If you grew up in Nevada at all, you know you're not supposed to go inside the abandoned mines. There used to be whole ad campaigns about "Stay Out...Stay Alive" with a creepy skeleton beckoning to you from inside the mine entrance. A mine is basically an underground death trap, with collapsing timbers, bottomless pits, and pockets of very bad air floating around. But there's just something mysterious and inviting about a dark hole in the ground, and you never know how far some of these mines can stretch.

But nowadays you don't have to put your own neck on the line to see what these mines are like inside, because someone else on the internet has already done it for you. Specifically are these photo galleries from NevadaMineExplorer over at smugmug.com. There's some pretty cool stuff in there, so go check them out.

Hat tip to Nowhere Nevada for bringing my attention to this link.