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Showing posts with label eagle mine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eagle mine. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

The town of Gilman Colorado was founded in 1886 during the "Colorado Silver Boom". It is situated at the top of a 600ft cliff, at the base of which lies the Eagle Mine. Eagle Mine was a silver mine originally but high concentrations of other metals such as Lead and Zinc were found to such an extent that they expanded their operations in order to capitalize on these unexpected assets. In the late 1870's, several mines had been constructed on the cliffs along Eagle River. Notable among them were such mines as Iron Mask and Ground Hog. In the 1880's, a judge and prospector from the nearby town of Red Cliff named John Clinton acquired several of these mines. Clinton developed the town in order to provide housing for the miners working there. Gilman eventually had its own theater, bowling alley, infirmary and even newspaper in addition to the school and numerous workshops.

In 1882, the Denver and Rio Grande railroad reached the mining camp at the base of the cliffs. In 1899, Gilman had a population of about 300 and by the 1930s, Eagle Mine was the largest producer of Silver in Colorado. In 1912, the New Jersey Zinc Company began buying up portions of the site before eventually controlling all of it for the next roughly 70 years. "By 1970, total production at the mines was 10 million tons of ore; 393,000 troy ounces (12,200 kg) of gold; 66,000,000 troy ounces (2,100,000 kg) of silver; 105,000 tons of copper; 148,000 tons of lead; and 858,000 tons of zinc."-Wikipedia.

In 1984, New Jersey Zinc decided to close Eagle mine due to unprofitably low zinc prices. The mine subsequently flooded which contaminated the groundwater and caused the EPA to step in and order the residents of Gilman to evacuate.

In 2017, I had the opportunity to go on a road trip through the mountains with my wife. Naturally Gilman made it on my list. But our expedition here got off to a rough start.. My main interest here was the mine itself and, if I had time, the town above it. My mistake was that I mis-judged the cliffs separating the two and the risks they presented. There appeared to be some paths across them with which one might be able to navigate downward from Highway 24 above. It appeared to be possible to take the tree-line down even if the paths ended. We walked back and forth along them for what seemed like hours. We'd regularly stop to look over the edges in hopes of seeing a trail downward. Each time we scooted as far as possible while knocking rocks and debris loose under our feet and listened to the sounds they made as they fell. During this process we passed several of the old and much harder to reach mine tunnels hidden along the way. It appeared all too easy to fall to our deaths or serious injury from up here and I didn't really want to find out just how easy it would be. In my defense I almost always seek out different methods of access to locations. In most cases it's to be more discreet. In this case I wanted to avoid having to hike further than necessary. That plan gloriously backfired. I could omit the details but I figure I might as well document my stupidity.

 © 2017 sublunar

After scouring the hillside we found enough trees on which to bounce from and balance on as we made our descent. But that didn't really make things much easier, especially as we got to the bottom. The tree line gives way to loose boulders and, further down, sheer rock faces. Roughly 30 feet from the road below, it became obvious that the descent would be increasingly vertical. It was becoming extremely dangerous and more difficult to navigate the closer to the bottom we got. We had no climbing gear and we were almost out of water. But going back up at this point wasn't really a good option. It was clear that we were tempting an avalanche as we proceeded further down. If I had truly felt that I wasn't sure we could make it at any point, I would have retreated back up. But as we went, I was able to stay low and grab onto nearby branches to retain control. So, as carefully as possible, we navigated the stupidly dangerous rocks and finally made it down to the access road. It was now 2:30pm, my feet were bloodied and blistered and my legs were unsteady. And of course, the car was now on the wrong end of the cliff. I had originally planned to use the crumbling rail trestle back up the other side, but at this point neither of us were willing to risk it. I don't claim to be a smart person but this was easily among the stupidest things I've ever done. I was deliriously exhausted by the time we made it down here but extremely grateful for the fact that we made it without serious injury.

Click here for the video.

Eagle Mine:

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Gilman Colorado:

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