One could make the case that, if they were doable by non-combat types, such methods would be flooded by dozens of scripters per shard, to the possible point of locking the legit people out (using a combat example, imagine if Mel could be done by a lone scripter? - it would be a miracle for a real hunt to get in).
Blacksmiths and surface Miners (which is what we are, given we can't make new shafts into the mountains with our digging) historically are supposed to be big brawny types, often prone to fighting and well able to use their tools as weapons.
The beauty of UO is we don't HAVE to follow such a template, but the downside is that by doing so, we limit our mining options. One can't be good at everything. The inventor of denim jeans was a tailor in SF that FAILED at gold mining, after all...
But there are things a non-combat miner can do.
1. They can use a prospector's tool for elevating ore one step (required to get dull copper in any appreciable amount, anyway, given the sheer number of DC BODs people at 110 and 120 smithing are getting now). There's no danger there.
2. They can get a tamer friend to get them a fire beetle, then after it bonds, dig up a shadow elemental, and have the tamer train vet on the beetle to keep it alive as it trains. This increases your survival, by having it guard you. My fire beetle, barely at tamed stats (it keeps chasing elder gazers and Cyclops in Ilshenar before I can call it back), can kill ogres and ettins, as long as I hit it with a close wounds or two. A fully trained one can probably take any of the normal elementals other than the two immune to pets (shadow & valorite, but make sure you heal it with spells against a copper), so it can be used in conjunction with a garg pick at most spots.
3. Add a little chivalry, via equipment if need be (you can get to 40 with Luna Lance, +15 ring and +15 bracelet - add 25 real and you can 100% sacred journey). You can use it to travel, heal, remove poison, and refresh stamina. While Chivalry is combat-oriented, it has many advantages for a miner (especially one without combat skill).
a. It uses tithing, so the regs don't take up your room for ore, nor do bandages;
b. Divine Fury can be used to walk while overloaded, by repeated use every time stamina bottoms out (no need for refresh pots or waiting for stam regeneration);
c. It uses LRC too, but all or nothing. so a 100% LRC suit still lets you go with only about 20-30 in your tithe pool (but even with LRC I'd keep 1000 in for emergencies);
d. close wounds can be used at about the same distance as Vet, to heal your packies or beetle, not just yourself.
4. Let your surroundings be your ally.
a. The lazy way of mining with gargoyle picks is in a guard zone, so that if you get an elemental you can't handle, you have the guards kill it. This is possible in Cove, Delucia, Umbra (you can mine the banks of the moat, not just the mountain), and possibly a few other sites - anywhere those little humps of rock stick out of the ground in 2D. Before Haven blew up (and therefore before ore became random), several of the humps of that type were in Haven BY THE BANK, and produced valorite with a gargoyle pick on Lake Austin. If the guards kill the ele, you don't get the ore on it, but at least you get the elevated ore. In other locations, someone else might just kill it, and leave you the ore, if you're lucky.
b. Another option is to be positive karma (which there are means to gain karma other than combat), and mine in areas with heavy blue spawn. For example, much of the area from east of Spirituality, to northwest of Sacrifice, in Ilshenar. If you get an elemental, have it follow you into the Oaks spawn, the woods with pixies, Lakeshire/Mireg, or the healer grove (or for that matter, go mine in the twisted weald, surrounded by the spawn). The blues will attack the elementals, and NON-tames/non-summons CAN hurt a shadow or valorite elemental. Let them kill the elemental, and you get to loot the elemental AND anything it killed! I once took a backseat, after getting a paragon valorite elemental, and watched it fight a paragon meer eternal. Damn, what a fight. (unfortunately about half-way through, the eternal used its area attack that kills just about any character on screen when it happens, and I finished the fight watching as a ghost, before running to the nearby healers for a rez
). There are areas similar to these, though smaller, in Malas, where you can mine the edges of the landmass near pixies, ki-rin and unicorns, if you don't wish to risk paragons.
5. If you're already using magery instead of chivalry, you can use mage weapons for self defense instead, bolstering mage skill with jewelry.
6. A reason for Humanity. It's amazing what one can do with the human Jack of all Trades, if you have Mondain's Legacy. You get some med & focus, limited combat skill, and the ability to be a wiz at using mage scrolls. A Human with 0 real magery can cast 5th circle scrolls successfully about 27% of the time. That means that even a non-combat human can go offensive with Blade spirits scrolls (since summons don't require eval). They can also use 4th circle scrolls (recall, greater heal, arch cure) about 75% of the time. Combine this with other tactics, and it's amazing what a "non-combat" character can kill.