Sunday 3 September 2006
We were away at 9.00am. It was a cold 48° outside, which was understandable that we were at an altitude of over 9,000 feet. We drove along the main street, found a shop that was open and bought some really good maps of the area.
We decided that we would head up one of the almost four wheel drive tracks to the old mining area.
On the way we dropped in at the “Old Hundred Gold Mine Tour”, which was absolutely fantastic. One of the old engineers from the mine (who must have been in his 70s or maybe early 80s) took us underground in a beaut little electrical train – just as the miners had done. We spent about an hour underground as our guide demonstrated a variety of miner’s equipment. We saw the air operated drills, the loader (which was also air operated), and we were even shown how the explosives were set. We thoroughly recommend it to anyone. Even though we were half a mile underground, there was water streaming out of the walls and the roof of the mine. This shows that even though the mountains look completely solid rock, they have cracks running through them everywhere.
From there we headed up the dirt road to Animas Forks. Wow, it was great we had the Earthroamer. There is no way that you would get up here in any other type of campervan. We weren’t in four- wheel drive but the high clearance was necessary. The road was extremely narrow and in various places we had to wait for vehicles coming in the other direction.
Animas Forks was originally named Three Forks for its location at the junction of the north and west forks of the Animas River. The first log cabin was built there in 1873, and by 1876 there was a thriving community with a hotel, general store, saloon, post office and about 30 cabins. By 1883 the population grew to nearly 450 people. In those days everyone had to come over Cinnamon Pass, possibly using pack animals. In 1882 there was even a newspaper, and they reckoned in 1886 it was the highest elevation printing press in the United States – yes, everyone has a claim! It appears that most of the miners moved out in winter because the place was just so incredibly cold.
In 1904 it quickly rebounded with the opening of the Gold Prince Mine and there was a 12,600 foot aerial tram built. It is claimed that this was a very unusual aerial tram because it changed direction enroute. Normally the trams could only head off in a straight direction. The route for the Silverton railroad was to come right up to Animas Forks but this didn’t happen. There was an extension of the Silverton northern line between Eureka and Animas Forks, with a 7% grade. That is a gradient of over 1 in 14.
At Animas Forks we looked into the house built in 1879 by William Duncan, the miner and mail carrier. It was known as the “Bay Window House”. It is amazing here because we are at 11,200 feet. Imagine living at an altitude like that! Especially when you consider that for at least four months of the year you would hardly be able to move by any conventional vehicle. Of course in those days transport would mainly have been using ponies, and “Shank’s Pony” using snow shoes.
Right opposite was the ruins of the old Columbus mine processing plant. All of these ruins are now protected in this Rocky Mountain back country.
We couldn’t believe the number of quad bikes and motor bikes that were around. You can hire a quad bike in Silverton, or even a small Jeep, and go out on some of the most extraordinary four wheel drive trails. Some look almost vertical, and some are so narrow that you would only want to use a quad bike.
We drove back down the narrow, winding road and stopped beside the Eureka Mine ruins for lunch.
We stopped at the Mayflower Mill and had a very interesting self-guided tour. This is really well done. The mill and the mine were closed in 1991 but the local historical society had arranged an extraordinary tour with special safe walkways. You can actually push a button and turn on the spiral classifier. Everything from the Rod Mill to the Ball Mill to the Separation Float Chambers were shown.
The Mayflower was a “Selective Flotation Mill”. This means it recovers the minerals by floating them to the surface of water in cells with reagents – these are chemical mixtures which float out the various minerals at different times in the process. The ores processed at the mill were silver and gold, and the base metals zinc, lead and copper. Over the 50 years of the Mill’s life, 1.3 million ounces of gold, 30 million ounces of silver and over a million tons of base metals (53% zinc, 42% lead and 5% copper) were extracted. It is interesting how the prices changed. In 1930 an ounce of gold was $20. It increased to $35 in 1934 and was a world set price. It went up to $372 per ounce in 1991 and is currently $617.30 per ounce. Silver went from 25 cents per ounce in 1932, to $4.48 per ounce in 1991. Some of the base metals have changed enormously. Lead was 3 cents per pound in 1932 and was 26 cents per pound in 1991.
The amazing thing is that the mill doing over 1,000 tons per day capacity could be run by 3 people – as is the case with night shifts. Of course the day shift needed a few more people – probably 6 to 8 in total, including those on maintenance. The aerial tram required about 8 people to run it at a time. It appears that the buckets were pretty high maintenance. The end of the cable way is still in existence in the Mill. It is not operating but we were able to stand and see how the cable cars linked onto the cable. This would have been dangerous because the miners would travel up to the mines sitting or standing in the bins – we wondered how many died.
After the tour at the Mayflower Mill we shot into Silverton, bought some groceries, heard the train tooting and drove like mad down to the old railway line – but unfortunately all we could see in the distance was smoke. It had already left Silverton for Durango.
We drove back on Highway 505 towards Ouray – following the route that we had travelled the previous day but this time in magnificent weather. Fortunately the sun was out, shining onto Red Mountain. The whole of the mountain is honeycombed with mine shafts. In fact, there is one drive that travels all the way through to Telluride – many miles away.
This road was called “The Million Dollar Highway” – not because it cost a million dollars (it would have cost far more than that) but because it is reputedly built on a million dollars worth of ore.
We drove through Ouray (which was packed with people) on to Ridgeway. There was lots of holiday traffic and bikers.
This area was very much like Kandersteg area in the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland.
We followed the road around to Telluride, and just before reaching the town we turned left and drove up to the airport. Wow, what a runway! It has an elevation of 9,000 feet and the runway has a big downslope to the centre. Parked on the apron, jammed in was everything from a G5 to Falcon 10s and Citations. This is the rich man’s paradise. There were 20 corporate jets parked on the apron that weekend.
We then drove into the town of Telluride, where a film festival was on. The main street was blocked off and we needed to divert around through the back streets.
We had dinner in town then drove out to the Bridal Veil Falls and then back into town looking for a place to park because the campground was full. In the end we remained slightly to the east of the town at the Pandora Mill, parked beside the road and watched Hercules Perot on the satellite TV!!
189.6kms today 7,432kms total
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