Скачать или смотреть Exploring the Mines of Mill Gulch

This was a bit of a distant explore over a very full day.

Starting in the 1880's, these mines are close to a very popular gold mining district, but never produced much gold. What they are known for, however, is very very rich silver ore. This series of mines produced so much silver and lead, that up to 10% of all rock they mined was lead, with some sections revealing nearly 25oz per ton silver. For such small mines, this was a very large production number. Production was very minimal, though, due to how expensive it is to get rock from this canyon and to processing plants for smelting and sales. A few of these mines ended up being worked until the early 1970's, and have worked off and on in exploratory capacities ever since.

This site is really exciting, as all but one of the mines in this canyon are on the same road that climbs nearly vertically up the side of a mountain. This enabled some mines to be connected via tunnels, or even worked in tandem despite being worked often by different companies.

Overall, this site is a special one, and we are very glad we had a chance to go explore these mines!