During 2020 we dedicated ourselves to the exploration of the gold mines located in the Ossola area, and more precisely in the Antrona Valley..
A historical document from 1912 reports that it was the engineers’ intention to dig a connecting tunnel between the two main gold mines in the valley.
Being a titanic undertaking, also considering the considerable vertical and horizontal distance between the mines, it was difficult to have been realized.
In confirmation of this, the documents no longer mentioned anything about those works.
However, the deeper we went, the more the idea, the conviction, that
something was wrong with respect to what had been studied on historical documents.
The air flows study indicated that the complex was more extensive than might appear from a first and not careful exploration.
From here began the search for what we nicknamed, due to the fact that there were no writings about it, Ghost Gallery.
It took many expeditions to be able to hypothesize where it could be and to understand how to intercept it.
In fact, several attempts were unsuccessful due to the numerous landslides affecting the mining complex, which obstructed the passages and tunnels once used by miners.
A first exploration allowed us to find, not without difficulty, the lower access, dug into the vein and divided like the upper part into two sections.
One for the passage of the miners, and one for the gold ore.
Finally on 24 October 2020, after an exploration lasting 9 hours inside the mining complex, we were able to find the high access thus confirming the existence of this tunnel, forgotten by time and history.
Studies and explorations have shown us that the three main mines in the valley are connected, but at the moment only a very small part of this connection has been explored.
One thing that struck us and that will be deepened during the next explorations is that the upper and lower accesses have the passages for the miners and the ore, respectively, reversed.
This means that probably somewhere in the belly of the mountain, in correspondence of a carriage tunnel, where the passages are exchanged, there could be the presence of equipment and finds.
For this expedition, a helicopter was needed to reach the area located at about 2000 meters and almost 100 kg of equipment, including 120 meters of rope and all the hardware needed to equip the rig.
After overcoming landslides, wells and unstable areas, we reached the entrance to the connection that connects the main mines, confirming in fact that the Valle Antrona mining complex (geologically part of the Monte Rosa massif) is three times larger than we initially assumed.
Below, the articles and videos that talked about this discovery.
Photo Gallery
