Monday, June 24, 2019, Paint Mines Interpretive Park After Move to Calhan, CO

After two weeks at Green Mountain Falls, CO, (14 miles northwest of Colorado Springs, CO) it was time to move on. We certainly stayed busy during our stay and would be more than happy to return some day. The only downside was two weeks at 8,000 feet was not enough to acclimate and I was ready for some thicker air. 

Between our campground and Colorado Springs was a continuous downhill drive with a loss of nearly 2,000 feet of altitude. We passed this sign and wondered just what kind of storms do they have around here. Hopefully, we will never find the need to abandon our car and climb to safety.

Today was a short hop to Calhan, CO, just 48.4 miles (93,674.1 total). Joani picked this site for its close proximity to the Paint Mines Interpretive Park.

I was concerned about some visible wear on the Honda's tires - they needed to be replaced. Our alignment was ruined by potholes somewhere along the way and the outer edge of the front tire was badly worn. Actually, this set of tires lasted longer than any we previously had so it was time. There were no tire dealers in Calhan and I was not sure about continuing on towards Topeka, KS, and Kansas City, MO. Joani figured out our best options for new tires would be backtracking towards Colorado Springs. I made some calls and found something acceptable but they could not mount the new tires until tomorrow.

Since the Paint Mines was only a few miles away we decided to visit this afternoon. It was less than 4 miles but half of that was some rough gravel road so you know I took it slowly.

We walked a half mile through green fields before we saw the first signs of erosion. The grass gave way to white, chalky scars in the ground. At first, features had little depth or color but as we continued, the hoodoos became deeper and more colorful. We were almost giddy as we walked through the fantastic landscape snapping pictures. Some of our favorites are below.  

This is a close-up shot of the seemingly melting rock.

What an unusual specimen! It is nearly the size of two basketballs, otherwise, it would be in my trunk.

Frasera speciosa, Monument Plant, Green Gentian, Elkweed, Deer's Ears
Wow! A plant with many names. It is similar to the Century Plant, in that it grows 20-40 years, flowers once and then dies.

I feel lucky to have witnessed the bloom.

We wondered if the same colorful layers were everywhere under the surface of the green fields surrounding the park.

Sunday, June 23, 2019, Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mine (Newmont Goldcorp), Victor, CO

It was our last day in the Colorado Springs, CO, area and we just about wrote it off as a stay at home day. Then Joani found that the Victor Lowell Thomas Museum in Victor, CO, offered a gold mine tour (Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mine [Newmont Goldcorp]) and it looked interesting. I was surprised it was available on a Sunday but she made reservations and away we went.

Victor, CO, was a long way from its heyday during the gold rush but it had a nice little downtown area that was completely rebuilt after the entire town burned in 1899. We saw very few people around since it was Sunday morning and it was cold and it was windy. That cold and wind kept us from spending much time walking around as well.

We met the Mine Tour guide, at the museum. Before we headed to the mine we received some safety instructions and suited up in our PPG (Personal Protective Gear): safety glasses, reflective vest and hard hat.

This was our first mine tour and we were impressed! I cannot imagine we could have had a better experience. Our first stop was an overlook of the hole in the ground where the ore was excavated. That little dot driving up the road on the right side of the picture below is one of the huge ore haulers.  

Our tour guide, Rod, had a head crammed with facts and figures and a thorough understanding of the processes from start to finish. They knew gold was in the ground here because of previous mines. The current enterprise started with a complete plan beginning with removing the top soil and ending with covering the project with the same top soil when the operation was complete. The company considered this to be a three generation project - more than 100 years before the land would be returned to its original state.

The entire operation was on a scale that was difficult to process! The pit above was more than 800 feet deep. Geologists test the ore for gold and silver content. Anything less than 0.005 ounces of gold per ton of ore was considered overburden and hauled off to the side. Between 0.005 and 0.05 ounces per ton was considered low-grade ore and made up about 93 percent of what they processed. Above 0.05 ounces per ton was high-grade ore. That seven percent accounted for 10 percent of the gold they recover.

Once they have a good idea of the gold content in an area they blast using a slurry of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. Then they scoop up the ore using loaders that have a 12 cubic yard bucket capacity (about 18 tons). The loaders fill the haulers which then deliver the ore to the crushers. The ore is crushed until it is no larger than 3/4 inch.

Rod made it clear, this was an active mine with a tour and that is different than a tour of an old mine. (regulated differently)

The hauler below was out of commission and we were allowed to climb aboard to get a feel for just how large it was. Rod gave us a few facts and figures on the typical hauler. Each cost $4 million without tires. Tires were an additional $32,000 each. This behemoth carried about 400 tons of ore per load. It had a 1,200-gallon fuel tank capacity and it burned through a tank every 24 hours of operation. Five to six tanker trucks offloaded diesel to the supporting fuel farm each day. The hauler was about 50 feet in length and 25 feet tall (over 50 feet tall when the body was raised.)

On the ground next to this hauler was a pile of ore. We were told we could take all the rocks our pockets could hold. I did.

The tire was a 59/80R63 - even if you don't know exactly what that means it was clearly ginormous!

From the cab, you could only see roadway far in front and straight down to the left front corner. That made it clear why all roadway operations within the mine gates were left-hand driving - so drivers could see the edge of the roadway - kind of important as you negotiate the uphill curves out of the pit.

Joani, in her PPG, was ready to drive!

Ok, they didn't let us drive this big guy, but the view was amazing and it started snowing on us. So cool!

On the other side of the mine (about a five-mile drive by road) we went to the VLF2 (Valley Leach Field #2) overlook where Rod tried to explain the chemistry behind extracting the gold and silver from the ore. I just had a difficult time grasping the enormity involved in setting up the leach fields and all of the environmental regulation and compliance testing required for their operation. The building below processes the chemical slurry that has bonded with the gold and silver on its way down the hill. It is further processed to extract the pure precious metals by smelting and finally poured into solid bars worth about $800,000 each. Every week an armored car takes 8 to 10 bars away. 

Another hauler load of crushed ore goes onto the leach field. Someday, many years from now when all of the gold has been leached from this hillside of ore the liner underneath will be punctured (to allow groundwater to seep below the leach field), it will be covered and shaped with overburden material which will then be covered with topsoil and seeded and planted with trees. We saw some of their reclamation efforts. It appeared they had a good plan to close out operations.

Do you see the hauler dumping a load of red crushed rock down the hill (leach field)?

For fun and to serve as a safety reminder they backed one side of the rear axle of an empty loader over this (fully depreciated) van. The driver reportedly never felt anything as she left her mark on this vehicle.

Signs read:

"Demonstration of a light vehicle being smashed by the rear duals of a 793D haul truck."

"Do you know where your blind spots are?"

If it was not already apparent, I highly recommend this tour and I certainly will be taking it again the next time we are in the area!

On the way home, we stopped in Cripple Creek, CO, where the Donkey Derby Days celebration was winding down. That worked out well for us. We skipped the shopping and had a nice late lunch in one of the towns many casinos before heading back home.

Saturday, June 22, 2019, Wildflower Photography Class, Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO

We signed up for a photography class at Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO. Our registration fees all went to support the park and Visitor's Center operations so it was a worthwhile cause.

The class was taught by Bob Falcone, also known as "Hiking Bob." He has quite an online presence with a webcast and a column in the Colorado Springs paper. He is an avid hiker and loves taking photographs of wildflowers. He made it clear he was a photographer, not a botanist so he could not tell us the names of flowers, he just liked to capture them with his camera.

We started with a classroom discussion of equipment. As you might expect, he showed us thousands of dollars worth of equipment but he said we could take awesome pictures with any level of camera, even a cellphone. Two things I will be looking to find are a nice diffuser ($13) and an extension tube for my camera ($45).

It was touch and go with the weather but the rain held off and the winds were pretty calm so our outdoor exercises went pretty well. In fact, the clouds provided diffuse light that was ideal for close up photos of the local flora.

All but the last three pictures below were taken in an area maybe 100 feet by 100 feet. At first glance, I saw a lot of Yucca and a few various small flowers sprinkled around. When we really started looking we found such a variety of flowers and colors it was amazing. 

My little green friend was a happy accident.

Bob went into detail about how to manually defocus the background with an SLR. Thank goodness my little sony has a "background defocus" mode.

Bob highly recommended we use a tripod and remote shutter release. We brought them but it is so cumbersome to do it that way. I can take ten shots handheld in the time it takes to set up one with the tripod. (One out of ten will surely be in focus.) David used his at first, but I noticed he gave it up, too.

To shoot this yucca, my camera was a few inches from the ground facing up to the sky, try that with a tripod.

I had no idea dandelions were so complicated.

Bob explained that all the magic happens in post-production. I couldn't agree more.

We so seldom use our cellphone to take pictures, but if you do, Bob highly recommends you download "snapseed," a sophisticated photo editing app for Android or Apple.

Truly, most of Bob's advice was geared toward capturing photos with equipment that could be blown up to large prints. (It's all about the sensor size rather than the number of pixels.) I suspect mine, shot with my little sony, would be grainy beyond the 4x6.

Much was said about not disturbing live plants just to get a photo (clearing out dead debris is allowed).

The ground was so thick with tiny barrel cacti it was a challenge not to step on them.

Truly, an overcast day is the best time to capture flowers...

...because once the sun makes an appearance the shadows can be a distraction.

I see a stick figure playing in the center of the second posy. 

I'd like to say that I was trying to capture the bee coming in for lunch, but he, too, was a happy accident.

Bob handled questions as he wandered around pointing out potential subject matter in the field. He had a good eye for technical detail - color, contrast, focus and framing.

On the way back to the car we decided to take a few pictures of flowers planted around the visitor's center.

The session was very entertaining and we felt like we learned something about photographing flowers that will hopefully show in our future work.