the platinum) and other more valuable metals. I am NOT used to scrappers going after every single piece of metal they can lay their hands on. I don’t know that much about scrap metal values, but the one time in my life that I sold some scrap metal that we had from a home remodel, I received one cent per pound for the metal. So, I made like $5 off of a roughly equivalent amount of metal as the guy in the video had. It makes me wonder how that can be worth it? Oh, and all of that bulldozed ground around the lead mill… That was done by scrappers too. Think about the cost pf operating that heavy equipment. Again, how can they be making money doing that? Consider also that they have to drive for hours to get to the nearest town. Gasoline is cheaper in Kazakhstan than in the U.S. (and certainly in Europe), but it isn’t dramatically cheaper. So, you’ve got to add in the fuel costs the scrappers have to pay to get the metal to someone that will buy it as well. Anyone know much about the economics of the scrap metal business that can explain that one?

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All of these videos are uploaded in HD, so adjust those settings to ramp up the quality! It really does make a difference.

You can see the gear that I use for mine exploring here: https://bit.ly/2wqcBDD

You can click here for my full playlist of abandoned mines: https://goo.gl/TEKq9L

Thanks for watching!

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