Argo Gold Mill

Last weekend Liz, Jen, and I went to Idaho Springs for a look at Colorado's mining history. Perched on the hillside above the town sits the Argo Gold Mill, a structure dedicated to breaking down gold bearing ores to extract the precious minerals inside.



Ironically, the first stop on the tour is the Double Eagle Gold Mine, a small hard rock mine that never really produced much of value. The mine is a great way to start the tour though, as it really gives you an idea of how the miners worked.



The real reason the mill was built in this area was the Argo Tunnel, originally called the Newhouse Tunnel after the man who built it. The Argo Tunnel is a 4 mile bore that goes under the mountain all the way to Central City. There are dozens of mines between Idaho Springs and Central City and most of them connect to the Argo Tunnel. The tunnel performed two vital functions. Firstly ground water was able to drain out of the mines through the tunnel and into Clear Creek in Idaho Springs, obviating the needs for expensive pumps. The tunnel also allowed the miners to drop their ore down instead of up, and move it via small mine trains to the central ore processing point of the gold mill.



In 1943 four miners working a load in a mine connected to the Argo tunnel set off a powder blast, and opened a passage to an adjacent mine that was NOT part of the unified network. This mine had been abandoned in the 1920's when it's pumps could no longer keep up with the influx of water in the deeper tunnels. The full mine's worth of water poured into their shaft, killing the miners and scouring the Argo Tunnel of its supports, tracks and equipment. In fact, an ore train was shot out of the tunnel and across the valley by the force of the waters.




This disaster, combined with the US government ordering all miners to work only on minerals necessary for the war effort signaled the end to the operations of the Argo Mill and tunnel. However, the tunnel still performs one of it's functions impeccably, draining water out of the mines above, though now that water is heavily polluted, and must be cleaned before it enters Clear Creek.



The Mill sat empty and abandoned until the 1970's when it was purchased, added to the National Historic Register, and opened to tourists. It's really fascinating to see this piece of Colorado's History up close, and though many of the large grinding machines are gone, you can still get an idea of the effort that went into extracting gold from the tons and tons of Rocky Mountain ore.



At the bottom of the mill there is a small museum, and part of the museum shows how certain minerals fluoresce under ultraviolet light. I took the opportunity to have some fun with long exposures and my zoom lens.



The final stop on the tour was a chance to do some gold panning. It was a little tricky at first, but once I got the hang of it I managed to find a few flecks of gold at the bottom of my pan! I was surprised and a little proud to see the glinting specks amid the mud and sand. We got to put our gold in small baggies to bring home, a fitting souvenir from our day in the Colorado Mineral Belt.

Scrambling

A few weeks ago Matt invited Jen and I up to his family cabin for the weekend. We had a great time hanging out, burning things, and scrambling on the large rock formations nearby.



The cabin itself is located near Deckers, south-west of Denver, in a little valley full of family vacation cabins.



On a ridge above the road there are several large granite formations that make for excellent scrambling. While I'm far from the most daring person around heights, I had some fun showing up Matt and Jen, who were both a bit more cautions than I was.



Though Matt DID decide to do a bit of free climbing up a sheer rock face.



As always, the view from the top was worth it. I never get tired of looking down on a vista from a high point, no matter where I am.

Mt. Bierstadt Redux (Now with 357 degrees)

The other weekend I decided it was past time to head to the really high country, and so I conviced Jen and my dad to go summit Mt. Bierstadt with me. I did Bierstadt last summer too, but it's convinient location and the ease of the hike made it a no brainer to try again. This was especially true as it was Jen's first 14er, and Bierstadt makes an excellent introduction to Colorado's high mountains.



I was excited both to climb and to hone my Panorama skills. I really enjoy shooting panoramas, and the scenery above treeline almost demands the extra space. Every photo on this post is a panorama, most of them stitches of at least 4 or 5 photos. The above image is a stitch of five vertically oriented images, basically creating photoshop super wide angle lense, without a fisheye lens's distortion.



We were blessed with excellent weather, the sky was clear until long after we had decended from the summit. I would much rather mosey down from the mountains than flee the wrath of Zeus and his lightning bolts.



On top I decided it was time to try something new, a 360 degree panorama of the whole view from the summit. When I did the initial photo stitch, I actually forgot to include a couple pictures to make it a total 360 degree image, the result looked great, but is more like 350 degrees of view. When I figured out that I had the rest of the coverage, I redid the image, but I actually like the composition on this one better, so I am sticking with it. Interestingly enough, it wouldn't upload onto blogger (The high quality version is 25 megabytes, this one is 5) so I had to upload it to flickr and link from there. If you want to view the whole panorama, you'll have to click over to flickr, and if you want to see all the detail, e-mail or post in the comments and I can send out the high quality version.

The Flowers of Herman's Gulch

Herman's Gulch is a valley and cirque high above Interstate 70 near the Continental Divide. I hiking trail leads up from the highway to a series of glacial lakes (tarns) above tree line.



Herman's Gulch is famous for its vast arrays of wildflowers. This plus its close proximity to Denver and the dog friendly rules make it a very popular place on the weekends.



It is worth braving the crowds because the trail winds through a wide variety of scenery, from pine forests and waterfalls to high meadows and then all the way to the rocks and tundra above the tree line.



While at the lake we saw a huge marmot flee into his hidey hole under a rock. He was pretty upset with all the people around him, whistling his displeasure for the world to hear. I tried to get down into the hole a bit so I could take a picture of him, but even though the marmot was large and the hole was small, I never did see him in there.



We also got very lucky weather wise, with a little bit of rain as we started out, and then clear skies and warm weather all the way to the top and back. I've been chased out of tree line by lightning more times than I can count, so I was pretty glad that Thor decided to let us stay and enjoy the high mountain scenery for a while.

Snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park

A couple of weeks ago a pair of co-workers (Cristian and Tim) and I went to Rocky Mountain National Park for a bit of snowshoeing.



The day was one of the perfect Colorado days, sunny, and warm, with hardly a cloud in the sky. You couldn't have asked for better weather, so of course there were a lot of people there.



Of course, that's one of the great things about the outdoors, even if there are a ton of car's in the lot, you can still find a place to be by yourself. Especially as a fair number of people didn't have any snowshoes with them, and that made it pretty hard for them to walk in the deep snow.



Even with snowshoes its pretty hard to walk in deep snow, especially if you aren't in the best of shape anymore. One of these days I'll start going to one of the free gyms that's available!



Back in Denver, the light was glorious, but my options for shooting in the late afternoon light were limited to the old apartment buildings on Capitol Hill.



While at the park I got a year pass, so I expect to go back up at least a few more times over the next year. It's really criminal that I hadn't been up to Rocky Mountain National Park in YEARS. It's so close to Denver, and so beautiful in all seasons, there is just no excuse not to go.

The Rocky Mountains in High Dynamic Range

Here we have a selection of HDR images from some of the hikes I did this past summer. The first two are from a trail that head south of Berthoud Pass along the continental divide.





The next two are from a high lake just off of highway 91 near the Climax Molybdenum Mine. (Thank god for spell check)





These last two were shot from the summit of Mt. Bierstadt, looking towards Mt. Evans and the famous Sawtooth ridge that connects the two summits.

Mt. Bierstadt

In August I convinced three of the people I work with to climb one of Colorado's 54 14ers. For those not from Colorado, a 14er is a mountain that rises above 14,000 feet above sea level, and Colorado has the highest concentration of such peaks in the nation (excepting Alaska.)



Being I'm eating a lot of Chipotle and working at a desk all day, anything terribly strenuous was out. Mt Bierstadt, at 14,060 feet above sea level provided a hike that was easy(ish) and very close to home.



Anytime you go hiking above timberline is fairly strenuous, even on an easy mountain like Bierstadt, so it took our group (me) a while to get to the top. Really, we couldn't have asked for a better day, the weather was spotless, even hot, which is rare in an area that can hold on to patches of snow year round.



Anytime you go hiking you see beautiful views, but climbing tall peaks really is like being on the roof of the world. I just love being able to look out over miles and miles of ridges, cirques, peaks and valleys.



I have actually been to the top of Bierstadt several times (3 or 4?), but I never get tired of climbing 14ers, though the climb itself is pretty tiring. None of my cohorts had done a hike like this before, so despite being tail end charlie I was still the elder sage.



I even got to tell them, "back in my day, this climb was a lot harder!" Which is true, climbers once had to deal with a thick, muddy patch of willows in the drainage between the parking lot and the climb. This made for a tricky early morning, as nobody wants to get icy water dumped down their boots on the way up a mountain! Luckily, some years ago the Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado built a wonderful system of catwalks over the worst parts, making the whole thing a breeze.





It's always nice, at the end of the day, to look back at what you accomplished and be happy. Of course, any readers who have conquered one of the more difficult 14ers will now take this moment to giggle quietly. Bierstadt may not be Longs Peak, but it was a good trip, one I'll probably do again.

Fall in the Rocky Mountains

While I'm not quite finished with my epic chronicle of this year's tour of Europe, I figured I should take a quick detour to get caught up with my doings as of late.



Last weekend mom, dad and myself headed to the mountains to get a glimpse of this year's fall color. The aspen's were gorgeous along US 40, so we stopped there for a photo op.



Mom stuck around to paint for a bit, while dad and I went for hike a little further up the road. Winter is certainly coming soon, but for a while we will have a wonderful fall to enjoy.