*Must See* Why U should Stay on Designated Routes

[jeepdude10000]

ok ok, i know this was on another thread, but i think everyone should see this

"Stay on Designated Routes"

Staying on designated routes in remote public land areas of the California Desert became an important lesson for an OHV recreationist and his passenger who fell down a vertical mineshaft last weekend in eastern Imperial County (luckily, a broken arm was the only injury). Traveling off-road in a designated "limited use" area (where travel is restricted to identified safe routes), the two men spent Sunday afternoon and night -- 20 hours total --down the abandoned mineshaft before being rescued.
BLM arranged to have the vehicle extracted. An investigation is underway.
Below: a worker with the crane operating company, in a harness, is lowered into the abandoned mine shaft...​

 

[jeepdude10000]

 

[jeepdude10000]

 

[jeepdude10000]

 

[Gil BullyKatz]

more info?

did a sinkhole strike?

curious how the car fit perfectly down into the shaft...

what gives?

 

[jeepdude10000]

more info?

did a sinkhole strike?

curious how the car fit perfectly down into the shaft...

what gives?

sorry dude thats all the info that was given.

 

[scoobyxj]

Thats funny! Serves them right.

 

[Sarge]

more info?

did a sinkhole strike?

curious how the car fit perfectly down into the shaft...

what gives?

A large number of the shafts are not covered over or if the shaft is covered it's with wood which rots out. Looks like a Suzi and that would be an almost perfect fit for most vertical shafts. Lucky for them it wedged instead of dropping further. Some of those shafts are very deep.

Sarge

 

[Cornflake]

i was told that i could drive down there.......

 

[GSequoia]

more info?

did a sinkhole strike?

curious how the car fit perfectly down into the shaft...

what gives?

This was probably a couple years ago...

Anyway it's legit. There are a lot of old mine shafts in the mountains and deserts (in fact Calico, one of the places we go fairly often is an old mining town) and coming across old shafts is not uncommon.

This guy had the luck to find an exposed (it could have been boreded up, just not so well) shaft and it was the right size to eat him. Oops.

Stay on the trail! For this and many other reasons! The only place you can play wherever you want is BLM open areas

 

[Ronbo]

IIRC, they were in an open area. It seems the story has changed in the months since this incident.

 

[RichP]

repost....from long time ago...

 

[fyrfytr1717]

Interesting, BLM brought this up again in their monthly newsletter and has a new picture up that I didn't find in any of the other threads I found when searching "mineshaft". Apparently BLM El Centro has recently been undertaking a project (courtesy of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - ARRA) to ensure all the abandoned mines get covered in some way, shape, or form. Click the picture for the complete newsbyte:



And an example of their recent work...

 

[Lowrange2]

Ah, it only took 6 years to do something about it?

 

[GSequoia]

Ah, it only took 6 years to do something about it?

More like about 70 - 125 years.

This is a huge project, the desert is pock marked with thousands of mines, many unmarked on maps.

 

[Lowrange2]

I was refering to boarding up this particular shaft.

I guess the poster wasn't directly pointing at this mine as much as a general project to fill the shafts.

 

[xcm]

you could easily avoid any offroad problems by never going offroad at all...

oh yeah, thats half the fun.

 

[old_man]

You could also avoid the problem by not going where you aren't supposed to, or maybe not going faster than you can see.

 

[GSequoia]

You could also avoid the problem by not going where you aren't supposed to, or maybe not going faster than you can see.

It's not always that clear out here, I've seen some pretty hidden shafts in open BLM areas.


The BLM is helping us in another way too, by creating the designated route process and closing a huge portion of the desrt unless signed open we're less at risk.

 

[larsen]

I rode a trials bike into an old well puttin around the woods one time.