The first thing you realize is that it smells different because there's a lot of humidity.

You get a little smells from the sulfur in the ore, and then there's the noise.

The Old Hundred Mine was put together by actually some brothers who were from Germany back in the 1860s and 70s.

You just can't take any old tunnel or mine and do a successful tour.

It has to have certain characteristics.

The most important thing is to make sure the rock is stable.

Initially, the first couple of hundred feet goes through a slide rock.

When they built the tunnel in 1968, they had to put up steel I-beams, all around on the roof and the walls to, hold up the loose rock.

As they got in farther, they hit the solid volcanic rock.

And you have to have good ventilation.

That's natural ventilation, which means there has to be other tunnels connected and shafts connected to allow a natural airflow.

And then the mine can't really have any pollution.

So that limits the number of mines that really can become a successful tour.

There's always been a fascination with, gold and mining in the American West.

The romanticized version of mining.

But what you find when you do a tour, you'll learn what it takes to run the equipment.

And that mining was a lot of hard work.