Well, good morning everyone!
It's good to be home, even though the Silverton area is an unbelievable place. At night you can see every star in the sky.
Other than a PC issue I just fixed and a problem when the rental car hit a rock I'm back in all one piece and got done what I went to do; see the mines, dry stack area and try to get a handle about what's going on - plus have a bunch of fun!
I wish the boys could relay more of the progress they've made, but then, they are basically doing what they've said they were going to do - within their power anyway. So much rides on what whatever government agency lets them do at any one point. Another thing is the culture. People there just don't talk about other peoples business or their own. I found this in town asking about things unrelated to the company. It was a throwback to an earlier time, but nice, (unless you are picking someones brain on how they run their business). At least it's not from trying to hide anything. They don't talk about things, they just do it as best they can.
While I was there last week the focus was getting the water line completed. Pete Maisel and his crew had the trenching open by the time I got there and were wrestling with the water line all week. Snaking 1 3/4" copper inside PVC was a chore for the guys and they didn't have much fun - so I kept my normal constructive criticism to a minimum. They gotter done.
John and I spent most of Wednesday shooting the breeze while the guys worked on the line. Toward the end of the day they had a motorized water pump running to fill the tank at the top of the hill for a pressure check. John and I wandered down to see how that was going. I went in the pump house and saw a little water squirting out the fill cap. I was about to go say something to John when the cap exploded and an inch and a quarter blast of water about took the roof off the building. I just about had to swim out of there. Between the pump and the pressure from the tank - it was like Niagara falls in there! I couldn't find anything to cover up with, but I was able to plow in and pull the plug wire while John got the valve to the tank. The guys found a few rocks to be the culprit and it was soon up and running.
They also took a few samples from the Brooklyn and the Solomon toward the end of the week. Unfortunately, my flight schedule on Friday made me skip that. While they were at the Brooklyn Thursday I hiked up to the Solomon. (At about 12,000 ft it really is a hike. Rental cars don't go places jeeps do. Elevation is something else - I saw a bunch of people in town with oxygen tanks, and most weren't much over 40 - wish I had one.)
The week prior was spent drilling at the dry stack site. I saw some pics of the work. It's right up the road from the mill on the way to the Silver Wing. It's a huge area. I've scanned through the post and know some have some questions on this area. Guys, it's really a process with the testing, results, submissions and reply's all having to be complete before an iron clad answer is given about what will need to be done. Until then they don't know much more than we do.
And that process carries over to pretty much every aspect when it comes to mining and milling in that area - anything they say would be speculation until the paperwork is done.
The mill is looking nice. What I thought would be a problem with transformers turned out to be a non-issue. The high voltage is ready to go. I asked about what shape the motors were in and it's kind of an unknown. At one point they were turned on after sitting for 10 years and fired up with little problem. The mill is still full of spare parts and the environment is is unbelievable for preservation of things like that; the air is thin and dry. I'll give you an example. It rained every afternoon for about 20 minutes. Within a half hour I was able to get my campfire started with very little effort, (trying to boil water at that altitude is another story). There's still some electrical work to do in the mill, mostly lighting from what I saw, although there could be more.
From what I saw, they are doing their best to follow the timeline and the plan. So much rides on things outside their control in regards to what papers get filed and when. Even if they wanted to predict and speculate, there are too many variables to be accurate. I'll continue to keep an eye on the DRMS database.
