Back in 1963 I worked in the Idarado Mine up at Red Mountain Pass between Ouray and Silverton, Colorado. It was a copper, lead, zinc, gold, and silver mine. Our ore went to the mill town of Telluride - a sleepy mountain town of about 600 back then. Who knew the tourist/ski/hot springs boom that would later come to the area. I coulda been rich if I'd known to buy a little bit of land.

Anyhow, I enjoy vacationing in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado and was back up soaking at Orvis Hot Springs and poking around the local attractions last weekend when I noticed the Bachelor-Syracuse mine tour was open early. Haven't been underground in a mine since '63 so signed up and got a trip deep inside Gold Hill.

Talk about memories flooding back - the smell, the sounds, the darkness. Really glad I went back in.



Suited up before hand. It "rains" all the time inside these mountains so need the raincoat.




Inside the mine at what would have been a face - this of course is their exhibit for the tourists. As my memories came flooding back I started yapping away about them - politely - and the guide seemed to appreciate it. He was a young man who'd learned about the mines but had never actually worked them himself. He kept saying how much he appreciated an old miner being on the tour.




And there is this beautiful San Juan Miner's Memorial statue in Ouray. The figure is dressed exactly like we dressed back then - save he's taken off his Filson tin cruiser jacket. And, a guy I worked with, Oscar Franz, has his name on a plaque on the wall behind the statue. The wall is topped with samples of the ore and rocks inside the local mountains.




Here's a picture from last year that shows the beautiful mountain backdrop - which incidently are the mountains I worked inside. The rock pile the statue is on is made of mountain rock too. Its like working inside a stope where the miner drilled the overhead to load dynamite then blast the ceiling so the rock fell and they they'd drill another dog hole from the raise and go in at the new higher level. The loose rock would shift. Its like working on top of the sand in an hourglass. If the sand in the hourglass started to run and you were on top of it you'd have to run up hill faster than the sand ran downhill to keep from getting sucked into the vortex and crushed. Only it wasn't sand it was these large rocks. Happened to me and let me tell you everyone was running - we all made it but a frightening thing to have to do to earn a paycheck.