CENTRAL COLORADO, CRIPPLE CREEK TO BUENA VISTA, COLOARDO

After enjoying a49 cent breakfast at Bronco Billy's Casino, we then take a tour of the Mollie Kathleen (Gortner) Gold Mine that operated from 1891 to 1961.  They load us in a cage and drop us 1,000 feet into the mine.  We then take an air powered train through one level of the mine.  Mollie was the first woman to ever own a gold mine and the miners were very superstitious about it.  When she would come on site, all work stopped and did not resume until she left.

We then cruise through the sister town of Victor which had just as many mines but no gambling license.  Consequently it is not as developed.  We return through Cripple Creek and count 15 casinos.  They bring the gamblers in by the bus loads.  Most of them are older than me.

We visit Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument and take a walk through the petrified forest.  These redwood rocks are 35 million years old.  The museum has collected over ten thousand fossils.  They have a specimen of an ancient wasp (Palaeovespa) that is still alive today.  We have supper in Buena Vista and park for the night beside the RR tracks.

Town of Cripple Creek with inactive volcano in the background

Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Company, open pit mine currently
in operation today

Just a lovely view around the Cripple Creek and Victor area

Mollie Kathleen Hard Rock Gold Mine

Cage that dropped us 1,000 feet into the mine

Another mine that intersected with the
Mollie Kathleen mine

Mike, our guide, demonstrating the drill used for drilling holes to
place the dynamite in

How the dynamite was laid out in the drilled holes

This is called a stoke and is 780 feet up.  They drilled up
and let the ore fall down, using gravity

Every miner needs a bathroom break

Workshop for mining equipment repairs

Look closely...there is a vein of gold

This bucket would be loaded with ore, pulled up...

...and up

Then dumped...very labor intensive

Bells used to communicate with those above ground

Gold Mine Tour Hard Rock Diner

Mitch remembering back in the day when he operated a sawmill

Mollie Kathleen Gortner, owner 

Petrified Redwood Tree at the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

Mitch standing in front of another petrified
Redwood Tree

Fossilized Palaeovespa, an ancient wasp

Black-tailed deer and her fawns feeding in the front yard of a house
in Buena Vista