| The dry walls helped widen the area we camp in and make it safer to walk around the trailer. It was just a matter of time before the unlevel ground and a round rock caused me to roll an ankle. |
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| In order to get up to the level of the mine collar, Tony decided to dig in some steps. |
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| Fortunately the area around the mine is quite rocky so gathering the rocks we needed was reasonably easy. Well, as easy as gathering big ol' heavy rocks ever can be. |
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| Tony has a real talent for this kind of work. |
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| The angle of the embankment was just about right for the stairs. |
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| Here they are all completed. That's enough for one trip! |
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| The next trip up to the mine. Staying up at the mine for a week is pretty easy with this camp setup. It only takes a couple of hours to set up or take down. |
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| We needed stairs on the opposite side of the trench. The mine road leads up there and it is is where we unload supplies. It's important to have safe access to the trench. |
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| The stairs turned out really nice and make it easy to unload supplies. |
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| The camp is done and now to get back to working in the mine. |
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| Another visitor! Horned lizards are not uncommon. |
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| They are beautiful in their own way. A couple of photos, then careful release at the base of a bush. |
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| I'm not a big fan of bugs, but Tony seems to enjoy them. I have no idea what kind of bug this is, but we named him Boris. Of course, every black bug like this is now named Boris. It's so much easier to have a bunch of Bori than to try to name each one differently. ;-) |
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| A few of our panning tools. |
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| You might recognize this gold mining YouTuber, Jeff Williams and his amazing wife Lila. What an great couple! Jeff is a geologist and loves to share his knowledge about gold and gold mining. Thanks for all the info Jeff! |
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| After we tried a few different configurations for a winch, we landed on this setup. It's a construction scaffold winch that Tony brought over from England. As they say, "It works a treat!" |
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| Tony is getting ready to head up into one of the stopes. |
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| As we are clearing the lowest level, we have found some old mining tools. The old ore bucket was left in place and covered with silt over time. |
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| You can see that the tracks were buried and we are trying to dig them out. They lead to an area that is currently blocked off from this side of the mine. We can access behind the blockage from the next level up. |
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| As we continued to follow the tracks we came across this little mine car. It was just big enough for the ore bucket to sit on. Unfortunately the wood was completely rotten. |
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| Another mining trip is coming to an end. We leave as much as we can in the storage drifts so we don't have to haul stuff back and forth. Even with the gate on top, the valuable stuff goes home. |
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| This is the security staff. They make certain that nothing gets messed with. We gave them a little bonus for all their hard work. |
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| It's always a good time for a nap! Bill is taking a well deserved break. It gets a bit toasty, but very relaxing. |
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