Arizona Desert

Arizona desert

The cut-off road he took to reach the junction at Aguila, he passed
another old mine and ghost town, called Robson's Mining World. They
had turned it into a tourist trap. They did have a small working
mine and mill, not open to the public, but the whole, old town had
been refurbished, and was open to all. They had a hotel, café,
mercantile, drug store, all working and usable. A lot of old mining
equipment and Indian artifacts were on display.
Real expensive place to go. He had read about it in a pamphlet from
the museum at Prescott.
Linc went on down the road and at the junction he turned right and
drove to the town of Aguila. There were two roads out of the town that
went to mines he wanted to check out, but for now, he decided to go on
through town and on down toward the town of Hope. He passed through
several small towns, that at one time had small mines, but nothing
that the head office would be interested in.
At Hope, he turned right at the junction and went down to where a
road crossed over the railroad tracks and went up into the mountains.
On up the road he came to a big gravel pit, and the road past it had
been closed, so he had to turn around and go back down to a side road
that went out around the pit area and then up into the mountains.
Going up the road he saw a man standing by a lane that went to a rock
cabin. Linc stopped to see if he needed help, and to ask questions
about the mines in the area as well. The old guy said he was waiting
for the sheriff. Said his name was Steve, and was the caretaker at
two of the mines. He had reported some trespassers that refused to
leave. They had set up dry washers on mine property.
Linc told him he was a geologist and was looking for property for a
mining company. He said he would like permission to do some
exploration work on them if possible. Steve asked him what his name
was, and when Linc told him, he also gave him a card of his. Steve
told him, he would take him on a tour of the mines if he wanted to
wait for the sheriff first. Linc said fine and a few minutes later the
sheriff's truck came up the road.
After Steve talked to the sheriff, he got into the truck with Linc
and they went to the first mine, called the Queen Bess. When the got
there they could see the sheriff's truck climbing up a steep hill to
where three ATV's were parked, by a deep wash that ran down the hill
past the mine itself. This mine was not fenced, but it was posted no
trespassing on the roads going into the property. There was also a
for sale sign, and a sign that told people to check with the
caretaker before entering.
They took one of the roads up to the mine itself. This mine had two
adits, the caretaker said. The first and oldest one was a vertical
shaft, that was now closed up. It had a metal chute, that mover all
the tailings down the hill so they wouldn't pile up below the shaft.
On the other side of the hill was a newer shaft. All of the old mine
buildings had been torn down. The mine had been closed since the war,
and had been dormant for about twenty years before the owner died and
left it to his Son. The Son tried to sell it for ten million and no
one would pay that much for it. He said he needed money so he sold off
all the buildings, equipment in them and everything in the mine as
well. Even the wiring, and air pipes. It was stripped except for the
ore itself. Steve told him when that owner died the mine went to his
Daughter, just four years ago. She had some exploratory work done,
and even though the price of gold had gone up, she had dropped the
price to five million.
At the main shaft, Steve unlocked the gate, then they went in a ways
and he unlocked the main adit door. Inside was a side room where
there were helmets with lights, and big flashlight too. Linc had
brought his geology pack with him as well. Steve gave him a
prospectus folder, that was on the shelf, and then they went on down
the tunnel. Linc could see there were an awful lot of drifts going
off in all directions. They did take a couple of them that Linc wanted
to check out. Right away, Linc could see that they had only high
graded the mine. There seemed to be a lot of paying ore that hadn't
been removed. With permission, he took samples, in several of the
drifts.
After looking around, they went back to the main adit, where they
found the Sheriff waiting. Linc was introduced, to Bruce, the
Sheriff. Steve told the Sheriff that Linc would be doing some
exploring in the area at both the mines with permission. Bruce told
Steve to call him if those guys came back, because he had told them
that they would be arrested if they came back again.
They had been getting away with going onto other claims in the area,
because the claim owners couldn't post the federal mining claims, and
he told them this mine was private property and it was posted no
trespassing, legally.
The guys were from the big RV park at Hope, and they had a great,
recirculation setup for processing all the buckets of dirt they were
taking from the claims. They had really been cleaning up, stealing
from the other miners. Steve said, from the looks of all the dirt
moved, this wasn't the first time they had been up there stealing
gold.
After Bruce left, they went on up to the next mine called the Blue Boy Mine.
There were still buildings at this mine and a big tank. There was a
leach pad with some un-leached ore still on it. There was an incline
tramway going across the big wash, the road, and up on the side of the
hill, across from the mine.. Steve said the main adit had caved in,
so they couldn't enter the mine itself. The area around the building
and leach pad was fenced and posted. Steve said the mine closed
during the war and was never reopened. About fifteen years ago, a
company had put in the leach pad and began reworking the milled
tailings. It turned out that was not as profitable as they had hoped
it would be and they closed down.
Linc told Steve he was only interested in what ore might be on the old
tailing piles and what might still be in the hill around it.
Linc took Steve back to his cabin. On the way back he told Linc about
how the law that the claim miners couldn't live on their claims
anymore, really put a burden on the owners to keep people out of their
claims when they were not there working it. It may have stopped
snow-birds from filing paper claims to get a spot to stay for the
winter, but hurt the legitimate ones.
Steve said he could see that Linc was set up for camping in his
pickup, and was given permission to camp there by his cabin if he
wanted to. Linc said he would rather go back up and park by the main
adit at the mine, because he would like to check out the area around
it. He would camp up there. Linc got Steve's telephone number too, in
case he ran into those men from the RV park.
Back up at the adit, he checked all around and picked up samples. Took
pictures. He could see as far as the RV park at hope, and the small
RV park down at the road that came over the railroad tracks. He could
also see several mining claims down on the desert floor, where miners
were running dry washers, in some washes down below, on the desert
floor area.
Linc went back to the truck, locked it up and then went to the
retreat. A lot more comfortable staying there than trying to fix
something to eat, and sleeping in the back of the truck.
Linc and Angel spent five days resting and playing at the retreat,
before going back to the truck.
At the truck, the sun was just beginning to come up. Linc could see
down on the desert why Steve didn't see or hear the ATV's from Hope.
They were coming across the desert , after going under the railroad
tracks and then coming up the side wash to the mine, bypassing the
road past Steve's cabin.
Linc watched them come right back to the mine property, so he called
Steve, and told him.
Linc got in the truck and drove on up to the Blue Boy mine. He got
samples, took pictures, and got the GPS readings, before leaving to
go to Swansea area. Going past the Queen Bess, he could see police
trucks with trailers, loading up the ATV's, and a van held the men who
drove them in. He saw Steve sitting on his ATV, watching the whole
operation. He waved to Linc as he went past.
Back at the highway, Linc went on down the road to the next town and
took a poor dirt road out across the desert toward the ghost town of
Swansea. After about a mile of bad road, it went up onto the old
railroad grade. This was a much smoother road now, because it was
used by all the snowbirds who ran their ATV's on it.
When Linc got to the base of the mountains, he could see that there
were four mines in the area. There were no building of any kind. He
could see that one mine had a smelter, at one time, because there
was a massive slag pile. Linc checked out all the tailing piles, the
slag pile, took pictures and lots of samples from all the mines and
slag pile too. This was all old copper mines that carried gold. As
well. Since this area was far from any town, it could be open pitted.
That would be the best way to go he thought, but that was up to the
head office. It looked good to him anyway. Linc had spent three days
exploring the area, before heading off to Aguila.
Back at Aguila, he took a road to the right, and went out that road
about ten miles or so, where he saw some huge piles of milled
tailings. He went up a bad road to some manganese mines. One small
one was an open pit, down close to a wash. The others were up on the
side of the hill. The roads to them was washed out, so Linc parked
the truck, took his pack and he and Angel hiked up and did his geology
thing for each of them. This too was an area that could be open
pitted, since there were no towns around anywhere.
The guy at the museum had told him that a company had started to take
the milled tailind to a smelter many miles away to have them processed
for the gold left in tnem. But the environmentalists closed the
smelter. So that ended that operation. Linc thought if they were able
to do that and still make a profit, there must still be a lot of gold
still left in the mill railings. He wondered why the mines didn't
have a smelter of their own. Who knows? What info he did have on the
three mines didn't say when they were closed, or who owned them now.
He decided to check at the library he saw when he came thru town.
After doing everything he had to do he went back to the town of
Aguila, across the highway and railroad tracks up another road to a
road that went up a wash He stopped here to put the truck into four
wheel drive to go up the wash. It was quite sandy, but he could see
where it was well driven from all the tracks in it. About two miles
up it, it finally came up out of the wash and onto solid ground. Up
about another half mile he came to a big forest service sign, that had
a map showing all the roads in the area. Seems there are a lot of
hunters, campers and ATV riders that frequent the area. There was
also a bunch of towers on top of the tallest mountain.
Linc took the best traveled road that went up to the towers. About a
half mile up this road, he came up a hill to the base of a small
mountain that had at least from whit he could see three shafts going
into the side of it.
There was places to camp all over the area, so he pulled off into one,
next to an ATV road going up the hill. He had already passed three
other roads going up the hill as well. The whole area was covered with
Paloverde trees, scrub oak brush and lots of cactus.
He didn't see another soul anywhere. This wasn't hunting or camping
season anyway, maybe that's why. It was getting late in the day, so
Linc set up his lawn chair by the fire pit, and made a small fire in
it. He sat there a while til it began to get a bit dark, locked up,
and went to the retreat.
After getting cleaned up, fixing supper for him and Angel, he went to bed.
After breakfast the next morning he went into his office to process
some of the stuff he had already accumulated. The bag he had put the
milled tailings from the manganese mine area, had to be put into a
plastic bag because it was dusty. He processed all the pictures and
put them with the reports he had already done. He would leave all this
at the retreat.
He and Angel spent three days resting up before going back to the truck.
Whoa! This was a surprise. The truck was surrounded with wild
donkeys. They were startled as much as the donkeys were. Angel let
out a bark and started to chase after, but Linc called her back. Linc
was about to unlock the truck when he looked up and saw a blue portal.

To be continued.ona Desert.