Abandoned Northern Nevada Mines - MGL Mine and School Bus Canyon

More Northern Nevada mine exploration, this time the northeastern peripheries of former Lake Winnemucca in the Nightingale Mining District.  The MGL mine was an extensive tungsten mine with a fairly large mill (below) situated at the foot of the canyon. 

 Facing west towards former Lake Winnemucca.

 Remnants of an old ore chute.

 When off road in Northern Nevada, always carry recovery equipment, tire patch kit, shovel, pull pall, snatch block, recovery straps, winch, etc...you'll need them.

 The MGL ore bin is in remarkable shape considering its age.  At nearly three stories tall, its an impressive sight.

  An ore chute at the end of ore tracks only 50 yards from adit #1.

 A well framed adit nicely preserved.

 Most of the portals look this way, the lose rocks and dirt on the hillside often sloughs off and make the portal look extra menacing.  Generally speaking, its the portals that do this, 4 feet in you're roses.

 End of the ore tracks where they'd fill trucks I'd presume with ore.

 I'd love to reclaim these 10x10 timbers, they look fresh from the mill.

 Work table.

 Miners weren't spellers, should be "adit #2".

 An odd masonry wall with a passage through, beyond was not looking safe.  Was this was used in place of cribbings for support?  Very odd and it looks like it took some time to build.

 Dual ore chutes.  Looking up each chute, you can see light some 75 feet up.

 Upper working connected to lower working via this metal chute which was fastened to the hillside by steel cable.

 A top this huge stopped out pit is another ore chute, this one is out of rock, look close at the top of the pit, there is a chute chiseled out of rock atop that connects to yet another set up upper workings.

 This pit is vast, much bigger than the picture suggests, no way out if you go in other than through a quarter mile of mine shaft in the pitch black.

 Storage, possibly for TNT.

 This road is bad, especially for a full sized truck, the long wheel base had me one the verge of a rollover, had to have the kids get out and walk twice as I locked up and inched past a couple of bad washout.

 Further north is school bus canyon.  Getting there is a challenge, a big dry creek washout makes you fish around a few hundred yards looking for a crossing, but it can be done.  I still can't figure out how it got its name.

 Yeah, its what it looks like, someone took a bowling ball cannon up there and blasted bowling balls clear through the school buses....damn, where was I when this was going down?

This canyon is probably worse than MGL.  Frequented by jeepers, it has obstacles that have drive arounds, however, these drive arounds weren't exactly meant for a long wheel-based vehicle.  Again, had kids out walking for fear of a rollover with them in the cab.  Not sure I'd do either MGL or school bus canyon again in a newly purchased full sized truck.