In class yesterday

[tamrock]

I keep what's called an MSHA 48 annual refresher ever once a year and MSHA put's a class on up at the Colorado School of Mines Edger mine. I need that refresher in order to go in the mines to do my job. We did the morning talking about safety and all and discussed the 7 fatalities that took place in 2015. After we broke for lunch we go in the old mine and pretty much walk around and look at the stuff underground. The Edger mine has been an educational mine since the later 1930's. There's some pretty old stuff inside, which I always enjoy looking at. Outside I took a picture of this Gold wash trommel-longtom combo looking rig. It's been sitting there for a long time now. The temps were pretty chilly up there and coming back through the Clear Creek Canyon I ran into a Spring snow storm with giant snow flakes. It was really pretty.

 

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[Old Dude]

Great and interesting pics. Those men did some of the hardest, dirtiest and most dangerous work that we can't even imagine today.

 

[tamrock]

Great and interesting pics. Those men did some of the hardest, dirtiest and most dangerous work that we can't even imagine today.

And they did it all without all of today's multi-million dollar cost and permitting delays and expenses. Way to much chicken feed crap to deal with today if you want to open a small operation, unless you want to operate like some out of sight out of mind renegade. It's been done before. Back in the early 90's I had some crazy customers who'd leave their mine road in a way only the best 4x4 could get up it until you came to a giant log placed in the road. They did this because the msha man only had a Government issued Chevy Lumina to get around in. Finally msha hired a pay loader to get to the sight and bust them for all kinds of hazardous issues. I was given an msha class by the same msha man who shut them down and he said when he got to the site one fella was mining with a hanging Colman lantern, with only a ball cap on his head and those funky late 1980's moon boots for footwear. We all laughed at the story he told about it. The miners were a bunch of outlaws from Canada he said. I know were that mine is and I get an ornery thought in my head when I drive by were it's at. I do want to go have a look at it again someday. The road is really washed out now and it even be a tough hike to get to it today.

 

[old digger]

That looks like some beautiful Flourite crystals in the third photo.

 

[tamrock]

That looks like some beautiful Flourite crystals in the third photo.

That is actually a vein of lead-silver, galena and maybe a tiny amount of gold in it, along with arsenic and sulfides. It was about as wide as a soda can is tall. That be the stuff the miners in the 1890's went after during the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Silver_Purchase_Act