Shafts of Death, Balls of Doom.

Outside of where I grew up was the Bohemia Mountains.  The place was lousy with gold mines.  Two notables were the Champion Mine and the Noonday mine.   All manner of placer claims on the streams in the area as well with people to this day sifting them for gold.

The area was a good place to get firewood and dad and I would drive all the way out there and collect wood for the next winter.

He’d sometimes take me up to the mining site and we’d walk up to the mine – we didn’t go far in because he said it was dangerous.  And even as a kid I believed him.  You get just so close to a hole like that and it goes off into the black of nothing and you get this feeling.  Waves of ancient-ness radiate off of the very walls.  And they dynamited them shut after years of people getting in trouble.

But this guy went into a mine in Nevada and went a mite too far.

I just know it was killing the search and rescue folks to have to leave him there but what else could they do?

Rescuers have called off attempts to save a man who fell into an abandoned mine shaft, despite video footage showing he was still breathing.

The 28-year-old man fell 190ft into part of Murphy’s Mine Complex in Jersey Valley, Nevada, on Wednesday.

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I haven’t made much mention of the event but a very good friend closed down his blog last week.   You might know him – Steamboat McGoo from Aardvarks and Asshats – he reached the “crazy colorful favorite uncle” status with me years ago. And judging by the awesome responses to his last post he did what he set out to do, which was to entertain and cause many people to spray keyboards and monitors with lots of various liquids meant for drinking.  A lot of very nice people in my estimation.

Note:  I compare people to dogs and the archetypes in my family.  A co-worker of mine – my choice of stage name for him is a great exemplar – Black Lab on Amphetamines.

“Crazy colorful uncle” – almost everyone has one – is the one that kids of all ages gravitate to because he’s got interesting stories, funny jokes, and cares what a kid thinks, listening to them rather than waiting for them to stop talking so he can say something.  Not saying he was like an uncle to me, mind you.  Saying that he always made me smile and laugh like that uncle.  Big difference!

Anyhow, in his last blog-posting he said his health hasn’t been the best and he decided it would be better if he took it easier on himself – my paraphrasing, go to A&A for the actual wording.  And I understand that completely.

I think Brrrt needed more spoiling than he was getting, too.  Poor cat was only getting 45 minutes of all-body deep massage a day and the smoked-gouda feedings twice a day.  That’s pretty sparse.  I don’t know how a cat can function with that kind of neglect.

So not too long ago I had sent McGoo a picture of a place where I used to fish as a kid.  Wikiup Reservoir in the Cascade mountains.   This spot is usually underwater and it was drained a bit.  You used to have to go pretty slow, watching for stumps or you would rip out the bottom of your boat.

Source of the pic is here:  http://www.kokaneefishingforum.com/fishing-forums/showthread.php?t=3900

I fished and camped in most of these places.  Why mention it?  I was thinking of remote outdoorsy places like the gold mines and this place is pretty remote too.  And I was thinking of kokanee, german browns, and rainbows.   Mmmm.

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