Glad that's helpful. Amazing geology underground. The Idarado was a copper, lead, zinc, gold, and silver mine. Besides the crystals all you could see in the way of ore was the lead and copper but it was sure brilliant under a miner's light.

After getting blown up a few times - just like the movies, hit on the hard hat by a fall of ground the size of a football, surviving a running stope, and listening to all the disaster stories the "old" miners would tell I decided that despite being a fourth generation miner it was an occupation for others thank you.

Old miners were in their 30s. And a running stope can best be described as being in an hour glass and running uphill in the sand while the funneling sand tries to suck you down. If you can run uphill faster than the ore runs downhill you get to live.

Beautiful country though...still get back up there to soak at Orvis Hot Springs up the road in Ridgeway.

Just wish I'd had the brains to buy some land up there back then...was even pre-hippie days in Ouray.

Ron