Mining caves

The mining caves were a location in the Grand Canyon, owned by the Blackfoot Tribe.

Mining caves 1
A small cave entrance that was expanded into three tunnels in the search for silver. While the silver supply was meager and eventually ran out, it was enough of a draw to keep people here long enough to realize there was coal in the hills and this was a decent place to live as well. Now what lives here are some big mutant bats that generally avoid humans but have a strange attraction to ghouls. The bats make bat guano, which can be used to make gunpowder.

If the player character kills off the bats, the guano will not re-spawn. There is an area of rubble hiding a metal door. Behind it is a cache of military gear, placed here by a nearby army base for use by units separated from their base during an invasion. The founders of this town knew of the cache but it had already been buried by the time they got here and they lacked the means to move the rock and didn't have the codes to open the door (or the dynamite to blow it open).

Mining caves 2
A small cave with a coal mine built into it. Recently some rats (R), pig rats (P), and a couple of mole rats (M) moved into this cave and have begun breeding. Only the predation of nearby coyotes has kept them in check and (so far) unnoticed by the Blackfoot. If the coyotes are killed off, rat damage will become more common, and the pig rats and mole rats will have young and start to attack people on the hillside and town.

Appearances
The mining caves were going to appear in Van Buren, the canceled Fallout 3 by Black Isle Studios.